ORIGINAL SIN AND THE DEPRAVITY OF MAN

I have been teaching on the Kings of Israel at Victory Baptist Church, which is located about 20 minutes south of Abilene, TX.

The stories of the kings are filled with sin, murder, deceit, and idolatry. Many Christians today seem to view mankind as basically good who sometimes do wicked things. Some would say we are sinners because we sin. The problem with these ideas is that you have the people of Israel who have witnessed miracles and have seen God manifest himself in a visible way as he glorious presence filled the tabernacle and the temple. In-spite of all this they continue to turn to false worship and wicked behavior, why? If you have a biblical theology this makes perfect sense. People are by nature sinful and wicked. The biblical formula is, we sin because we are sinners! We are born sinners and then sin becasue it is our nature. This is the doctrine of original sin and the depravity of man. I believe many christians need to learn this doctrine:


1689 Baptist Confession Of the Fall of Man, Of Sin, And of the Punishment Thereof (Chapter 6)

1. Although God created man upright and perfect, and gave him a righteous law, which had been unto life had he kept it, and threatened death upon the breach thereof, yet he did not long abide in this honour; Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to subdue Eve, then by her seducing Adam, who, without any compulsion, did willfully transgress the law of their creation, and the command given unto them, in eating the forbidden fruit, which God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.

2. Our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them whereby death came upon all: all becoming dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

3. They being the root, and by God's appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of the sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death, and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free.

4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

5. The corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself, and the first motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.



II. That we may further see the nature of original sin, consider,

[1] The UNIVERSALITY of it. It has, as poison, diffused itself into all the parts and powers of the soul. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint." Isa 1:5. Like a sick patient, that has no part sound, his liver is swelled, his feet are gangrened, his lungs are withered; such infected, gangrened souls have we, until Christ, who has made a medicine of his blood, cures us.

(1.) Original sin has depraved the intellectual part—the MIND.
As in the creation "darkness was upon the face of the deep," so it is with the understanding; darkness is upon the face of this deep. As there is salt in every drop of the sea, bitterness in every branch of wormwood, so there is sin in every faculty. The mind is darkened, we know little of God. Ever since Adam ate of the tree of knowledge, and his eyes were opened—we lost our eye-sight! Besides ignorance in the mind, there is error and mistake; we do not judge rightly of things, we put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Isa 5:20. Besides this, there is much pride, disdainfulness and prejudice, and many fleshly reasonings. "How long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you?" Jer 4:14.

(2.) Original sin has defiled the HEART.
The heart is deadly wicked. "The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" Jeremiah 17:9. It is a lesser hell. In the heart are legions of lusts, obdurateness, infidelity, hypocrisy, sinful lusts. It boils as the sea—with passion and revenge. "The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live." Ecclesiastes 9:3. The heart is "the devil's workshop," where all mischief is framed.

(3.) Original sin has defiled the WILL.
Contumacy is the seat of rebellion. The sinner crosses God's will, to fulfill his own. "We will burn incense to the queen of heaven." There is a rooted enmity in the will against holiness; it is like an iron sinew, it refuses to bend to God. Where is then, the freedom of the will, when it is so full not only of indisposition—but opposition to what is spiritual?

(4.) Original sin has defiled the AFFECTIONS.
These, as the strings of a violin, are out of tune. They are the lesser wheels, which are strongly carried by the will, the master-wheel. Our affections are set on wrong objects. Our love is set on sin, our joy is set on the creature. Our affections are naturally as a sick man's appetite, who desires things which are noxious and hurtful to him. So we have impure lustings, instead of holy longings.

[2] The ADHESION of original sin.
It cleaves to us, as blackness to the skin of the Ethiopian, so that we cannot get rid of it. Paul shook off the viper on his hand—but we cannot shake off this inbred corruption. It may be compared to a wild fig-tree growing on a wall, the roots of which are pulled up, and yet there are some fibers of it in the joints of the stonework, which will not be eradicated—but will sprout forth until the wall is pulled in pieces. Original sin comes not, as a lodger, for a night—but as an indweller. "Sin which dwells in me." Rom 7:17.
It is an evil spirit, which haunts us wherever we go. "The Canaanite would dwell in that land." Josh 17:12.

[3] Original sin retards and hinders us in the exercise of God's worship. Whence is "all that dullness and deadness in religion? It is the fruit of original sin. This it is, which rocks us asleep in duty. "The good that I would, I do not." Rom 7:17. Sin is compared to a weight. Heb 12:2. A man who has weights tied to his legs cannot run fast. It is like that fish Pliny speaks of, a sea lamprey, which cleaves to the keel of the ship, and hinders its progress when it is under sail.

[4] Original sin, though latent in the soul, and as a spring which runs under ground, often breaks forth unexpectedly. Christian, you can not believe that evil which is in your heart, and which will break forth suddenly—if God should leave you. "Is your servant a dog that he should do this monstrous thing?" 2 Kings 8:13. Hazael could not believe he had such a root of evil in his heart, that he should rip up pregnant women. "Is your servant a dog?" Yes, and worse than a dog, when that original corruption within is stirred up. If one had come to Peter and said, Peter, within a few hours you will deny Christ, he would have said, "Is your servant a dog?" But alas! Peter did not know his own heart, nor how far that corruption within would prevail upon him. The sea may be calm, and look clear; but when the wind blows—how it rages and foams! So though now your heart seems good—yet, when temptation blows, how may original sin reveal itself, making you foam with lust and passion. Who would have thought to have found adultery in David, and drunkenness in Noah, and cursing in Job? If God leaves a man to himself, how suddenly and scandalously may original sin break forth in the holiest men on the earth!