"Every person has an image of himself or herself. The question is, does your image of who you are line up correctly with who God says you are?"

I found those words in a best-selling religious book, in a chapter entitled "Who Do You Think You Are?" The author, who is also the pastor of a very large church, made no attempt to distinguish between Christians and unbelievers before saying, to every reader, "God sees you as a champion. He believes in you even more than you believe in yourself! . . . He regards you as a strong, courageous, successful, overcoming person. . . . God sees you as a victor. . . . as a man or woman of great honor and valor."¹

In the minds of unbelievers (including those who are "Christian" in name only) those words do indeed create a certain self-image. People who believe those words begin to see themselves, not as guilty and condemned because of sin, not as hopeless and helpless apart from the mercy and grace of God, but rather as valuable assets to God and improvements to His kingdom. They are led to believe that they naturally possess the moral attributes and spiritual strength to please Him. But is that a biblical self-image? Does God really see every person in that way? A better question would perhaps be this: Does the Bible give us reason to believe that anyone naturally possesses those qualities and abilities?

A Corrupt Inheritance

God's original creation was without defect. During the six days of creation, God looked six times upon what He had made and saw "that it was good" (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). After completing His creation, after making man in His own image, "God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).² There was no sin or death in the original creation, but rather perfect holiness and peace.

Adam and Eve were created without sin and without any overriding proneness toward evil. They had the ability, by nature, to reflect God's holiness. But Adam and Eve were unique in that sense—different from the rest of mankind. With all the talk about "free will" these days, many people fail to realize that aside from Jesus, Adam and Eve were the only two human beings who have ever entered into life with a will that was truly free. Every person is free to choose what he wants. But no one since Adam and Eve has been born with the natural capacity to want or choose what is right in God's sight. In that sense, no one naturally possesses a free will.

My purpose in the following pages is to examine what the Bible says about two aspects of the natural condition of man: (1) his inherited legal standing in relation to the demands of God's law—in other words, his natural guilt and condemnation, and (2) his inherited spiritual affections, inclinations, and abilities—in other words, his natural will.

Despite Eve's leading role in the commission of the first sin, whenever this important event is mentioned in the New Testament, Adam is always depicted as the one responsible. For example, consider Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15:22: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive." It is largely from this text, as well as Romans 5:12-19 which I will discuss later, that Christians learn about Adam's representative relationship to the rest of mankind—the doctrine commonly known as "original sin." Original sin does not refer to the first act of sin, but rather to the universal results of that act.

Adam's representation may first be understood in a physical sense. All people everywhere descended from him through the normal process of procreation. God "made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26). Just as every person descends physically from Adam, they also inherit the physical consequences of His sin. Adam did not die physically the moment he sinned, but God subjected his body to physical corruption which meant he would gradually deteriorate and eventually die. And because of Adam's sin, the mortality rate among humans today stands at a consistent 100%. We all die (cf. Romans 5:12).

Adam is not only our biological father. God also appointed him as the moral and spiritual representative for every human being. Adam did not die physically the moment he sinned. But he did experience another kind of death immediately: spiritual death. The formerly clear image of God in him was suddenly and terribly marred. He had been created a morally blameless being with the ability to reflect God's holiness. But now, having sinned, he became unholy, guilty, and unavoidably prone to doing evil.

All who descend physically from Adam are born spiritually dead. Every person is a sinner by nature from the moment of conception (cf. Romans 5:19; Ephesians 2:1). It is as if Adam's spiritual DNA, distorted because of sin, passes from one generation to the next, causing all people to bear this sad resemblance to their first father. Though Adam's act of representation in this sense is not fully explained in the book of Genesis (that is, we are not told exactly how sin is passed from Adam to the rest of mankind, or from generation to generation), the universal inheritance of sinful corruption is seen quite clearly in the Bible's consistent descriptions of every one of his descendants:

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. . . . The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth (Genesis 6:5, 11-12).

As it is written, "There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one" (Romans 3:10-12).

. . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others (Ephesians 2:1-3).

This universal wickedness is not something that is learned. No one comes into this life with a "clean slate," only becoming a sinner through experience. David tells us that he possessed a sinful nature at birth (Psalm 51:5). And according to Paul, all Christians, prior to their regeneration, were sinfully depraved "by nature," just as the rest of humanity (Ephesians 2:3). People do not become sinners when they sin; they sin because they are sinners by nature. Just as a baby rattlesnake possesses lethal poison and instinctively knows how to coil and strike, human beings naturally behave according to the sinful nature they inherited from Adam.

Every society in the history of the world has gravitated over time toward evil, not toward good. This alone should dispel the false notion that people are basically good. If they were, it would stand to reason that there would have been at least a few examples where the good overwhelmed the evil, and a society steadily progressed toward perfection. There are certainly fluctuations in this downward moral spiral—periods of time when good prevails and universal depravity seems to go undercover. True biblical revivals have often resulted in dramatic improvements in the moral character of particular societies. Nevertheless, the claim that men are basically good, or even neutral, is debunked by the fact that apart from the grace of God through the influence of genuine Christianity, societies do not naturally upgrade, they degrade.

Born Guilty

A sinful nature is not all we inherited from Adam. We also inherited his guilt. Paul demonstrates this in Romans 5 where he teaches about imputation, which is to have something credited to your account. As Christians, our sin was imputed to Jesus Christ as He paid our debt on the cross. When we are justified before God, it is because God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us. Just as God saw Jesus Christ according to our sinfulness and punished Him accordingly, He sees us according to Christ's righteousness and rewards us accordingly.

In Romans 5:12-19, Paul's was teaching Christians about the beauty of Christ's representative act on their behalf and the imputation of His righteousness. In doing so he used Adam's representative act of sin as a sort of inverse but parallel truth. In verses 18 and 19 this becomes particularly clear. There we see what we inherit, both from Christ and from Adam:

Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men resulting in justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.

As the result of Adam's sin, guilt is imputed to all men resulting in condemnation. It was the one man's offense, the one man's disobedience, that resulted in all men being made sinners, subjected to judgment, and condemned. In verse 16, Paul writes that "the judgment that came from one offense resulted in condemnation." One offense Paul says—one single sin—resulted in the condemnation of the entire human race. And since only guilty people are condemned by a just God, it becomes clear that one single sin resulted in the guilt of the entire human race.

All true Christians love the idea of imputation as it concerns Christ's righteousness being credited to their account. Ironically, many chafe at the idea of imputed guilt because of Adam's sin. "Unfair!" they protest. "I didn't eat the fruit!" Many have tried to soften the impact of this difficult truth by saying that God only does this because He saw that we would have done the same as Adam and Eve, had we been in their place. Though it is undoubtedly true that we would have sinned like Adam and Eve, such is not the focus of Romans 5, nor does it do justice to the true understanding of imputation.

The emphasis in this passage is on the fact that in the wisdom of God, one man's act resulted in consequences for others. Christ's perfect obedience in righteousness is imputed to all whom God sees as being in Him —that is, all believers. On the other hand, Adam's sinful disobedience and guilt is imputed to all whom God sees as being in him—that is, all of humanity. Interestingly, the verse which may explain this most clearly is also the most controversial. It is Romans 5:12:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned . . . (emphasis added).

Notice that the words in italics—" because all sinned"—are written in the past tense. Many will say that it was Paul's intent here to refer to the inevitable acts of sin personally committed by all people during their own lives. But Paul did not write, "because all sin, " (indicating a present and ongoing reality). Nor did he write, "because all will sin" (indicating something in the future). He wrote, "because all sinned," referring to something that occurred in the past.

Paul is saying in verse 12 what the rest of the passage affirms: When Adam sinned, God saw him as the representative of all of humanity. We were all, in a sense, in Adam when he sinned, and therefore we all actually sinned. So if a person were to contend that imputed guilt is unfair, saying "I didn't eat the fruit," we could respond, based on Romans 5:12 and the overall meaning of the passage, by saying, "Yes, you did." Just as "in Adam all die" (1 Corinthians 15:22), so in Adam, "all sinned" (Romans 5:12).

Most importantly, we need to understand that if we fight to deny the doctrine of imputed guilt, we are unknowingly fighting at the same time against the greatest benefit of true Christianity—the imputed righteousness of Christ. If Paul were saying that our condemnation is based solely on our own sin, then his parallel between Adam and Christ makes no sense unless our justification is based solely on our own righteousness. If God cannot justly condemn based on the imputed guilt of our sinful representative, namely Adam, neither can He justly reward based on the imputed righteousness of our perfect representative, namely Christ.

The Natural Man

As I have said, people do not become sinners when they sin; they sin because they are sinners by nature. But several questions remain: How sinful are people by nature? How deeply does sinful corruption permeate the human being? How seriously does inherited corruption affect the ability to relate rightly to God? And what can a person do to alter or improve his natural state?

The "natural man" is the unregenerate person. In 1 Corinthians 2:14, the term describes those who remain in their natural condition of inherited depravity. It refers to every person who has not been born again by the Spirit of God (cf. John 3:3, 5; James 1:18). In other words, it describes every non-Christian, including many who profess to be Christians.

All people, in their natural state, are equally and utterly depraved. I will explain the meaning of "utter depravity" more fully in a moment, but for now it seems right to say that even if all people are equally bad in one sense, some sin in more obvious ways than others. For example, no one would equate the sins of a peace-loving Hindu or Buddhist with those of murderous tyrants like Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein. No one would say that all people sin in the same ways, or with the same horrendous effects on others. Nevertheless, as I said before, all people in their natural state are equally and utterly depraved.

"Utter depravity" (often referred to as "radical corruption") does not indicate the number or type of sins committed by a particular individual. It refers to the fact that every dimension of every natural person is corrupted by sin. The natural will, the natural affections, the natural intellect, the natural emotions, the natural view of self, the natural view of others, the natural view of God, and the natural view of sin—all of these are distorted in the natural person.

The term "total depravity" is often used to describe what I am calling "utter depravity" or "radical corruption." But the term "total depravity" can leave the impression that every human being is as bad as a person could possibly be. The inherent depravity of genocidal monsters like Hitler and Hussein is no greater than the inherent depravity of Gandhi or Mother Theresa. But it is much easier to see because of the disturbing nature and devastating effect of publicly visible sins. Hitler and Hussein sinned in such shocking ways as to draw the hatred of the entire world. But even they were not as sinful as a person could be. In that sense, no one is totally depraved. The term "total depravity," when rightly understood, refers to sin's total permeation of every person by nature, not the total expression of sin by every person in actual practice.

Though no one wants to admit any similarity between himself and Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein, we all came from the same father, Adam. We all inherited the same nature and the same proneness toward sin. Though actual sins vary greatly in nature and in their effect on others, the potential for sin is just as great in the heart of every natural person. Thankfully, God in His mercy restrains most people, even in their natural state, from going to devastating extremes. He does this through their conscience, through exposure to the Bible, through civil laws, through fear of consequences, through the influence of parents, through the church, and sometimes by bringing about their death. But without God's providential restraint, we would all sin with utter abandon. To quote from an old prayer:

Probing the Depths of Depravity

Just how depraved is the natural man? That's a little like asking, after a funeral, "How dead was Uncle Joe when they buried him?" No one is only a little dead at his own funeral. And in the same way that dead is dead, depraved is depraved. As I probe the depths of human depravity in the following pages, remember that there is no difference between persons here. Everyone will be judged according to his own sinful deeds (Matthew 16:27; Revelation 20:12-13). But all sin proceeds from the same sinful nature (Jeremiah 17:9; Mark 7:20-23; Romans 3:10-18).

The following depictions of the natural man describe the universal human condition without distinction:

The Natural Man is a Slave to Sin

In 1 John 5:19 we are told that with the exception of true Christians, "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (NASB). To be under the power of another is to be obligated to behave according to a foreign will, as a slave is compelled to obey his master. Who, or what, holds that authority and power over the natural man? According to this verse it is Satan ("the evil one"). In another place, Paul was hopeful that through gentle, patient instruction, some unbelievers would, by God's grace, "escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will" (2 Timothy 2:26). So in one sense, Satan is the master of the natural man.

The natural man's slavery, however, is not merely to Satan. The natural man is in bondage to the desires of his own heart. As Paul wrote to Titus, "we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures . . . " (Titus 3:3, emphasis added, cf. Ephesians 2:1-3)). James confirms this when he tells us that "each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed" (James 1:13-14, emphasis added). The responsibility for the natural man's slavery to sin cannot be laid at the feet of another. It is a willful, voluntary enslavement. This is explained nowhere more clearly than in Romans 6. Note the italicized words emphasizing responsibility in the following passage:

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? . . . For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness (Romans 6:16, 19).

The natural man does not serve sin out of begrudging obligation when he would rather be holy. He is inclined by nature to love sin and hate true holiness. He obeys the master of his choice. For Satan to tempt a natural man to sin is as easy as tempting a hungry dog to eat meat. All he needs to do is set before the man the things he loves best: "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life . . . " (1 John 2:16). Unless restrained in some way by the grace of God, the natural man, when tempted, will run headlong into sin, satisfying the cravings of his depraved heart the same way a dog, without thinking, satisfies the cravings of its stomach.

____________