#84 Born Sinful?
We are all made in the image of God, but we have been born sinful. In the following I will show how this is the case, and what it means for us today.
The idea of being born sinful is expounded in Psalms and Jeremiah. Consider Psalm 51:5 “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me” and Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.”” In the example from Psalms you can see that sin is seen as something passed down biologically “in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5b). While in Jeremiah, Jeremiah claims that the heart is sick evidently because of sin “and is desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9b). Meanwhile God responded to Jeremiah’s claim basically saying that He is the doctor and judge of man’s heart. God says “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind” (Jeremiah 17:9c). From these examples we can gather that humanity is sick and God is the healer.
In the New Testament Paul expands and clarifies what sin is and what it means for us. In Romans 3:23 Paul says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” By sinning, or by being sinful in nature or rather being born sinful we cannot relate to God. At least we cannot relate to God in the way that God intended in the beginning as Paul says we all “fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23b).
In another letter Paul reiterates the fact that we are sinful but then goes on to explain God’s grace. Ephesians 2:3-5 says, “among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Ephesians 2:3-5). When Paul says “by nature children of wrath” he is making a comparison to the phrase “children of God” which can be found in “for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). But this phrase is also found all throughout the New Testament to show that we are either under the claim of sin or under the claim of God. We all may be transformed from children of wrath into children of God by accepting God’s love for us. This can be viewed in “but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
This is all summarized neatly in Romans 5:12-21. But it also adds more details that are beyond the scope of this article.
