Mans' Depravity

" The heart is the most deceitful thing there is and desperately wicked. No one can really know how bad it is! Only the Lord knows! He searches all hearts and examines deepest motives so he can give to each person his right reward, according to his deeds-how he has lived." Jer 17:9-10 TLB

Depraved: marked by corruption or evil; perverted; turned away from what is right or good; obstinate in opposing what is right, reasonable, or accepted

* "All of us have become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;

we all shrivel up like a leaf,

and like the wind our sins sweep us away." Isa 64:6 NIV

* "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Rom 3:23 NIV

* "We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." Rom 7:14-25 NIV

* "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." James 2:10-11 NIV

*"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men-robbers, evildoers, adulterers-or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' 'I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.'" Luke 18:9-14 NIV

Sin: (Heb. hatta'a; Grk. hamartia, a falling away from or missing the right path). Also numerous other Heb. words. The underlying idea of sin is that of law and of a lawgiver. The lawgiver is God. Hence sin is everything in the disposition and purpose and conduct of God's moral creatures that is contrary to the expressed will of God (Rom 3:20; 4:15; 7:7; James 4:12,17).

The sinfulness of sin lies in the fact that it is against God, even when the wrong we do is to others or ourselves (Gen 39:9; Ps 51:4). The being and law of God are perfectly harmonious, for "God is love." The sum of all the commandments likewise is love; sin in its nature is egotism and selfishness. Self is put in the place of God (Rom 15:3; 1 Cor 13:5; 2 Tim 3:2,4; 2 Thess 2:3-4). Selfishness (not pure self-love, or the exaggeration of it, but in opposition to it) is at the bottom of all disobedience, and it becomes hostility to God when it collides with His law. All sin therefore has a positive character, and the distinction between sins of commission and those of omission is only on the surface. In both cases sin is actual disobedience (see Matt 23:23).

Original Sin: A term used to denote the effect of Adam's sin upon the moral life of his descendants. It is formally defined as "that whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil". The fact of sin in this sense is plainly declared in the Scriptures (Rom 5:12,19; cf. Gen 3:5; Eph 2:1-3; 2 Tim 2:26; 1 John 3:4). In accord with this is the fact of the universality of sin, also proclaimed in Scripture (Matt 7:11; 15:19; Rom 3:9,23; 1 John 1:8; James 3:2; cf. 1 Kings 8:46; Job 14:4; Prov 20:9) and borne witness to by history and human self-consciousness.

The nature of the connection between the sin of Adam and the moral condition of his descendants is, however, a matter upon which opinions greatly differ.

The chief forms of doctrine have been as follows:

Calvinist. Calvinists have held that the sin of Adam was immediately imputed to the whole human family, so that not only is the entire race depraved but also guilty on account of the first transgression. To sustain this opinion it is argued that Adam was not only the natural but also the representative, or federal, head of the human race. His fall involved the whole race in guilt.

Arminian. The view more generally held is that the effect of Adam's sin upon the moral state of mankind is in accordance with and by virtue of the natural law of heredity. The race inherited proneness to sin. But this proneness to sin does not imply guilt, inasmuch as punishment can justly be inflicted only on account of actual sin, which consists in voluntary transgression. This view is held by many Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and universally by Methodists.

"Until I understand my own depravity, I will never truly develop gratitude for Christ's atonement, and I will always be surprised by the sin of others and often be overwhelmed by it." FMN