Sinful Nature of Mankind
The majority, if not all of the people in the Christian religion, believe that when a child is born, the Sin committed in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve comes with a high price. Then, as humans multiply, Sin passes on from generation to generation, popularly known as the sinful nature of humanity.
Many denominations still preach that we are in the fallen state, which means we are still under the bondage of Sin. Since Adam and Eve are considered the parents of humanity, it is believed to be the reason. The Bible even mentioned one man; Sin entered the world. If a human being is born with sinful nature, then we are not given a choice not to sin against God.
Bishop Irenaeus suggested the concept of Original Sin in the 2nd century, and Augustine developed the doctrine and based it on the teaching of Paul in his letter to Romans 45:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, concerning Psalm 51:5. Then later followed by early Christian fathers such as Tertullian, Ambrose, and many others.
Protestant reformers dominated the doctrine of Original Sin during the 15th century Martin Luther and John Calvin. Huldrych Zwingli (Switzerland), the counterpart of Martin Luther (Germany), does not deny there is an original sin but denies that it is transmitted or imputed guilt. Two great Christian reformers have different opinions and a history of disagreement.
During our early childhood, we learned what is good and evil. Thus, the hard way is when our parents punish us for something we did wrong, something we are not aware was wrong. The other factor is the easy way when we are rewarded by our parents for obedience or doing exceptionally well. Therefore, disobeying the house rules and regulations set forth by our parents is disrespecting their authority, and it shows one side of our nature.
Our conscience becomes the turning point that opens our eyes to the naked truth, and our innocence becomes the object of the fault where we point fingers to be the cause. The same thing happened when Adam got tempted. Instead of acknowledging the Sin and taking the shame to himself, he became defensive; he tried to make an excuse and said to God, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” So likewise, if we cannot admit our mistakes, we will blame others for justifying our excuses.
We grew up governed by rules by our parents because they want us to grow as well-disciplined, well-mannered individuals who obey the laws of the land and the laws of God. We are their responsibility; we reflect how they govern their household. We learned a lot of lessons, especially from our mother, from fixing up our beds to cleaning after ourselves, advice to set up our goals, what we want to be, what we need to make our dreams come true, and advice to never give up on our dreams. They even trained us to be kind and generous to others. However, some of these we fail to follow.
Parents are overprotective sometimes, which throws us off because we do not understand what our parents feel; love is beyond compare to being misunderstood. Although a mother’s instinct sometimes triggers fear that leads to being more restrictive to their children, unconditional love and care are not limited to our youth till we are in advanced age. When we become parents, we realize that life is not as easy as we thought when we were young. Disobedience is part of human nature, and free will is a gift from God, the gift of nature the freedom of choice; either we obey or disobey something according to our conscience or our emotions. God listens to our conscience’s testimony and not to our decisions based on our emotions.
Many people claim that we are born with sinful nature but little we hear that we are born with love which is also part of our nature. Without love, what would it be? Isn’t it the presence of hate? We do not know love and hate until we pass the age of innocence. Love can also be used to direct our lives in the wrong direction. Since obsession is closely related to love, we cannot disregard its impact on one’s life; we are attracted to luxurious living, to a person or things. As love dictates, obsession can also lead to possession, love of money, power, influence, jealousy, and pride. Obsession may lead someone to be possessive and may end someone to be greedy or heartless. Good love is from God.
When we no longer comply with household rules, become disrespectful, and start arguments within the household, the age of innocence ends. The first thing that will come out is resistance to the old rule that the child is no longer a child but old enough to be pushed around. This signifies that our sinful nature is driving our good nature out of the way. The happy days of being innocent are now slowly being overcome by our sinful nature, taking advantage of those ignorant and lacking knowledge of God’s word. Christ saving grace erases the original Sin, and we are reconciled to God. Still, Sin will continue to try to darken our path to righteous living by busying our thoughts with fleshly desire and making an offer that is hard to resist.
The original Sin weakened after the cross was not destroyed. It will lose its power to control our desire, and yet our inclination to evil is still at hand, and its presence can be felt and start to move at any time due to the damage to our freedom of will. Little Sin remained within us but stagnant and, if left unattended, can start to grow and, little by little, will conquer every space available. If given the opportunity with persistence to challenge us and bring us to a spiritual battle of the mind, they will try to force their way in through lies, deceit, and temptations so they may get into the holy of holies where the Holy Spirit resides. The Holy Spirit can let them get closer, but they can never get in.
Life is a journey where our human nature plays a big part. When we do good things, we are happy about it, and when we do bad things, we regret it, and that is how the Holy Spirit communicates with our souls to let us know. So why do bad things happen to good people? This question has been around for years and years, and the answer is the same over and over: “we are not good enough for those bad things not to happen” Paul said that we all Sin and are short of the glory of God and added that the wages of Sin are death which means separation from God. The same thing happened to Adam and Eve; when they fell to sin, they were chased out of the Garden as the angel rebelled against God in heaven.
In the Garden of Eden, where life begins, Adam and Eve lose their innocence due to the Sin of disobedience. Though God said that once they eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil, they will die. Sin did not result in Adam and Eve dying, which is precisely what the devil told Eve that they would not die. The devil did not understand what God said about the wages of Sin being death. It doesn’t need to explain to the devil what exactly it means. Thus they found themselves out of the Garden and could not come back, for God put an angel to guard the entrance. God, who does not lie and is faithful to His word, never made His word easily understood by the devil’s itchy ears. Adam eventually died at the age of 930 years, which fulfilled God’s word and purpose.
When a baby comes out of the mother’s womb, we feel joy while the baby cries to welcome the gift of life. However, as soon as the baby grows and learns what is left and what is right, the work of sinful nature kicks in the Sin of disobedience as the first Sin committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the only rule given by God. Therefore, we must be aware that if we let this simple sinful nature manipulate our way of life at an early age, it will become habitual. The only way to encounter it is to put up a wall with the help of the Holy Spirit and let the child hear the word of God without understanding it yet.
As parents who believe in God’s existence, we believe that what we reap is what we sow, and at the early age of innocence, we help our children grow, knowing that God is the great provider of our needs. When we seed good things to them, the time will come, and the harvest of good and sound knowledge will produce an understanding that grand treasure is not of material or physical things but spiritual. Love can be seen and unseen, but the joy of being loved can be felt without even trying hard to find it because it is already born with you. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I set you apart Jeremiah 1:5.
God will never give up on us, and He will direct our path with the help of His Spirit before Sin grows much more aggressively stronger and overwhelm our whole body. The Holy Spirit will provide all the protection and guidance; leave it to Him, and He will take care of the rest. Our nature of disobedience comes from a dead soul, the dust of the earth, whom God formed, gives life to, and becomes a living being. Adam’s only Sin is his innocence of things to come, which was taken advantage of by the adversary of Sin.
No matter what bad things we do, God will never give up on us because we are too expensive to let go. We are paid off by the blood of His precious Son, our 2nd and last Adam. Imagine a world without disobedience, no quarrels, and peace on every corner. What would it looks like if we did not experience to be lonely, to be sad, struggling for possession, no need to fight for food to survive, all are at the same level of existence, with no ups, no down, no illnesses, no weaknesses, and no religion that kills? We won’t even know what love is.
When life is not like a spinning wheel, can we call it life in heaven? There were almost a dozen resurrections in the Bible, but no one came back and could describe what heaven looks like. How someone can describe Hell is beyond me! At this point, how would you know what the Hell looks like? Would you want to know? One time in our church gathering, Hell was the topic. One member does not believe that there is Hell, and the other who argues believes there is Hell. The truth is in the Old Testament, Hell was not mentioned.
Many thought that Hades (Greek- place where righteous dead soul awaits Judgment Day) is Hell and the counterpart of Hades in Hebrew is Sheol- which refers to the grave or the abode of the dead;(Psalms 88:3 Psalms 88:5). Even the bosom of Abraham many believe it is Hell, but it is not. It is a holding place for dead souls that await judgment (Hades). Back to the conversation between the two church members, one said that if you believe in Hell, he said, you can have it, and I do not want to be part of it, and the one that believes in Hell became speechless.
The conversation ended that way. It will be more fruitful to focus on appreciating the giver of life than arguing something beyond our comprehension. “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” Genesis 4:7 (NIV). Sin is all over our space, and a little step can leave a big footstep. Whatever our senses receive, we naturally get our attention; We inhale and exhale; we perceive what we see; what we hear will not be left unnoticed; we feel what we touch; we swallow what is good and spit out what is not according to our taste. “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” Ephesians 4:29(KJV).
God is so great that He knows everything, He is everywhere that He knows where we are, He is all-powerful with infinite power and limitless strength, and yet God gave this kind of life for us to experience what the hell feels like before we can see what heaven looks like and what heaven feels like. Why would we believe that our sinful nature can still control our lives when we have the authority not to allow it? The Son paid it off with his life for the forgiveness of sins. Was sinful nature not included in the redemptive work of the Son Jesus? Was his victory only temporary, suitable for that period, and not erased? When will we acknowledge that the Sin of Adam and Eve has been paid off? When we already claimed that it ended on the cross when Jesus said, “It’s finished,” mission accomplished, it’s all taken care of.
Yes, the Bible teaches that we are all born with sinful nature, and Sin and death have been defeated through the sacrificial life of the Lamb of God. Yet, we are not taught by practicing scholars of the New Testament that Sin can only be active if we allow it in the space that is the only reserve for the work of the Holy Spirit. There are so many challenges that this world is being thrown at us daily by the enemy of our faith and by our self-made fear that added to weaken our defense against outside force and bring stress that causes physical and mental disturbances and clouds our focus to the only giver of life. Our one true God is the only one that can provide one true love, and that love is our great defense.
God created many things, and they are all good; not a single created being can ruin all this greatness. He allows Sin to be in the Garden because that is part of His plan and His will with a purpose. The Bible is God’s love letter to us, and we know as we learn since its existence that from scribes that rewrote it back in the 4th century during the reign of Emperor Constantine, changes have been made. Perversion undeniably happens to this great, great love letter.
When a group of people started printing their versions, opinions, translations, and mistranslations of the Bible, confusion arose, and people were divided. Though some versions have questionable transliterations, they still manage to survive. God allowed it to exist not to cause doubt but to make it livelier and may bring interest for seekers to dig deeper for the truth. Inherited Sin is not found in the doctrine of Judaism but in Islam teachings. Many teach that Adam’s eating the forbidden fruit caused the descendants to inherit the Sin. Some religions and Christian denominations teach that Sin caused death because of Adam. Still, many Jewish scholars (Chazal) do not hold Adam responsible for the sins of humanity and base their teachings on Genesis 8-21 and Genesis 6:5-8.
Though Adam disobeyed God, God recognized that he did not willfully sin. Being mortal is already a punishment to humanity, as other religions claim. Still, it might not be accurate, and It could also be a way to interact with each other easily. “The dead know nothing, but the living knows that he will die.” Many fear death, and are enough to be a lifetime punishment. So we choose to sin rather than not Sin, which brings us suffering. The people of this earth should be in one accord to believe that humans are born free from Sin. We should not even talk about Sin but emphasize true love to everyone.
When we become born again, born of the Spirit of God, the kingdom of God will be at hand (John 3:3). Born of the flesh is flesh, and born of the Spirit is a spirit, but we choose to become sinners as we open our eyes to the desire of the lust? Paul wrote, “Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God—Romans 8:8. And Paul added, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the Spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.” (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Because we are born with two natures; Flesh is born of the flesh, but the Spirit is born of the Spirit, but both are a child of God— John 3:6. Humans produce life in human flesh, but it is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you–they are full of the Spirit and life— John 6:63. When we are born again, we become children of God through the reconciliatory work of Jesus Christ. “To all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God; children born not of natural descent, but born of God” (John 1:12–13). The one that makes sense is when Adam and Eve sinned; they opened up evil work to play in our space.
Yes, we are born with sinful natures, but it doesn’t mean we are sinners. We are cleansed with all unrighteousness after the cross, and we have a sinful nature because we came from the dust (dead soul). As I may repeat, we are born with sinful nature, and Adam and Eve become only the instruments for humanity to exist and multiply. “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people” (Romans 5:12). Everyone was affected by Adam’s Sin before the cross, and there were no exceptions. “One trespass resulted in condemnation for all people” Romans 5:18. Why do we have to share the condemnation just because of being children of Adam? The Bible is evident that the Sin of the father is not the Sin of the Son— Ezekiel 18:20
“What? You ask. ‘Doesn’t the child pay for the parent’s sins?’ No! If the child does what is right and keeps my decrees, that child will surely live. The person who sins is the one who will die. The child will not be punished for the parent’s sins, and the parent will not be punished for the child’s sins. Righteous people will be rewarded for their righteous behavior, and wicked people will be punished for their wickedness. But if wicked people turn away from all their sins and begin to obey my decrees and do what is just and right, they will surely live and not die.” Ezekiel 18:19-21
I agree with the Scripture, which indicates that children have a sinful nature, as the Scripture clearly states the two natures of the child of God. But unfortunately, Jesus walked on this earth after all of these were written, and some New Testament writers based many of their writings on the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible).
If we continue believing that we inherited the original Sin from Adam, we dishonor the sacrifice of the Son.
Why do we sin and die when the Son declares victory over Sin and death? What does death mean? Does it mean spiritual separation from God, and now alive and reconciled to God through the Son? Jesus Christ being fully man, came into this world to give up his perfection for our imperfection.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Though we are responsible for our sins and must bear the punishment, Jesus took our place instead. Ezekiel said we are responsible for our sins, and we must bear the punishment. We cannot share our fault with another, nor can the other share their fault with us.
True Blessings come in many ways from one trustworthy source and no one else besides Him: GodBlessed is he who acknowledges His existence.
Blessed are those who believe that the kingdom of God is here and their burden will be removed.
Blessed are those who accepted the truth of the word of God, for they will belong to the kingdom of God.
Blessed are those who are called and responded, for you will continue ministering to the lost souls.
Blessed are those that are chosen, for they will be blessings to others.
Blessed are the elect, for they will bring enlightenment towards achieving the final journey of their souls.
Blessed are those who lack knowledge of the word of God but believe without much understanding will receive wisdom and a spirit of discernment.
When we feel the warmth of being enlightened, the Almighty Father allows His Spirit to co-exist with our Spirit through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of the Mighty Son will join in the celebration of the union of our Spirit as a partaker of the Holy Spirit the Godhead, in its Holy completion, will form the Tri-unity. This is God’s fulfillment of His will that He wants us to be with Him. Amen
We lift everything to you, LORD, and we say amen to heaven, the destination You prepared for us to live. How good it is to be loved by You