sin nature

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Theologians differ widely as to what a sin nature is and who has it and where it resides. Most seem to agree, however, that whatever it is, it is a consequence of Adam's initial sin in the garden. The theology of sin and man’s nature as the consequence of the fall is known as hamartiology. But as one gets further from the sin issue and closer to the nature issue the theology becomes theological anthropology.

Pastors, of course, are influenced by the theologians, and their teachings usually reflect the views of the theologians that they personally believe have the best understanding of the subject.

In today’s Baptist churches, the teaching that the sin nature remains in a man even after salvation is the prevalent view. Generally speaking, the more Calvinistic the Baptist church is, the more strongly they hold to this point of view, and the more Arminian the Baptist church is, the less strongly they hold to this point of view, if they hold to it at all.

The subject is very much complicated by the very strong disagreement among theologians as to what is meant by the Greek word sarx , commonly translated flesh. Most Baptist theologians believe that the word sarx is almost always used pejoratively in the New Testament; other Baptist theologians believe that the word sarx should be interpreted as being pejorative only when the context clearly, in their mind, indicates that to be the case. Still other Baptist theologians believe that the word sarx is never used pejoratively in the New Testament.

Those theologians that believe that the word sarx is almost always used pejoratively in the New Testament usually believe that the sin nature remains in a man even after salvation. Those theologians, however, that believe that the word sarx is never used pejoratively in the New Testament are much less inclined to believe that the sin nature remains in a man after salvation.

Some theologians believe that the sin nature is the sinful life style rather than an integral part of the man himself. Therefore, when the man is saved, the sin nature is to become a thing of the past. And here we come to more major complications, that of the distinction between justification and sanctification and whether sanctification can be and should be instantaneous, or if sanctification is and should be a gradual process. Here another major complication arises, namely, to what extent is it possible to be sanctified? And here we come to yet another major complication. That is, what does God do with Christians who fail to become sanctified, and those who Christians who become sanctified but subsequently revert back to an unsanctified state? Needless to say, there are very many other complications to all of this. The literature on the subject is extremely voluminous.

 

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
(Eccl 8:11)

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
(Gen. 6:5)


And the LORD smelled a sweet savor; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.(Gen. 8:21)

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?(Jer.17:9)

By heart in Scriptural language is meant the man himself, the soul, the seat and source of life. It is that which thinks, feels, desires, and wills. It is that out of which good or evil thoughts, desires, and purposes proceed. (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology)

It is our nature to sin.

 

From the New Testament:

2 Pet. 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

 

athanaseusperez, I want you to think about something. Think of a promiscuous mother, who has syphalis when here little one is born. As he is born, he passes through the infected birth canal and this results in his life long blindness. He suffers for something he never did.

When Adam sinned, it was almost like a spiritual mutation which then got passed down to all men. God describes it, almost offhandedly, to Noah in Genesis 8:21: "...every inclination of his heart is evil from his youth."

This is sin nature. Not that we always sin, but that we always have the inclination to sin. This is why we have laws. If people were naturally law-abiding, we wouldn't need them, would we? But even our legal system is set up on the understanding that men have a basic problem -- all of us. We sin. We also want to sin. We want our own way.

No one ever had to teach a toddler to be selfish or have a fit. Lying comes naturally to us. Most men refuse to acknowledge or worship God. Men erect idols, call themselves His followers when they aren't. Men ignore a day of rest, are insults in the flesh to their parents, commit adultery, murder, lie, steal, want what they can't have....

Sound familiar -- those are the basic ten commandments. They show us that we are bad by nature!

When Craigbythesea referred you to 2 Peter 2:4, the idea was that we could be PARTAKERS in the divine nature, or God's nature, and a partaker is not an owner! We do not have divine natures ourselves by any means. This is why the last part of that phrase has to do with escaping the corruption produced by lust.

Where does it reside? It infects the soul of man, which lives in and expresses itself through the body.

For this reason it can rightly be said that what Jesus has saved man from is himself -- his own sin nature. That is why Paul says in Romans 6 that we are baptized into death that we might rise to life in Christ (paraphrase). In Christ we are given a new nature, one that does not always tend toward evil, but rather toward good. And just as a person who is unregenerate can nevertheless fight against his own tendencies and obey the law or help someone else or whatever, a saved soul can slip into sin. But in each case, it goes against the actual nature of the person, and the real nature will assert itself one way or another, usually rather rapidly.

I hope that helps a bit.

 

Sinners by Nature--and totally depraved--we got it through the genes--from the First Man--Adam--not Lucy.(private pun--different thread)

We come forth from our mother's womb speaking lies. In fact we were conceived in sin. There are none righteous, no not one.

Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. Jesus, the Lamb, slain from before the foundation of the world.

In our depravity, we cannot have one iota of goodness. "For by grace you are saved, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast..." Eph. 2:8-10.

Only God can draw us to Himself through the Holy Spirit, which He does through the preaching of The Word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

frustrating, isn't it?

Thank you, first, but 'don't answer'??? Tell water not to run downhill! Seriously, in our natural state, before being born again in the Lord Jesus Christ, we all want our own way. We are all selfish and self-centered. That is the core of the thing. Even babies are self-centered! We may feel it is necessary for them, but that does not change the fact of it. And as a child grows, he or she finds different ways to get his or her own way. Sometimes by lying. Sometimes by stealing. Sometimes by manipulation. There are a lot of ways to prefer oneself over others and over God.

And that is sin.

Jesus said that loving God and loving one's neighbor were the 'hooks' upon which all the law (which shows us what sin is) and the prophets (which show us God's will) hang. But the sin nature we are all born with is loving ourselves first. No matter what form it takes in our later actions in life.

Defensive sins are still sins.

That's not what the Bible says. In fact, by trusting your own logic over God's clear word, you are imitating Eve's sin exactly. In addition, there is no commandment saying "Thou shalt not eat to excess." The Commandments all have to do with commanding us not to do what we would otherwise do normally! For if we would not do them normally, we would not need to be commanded not to do them!

You are creating your own theology here, right? You seem to be using only those bits of the Bible which could by some stretch support what you are already thinking. However, Bible explains Bible. There is NO indication ANYWHERE in the Bible that God wanted man to ever know evil. Adam already knew Good when he knew God. The command gave Adam the free choice to obey or disobey God. That free choice was -- and is -- imperative if we are ever to be able to follow the ultimate command to love. For love is not love if one cannot choose not to love. Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey me." Loving God and obeying God are two sides to the same coin. In disobeying God, Adam chose to love something or someone else over and above loving God. It had nothing to do with strengthening Adam's anything. It had to do with giving him a simple choice, so that love could be real if he chose to obey...and love.

Sin is disobedience to God, period. It takes different forms and expressions through a person's life, but it is loving oneself more than loving anything or anyone else, and certainly more than loving God. Whatever expressions it takes are quite individual. You are speaking, in the meantime, as though man could somehow save himself by controlling his lusts. That, my friend, is the teaching of almost every religion in the world except Christianity. Salvation by law. But it was Jesus who said to the weary and heavy-laden, and He would give the rest -- for His burden is light. That's because He did the work we could never have done ourselves -- for those who go to Him, He has saved us from ourselves.

And once we are born again we no longer have hearts that tend toward evil always. We WANT to please Him, WANT to obey. Sometimes we blow it, but as John said in his first letter, we know that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us.

It is not a matter of biological nature, and I hope you did not misunderstand me when I used that as a sort of metaphor for what happened spiritually. But children are NOT born neutral! I've raised six -- they are ALL, even my profoundly retarded son, born with sin nature. Me first. That, if you were to put sin nature into two words, is it. Me first. That means disobedience to God and parent when the child wants to, or when the teen wants to, or when the grown-up wants to. We are all born into the Me First category -- it is our original nature.

At some point, if a man desires salvation, he must say to God "You first. Kill my old nature." That is what Paul says happens in Romans 6:2-3.

Unless we undergo the death of the old nature, we cannot enter Heaven.

 

I agree here with Helen. The sin nature is not simply a disposition to do evil, it is a disposition to put oneself first, to be selfish, resulting in unimaginable sin.

I would word this a little differently. I would say that when Christ died he provided for the death of our sin nature and that we are to appropriate that death by faith through identifying with the death of Christ. But it does not, of course, end there. We are also to identify with the resurrection of Christ and by faith appropriate his resurrected life.

I am not sure that I would go quite this far. But, on the other hand, when Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be born again to enter into the kingdom of God, I believe that He was saying just what Helen is saying. From my point of view, the only real question here is whether Jesus was using some hyperbole, or he meant just what he said. Paul writes in Romans 7:3 that if a Christian’s “old man” is still alive, he is committing adultery with Christ. If by the “old man” Paul is referring to the sin nature, any Christian who still has a sin nature is committing adultery with Christ and is in VERY serious trouble.

 

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God -- that is sin, falling short of God's standard of perfect righteousness.

Ahtanaseusperez, are you Pelagian? Do you believe people are born morally neutral? Just wondering.

 

Athan. (hope you don't mind me abbreviating your name; if you do, say so and I'll write it out), you can type in your response under whomever you are quoting and answering instead of doing another post. Just a tip. Just click on quote of the post you want to respond to, and when that window comes up, you can type underneath the quoted part.

As far as your question here, people feel bad when they sin before they are saved because God gave us a conscience. He leaves a witness of Himself in nature (Rom 1.18ff) and in our conscience, an innate ability to sense there is right and wrong (Rom 2.15).

Believing man to be morally neutral at birth was a belief of Pelagius. He also believed that man could obey God's laws if he really tried or wanted to.

Pelagianism was condemned as heresy as it goes against Biblical teaching.

 

athanaseusperez, I disagree with you about the rapist remark. Sure, sex is a natural tendency given to us by God, but most of us know that rape isn't about the natural tendency to want sex. Rape is about control, power and dominance. Raping a woman is the ultimate power and rapists are driven by the need for that power because they feel weak and powerless in their ordinary lives. It isn't about the sex drive being out of control at all.

Also, Adam didn't eat the apple because he was selfish and wanted his own way. He ate it because Satan convinced him that he would be like God and know everything. He wasn't being selfish. He didn't simply say "I want this apple and I'm going to eat it no matter what God says because I'm hungry for an apple."
He WAS being power hungry.
Satan couldn't be God, so he steals God's creation by making us believe we can be Gods. It's that sinful nature that allows us to justify doing the wrong thing when we know the right thing to do.