This cannot be said often enough. We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners.
We are not good people, who occasionally "mess up", and who are tagged forever as sinners because of one mistake.
We are sinners, all of us. Some of us have our sin under some control (usually, just the external manifestations, the internal rages away).
We become quite adept at rationalizing our sin. I need it. Everyone else does it. It's not really that bad. As long as no one gets hurt. Etc.
This process hardens our hearts. It is the "hard path" and "rocky soil" spoken of in the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8:4, Matthew 13:3). We become immune to understanding the things of God.
The solution is the application of God's Word; sharper than any two edged sword. The Ten Commandment have been compared to a sturdy shovel, breaking up the rocky soil and preparing it to receive the seed of the Good News.
4 comments:
Hi Ned
"We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners."
I disagree. We are sinners becuase we sin.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Romans 3:23
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Romans 5:12
"We are not good people," ...
We were good people ... that's for sure;
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."
Genesis 1:26-31
We were good. Very good even. And despite sin are justified and made righteous by Christ (and/or perhaps by faith in Christ depending on your particular theological leanings) which brings us back to the verses I started with;
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Romans 3:23-25
Gimme some of that old time propiation ... or rather, as I believe it to be better translated, expiation !!!
I agree that Adam and Eve were good. But, once they fell, we are all born sinners. The best example being Psalm 51:5 "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me."
Born sinners, excluding Adam and Eve, sure, but obrn again and made righteous in Christ.
True, praise God.
But we still sin. It is "now and not yet". Justified, made right in God's eyes; at war with sin (rather than just giving in); but still being sanctified.
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