For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:23
An illuminating installment of the comic strip Peanuts pictured Charlie Brown comfortably in bed with Snoopy snoozing on his lap. The lad was musing about how he sometimes lies awake at night and asks where he has gone wrong. Suddenly a forlorn look came over the poor fellow’s round face. He explained to his dog that in such moments a voice says to him, “This is going to take more than one night.” Similarly, Gavin Banek, portrayed by Ben Affleck in the 2002 movie Changing Lanes, finds himself reflecting on where he has gone wrong after a small automobile accident on a New York expressway escalates into a life and death feud.1
Charlie Brown’s humorously expressed feelings and Gavin Banek’s conflicted inner feelings surface in us as well. Deep inside, we sense that we are a strange paradox. Sometimes we find ourselves doing things that make us genuinely proud. We act unselfishly. We care and even sacrifice for others.
But other times we seem so self-centered and mean-spirited. We constantly promote ourselves, even at the expense of others. We destroy what others have constructed. And we plunder the good earth that nourishes us. Living with ourselves leads us to a sad realization. We are a mixture of good and evil—of godly beauty and demonic hideousness—of great potential and awful failure. We are sinners on one hand and saints on the other.
Our Christian faith speaks of this paradox as well. We are God’s good handiwork. Yet something has gone tragically awry. We are not what we should be; we are characterized by failure. This dark side of the human situation is what the biblical authors call “sin.”
In this chapter we seek to make sense out of our human failure. To do so, we raise three crucial questions.
What Is Sin?
The Scriptures uncompromisingly assert what we know from personal experience: we have failed, and we continually fail. That is, we are sinners. What is sin? The Bible understands sin fundamentally as failure.
Sin Is a Failure of the Human Heart
The biblical word “sin” means primarily “missing the mark” or “falling short.”2 It refers to our inability to be what God desires us to be. It speaks of our failure to fulfill God’s intention for us.
Our human failure is radical. Rather than being some inconsequential defect on the surface of our lives, sin has found lodging within us—in our personal control center. Sin infects the core of our being, the nucleus of our existence or, to use the biblical word, the “heart” (Matt. 12:33–37; Mark 7:14–23). In fact, so pervasive is this plague that the Bible declares that sin infects our being (e.g., Jer. 17:9; Rom. 7:18; Eph. 2:3). And as a result, our attitudes and actions are polluted.
Paul describes this corruption of the heart in vivid terms. He declares that sin causes our “foolish hearts” to be “darkened” (Rom. 1:21) and our minds to be “corrupt” (1 Tim. 6:5). Because of sin, our thinking has become “futile” (Rom. 1:21). We cannot understand spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 4:4). Indeed, our minds are actually hostile to God (Rom. 8:7–8).
As an infection in the human heart, sin likewise corrupts our affections. Paul writes that we are “enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures” (Titus 3:3). And Jesus observes that rather than abhorring our situation, we actually love darkness instead of light (John 3:19).
So pervasive is sin’s sway that the Bible speaks of us as slaves to it. Jesus, for example, declares, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
Our first reaction upon hearing this may be to protest. “Nonsense!” we object. “This makes us out to be despicable and wicked. Talk of sin pervading our hearts fails to note how often people do good deeds.”
The biblical authors do not deny that we occasionally do what appears right. On the contrary, they hold out the prospect that we can indeed engage in good acts (Rom. 2:14–15). Yet the claim that we are able to do good must be tempered. Repeatedly we discover that beneath our seemingly good acts are at best mixed, and often purely selfish, motives.
How often do we discover that we are like the “pious” Jew in Jesus’s parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get’” (Luke 18:10–12).
I recall one of my seminary professors telling how he was once asked to pray in a large Christian gathering. He articulated a fervent, eloquent prayer. But the first thought that entered his mind when he finished was, “My, but you did a good job!”
How often do we—like the seminary professor—find mixed motives at work in even our best conduct? And like the Pharisee’s habitual praying, even our apparently good acts regularly arise out of a self-righteous attitude or self-serving motivations. So easily we grow smug about how much more “self-sacrificial” and “giving” we are than most other people we know. And how often do we carefully measure the kindness we show toward others according to the personal profit we hope to gain in return?
In these and many other ways, we show how deeply ingrained sin is in our hearts. We fail—we fall short of God’s standard.
Sin, we have suggested, is failure. But we must press this a step further. To do so, we ask, “What kind of failure is this?”
Sin Is a Failure of Community
Sin, of course, refers to what we do. Our actions are often evil. And even our apparently good deeds are tainted with evil motives.
The Bible does not limit sin to our conduct, however. As we have seen, at a deeper level sin also encompasses who we are. Sin is a failure to be. “But,” we wonder, “what or who have we failed to be?”
“Sin” refers to any attitude or action that fails to radiate God’s own character.
To answer this question, we must return to the image of God we spoke about in chapter 3. There we noted that God created us to be his image bearers. And at the heart of the imago Dei is God’s desire that we show forth the divine character. Sin, therefore, is the failure to reflect the image of God.
But we cannot stop here. As we saw in chapter 2, the God who is love is the Triune One, the community of Father, Son, and Spirit. Because God desires that we reflect the divine community—because we are created for community—sin is a failure of community.
This failure displays its presence in what we do. We see it in our active rebellion against God, our quarreling with each other, and our misuse of creation. But it is equally present in what we don’t do. It permeates our passive apathy toward God and others. And it is visible as we avoid our responsibilities as stewards of creation.
By not participating in the fellowship God intends for us, we “miss the mark.”
Again, we may respond with a protest: “Isn’t all this merely outdated theological talk? Isn’t the idea of sin passé in the contemporary world? And have we not simply evolved beyond the consciousness of sin?”
We Know Sin Only through the Gospel
Indeed, we live in a society that avoids the label “sin.” We don’t like to think of ourselves as sinners.3 Oh, we willingly acknowledge our shortcomings. But we don’t attach blame to them. We excuse our foibles and even our despicable deeds as the product of some illness. Or it is due to the treatment we endured as children or the social environment in which we live. “Yes, I am not what I should be,” we readily admit. “But this is because I am a victim. Don’t call me a sinner.”
The contemporary denial of sin ought not to surprise us. Ultimately, a true sense of sin only comes as we hear the gospel.4 We cannot see the radical depth of our human failure until we come to see the depth to which God suffered on our behalf.
The Bible narrates the story of the suffering God. God’s suffering the burden of human sin began in the Old Testament. In the face of the faithlessness of Israel, the compassionate God remained faithful. But the story reached its climax in the sufferings of the innocent Jesus. Our sin—our breach of community—is so serious that it could only be overcome through the sacrifice of Jesus, in whom God suffered in our behalf.
Alas! and did my Savior bleed,
And did my Sov’reign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I? . . .
Was it for crimes that I have done,
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!5
“Sin” denotes the tragic human failure that cost Jesus his life. But how did we become caught up in this deplorable situation? To this question we must now turn.
How Did We Become Involved with Sin?
The Bible declares that we are God’s handiwork. Yet we are not what God desires us to be. We fail to live in accordance with God’s purposes. And each of us shares in this failure.
If “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” when did this “falling short” begin? How did sin enter our world? And why did it spread to me?
The book of Genesis indicates that failure has characterized us from the beginning, from the first human pair onward. This does not mean that God created us sinful—in other words, sin was not a part of our created nature “in the beginning.” Rather, sin entered the world through a willful human act. We speak of this event as “the fall.”
Humans “Fell” into Sin
The story of our descent into sin begins with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Humans began their existence in seemingly perfect innocence. As the divine image bearers, they enjoyed fellowship with God, who walked in the garden in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8). They savored community with each other; indeed, they were naked and felt no shame (Gen. 2:25). And they experienced harmony with the rest of creation; they ate fruit from the trees (v. 16) for which they cared (v. 15) and lived among the animals Adam had named (vv. 19–20).
Despite the bliss of the garden, the first human pair chose to disobey a divine prohibition. Thereby they plunged humankind into sin (Gen. 3:1–7).
This downward plummet began with mistrust. As innocent creatures, Adam and Eve had not yet been confronted with the awful distinction between good and evil. Nor did they personally know the sting of sin. In this sense, the forbidden act did promise them something they lacked—access to knowledge of good and evil.
The serpent exploited this situation. He subtly raised doubts about God’s goodness, suggesting that through his prohibition God intended to withhold some good from them. The serpent set before Adam and Eve the possibility of a heightened knowledge he claimed God had maliciously reserved for himself.
God’s intent, of course, was not to deprive creatures. Rather, the prohibition was given for their own good—to protect them from the adverse consequences of eating the forbidden fruit. But the beguiling words of the serpent worked their charm. They led Adam and Eve to question God’s goodness—just as we so often do.
At the same time, the command served as a test. It would determine whether or not the first humans would fully obey the Creator. In this sense, the possibility of sin originated with the divine prohibition. God’s command gave birth to choice—a choice between trusting obedience or faithless disobedience—the same alternatives that face us. Yet the presence of choice was not itself sin. Evil arose only when Adam and Eve opted for rebellion. So today, the fact that we face choices is not the problem. Rather, our failure lies in the path we choose to follow.
The Genesis story concludes with the sad reality of the consequences of their act (Gen. 3:8–19). Once they disobeyed God, the first humans no longer reflected the grandeur of the divine image. The idyllic community was shattered. Through this act, Adam and Eve destroyed the fellowship with God, each other, and creation that had characterized life in the garden.
When they heard God’s footsteps in the garden, Adam and Eve grew fearful and sought to hide from God. This response indicated that the pristine fellowship with the Creator had been broken. They likewise covered themselves from the gaze of the other, indicating that their sense of guilt and shame had marred the fellowship they had once known. And through their act, the first humans introduced enmity into a creation that had only known harmony (Gen. 3:14–15, 17–19).
As a result of their act, Adam and Eve could no longer anticipate unending bliss. God had warned Adam, “when you eat from it [the forbidden fruit] you will certainly die” (Gen. 2:17). Their sin brought its tragic outworking. They were banished from the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:23), and the principle of death invaded their lives. God told Adam that he would now toil “until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (v. 19).
Fallen humans experience the sting of death in stages. It begins as spiritual deadness in the present: we are “dead through the trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1 NRSV). At the end of our life on earth, we face physical death and the uncertainty it inaugurates. One day—at the judgment—death will come in its fullness, as sinful humans experience final separation from the source of life, eternal banishment from God’s community (Rev. 20:14–15).
Adam’s Sin, Our Sin
The book of Genesis answers the question, How did sin come into the world? with the story of the fall. Paul echoes the primordial narrative when he declares, “Sin entered the world through one man” (Rom. 5:12) so that “in Adam all die” (1 Cor. 15:22).
But left unanswered is the question as to how we became involved. Hence, we wonder how Adam is related to us. Why do the effects of Adam’s sin extend to all his descendants? And above all, how is it that we are sinners? Theologians have offered several possible ways in which we could understand our connection to Adam. Let’s summarize their suggestions in chart form before launching into our discussion.
| Federal Headship | Natural Headship | Non-headship | |
| Adam’s person and us | Adam is our representative | Adam is our progenitor | We are Adam |
| Adam’s sin and us | Adam chose for us | We chose in Adam | Each chooses as Adam |
Adam is our representative. Perhaps God appointed Adam as the representative, the “federal head” of humankind and through him entered into a legal agreement with all humans.6 The terms of the agreement were simple: If Adam obeyed the command not to eat from the forbidden tree, he would enjoy continued life (see Rom. 7:10); his disobedience would result in death.7 As the designated representative—the federal head—of all humankind, Adam acted not only for himself but also on behalf of us all.8
At first glance, the idea of federal headship appears to violate our individualistic sensibilities. Are we not each responsible solely for ourselves? Is not my sin mine alone?
Yet at many levels of contemporary life we actually see this principle at work. One obvious area is human government. Governmental officials repeatedly act on behalf of, or in the name of, all the citizens of the land. For example, the president and the Congress are the designated representatives of the people of the United States. Their decisions have grave implications for each citizen, even for future generations of Americans. Indeed, if our lawmakers choose to live beyond our government’s income or if our leaders declare war on a foreign power, we are all affected.
Perhaps in a similar fashion God designated Adam to act on behalf of all his descendants, whether for good or for ill—for life or for death.
Adam is our progenitor. Rather than seeing Adam as our legal representative, perhaps we should look to Adam as the progenitor of humankind. He is our “natural head.” Maybe this forms the bridge between his sin and our sinfulness.
Adam’s status as our natural head suggests that we were all present in him when he sinned. Each of us actually acted in Adam, and thus his sin is literally our sin.
Our first response to this suggestion, however, might be to demur. “Nonsense!” we may be inclined to say. “All this happened centuries before I was conceived. How then can anyone assert that I was present in Adam?”
There is a biblical answer to our objection: we were indeed in the garden. Specifically, we were in Adam’s “loins” at the time of the fall. We were there in the same way Levi was in the loins of Abraham when he paid the tithe to Melchizedek (see Heb. 7:4–10). Hence, the scriptural authors have a profound sense of the unity and solidarity of humankind. They held to a literal connection between us and our progenitors.
If we were in the garden with Adam, then we can easily understand how we are implicated in his debilitating deed.
We are Adam. But perhaps the book of Genesis is not reporting the story of one man in prehistory at all. Suppose the “fall” is not an event in the primordial past but a tragedy that we all experience in the present.9 What if the Genesis story is a description of what happens when we move from innocence to death through our own sinful choice?
Understood as our story, the narrative of the fall describes what happens when we sin. “In the beginning”—prior to committing a sinful act—we are innocent. The deed is only a possibility, a choice we are considering. In addition, “in the beginning” we may be blissfully ignorant of the evil consequences that will follow from the mistaken choice we are contemplating. Indeed, the proposed act seems to promise so much at such little cost!
Once we’ve yielded to the impulse, however, its hidden sting emerges. Only then do we experience the full force of the detrimental aspects of the action. Once this occurs, we feel remorse, and we regret our mistake.
How often has this scenario repeated itself in our own lives? A little act of treachery, a little lie (such as claiming to be sick when in fact we are leaving early on a trip), a little secret illicit sexual encounter—it seems to be the way to get ahead. The contemplated act appears to offer great benefit at no cost. But once we’ve done it, we feel its sting. In the end, we discover to our dismay that the benefit was so small and the cost in terms of loss of integrity and hurt inflicted on others was so great.
Whatever else it may be, the biblical story is about us. It describes our experience.10
Adam’s sin and us. Although the narrative of the fall offers valuable insights into our situation, the Genesis story is not simply about us. It also speaks about a “first” sin, the sin of Adam.
Indeed, there are important differences between Adam’s sin and ours. The first temptation came to Adam, for it was instigated by the serpent. But our plight is different. Because sin lies at the core of our being, temptation already has a foothold within us. As James notes, “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed” (James 1:14).
In addition, Adam’s sin occurred in a pristine community. In the garden our first parents enjoyed fellowship with God, each other, and all creation. We, in contrast, find ourselves in a quite different situation when we sin. As those who are “dead in your trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1), we act in the context of a prior failure and loss of community.
Perhaps this observation provides a clue to the mystery of our involvement in Adam’s sin. In the Garden of Eden, humankind enjoyed a universal community unparalleled in subsequent history. But the first sin shattered this glorious fellowship that existed at the infancy of our corporate story.
Once destroyed, the primordial community remains forever lost. Just as we cannot return to any prior era in history, so also we cannot return to “the beginning.” Just as the evil we do carries far-reaching consequences, so also we simply can never restore the fellowship that our ancestors squandered. Instead, we are forced to start in the present. And we can only begin with the conditions of the world as they now are.
In this sense, the first sin is in a class by itself. And for this reason its effects always remain with us. Adam’s sin has permanently tainted the world. And it has irreparably altered us, earth’s human inhabitants. We no longer know creation, our co-pilgrims, our Creator, and even ourselves solely as friends. Instead, the pristine community—fellowship without flaws, wholesomeness without a history of hurt—has been destroyed.
Perhaps we can better understand this if we think of what often results from a breach of friendship. When a close friend has severely injured you, you may immediately be able to speak sincere forgiving words. But even though you have forgiven your friend, a wound remains. It may take a long time before you are able to trust her again. In fact, you may never trust completely. Your friendship may continue to flourish, but you will carry the memory of the hurt throughout your life.
In a much greater way, the sin of our first parents marred the pristine fellowship of the garden for all time.
The fall lies in the distant past. Yet, in a certain sense, we continually repeat it. Adam’s disobedience decimated the pristine experience of community. But the destruction of fellowship that marked the error of our parents characterizes our attitudes and actions as well. We too are guilty of destroying the semblances of community that here and there emerge among us. Nations break the peace through war. Families quarrel and feud. Marital bliss becomes the casualty of abuse. And the list continues. As we find ourselves guilty of undermining fellowship, we gain a glimpse of the awfulness of the primordial human sin and of God’s righteous judgment on us all.
As we noted already, the temptation that drew our first parents into sin was external. But our sinful attitudes and actions flow from the inner core of our being—from the human heart. We find ourselves involved in a radical failure that encompasses our very being. But we have not yet fully answered a still pressing question. What is the source of the corrupt nature that plagues each of us?
Our experience confirms what Christian theology has declared for centuries. Our corruption is not merely the result of what we ourselves do. Rather, it comes to us through our participation in humankind.
Sinfulness invades our heart in several ways. In part it comes through our social surroundings. Simply stated, we teach each other to sin.
But there is an additional aspect of the invasion of sin as well. To see this, we must look at another connection between Adam’s sin and us that arises from his status as our natural head. The sin of our first parents irreparably altered—corrupted—the human nature they passed on to us. As a result, we inherit what theologians often call a “depraved nature” or a “fallen disposition” from our ancestors.
The depraved nature comes to us in the same way as do the other basic human characteristics we all share. We may say that it lies in our gene pool. In a sense, sin is now a part of our common human genetic makeup. This is not to suggest that we carry a specific “sin gene” that scientists might someday discover and eradicate. Rather, our total inheritance is morally defective. And this defect is passed from parents to children. No wonder we seem to sin so easily!
The Outworking of Our Defective Human Nature
Because the humanity we inherit is corrupted, each of us will and does sin. We commit sinful acts once we are in a position to act out what is present within our nature by heredity and socialization.
This leads to further questions. When does this happen? When do we begin to participate in the common human failure?
The connection to heredity indicates that the potential for our involvement in the breakdown of community is present in us already at birth. Perhaps we can best understand this if we seek to describe how it works.
All who have observed infants know that these innocent beings are largely unaware of anything outside their own little world. Infants are naturally egocentric and self-absorbed. What is natural in infancy, however, later becomes malicious. God’s intention is that the growing human develop wholesome, healthy attitudes that balance personal independence and a sense of self-worth with a full awareness of an interdependence with creation, other humans, and ultimately the Creator. But instead of developing as God desires, our egocentricity and self-absorption grow unchecked. This results in a breach in community.
In short, the self-absorption of infancy carries the potential to develop into a community-destructive force within each of us—a depraved nature. Eventually this depraved nature expresses itself in moral choices that are either overly egotistical or overly self-abasing and hence are displeasing to God. In this way, what ought to drive us to a quest for God and the fulfillment of his intention that we participate in the community of God degenerates into a search for a humanly devised substitute.
When this happens, we “miss the mark,” and sin’s awful consequences follow.
What Are the Results of the Presence of Sin?
Our failure robs us of the enjoyment of community that God intends for us and leaves us isolated and alone—alienated.
We, of course, have no firsthand awareness of inheriting a corrupted nature. Nor is it likely that we remember the day we committed our first sinful act. Yet we continually experience the sad reality of sinning. We see how sin invades, colors, and even controls our attitudes, motives, and actions. And we repeatedly observe the terrible results of sin. We realize that sin ruins lives, destroys families, undermines societies, and even threatens life on planet Earth.
The Christian faith acknowledges these disastrous effects of human sin. But its chief concern is to place them in a broader context. The presence of sin in our lives affects how we live in the world because, as we have emphasized, it undermines our fundamental relationships—with God, others, and creation. In this manner, sin thwarts God’s intentions for us.
We can describe our plight through four words, which provide poignant pictures of the awful consequences of sin:
The presence of sin carries adverse effects in the realm of interpersonal relations. Viewed from this perspective, sin leads to alienation.
We experience sin’s alienation in our relationship to God. God created us to be his friends—even his children. But we have chosen to live as God’s enemies (Rom. 5:10a).
As the narrative of the Garden of Eden indicates, God desires that we be able to enjoy the divine presence. But instead, we flee from God. We live in fear, presuming that he is hostile toward us. In fact, however, we are the hostile ones and project our hostility on God. We run from the only one who can overcome our fear, brokenness, and hostility. We seek to get away from the only one who can fulfill our deepest needs.
“Condemnation” refers to the sentence or judgment that hangs over us because of our sin.
Because we are alienated from God, sin alienates us from other humans as well. God designed us to enjoy wholesome, enriching relationships with each other. But we find ourselves exploiting and being exploited. We jostle with each other for power, influence, and prominence. Or we allow others to rob us of our dignity and sense of worth.
We are also alienated from creation. God intended that we live in harmony with what he has made. But rather than seeing ourselves as divinely mandated stewards of creation, we seek to enslave it and make it serve our wants. We no longer see the earth as an organic whole that we manage on God’s behalf. Instead, in our insatiable but misguided quest for a home, we view creation as the raw material for our industrious activity or as an untamed foe that we must conquer. Our sin has introduced destruction into creation. As Paul declares, creation itself now exists—yea, “groans”—under the bondage caused by human sin, awaiting the liberation of the new creation (Rom. 8:19–22).
The alienating effects of sin reach even to our personal existence. We do not fulfill God’s design for us. As a result, we are alienated from our own true selves. We simply are not who we were created to be. And we sense within ourselves this disruptive loss. For this reason, we are our own worst enemies.
We Are Condemned
Viewed from the perspective of God’s tribunal, sin carries adverse legal implications. Our plight as sinful creatures standing before a holy God entails condemnation.
The presence of sin means that we stand condemned by a righteous Judge.
This sad situation is the opposite of what God intended. God designed us to live as righteous bearers of the divine image, as those who mirror the divine holy character. Instead, as our fallen nature expresses itself through our actions, we commit sins. The presence of sin in our lives leaves God, the righteous Judge, no alternative except to view us as guilty (John 3:18).
Although God could destroy us immediately, in grace he spares us the full implications of our sin. We are guilty and therefore deserving of death. And although the sentence hovers over us, the gracious Judge has ordered a temporary stay of execution.
One day, however, this will change. At the final judgment the Judge of all humankind will pronounce the verdict we deserve. All guilty human beings will be banished from God’s presence (Matt. 25:31–34, 41; Rev. 20:11–15).
Unfortunately, some people use this gracious reprieve as an opportunity to slip into even greater depths of sin (Rom. 1:18–32). Despite appearances to the contrary, however, sinful humans are headed for destruction. The hell that awaits them is but the natural outworking of their failure to live in accordance with God’s intention.
The Bible clearly teaches that one day we will all appear before God our Judge. Scripture also indicates that we will be judged according to our deeds (2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 20:12–13). That is, the basis for God’s final verdict will be our actions.
Enslavement means that we are in bondage to a hostile, alien force that has overwhelmed us.
This biblical teaching has important implications. It means that ultimately we are not condemned because we have inherited a sinful nature. It is this disposition that the Holy Spirit will one day root out of us, when he completes his work of making us like Christ. What brings the sentence of death are the wrong moral choices through which we give expression to the fallen nature within us.
The biblical teaching about judgment according to our deeds suggests that normal human development includes a threshold we may call the “age of accountability.”11 When we are very young, God does not yet hold us accountable for what we do (Num. 14:29–31; Deut. 1:39; Isa. 7:15–16; Matt. 18:1–14; 19:14) because we are not yet in a position to make moral choices. But at some point we move from innocence to responsibility and begin to carry full accountability as moral agents.
This means that we can entrust to God those who never develop into responsible moral agents (e.g., persons who die in infancy and the severely mentally challenged). Although they inherit the fallen human nature from their parents, such persons do not make moral choices—decisions that are morally right or wrong. And therefore they have no deeds that demand eternal condemnation before the righteous God.
We Are Enslaved
Not only does sin leave us alienated and condemned, but it is also an alien, evil force that holds us in its grasp. Consequently, the presence of sin brings enslavement.
When the New Testament speaks of enslavement to sin, it borrows an image from the first-century practice of slavery. Whenever the conquering Roman armies returned from their escapades, they brought with them the most talented from among the subjected peoples as slaves to serve Roman citizens.
Sin is like an enslaving army that takes us captive. As slaves to this power we cannot choose not to sin. Rather, sin rules over us, so that we find that we must sin (Rom. 7:21–23).
Once again, we may be inclined to lodge a protest: “What about ‘free will’? I thought we were free moral agents. How then can we speak about enslavement to sin?”
True moral freedom is the ability to live according to God’s purposes.
Our protest against this biblical teaching is often generated by an understanding of free will derived from the everyday experience of choosing among alternatives. In the morning we wonder, “Should I wear my black or my brown shoes?” Then at lunch we choose again, “Should I order the chicken sandwich or the shrimp salad?” And on it goes.
Everyday choices lead us to picture ourselves as self-motivated choosers, standing before decisions unencumbered by any overpowering inclination to decide in one direction or another. And we tend simply to extend this experience to the realm of moral decision-making. We assume that we approach moral decisions with the same freedom that we bring to the selection of our daily apparel from among the clothes in our closets.
This is not what the Bible means by freedom. The biblical ideal is not the neutral decision-maker who chooses from among the alternatives that present themselves. In fact, no such person has ever lived; this ideal is an illusion. Rather, the ideal the Bible presents is the person who lives as he or she should.
As we know from personal experience, in any situation our options are limited. A host of influences and circumstances narrows our range of possible actions. But there is yet a more significant dimension limiting our freedom. We never approach the moral decision-making process as neutral choosers. Instead, we are already predisposed. And the presence of sin leaves us predisposed toward evil.
Given this tragic situation, “freedom” means to be released from the predisposition toward evil in order to be able to choose the good. True freedom, therefore, is God’s gift given through Christ. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
We Are Depraved
We can sum up our plight by acknowledging that the presence of sin is debilitating. It leaves us depraved. Our innate resources are simply too meager to pull us out of the mire. But we may wonder why this is. The answer lies in what we have already discussed.
As we noted earlier, sin is not some mere surface blemish on what is otherwise a beautiful human face. Instead, it is radical; it infects the very core of our being. It has corrupted all aspects of our lives. No dimension of our existence has withstood the onslaught of the alien power we call “sin.”
If sin is a radical problem, it requires a radical cure. If sin has penetrated to our heart, it cannot be remedied by heartfelt action. If sin holds us captive, we are powerless to escape from our plight. The cure for our disease must come from outside us, and it must go to the core of our being. In short, if our human condition is to be altered, we require the help of a power outside ourselves, a power greater than sin.
Many people refuse to admit the radicality of our human failure. For them “depravity” is too strong a word for our human condition. For example, certain theologians of the medieval Roman Catholic Church concluded that as bad as it was, the fall left our natural human powers, especially the power of reason, intact. This means that human reason remains capable of attaining some knowledge about God.
The Protestant Reformers, however, rejected this idea. They recovered the biblical truth that the effects of sin extend to all dimensions of human existence. Even our reason falls under sin’s power and consequently can lead us astray. This predicament is what the Reformers meant by “total depravity.” We simply lack the ability to remedy our plight. We have no righteousness to offer; we must rely on what Martin Luther termed an “alien righteousness.” If salvation from sin is to come, it must come from God.
The message of depravity is equally scandalous to people today. We want to find some aspect of human life that is untainted by the consequences of sin. We desperately search for some realm to which we can escape to find the purity and innocence that we know is sadly lacking in our world.
There is no realm into which we can retreat to escape the grim reality of human sin.
Today many people—enticed by the media, especially the movie industry—look to sex for that place of pristine purity. They long for the perfect sexual encounter that for one brief moment will transpose them back to the lost Garden of Eden.
Others scurry off to self-help programs. Or they flock to New Age and Eastern religions, whose teachers promise to release a power they claim lies within each of us. Still others seek to ease the ache by throwing themselves into their careers.
But the gospel speaks the truth of our situation to a people caught up in the lie of our era. There is no return to Eden: not through sex, money, pleasure, success, nor the release of an internal power, which in the end is merely our own human frailty.
Let’s simply admit it: we are helplessly and hopelessly depraved.
This, then, is our situation. Created by God, we are good. God intends that we reflect the character of the Triune Creator. But we are caught in a failure that has characterized human existence from the beginning. Our failure is a radical problem, for it infects even the core of our being. This failure leaves us alienated, condemned, enslaved, and depraved. Within ourselves we have no answer. If there is a solution, it must come from beyond ourselves.
The good news of the Christian faith meets us in our abject spiritual poverty. Help is available! God has intervened radically in this situation. The grace of God has come. In Christ, God has made provision to rescue us from sin. And through the Holy Spirit, God seeks to lead us into the community for which we are created.
We may summarize the effects of sin and God’s antidote by a chart, which we will later complete in chapters 6 and 8:
| Human Condition | Christ’s Provision | Spirit’s Application |
| Alienation | ||
| Condemnation | ||
| Enslavement | ||
| Depravity |
Now as we turn to the next chapter, we gladly move from our human problem to God’s gracious solution.
Mastering the Material
Having Read This Chapter, You Should Know:
For Connection and Application