Are We Really Born with a Sinful Nature? (Spanish)

Good morning, you can take your seat.

There is an enormous danger in standing here and talking about the sinful nature—both for my soul and for yours. So would you join me first in prayer?

Father, we come, and we desperately need your presence through your Spirit. We know, oh God, that there is a fierce and cunning enemy who wants to distract and destroy any proclamation of the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. So protect us, oh Lord, from any scheme and strategy of the enemy. Preserve and exalt the preaching of your word. Lord, I plead even concerning my own fleshly desires that want to exalt themselves while I preach your word. Oh Lord, I ask by the spirit, Lord, that you would mortify them, and that the one who is seen and exalted would be our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is in the name of Jesus that we pray these things. Amen.

Well, perhaps this is an abrupt transition, but I would like to know if you can identify the source of the following quotes. Who said it?

First: “I seek peace, and I have always sought peace, and I have longed for peace.”

Second—this is the same author: “In a world of hypocrites, the sincere ones are the bad guys.”

You’re starting to figure out who it might be. Not yet?

Third—let’s see if this one helps you identify it: “I am a decent man who exports flowers.”

The source of these three phrases, believe it or not, is the famous Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar. Pablo Escobar, founder of the Medellín cartel in Colombia. Obviously, he has a long history of ordering the assassination of various political figures. Many judges and police officers were killed during his “silver or lead” strategy: either you take the bribe, or we kill you. He ordered the bombing of Avianca Flight 203 in the year 1989.

And I honestly don’t know how he defines peace, how he defines sincerity, or how he defines decency. But what I do think we can say is that none of us is good at judging ourselves.

Throughout history, between philosophy and psychology, there have been different positions about human nature, specifically in relation to morality. Is the human being good, or is the human being evil?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss philosopher of the seventeenth century, maintained that human beings are inherently good by nature, but it is society that corrupts them. Or Abraham Maslow, a twentieth-century American psychologist—the one who developed the hierarchy of needs—he also believed that human beings are essentially good and are motivated by a natural tendency toward growth, self-actualization, and the development of their potential.

On the other hand, there is the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher of the fifteenth century, known for his work Leviathan. Hobbes believed that the human being is naturally selfish, fearful, and aggressive. And maybe when you hear that you say, “Yeah, the guy was kind of mad,” right?

Today, we also have countless positions surrounding this question of what the moral character of the human being looks like. Is the human being, by nature, good? Or is the human being, by nature, evil?

We could perhaps classify some of the current positions. We could talk about a modern self-help posture. This view teaches that truth and purpose are inside yourself. Follow your heart. Your heart is inherently good, so whatever your heart suggests, you should follow it.

Or we could talk about a psychological optimism inspired perhaps by people like Rousseau and Maslow, which holds that human beings are born good and innocent, and it is really the environment that corrupts us.

We could talk about something very strong today: moral relativism. This view rejects objective moral truths—everything is really a social construction, and morality depends on cultural context or even on each individual perspective.

Or we could talk about human potentialism, affirming that every human being has greatness, every person is a light, and is simply waiting to shine.

All these perspectives, if you notice, place the human being as the absolute protagonist of the universe. In them, the human being is not only the center; the human being is the source of all truth, the source of all purpose, judge, and advocate of self. In other words, the place that belongs to God has been occupied by the self.

These ideas are not neutral or harmless. Though they present themselves as liberating truths, they have become a kind of modern creed—a catechism—offering answers to fundamental questions that must be answered about humanity: what are we? How do we function? What is our purpose? What is good and what is evil?

But there is a fundamental problem in these answers. These modern, cultural answers present themselves with a tone of authority, but they do not rest on a firm foundation. They are constructed by the very human beings they are trying to define. They are, so to speak, absolutes built on a foundation of relativism.

Can the human being truly define himself? Can a changing culture—an uncertain and capricious society—really establish permanent truths?

And here the need for another source of authority becomes obvious. Because if everything depends on what you and I feel, or think, or decide, there is no firm foundation. And then it should not surprise us that there is so much noise around the question: do human beings truly have a sinful nature?

The Scriptures offer us a radically different alternative. They propose that clear standards do exist and that there are true answers to these questions, but they do not come from the human being himself. They come only from the creator. As the authority over life, he has the right and the authority to define human nature.

So the question we must ask today is: what do the Scriptures tell us, in light of what we just heard about their reliability? What, then, do the Scriptures tell us about human nature?

And to answer that question, we must go back to the beginning—and not only to the moment of creation; we will get there, but to the very source of all things: the God who formed us.

Paul is speaking in Acts chapter 17, verses 25–26, and he says:

“The God who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all life and breath and everything.”

The worldview of the Scriptures does not begin with the human being as the absolute protagonist of the universe. The story of the Scriptures recognizes the triune God as the absolute protagonist—who has made all things, established the heavens, filled the seas and the earth, hung the sun and the moon, and given life and breath to human beings. And he, then, has the right and the authority to answer these fundamental questions about human nature.

So if we want to understand the human being—his nature, identity, morality—we cannot begin with human opinions. We must begin with what God has said. Since he is the source of all wisdom, we must start with him.

So now, yes, let’s go to Genesis 1. Let’s go to Genesis 1.

In Genesis chapter 1, verses 26–28, we see the Scriptures say:

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’”

“God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

“God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

We see in creation that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. This concept has great historical richness, and what it points to is a concept whose meaning we may have lost, because it has fallen out of common use since we moved beyond the age of monarchies.

To be the image of God had to do with being a regent, a regent of the king. A regent was someone who ruled over a certain place as a representative, not under his own authority, but as a representative of the true king. And because we were designed in his image, God entrusted to human beings the task of being his regents, his representatives—representing him on this earth, representing his interests and the things that concern him.

We can see from the moment of creation that human beings are not on the earth simply for their own interests. They are not on the earth to satisfy their own rights or desires. They are not independent beings. They were created to depend on God, and they are here to rule over the earth under the government of God and to represent the interests of God.

To represent him is, in a sense, to be a mirror for him, which includes aspects of his own moral nature: his goodness, his purity, his holiness. To reflect him is also tied to the mandate to fill the earth with what exalts God, what represents God.

Eden, so to speak, would be a kind of cosmic temple that Adam and Eve were meant to expand, so as to fill the whole earth with the exaltation, the glorification of God. In that sense, they would be functioning not only as regents, but also as priests—constantly producing a liturgy of worship to God as they expanded the domain of Eden over the face of the earth.

Human beings were made to be regents of his kingdom and priests of his temple, both of them being in Eden, which they were expanding.

And there is one more aspect. In the creation account in Genesis 2, we see something also important about human beings. Notice Genesis 2:7:

“Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”

The source of human life is God. It is God. God fills human beings with life that is his, that proceeds from him in one way or another. Human beings have a distinct bond with their creator compared to everything else in creation.

And notice how the author ends Genesis chapter 1 in verse 31:

“God saw all that he had made—including human beings—he saw all that he had made, and declared that it was good. And not simply good: it was very good.”

God cannot call what is evil, good. When God affirms the goodness of creation, he is affirming, in its fullness, the perfection, the integrity, the morality of what he has made. This is not merely an aesthetic declaration. God is not merely saying, “Man, that’s cool, what I made.” No. He is affirming its full quality in every sense: what I have made is good, as I, God, source of life, source of all wisdom, define good.

God looks at all his creation, including human beings, and says his creation is very good. So, in theology, we speak of the original righteousness or original goodness of Adam and Eve—that they were originally righteous. Their nature was, from the beginning, righteous. Put simply: the original nature of human beings is not sinful. The original nature is not sinful. Sin, so to speak, is not essential to human nature; it is a later addition.

This means that in Adam and Eve, there was moral purity of conduct and, at the same time, complete access to communion with God with no hindrance from sin. Their life, their work, their friendships, their relationships, their thoughts, their meditations were not only good in quality; they were pleasing to the God who created them. They exalted God. They honored God.

There was no egocentrism in Adam and Eve. There was no idolatry of self in Adam and Eve. They were, so to speak, in biblical terms, spiritually alive toward God. Their lives pleased and worshiped God, and they were in an intimate and delightful relationship with and for God.

They were good.

And I just want to take a moment before we move to what you already know is coming, to acknowledge that this is a grand and exalted view of human beings. What a beautiful image, and what a heavy calling—eternal glory—to be designed as regents and priests of the creator God.

Some have commented that Christianity assumes a somewhat pessimistic posture toward human beings. And we will get to why that has dominated our hymns and our songs and everything else. There is a very good reason for that. But that pessimistic posture is not based on the creational nature, the original nature of human beings. We can remember and appreciate the original goodness of human creation, and we can greatly appreciate the creativity and goodness of God.

This is why the psalmist says in Psalm 8:

“What is man that you remember him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the angels, and you crown him with glory and majesty.”

And yet, it does not take a great scholar to recognize that human beings no longer shine with that glory of their original nature. What happened? What happened?

In Genesis 2, God gives Adam and Eve a very clear command. There is a forbidden tree. And we usually say, “Ah, God, so extreme—why forbid that fruit?” But the tree matters. The tree was the tree of what? Of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam and Eve would not need to distinguish between good and evil because they are in complete communion with God. The source of understanding good and evil was God. They were dependent beings. In short, to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would be an act of independence from God—an act of becoming their own judges of good and evil.

And God warns them: if you eat from that tree, you will surely die. If the breath of life was God, and they were designed to depend on God, how would they live without God? How will they live independent of God?

And in Genesis 3, we see how a deceiver enters—a liar—a serpent who is an adversary of God. He begins to lie to Eve and to cast doubt on the good nature of God, suggesting that they can, in fact, be like God; they can be independent; they do not need to represent the interests of God. They could, in fact, represent their own interests. They could occupy the place of absolute protagonist in the universe.

And Adam and Eve, with the capacity given by God, decide to rebel. They choose to believe the lie of the deceitful serpent, and they introduce corruption into the good creation. Instead of living dependent on him, representing him, expanding Eden to glorify him, they choose to become independent from God, pursue their own interests, and live a life in which they compete with God for his throne and his authority.

Put another way: in one decision, they became adversaries of God and no longer regents. Because what happens in a kingdom when someone rises up who also wants to reign over the same place? They are enemies.

God had warned them that if they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. Now, this death does not refer exclusively to physical death, but rather to a corruption of their life such that the life they had could never be recovered.

And it is important that the rest of Scripture explains the magnitude of the impact of this decision of Adam and Eve. They did not merely make a decision to eat a fruit. Adam, in particular, was making a decision as a representative of all future human generations.

Notice how Paul explains it in Romans 5:12:

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death spread to all men because all sinned.”

The magnitude of this decision was not merely about their own communion with God. By choosing to rebel against God, they perverted human nature so that every human being born after them would not be born in original righteousness—spiritually alive toward God—but would be born with original sin: spiritually dead and corrupt before God.

So now, according to Scripture, we can answer our question: Are human beings born with a sinful nature?

Let’s see the result of this decision by Adam and Eve.

Notice what Job says in Job 14:1–4:

“Man, who is born of woman, is short-lived and full of turmoil. Like a flower, he comes forth and withers; he also flees like a shadow and does not remain. You also open your eyes on him and bring him into judgment with yourself. Who can make the clean out of the unclean? No one.”

If Adam and Eve are unclean, and they procreate, what do they produce? Someone unclean.

Notice what David says in Psalm 51:5:

“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”

What Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:22:

“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”

Ephesians 2:3:

“Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”

Scripture answers forcefully: because of the rebellion of Adam and Eve in the garden, yes, human beings are born with a sinful nature, dead before God, with no hope at all of avoiding the consequences in themselves.

What does it mean to have this sinful nature?

Notice what Paul says in Romans chapter 3, starting in verse 10:

“As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become useless; there is none who does good. There is not even one.’ ‘their throat is an open grave; with their tongues they keep deceiving.’ ‘The poison of asps is under their lips.’ ‘whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.’ ‘their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known.’ ‘there is no fear of God before their eyes.’”

Someone says, “That’s me.” Well, yes, right?

What does it mean to have this sinful nature? There are many different ways we could frame this, but I’m going to propose three things that it means to have a sinful nature.

Number one: it means that the original state of human beings has been corrupted. Instead of being born as good representatives of God and his interests, with moral conduct reflecting the purity and holiness of God, we are now born corrupted—corrupt—so that our inclination is adversarial toward God and his law.

The original state has been corrupted. Now it is important to distinguish: corrupted, but not destroyed. Corrupted, but not destroyed. By the grace of God, human beings are not as sinful as we could be.

In theology, we make a distinction between total depravity and absolute depravity. Total depravity is what Scripture shows us: that all the faculties of human beings have been corrupted by sin, but they have not been absolutely depraved.

Maybe we can explain it like this. I have this water bottle here—by the way, give me just a second. Imagine I have this bottle of fresh, cold water; there’s even maybe a little condensation on it; it looks refreshing, and you’re dying of thirst. But I tell you, “just give me a second,” right?

And I pull out a little bag, and in the bag I have a little bit of animal droppings—from any animal—and I just pour a little into the bottle. The contents of the bottle are not completely animal droppings, right? And yet the whole bottle has been contaminated.

Would you take a sip of the water in this bottle? No. In its totality, even though it isn’t completely droppings, in its totality, it has been corrupted. And that’s how human nature works. It’s not that the entire human being is now sin, but every faculty of the human being has been contaminated by sin.

And this is why this debate abounds in popular culture: is the human being good or is the human being evil? Because human beings still retain a certain capacity—given the image of God, given the grace of God—to do some kind of good. And yet, even the quality of what the Bible calls “good works” is not clean. They are not done with a pure desire to honor God above all things.

And this corruption of the original state has affected every faculty of the human being: relationships, emotions, the mind, the body, biology, sexuality, and desires. This corruption has introduced into the human experience shame, guilt, fear, anxiety, and insecurities. Every faculty of human beings has been contaminated by the presence of sin.

Number two: human inclination is toward sin.

Notice what Paul says in Romans 8:7–8:

“The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

If you want to know how Scripture defines good and evil, good is that which pleases God.

This inclination toward sin—the Scriptures use even stronger language. They call it slavery: human beings are enslaved to sin.

The fifth-century theologian Augustine spoke of the fact that in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve could sin, and they could not sin. Are you with me? In the garden, Adam and Eve could sin, and they could not sin. But Augustine says that after the fall in Genesis 3, human beings cannot sin. They cannot sin.

What is most natural—if we want to talk about nature—what is most natural for the human being without Christ is to sin. And that is why arguments like, “it’s just who I am, it’s my nature,” can be answered: well, of course, but that is not a creational nature. That is a fallen nature, contaminated, corrupted by the presence of sin.

Number three: What does it mean to have a sinful nature? It means we are born alienated from God and guilty before him.

Notice what Paul says in Colossians 1:21:

“And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds…”

Isaiah 59:2:

“But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”

Because of our sinful nature, we cannot be in the presence of God. This is why God forbade the people of Israel from entering the most holy place in the temple.

Human beings are born alienated from God and guilty before him. Paul says in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Other translations say they have been deprived of the glory of God. Later, Paul says in Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin are death.”

These three aspects summarize the spiritual death of which God warned Adam: that human beings, ironically, are born dead, corrupt in nature, inclined toward sin, alienated, and guilty before God.

And just let me tell you this with love: this is your story, and this is my story. No—there is no one born good. You can be born into great wealth or great scarcity, but you are born dead, guilty before God. You can be born in a famous nation; you can be born in a hidden village. You are born dead before God. You can live a life of great success, or you can suffer countless failures and defeats—you are born dead before God.

There is none who is born righteous, in answer to the question.

So then, are we born with a sinful nature? Do we have to say, according to the testimony of Scripture, emphatically? Yes.

God bless you. I answered the question.

How does God respond to this sinful nature? How does he respond? Has the original plan of God been totally lost? The glory and exaltation of human beings over creation as regents and priests of God—has it been lost? Is it done?

By the mercy and grace of God, in no way has it been lost, because God has a plan of restoration and rescue.

Notice what the apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2:

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience…”

Verse 4:

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with christ—and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in christ jesus—so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in christ jesus.”

Having every right and all authority to abandon human beings, to deprive us eternally of his presence and condemn us eternally for our sin—God does not do it. Because of his perfect character, because of the deep love of the thrice-holy God who created us, he decides in love to rescue and save what had been corrupted.

Paul says that God, who is rich in mercy, sent his son Jesus Christ to receive in himself the wages of death for our sin. So that instead of you and me having to suffer the eternal consequences of our sin, Christ was condemned in our place. What should have happened to us for our rebellion happened to Christ. Christ was tortured. Christ was murdered. Christ was publicly shamed. Christ died the vile death of a rebel. Christ suffered the abandonment of the Father that should have been ours.

And the Scriptures explain that everyone who confesses faith in Jesus Christ is saved. Instead of receiving eternal condemnation—eternal death—he receives eternal life.

And brothers and sisters, I just want to take a moment to say: we here have the privilege of hearing this news. One out of every four people born on the face of the earth will most likely be born and die without ever hearing the name of Jesus Christ. Brother and pastor David will talk about this more later.

But we don’t only receive eternal life if we confess faith in Christ. Paul says in verse 10 of Ephesians 2:

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Just time, time, time.

Those who confess faith in Christ are not merely rescued from eternal condemnation. Rather, in some mysterious and miraculous way, they are restored to their vocation given from Eden: to participate with God as his regents and priests.

These people have entered a process of being restored to their original glory. We are recreated in Christ, the second Adam. God is recreating for himself a new humanity that exists to represent his interests, to expand the knowledge of his glory to the ends of the earth.

And notice how Revelation 5:9–10 ends:

“And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals; for you were slain, and purchased for God with your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.’”

What a glorious picture. How so? I mean—me, rebellious, corrupt, egocentric—you not only delivered me from the condemnation of my sin. Rather, I will reign eternally with Christ. Yes. Yes.

All those who confess faith in Christ are not merely rescued from the condemnation of their sinful nature; they are made regents and priests again in the temple and kingdom of God—in praise and glory and worship to the slain lamb who rescued them. And they will represent the interests of God eternally.

So two very pointed questions.

The first is the most urgent: have you believed in Christ? Have you believed in Christ? Because the one who has not believed in Christ is still dead in trespasses and sins, still facing eternal condemnation. But for the one who has believed in Christ, there is no condemnation. Amen. For the one who has believed in Christ, he has been delivered, saved, rescued.

Second question: Are you mortifying the old self? When we put our faith in Christ, we are freed from our slavery to sin. That is: Adam and Eve could sin, and they could not sin. After the fall, we cannot sin. Now imagine that you and I, if we are in Christ, can not sin. We can not sin.

Paul says in Romans 6: “Do not present the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but to God as those alive from the dead.” If you are in Christ, you are now called to actively put to death your old nature and cultivate your new nature. The spirit of God reigns in you, and you have the capacity not to sin.

Have you believed in Christ? Are you killing the old self?