***************************************DOCTRINE OF THE SIN NATURE**************************************************************
Genesis 3:5-7...........
"For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."
Mans 1st sin brought the SIN NATURE!
Romans 5:12......
"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned".
A certain minister excused bad behavior by accounting for it in terms of “infantile environment, traumatic experiences, psychological complexes and the like.” And then he added, “After preaching for fifty years I cannot help feeling that the church harps far too much on sin.”
Another minister also said...... “Paul’s words that ‘through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin’ can be dismissed as nonsense.”
I can't make this stuff up! May I say that when any man exalts the human mind to the place of deity and goes so far as to rule God out altogether, that man is on the brink of destruction. The Bible condemns human intellect as the supreme court.
The sin nature is that aspect in man that makes him rebellious against God. It began when Adam listened to Eve and ate the fruit! That started a chain of events that we are still seeing take place today.
When we speak of the sin nature, we refer to the fact that we have a natural inclination to sin; given the choice to do God’s will or our own, we will naturally choose to do our own thing.
Proof of the sin nature abounds. No one has to teach a child to lie or be selfish; rather, we go to great lengths to teach children to tell the truth and put others first. Sinful behavior comes naturally. The news is filled with tragic examples of mankind acting badly. Wherever people are, there is trouble.
Charles Spurgeon said,.......
“As the salt flavors every drop in the Atlantic, so does sin affect every atom of our nature. It is so sadly there, so abundantly there, that if you cannot detect it, you are deceived.”
The Bible explains the reason for the trouble. Humanity is sinful, not just in theory or in practice but by nature. Sin is part of the very fiber of our being. The Bible speaks of “sinful flesh” in
Romans 8:3. It’s our “earthly nature” that produces the list of sins in
Colossians 3:5. And
Romans 6:6 speaks of “the body ruled by sin.” The flesh-and-blood existence we lead on this earth is shaped by our sinful, corrupt nature.
The sin nature is universal in humanity. All of us have a sinful nature, and it affects every part of us. This is the doctrine of
total depravity, and it is biblical.
Now some of my Pentacostal friends will argue that their sin nature has been eradicated and they can no longer sin because they are a new creature in Christ.
Folks......The sin nature of humankind is not born-again when a person receives Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior through repentant humility. Everyone on this planet sins before God. Sin still reigns in the body of the Born-Again Christian, who is a 'saved' sinner, but still a sinner, none-the-less.
That can be seen in the Apostle Paul's statement about the battle of the flesh after he was born again in Romans 7:21-25...........
"So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."