Don't Blame It All On Adam

by Paul Earnhart
as published in the January 17, 1999 edition of Life Lines

     Nineteenth century American revivalist Charles G. Finney, Presbyterian lawyer-turned-evangelist, is re-ported to have "bristled with eccentricities." He flew in the face of Calvinistic determinism by declaring that sin was a product of choice, not inherent depravity. He believed all men sin for the same reason that Adam did, because they choose to. I share this "eccentricity." To believe otherwise is to reduce the Bible to nonsense and man to meaninglessness.

     If sin is physical or metaphysical (a foreign substance introduced into our nature because of Adam's sin), then men do evil by nature and not by choice. They are simply biological robots doing what they are programmed to do and cannot be held accountable.

     The message of Scripture says otherwise. Though tempted to disobey God, men are not compelled by any force within or without to do so (1 Corinthians 10:13). Satan can allure, but he cannot compel. Circumstances can press, but they cannot force. There is nothing in the nature of God, man, or the world that necessitates sin. Sin is a product of our own deliberate choice and there are no mitigating conditions to excuse the rebel course we have chosen.

     In the final analysis, man has only two choices - to serve God or to serve himself. Sin is willful lawlessness - the choosing of one's own will instead of God's. The sinner is one who has decided to have his own way, not just in one instance, but in all.

     This is a hard bite to swallow. We do not accept it easily. Most men never do. It is far easier to go on blaming nature, others, or circumstances for our moral aberrations. But as long as we refuse to accept responsibility for our lives, there will be no hope of changing them. If we are convinced that we cannot help what we are, there would certainly be no point in trying to be different. And this is basically the Calvinistic view of man. He is wholly depraved in nature because of Adam's fall and cannot become otherwise until God directly intervenes to give him a new nature.

     But, it is asked, if men could be other than what they are, why is the world so ungodly? Don't men have a depraved nature? Yes, they do. But it is not because of Adam or God, some defect in our character, a universal bad seed. It is because we have all, to a man, chosen the dark road (Romans 5:12). We do not sin because we are depraved. We are depraved because we sin. And so Paul describes us, living "in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and . . . by nature children of wrath, even as the rest . . ." (Ephesians 2:1-3). The Greek word here translated "nature" can mean not only something inborn, but, as in this case, something acquired by long practice - a "second nature." Before men come to Christ they have learned well how to rebel, and the darkness of this chosen "nature" becomes more profound as years pass (2 Timothy 3:13). The decision to become a sinner in time produces moral depravity - the studied and skillful practice of sin.

     "Does this mean that men can live without sin if they choose to? I thought that Bible taught that all have sinned and will sin." The Scriptures do, indeed, teach that (Romans 3:9-10), but saying that men have sinned and will sin is not the same as saying that men must sin. Jesus has proven that such is not the case (Hebrews 4:15). "Can we expect other sinless ones to come along? Could I hope to live a sinlessly perfect life?" No, because God has foreknown it to be otherwise (1 Peter 1:18-20) and has provided a universal remedy for a universal problem (Hebrews 2:9). Even Christians, hating sin as they do, and resolved never to disobey God again, are nevertheless told that they will continue to need God's mercy for their transgressions (1 John 1:7-10).

     "Does this mean that as a Christian I should just yield to failures?" "God forbid," Paul answers, "We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?" (Romans 6:2). God's people are to fight sin with an ever-increasing skill and intensity, but they are to fight it with a sense of triumphant faith in the mercy of God (6:12-14). They will win the victory, not because they have lived perfect lives, but because they have so much wanted to.

     "But how do men become holy?" The same way they became depraved. By choice. Just as Satan allures us to sin, god draws us to righteousness. That is the reason that the gospel is the only weapon of His spiritual warfare. Men cannot be compelled to moral purity any more than they can be forced to moral bankruptcy. God is willing to forgive, but we must choose. We must repent and yield our stubborn will to His. This change of heart, a part of a transformation so radical that Jesus calls it a new birth, will produce in us a new nature - not by God's direct insertion into us of some new and foreign element, but because we have chosen to follow the Lord. Just as the practice of sin produces depravity and a wicked nature, so the practice of godliness, resting upon divine mercy, produces righteousness and a godly nature. We have departed from God on our own. As free creatures, we can return to Him by the same path on which we made our departure.