Are We Born With Sin natures, or receive One When We First Choose To Sin?

-The bible presents Man as both a wonderful creation of God, made in God's image...AND fallen sinners, whose wonderful "image of God" is now marred, but not gone completely. This passage does not prove the debated point either way.

-Again, this passage could be taken either way, (1) God made EACH man upright, who then goes astray... or (2) God made the first Man upright, who then went astray, leading to every other man going astray.

-This passage is also inconclusive as it could be talking about any number of people: Those who follow God, the whole nation of Israel as "God's people", or even the whole of humanity...but even there, it doesn't not mean that God's people and sheep might not have sin natures.

-If God made us sinners, you would be right. If God make Adam and Eve sinless, and they sinned, passing down a sin nature to us, it does not make God the author of sin. Different stripes of Calvinists could hold to either of these views.

-A big problem with this view is that if it were correct, it begs the question: If millions and billions of people were made "upright" with no inherent sin nature, why is it that 100% of them end up sinning? That doesn't sound like free will. If our wills were free, then certainly a few of us would break from the crowd and not sin?

 

The condemnation of Eve was not because she ate of the tree or that she gave the fruit to Adam. Note that in verse 7, both their eyes were opened, given the Adamic fallen nature, only after Adam sinned volitionally. He was not deceived. Now in verse 16, God addresses the consequence of Adam's sin which resulted in her corruption.

I agree being tempted is not a sin. But not turning away from the temptation, is a sin of omission. For if a man knows what is right and does it not, to him it is sin.

 

FAL, thank you for your honest response in post #38.

Let's examine some of those verses you quoted.

Rom 1:26- This verse actually says these women went against their nature. Their nature would lead them to be with men, but they violated their own nature in being with other women. Verse 27 says the same, men left the NATURAL use of the woman and burned in their lust one toward another.

So, their nature was good and proper, but they went AGAINST their own nature.

Rom 2:14- This verse says BY NATURE the Gentiles do those things contained in the law. This is good.

Rom 2:27- This verse says the uncircumcision by nature fulfill the law.

Do you see where this is going? Do you see what the scriptures really say about man's nature?

So, the scriptures do not say man is born with an evil nature. In fact, the scriptures show that it is UNNATURAL to sin.

 

Now you sound like a Calvinist, as though faith and evil are some magical essence.

There was no magic in the forbidden fruit. What happened is that for the first time they actually had "experiential" knowledge of sin. It is not unlike when we commit some foolish sin for the first time. It could be drugs, or fornication, or any sin. Before we commit the sin we are tempted. We desire to know this new experience that has been presented to us as something wonderful. But the moment we do, the guilt comes rushing in. What we thought would be a pleasing and fulfilling experience turns bitter in our mouth. What we thought would bring happiness brings guilt, remorse, and a deep unhappiness with one's self.

This is what happened to Adam and Eve. They thought all creation could see their guilt and ran and hid themselves.

 

Men are not made upright. Your duty is to counter one by one, verse by verse, the Scripture that I exegete for you. So far I have only done one out of that list. I haven't gone on to the others. You haven't touched Psalm 51:5 yet, except to say that I quoted Spurgeon. Is that a sin? Is that your only argument. If you can't defeat that argument, I will call this debate closed and you have nothing more to say. You can't even refute one verse that I give. No sense in going on if you can't refute one verse out of the many I gave you, is there?

 

Those are a way to understand what nature is. It is what we do naturally. It ia a hogs nature to wallow in the mud. If you could turn them into a sheep's nature yet leave them in a hogs body they would no longer be their nature to wallow. The flesh is not our nature. It is what we are inside.
We do not have a sin nature after salvation any more then Eve had one. New wine has been put in old wines skins and one day it must burst open (we die) and then later we will get a new body.
We are not battling a sin nature. We are battling the fallen flesh.

 

No, because Jesus himself showed our flesh is very weak.

Mat 26:40 And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could you not watch with me one hour?
41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

This shows man's nature right here as described by Paul in Romans 7. The disciples wanted to obey Jesus, they were WILLING to obey, but their flesh was weak. They were not able to fight off sleep.

And this is why EVERY man will sin. Try as he might, his flesh will overcome him and he will sin. And you only have to sin ONCE to be a sinner. The only exception was Jesus Christ, who was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.

But it is not our flesh that makes us sinful. It is when we allow the flesh to control us in disobedience to one of God's commands that we sin.

I can relate to Mat 26:40-41, we have long meetings at work at times, and it takes everything within me to stay awake. That is why they call them Board Meetings, but they should properly be called BORED Meetings!

 

You say we have a new nature, and fallen flesh.
How is fallen flesh different than a sin nature?

 

What do you mean by "fallen" flesh? Gen 3:6 proves Eve had what many call a "sin nature" before she sinned. She desired what God had forbidden.

That is the whole point I have been trying to make all along, man's nature is the same now as it was before the so-called fall. Man was never without fleshly desires.

What is different is the world we live in. Adam and Eve lived in a perfect world without needs. There were also no sinful examples to tempt them into sin. Today we live in a corrupted world with many needs and thousands of temptations.

Adam and Eve did not have perfect natures. They were very good in that they were sinless. It is committing sin that makes us sinful.

And they fell for the very first temptation offered them! They wouldn't stand a chance in today's world.

The fact they could be tempted proves they did not have God's nature, as God cannot be tempted.

And it is hardly fair to compare men with animals. Animals operate by instinct, not moral natures.

 

When I say flesh I am speaking of this body and all it is. The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, this is all part of the flesh. This body/flesh is fallen as well as our souls and the soul needs to be born agaian and the flesh needs to be replaced with a new body. At the new birth new wine was put into old wine skins. Jesus was of the flesh and had no sin nature, The flesh is not the sin nature.

Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;

I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.


The flesh is ours to control. We cannot control a nature. We are no longer held captive to the flesh.

[There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit


All Christians walk after the spirit or they are not Christians.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.


We do not have two natures. While lost our nature is to seek after the things of the flesh. Once saved our nature is to seek after the things of the Spirit.

 

On those lines explain how the angels sinned. They had no flesh as they are spirits.

 

True, they had no fleshly bodies. But they still have desires. (1 Pet 1:12)

You said something I agree with in your last post, you said we cannot control a nature. I agree. We have a new nature that naturally will obey God. Our old nature sought to please itself.

But there was no fall, Adam and Eve always had the nature of a man. They were not born of the flesh, but they were created of the flesh. Their nature was to please their own desires, and this is exactly what happened when they ate the forbidden fruit.

 

Am I understanding you correctly that you believe that the nature of man is sinful at creation?

 

No, it simply is what it is. The nature of unsaved man is simply to please himself. This is not always evil, Jesus confirmed the disciples were willing to obey him in Mat 26:41.

And here is where I think the difficulty lies, we inherit our flesh from our parents, but our soul and spirit come from God. Notice Adam said Eve was "bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" (Gen 2:23). He did not mention the soul, because Eve got her soul from God. This is what is upright (Ecc 7:29)

This explains Rom 7:14-25 unless a person believes Paul was saying he was an utter failure as a Christian controlled by sin.

No, Paul is speaking in the perspective of an unsaved person. In his mind, in his inward man he desired to please God, but in his flesh dwelled no good thing that pulled and tugged him to do wrong.

But the spirit of man is ignorant, he does not fully understand the things of God, he does what is right in his own eyes.

It is complex, I am still studying this.

 

I at least agree that Paul was not suggesting that he was practicing sin after his conversion in Romans 7.
I still do not understand what you hold as sin nature. Where do you think it come from?

 

The implication of what you just said is:
1. God is a failure.
2. God is a liar.
--God is a failure in that He cannot make that which is pure and good.
--God is a liar for he pronounced his entire creation, "and it was very good," indicating that there was no sin in his creation when he had finished it.

You can't have it both ways. Either:
1. Admit that your definition of "sin nature" is wrong. Or:
2. Charge God with sin. Which do you choose?

1. Satan tempted Eve, therefore there were sinful temptations in the Garden.
2. After Adam rebelled the world became hostile not only to him but to all his descendants, so hostile that in a matter of a few years God had to destroy the entire world and all but 8 were saved. With those 8 he started the entire process all over again. Therefore start with Noah. We are all descendants from Noah.

Then God lied. Why do you accuse him so? "And behold, all was very good."

Your speculation. I suppose Jesus wouldn't stand a chance either.
Neither would Gabriel, Michael the Archangel, and some of the other messengers of God.

Jesus was tempted. Does that prove that he did not have God's nature. That is heresy. It rather proves that you have wrong definitions.

Can a pet dog be tempted to do wrong, and does it realize when it does do wrong?

 

You should be ashamed, now you sound like others who personally attack those who disagree with you.

I don't even like the term sin nature. I prefer the scriptural term "flesh". It is clear that Adam and Eve were created flesh and that Eve displayed the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life in Gen 3:6.

Satan can only suggest sin, he cannot compel. Adam and Eve sinned of their own free will. God cannot be tempted or sin, this proves Adam and Eve did not have God's nature.

They were very good, they were absolutely sinless. It is not our nature that makes us sinful, it is our actions.

Jesus came in the flesh and had the same nature as the seed of Abraham and was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.

No, a dog cannot be tempted to do wrong, because a dog cannot understand what right and wrong are. Dogs are not moral creatures, man is.

Can you tell a dog if it eats from the tree of knowledge of good and evil in that day it will surely die?

Adam and Eve were not animals. You sound like an evolutionist.

 

[snipped: non-baptist posting in area restricted for Baptists only]

 

If I take your statement literally at this point here is my conclusion.
50 years ago if one took a dead body, boiled it down, the chemicals in the body would be worth about $1.98. Yep, that was the worth of a man.
Today many donate their organs.
If you were to die today and someone got possession of your body on the black market, they could scrupulously sell various parts of your body for thousands of dollars. You are probably worth more dead than you are alive to many many people. The going rate for body parts is very high.

My point is "flesh" = "sarkos," that is, the meat of the body and that is all.
That is one definition of the word. We define words by the context in which they are used. People who believe that one word always has one definition to fit all passages in the Bible lack in their understanding of the Bible.

The Bible says we wait for the redemption of our bodies. That new body will not come until the rapture or until Jesus comes again.
Until then we live in a corrupted body that nothing, not even a new birth can do anything about. It is subject to decay, to sickness, sorrow, to sinful desires, and at the end of it all it finally succumbs to death. The flesh will never be replaced. Perhaps if you are a donor recipient and receive a new heart in a heart transplant that one part of you is replaced, but alas it will still be a fleshly heart. You are still in the flesh and always will be as long as you are in this earth, whether born again or not. There is nothing you can do about that.

As long as you are in that body you will have a sin nature. When you are born again, God will give you a new nature. Actually the Holy Spirit will come and live within you, but the sin nature will not move out. It is still there and always will be until this body is redeemed completely and we will receive a new body, a celestial body. Thus you have a war going on in your body--the spirit against the flesh. Paul describes that battle here:

(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)
--It is not carnal, but spiritual.
Cast down your imaginations. Bring every thought into captivity unto the obedience of Jesus Christ. There is a battle going on in your mind. If you deny that you not only deny the Word of God, I think you deny that you are human.

Born of a virgin, conceived of the Holy Spirit. The sin nature is passed through the male. Jesus did not inherit the sin nature as he was born of a virgin.

As believers this is what we must try to do. It is a goal
Romans 6:11 puts it this way:
"Reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin."
The word "reckon" simply means "consider". We are to act as if we are to dead to sin. We aren't but we are to act that way. The WEB puts it this way.
Thus also consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:11)

No, you can't control cuts, bruises, your hair turning grey, the wrinkles in your face, your bones becoming brittle with age, etc. You can't control the flesh. You can control the nature to some degree for the mind controls the nature. Submit yourself to God and you will have control over your nature. It is a sin nature. You do battle with it. Do you win. If you yield yourself to your carnal nature, your sin nature, you will lose every time and sin.

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:1)
For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? (1 Corinthians 3:3)
--They had carnal natures. They acted foolishly, as babes in Christ.

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. (Ephesians 2:3)
Our natures are sinful from birth onward. By nature we are the children of wrath. We are born that way. It is in our nature.

Most versions omit the last part of the verse.
That being said what does it mean?
OSAS is still being taught. The phrase is not conditional (if), it is qualitative (who). That means it describes the kind of people of whom there is no condemnation.
The kind of walk the believer walks is not after the flesh--that old sin nature, but rather after the Spirit of God which dwells in him. Yield yourself to God's Spirit not to the sin nature that dwells in you.

Not true. Then no Christian would sin. Even the Bible says that is not possible and condemns those that say or hold to such philosophy:

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:10)

And so he did. The law could never save, but Christ came and did.

Are you then sinless? If you are not, you have a sin nature whether you like it or not.

 

I do not believe men have a sin nature, that is a word others use. I am only using it so that we can understand each other. I believe man is "flesh". The flesh has natural lusts and desires. These lusts and desires are not sinful, as the flesh has no will, it cannot decide to do good or evil. It is the soul/spirit of man that makes the decision process. If a man obeys the lust of the flesh when it is contrary to God's laws, at that point a man sins and becomes a sinner. He becomes sinful.

I do believe the flesh can become "accustomed" to sin. Accustomed means learned behavior or habit. No one is born a junky, and probably no person is a junky if they try heroin once. But if they continue to take heroin they can become addicted to it. So, a person becomes more and more corrupt as they practice sin. The more a person practices sin, the weaker they become in resisting sin.

And this is what God said in Gen 6:12

Gen 6:12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

Look up the word "corrupt" in any dictionary. It means to go from a state of good to bad or evil. Leave a banana on the kitchen counter for a week or so and it will corrupt. It will go from a good banana to a rotten banana.

And this is what God says of men. They corrupted themselves. They went from a state of good to evil.

Psa 14:3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

This is the verse Paul was quoting in Romans. Notice that it says man has "become" filthy. Man did not start out filthy, but chose to sin and became depraved.

If you understand this, then Ecc 7:29 makes perfect sense.

Ecc 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

God did not make Adam and Eve sinful. They were flesh and had lusts and desires, but they also had free will and the ability to choose to do right or wrong. When they chose to do evil they "became" filthy. They became corrupt.

But this verse is not speaking of Adam and Eve only, but all men. "They" is plural and shows this verse applies to all men.