Rom. 1:18-32, What do ya’ know: Man is Sinful (4)

d)    The entire human race, upon birth, are sinners.  We are not fundamentally good; we are fundamentally evil.  Let’s consider some questions related to this truth.

i)      Isn’t it unfair that we are guilty because of Adam’s sin?  My answer is “no; it is actually a work of God’s grace for all mankind.”  Let me explain.  If I was like Adam, born without a sin nature, but then in my heart did the same thing Adam did in failing to trust God, I would have needed a Savior just like Adam did.  In Gen. 3:15 God promised Adam and Eve that He would send a Savior, a human (the seed of the woman) to crush the work of the Devil.  But I also would need a Savior.  And honestly, so would you.  We all would have needed a Savior.  But, as it turns out, there can only be one Savior, God’s only begotten Son.  But if we all needed this Savior, He would have had to come to earth, live a righteous life, die in the place of Adam, and be raised to give Adam life eternal.  Then that Savior would have to do the same for every human who ever lived.  Instead, God worked in this way.  Adam was our representative in a way, standing in our place.  He sinned and the we became sinners in Adam.  Christ became the “second” or “last Adam,” also standing in our place.  He did His work once and through Him forgiveness and eternal life is offered to all who believe in Him.  It’s not just fair.  It makes perfect sense.

ii)   What about the “age of moral responsibility?”  First, the Bible is almost totally silent on this subject.  We believe that we are born in sin.  The parents not only give birth to a “body;” they give birth to a “soul” and that soul is sinful from the start.  David, in confessing his sin, said, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me (Ps. 51:5).  But the same David, when the child produced from his immoral relationship with Bathsheba died, said, I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me (2 Sam. 12:23).  Did he just mean he would also die, like the child?  Or that he would be reunited with the child?  If it’s the latter, we ask how can a child who is a sinner from birth be where David expects to spend eternity, in the presence of God (Ps. 23:6)?  One answer is that the child never came to a point in life where he was able to turn from or turn to the Creator; he had not reached the age of moral accountability.  Some have suggested the age 13 is that age, because it was a special age for Jewish children.  If this doctrine is true, I think I have noticed in my own children a point where it seemed they understood sin and guilt, and the ages were not all the same.  So again, this is not a well developed doctrine; it is more suggested by our belief in the love of God to make provision for infants in death.

iii)            What is meant by “total depravity?”  Biblically, two passages in Romans describe this concept.  First, there is the progression of the man away from God in Rom. 1:18-32.  Man refuses to glorify and thank God, becomes more focused on himself as “god,” so that God gives man over to greater and deeper sinfulness until the “man” looks like the description in v28-32.  The conclusion reached in 3:10-18 emphasizes the inability or unwillingness of any person to improve his situation or his relationship with his Creator.  It is not that every man is as sinful as he could be, or that he does not have a conscience or that he will not do good things in the sight of others. 

Our conclusion then is that the “image of God” is marred by the presence of sin.  Every aspect of our likeness to God is affected: the rational (we struggle to see things in the truth), moral (we choose behavior that is contrary to God’s will and that exalts ourselves instead), emotional (we struggle with feelings, even to the point of being ruled by them rather than ruling them), and the spiritual (we cannot have a relationship with the Creator apart from His work on our behalf).