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Do Christians have a Sinful Nature?

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Ever heard the one about how you have two natures wrestling inside you and the one that dominates is the one you feed the most?

It’s not true.

Christian, you do not have a sinful nature. One with the Lord, you have a new heart and a new mind with new desires (1 Cor. 2:16). As a new creation, you get to share in the divine nature of Christ (2 Pet. 1:4).

You don’t have a sinful nature, but the devil would love for you to think that you do.

He will tell you that you are wicked and inclined to sin. The devil wants you resisting yourself because then you won’t resist him.

“Die to yourself daily.” Heard that one? It’s one of the devil’s best lines. So many churchgoers are trying to die daily because they don’t what happened to them at the cross:

Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him… (Romans 6:6)

Your old self is gone. The person you used to be died with Christ (Col. 2:20). The moment you came to the Lord you were baptized by the Spirit into his death and resurrection (Rom. 6:6–10). Your old self was nailed to the cross and no longer lives.

You don’t need to die daily. Once was enough.

The difference between your old self and the person you are now is found in three words: Christ in you.

Formerly you were inclined to follow the flesh down the well-worn path of self-destruction. But now the indwelling Spirit of God helps you to live whole and righteously.

Formerly, you were corrupted by the sinful choices you made. But now the incorruptible seed of the living Word is bearing good fruit in your life.

Why do I still sin?

Although Christians don’t have a sinful nature, we can be tempted to sin just as Adam and Eve were tempted. When we give into that temptation, perhaps because we have forgotten who we are or because we are not resting in Christ, the result is sin (Jas. 1:14–15).

But unlike Adam and Eve we are not alone in our struggle against temptation. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit. It’s us and Him versus the Tempter. It’s a totally unfair fight against an already-defeated enemy.

With God on your side, how can you lose?

From time to time we all make mistakes. But when you stumble, the Lord is right there to pick you up and speak in your defense (1 John 2:1).

How do I stop sinning?

When we come to Jesus we are set free from sin, but we may need to unlearn some sinful habits. The Bible calls this laying aside the old self and being renewed in the spirit of our minds (Eph. 4:22–23).

If in your former life you were a judgmental bully, by the grace of God you can become kind and compassionate.

If you were bitter and unforgiving, you can learn to forgive others as Christ forgave you.

You were not born bitter and judgmental; you learned these bad habits. And since you learned them, by the grace of God you can unlearn them.

It may seem that sin has a strong grip on your life, but God’s grace is stronger still. Where sin abounds, his grace super-abounds.

Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11)

Christians do many things in response to sin; we confess our sins, we hold ourselves accountable for our sins, we discuss our sins. We pray against sin, preach against sin, and warn against sin.

But when it comes to sin, there is one thing we must do above all, and that is reckon ourselves dead to it.

When sin comes knocking, don’t open the door.

When sin calls, don’t answer.

A dead person cannot react and cannot be tempted by sin.

Alive to God

That is the first part of the verse, here is the second: reckon yourself alive to God in Christ Jesus. Once upon a time, we were disconnected from the life that is in Christ (Col. 1:21). But now we enjoy fellowship and intimacy with the One who knows us better than we know ourselves.

In Christ, the deepest longings of our heart are fulfilled.

Every one of us wants to feel truly alive, to be full of life, energy, and purpose. Not merely existing but connecting, thriving, and being everything God made us to be.

This is the life we have in union with the Lord.

To be “alive to God” is knowing and being known, and it’s loving and being loved. It is seeing the touch of God in everything you do and in everyone you meet.

This new life begins with a revelation of God your Father and yourself as his dearly-loved child.

God delights in you. He rejoices over you with singing. You are the apple of his eye. When you know Who is for you, it changes everything (Rom. 8:31).

No one who abides in him sins. (1 John 3:6a)

Those who abide or make their home in the sinless Son drop their sinful habits like rotten garments.

No one who is born of God practices sin, because his seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. (1 John 3:9)

One with the Lord, you are a sinner no more. John is not saying you will never sin (see 1 John 2:1). He is saying it is not in your new nature to sin. Sinning has lost its appeal. Having been set free from your old way of life, you no longer want to sin.

And why would you, when you have found something better by far.

—–

The Religious Origins of Original Sin

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For 2000 years Augustine’s doctrine of original sin has taught that you were a natural born sinner, stained with Adam’s sin. From the moment you drew your first breath, you were hostile to the things of God and hardwired to sin.

My strong view is that this teaching about original sin is unbiblical and illogical. Like smoking, original sin is harmful to your health.

But if the Bible doesn’t say it, from where did Augustine et al. get the idea that we are tainted by original sin?

They got it from religion.

The Jews believed that all sin could be traced back to Adam’s transgression and that from him we all inherited an evil heart. This belief is captured in the writings of the apocrypha:

For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him. Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in the hearts of the people along with the evil root; but what was good departed, and the evil remained. (2 Esdras 3:21–22)

In Judaism there is an old belief that says humans are born with a wicked streak called yetzer hara. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia the yetzer hara is an “evil inclination or impulse, popularly identified with the lusts of the flesh.”

This evil impulse is unconstrained until the emergence, at age thirteen, of the yetzer hatov, a counter-balancing inclination towards good.

The yetzer hara is 13 years older than the yetzer hatov. While still in the mother’s womb, the yetzer hara begins to develop in a person. If he begins to violate the Sabbath, nothing stops him. If he commits murder, nothing stops him. If he goes off to another sin, nothing stops him. But 13 years later, the yetzer hatov is born. When he violates the Sabbath, it rebukes him… (Source)

You know those cartoons that show a person being guided by a little angel or a little demon? That’s based on the teachings of Judaism. The little angel is the yetzer hatov and the little demon is the yetzer hara.

Apparently we don’t get the angel until we’re 13, but the demon – the yetzer hara – is with us from the womb. It is similar to the inherited inclination we know as original sin. The only difference is the rabbis teach that Adam was created by God with this evil inclination, while the theologians say we acquired it as a result of the Fall.

Assume for the moment that you have a yetzer hara. How do you get rid of it? You can’t, say the rabbis. You have it for life. You can only keep it in check through repentance, resolve, and strict obedience to the law.

The Law is like a plaster to the wound made by the yetzer hara. If the plaster is taken away, an evil ulcer will come forth… The Law will wear away the yetzer hara as water wears away stone. (Source)

Jesus and the Jewish apostles would have been familiar with the rabbis’ teaching, yet none of them mentioned anything that sounds like a yetzer hara.

If someone was going to say something surely it would have been Paul the Pharisee. Yet he said nothing. Evidently he did not believe we were born with a sinful nature. He certainly did not believe that we could manage our sin by keeping the law.

Just about everything you ever heard about original sin grew out of this old idea of the yetzer hara. All Tertullian and Augustine did was repackage this Jewish belief in Christian jargon.

So what? Does original sin even matter?

It matters a great deal.

While writing my book on original sin, I heard from a man called Bevan:

Several ministers have told me that my problems are because God rejected me even before I was born, I am going to hell, and there is nothing I can do about it. Help! This is torment!

Sadly, Bevan’s story is hardly unique. I get messages like this all the time.

Many people are tormented with guilt. They turn to religion looking for relief and what do they get? More guilt.

“You were sinful from the moment you took your first breath. You’re a rebel and God will punish you.”

We all live with a narrative about God and how he relates to us. If your narrative says you and your children are stained by the sins of Adam, and that you have to jump through hoops to avoid eternal condemnation, you need a better narrative.

Religion says you are born bad and God hates you, but the Bible says you are fearfully and wonderfully made and your heavenly Father loves you.

Original sin conveys a message of “sin with us,” but the gospel proclaims a better message of “God with us” (Matt. 1:23).

God is for us and with us, and when we open our hearts to his great love, he will be in us as well.

—–

The old has gone, gone, gone

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If there’s one thing I have learned from the movies, it’s that there is no problem that can’t be solved by faking your own death and fleeing to South America.

Think of a wiseguy who is part of a crime family. He is under pressure from his superiors to risk his life by engaging in criminal activities. At the same time the law hounds him on account of the crimes he has already done.

After a while, the wiseguy realizes he is not his own man and life is no fun when you’re not free. He begins to long for a new life but he feels hemmed in on all sides. If he stays with the family he’ll end up prematurely dead. But if he turns himself in, he’ll spend the rest of his days behind bars. It’s a lose-lose scenario. In desperation he begins to make an audacious plan. “South America, here I come.”

The lose-lose scenario describes how life was for us when we were part of Adam’s family. We felt the pressure to conform to the ways of the world and live as children of disobedience. At the same time our consciences bore witness to the law in our hearts that we were unrighteous and guilty as sin.

After a while we realized we were not in control of our lives, and life is no fun when you’re not free. We began to long for a new life but found ourselves hemmed in on all sides.

As members of the family of Adam we were captive to our appetites and enslaved to sin. We wanted to do the right thing but we frequently stumbled. We looked to religion for help but found it was a prison. All it offered was the prospect of a lifetime running on the hamster wheel of self-effort.

Self-indulgence or self-denial, either way was a lose-lose proposition.

Thankfully, God had a better plan:

Through the cross the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. (Gal. 6:14)

And this was no fake death with flaming car crashes and furtive flights to Buenos Aires, but a real bona fide death as genuine as our union with Christ. We really died, which means we are truly and legitimately free:

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. (Rom. 6:6–7)

Real life is better than the movies. Our fictional wiseguy will never enjoy his new life in South America for he will always be looking over his shoulder waiting for his old life to catch up with him. Not us. Our old life is dead. There was a funeral, a tomb, and everything.

Because the old has gone and we are now free to walk in newness of life.

___________

Extracted and adapted from The Gospel in Ten Words

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