What Our Sin Nature Does And Doesn’t Mean

Welcome to the study of Randy Alcorn’s book “If God Is Good.” I hope you have been following along. Today we look at chapter 9 titled “A Deeper Consideration Of What Our Sin Nature Does And Doesn’t Mean”. Please do not skip this chapter because you prefer not to look into what our hearts try to keep well hidden. Better to look at it now (our Creator God does) than later.

You can find links to the previous chapters under the heading Bible Studies in the menu above. Unless otherwise noted, I will be using Scriptures from the NKJV.

I thought I would approach this chapter a little differently than I have previously. I will start by listing Randy Alcorn’s statements from chapter 9 which are in bold type as an overview. We will look at them more closely as we go through the chapter.

Fair Warning

I warn you that, if you are like me, some of these statements probably won’t sit very well with you at first glance. Meaning that some of the author’s claims may rub you the wrong way. However, If you are honest with yourself, after pondering these statements a bit, you may come to the conclusion that they are accurate.

When I read this chapter, it really made me stop and rethink some issues throughout my life thus far. I found that I needed to repent of some of my attitudes and thought processes. You may not like what you read today. However, let me encourage you to be honest with yourself and the Lord God. We can lie to ourselves concerning our motives, but the Lord knows our hearts and our true motives.

10 Bold Type Statements From Chapter 9

1. We demonstrate our evil not just by what we do but by what we fail to do and what we stand by and allow others to do.
2. Apart from Christ, we are different from every notorious murderer and ruthless dictator only in degree, not in kind.
3. The modern denial of our evil keeps us from the gospel.
4. Despite our righteous standing in Christ, believers remain prone to sin.
5. The greater the grasp of our sin and alienation from God, the greater our grasp of God’s grace.
6. Having sin natures doesn’t mean we are as evil as we could possibly be or that all people do equal amounts of evil.
7. The biblical teaching of common grace helps us understand how God infuses goodness into a fallen world.
8. If humanity lacked all goodness, the human race could not survive.
9. Modern culture’s habit of denying responsibility and casting blame intensifies evil and suffering.
10. Blaming ourselves for what happens to us is a lost art we need to recover.

Our Sin Nature, What We Do and Fail to Do

Randy Alcorn opens the chapter by stating “we demonstrate our evil not just by what we do but what we fail to do and what we stand by and allow others to do.”

Unfortunately, this is a truth that many of us, myself included, have a hard time acknowledging. How many times have we seen situations and turned away because we didn’t want to get involved?

Examples:

• Fathers abuse their children while mothers look the other way
• Nazis rounded up Jews in Germany while most citizens did nothing
• Slaves picked cotton while those who wore cotton garments created the demand for slave labor.
• Men refused to help raise the children they fathered.
• Women get abortions, and others look the other way or refuse to help a needy woman find alternatives.

The Scriptures tell us:

 ^“Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” –  James 4:17

God in His word commands us to rescue the oppressed, then anticipates our excuses and tells us He knows better: consider the words from Proverbs 24:11-12:

“Deliver those who are drawn toward death,
And hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.

If you say, “Surely, we did not know this,”
Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it?
He who keeps your soul, does He not know it?
And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?”

God makes it clear it isn’t enough to refrain from oppressing or robbing people.

THE FAILURE TO DO RIGHT IS AS EVIL AS DOING WRONG.

“Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates! Thus says the Lord: “Execute judgment and righteousness and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.” – Jeremiah 22:2-3

As an example, the author asked us to consider the ship SS Saint Louis, with its Jewish passengers from Germany seeking asylum, was turned away in Cuba, The United States, and Canada. It returned to Europe, where the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands accepted some of the passengers. Many, later died when Germany invaded three of those countries.

The United States and Canada were aware that the Jews on the SS Saint Louis already had endured Kristallnacht, Germany’s state-sponsored pogrom that resulted in hundreds of Jewish shops destroyed, synagogues burned, and thousands put in concentration camps. Yet both nations turned away these Jewish refugees whose ship had already reached their shores.

We speak of Germany’s evil but the United States and Canada didn’t care enough about these defenseless people to open their borders to them, and as a result, many of them died. Had Germany not threatened Europe and our own country, but simply executed millions of Jews within its borders, would we ever have come to their defense?

We’d like to think that we’re made of better stuff, but we are all part of the same fallen race.

NOTE: Watch the 1976 motion picture of the SS Saint Louis Voyage of the Damned on Amazon Prime.

We Are Not Any Different

Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish sociologist married to an Auschwitz survivor, argues that the Holocaust was not an aberration. The same things that fueled the Holocaust are at work in us today. He says it must not be attributed simply too extraordinary people such as Hitler. It was carried out not only by a handful of monsters but by millions of ordinary people.

Westley Allan Dodd

Randy Alcorn shared the story in his book that just 15 miles from his house Westley Allan Dodd tortured, molested, and murdered three boys. Dodd was scheduled to become the first US criminal hanged in three decades shortly after midnight on January 4th, 1993.

That evening at dinner both of Alcorn’s young daughters who were 11- and 13-year-old prayed earnestly that Dodd would repent and place his faith in Christ before he died. Randy said he agreed with their prayer, but only because he knew that he should.

As reporters from all over the country crowded around the prison 30 minutes after Dodd died, the twelve media eyewitnesses recounted the experience.

Randy Alcorn felt stunned as one of the reporters read Dodd’s last words. Dodd said “I had thought there was no hope and no peace. I was wrong. I have found hope and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The reporter goes on to say that gasps and groans erupted from the gallery fueled by palpable anger. How dare someone who committed such heinous crimes claim that he had found hope and peace in Jesus! Did he really think God would let him into heaven after what he’d done? Shut up and go to hell, you child killer! You won’t get off so easily!

The idea of God offering grace to Dodd utterly offended the crowd that had come to see justice done.

That’s when it hit me in a deep and personal way Randy said. I am part of the same human race. I imagined the distance between Dodd and me as the difference between the South and North poles. However, from God’s viewpoint, the distance is negligible.

Apart from Jesus Christ, we are Dodd. We are Osama bin Laden. We are Hitler.

ONLY BY THE VIRTUE OF CHRIST CAN I STAND FORGIVEN BEFORE A HOLY GOD.

Our Sin Nature – Holding On To The Proud Illusion

This isn’t hyperbole; it’s biblical truth. Unless we come to grips with the fact that we’re of precisely the same stock as Dodd, Stalin, and Mao, we will never get past thinking that we deserve better. Evil done to us will offend us and having to suffer will outrage us.

We will never appreciate Christ’s grace so long as we hold on to the proud illusion that we’re better than we are. We flatter ourselves when we look at evil acts and say I would never do that. Given our evil nature and similar background, resources, and opportunities, we would.

“For My people are foolish, They have not known Me.
They are silly children, And they have no understanding.
They are wise to do evil, But to do good they have no knowledge.” – Jeremiah 4:22.

Look at world history. Look at your own personal history. We skillfully conceive evil and proficiently execute it. The fact that we don’t call it “evil” is just further evidence of our evil.

The 17th-century writer La Rochefoucauld said, “there is hardly a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does.”

The evil within us can stand toe to toe with the evils of human history, for we are all made of the same stuff.

Randy Alcorn said “I doubt that those who wanted Dodd to “get what’s coming to him” were ready to take what they had coming: Hell.

Denial of Our Evil Keeps Us from the Gospel

G. K. Chesterton claimed that original sin, the most unpopular of all Christian dogmas,

“Is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved…(some people) essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street”

From the book: Orthodoxy By G. K. Chesterton www.freeclassicebooks.com)

Since humanity’s exit from Eden, we’ve been skilled sinners. Today, however, many people assume the moral high ground as they defend their immoral choices. They offer compelling reasons for:

• cheating on their taxes
• cheating on their spouses
• stealing from their workplaces
• lying on their resumes
• beating people up physically or verbally

The result of this habitual rationalization? A major obstacle to the gospel.

C. S. Lewis noted:

“When the apostles preached, they could assume even in their Pagan hearers a real consciousness of deserving the divine anger… It was against this background that the Gospel appeared as good news. It brought news of possible healing to men who knew that they were mortally ill.

But all this has changed. Christianity now has to preach the diagnosis, in itself very bad news, before it can win a hearing for the cure….

A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad… We lack the first condition for understanding what He is talking about.

From the book, The Problem of Pain – (Free PDF)

The man who swallows ocean water and is going under doesn’t need to hear he’s drowning; he needs a life preserver. But countless people today, arms flailing as they attempt to keep their heads above water, don’t believe they’re drowning, and so don’t think they need rescue.

Bonnie’s NOTE: That is such a true statement, and it makes me sad because even in my own family there are those who don’t see a need for a Savior. They haven’t stopped to think about their eternity and where they will spend it. After all, good people go to heaven… It seems to me that we have grown too modern and too knowledgeable in this day and age. in our hubris, we see ourselves as gods. While the true God is nothing more than a myth…

Believers Remain Prone To Sin

God has given to us in Christ and his indwelling Spirit the ability not to sin.

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,” – Titus 2:11-12

Some however take our righteous standing in Christ to mean we’re no longer able to sin. Scripture clearly contradicts this.

^“For we all stumble [sin] in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.” –  James 3:2

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” – 1 John 1:8-10

The apostle Paul said: “Christ came into the world to save sinners – of which I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1:15).

We should notice that Paul said I am the worst, not I was the worst. Yes, Paul had put on Christ’s righteousness and lived a Spirit-led life. God had sanctified him. Those who knew him might view him as the best of men. However, the Apostle Paul knew himself, his heart, and his tendencies toward evil.

The author says that “we should not think that Paul’s saying that there’s no one on the planet worse than he, but rather, he was more conscious of the depth of his own sin than anyone else’s.”

Only a person who is deeply aware of their evil tendencies will humbly take the necessary steps to guard their own heart against sin.

Jesus said, “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Recognizing that we are great sinners helps deliver us from pretending that we are better than someone else. It keeps us more honest before God and others, and hopefully more humble (as opposed to merely appearing to be humble as a prideful strategy).

Free From Sin’s Lordship

As a follower of Christ, we are free from sin’s lordship.

“Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.  Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,  knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.” – Romans 6:6-9

Sinclair Ferguson writes:

“But this freedom from the dominion of sin is not the end of our struggle against sin. In fact, it’s the beginning of a new conflict with it. For while we have died to sin, sin has not died in us….

It remains, and it is still sin. What has changed is not its presence within our hearts, but its status (it no longer reigns) and our relationship to it (we are no longer its slaves).”  

From Know your Christian life : a theological introduction 125, 138.

The Christian can persevere in his lifelong struggle against sin with confidence in his core identity as God’s child with the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit to empower him to obey Christ rather than sin. But he puts his confidence only in God’s grace, for his indwelling sin is still active and deceptive.

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” – Galatians 5:1, see also Galatians 5:13-24

God’s Grace

The greater the grasp of our sin and alienation from God, the greater our grasp of God’s grace.

Charles Spurgeon stated:

“Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Savior.”

From: The autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon (Grand Rapids, MI: Revel, 1899), 76.

Below are four ways we try to explain away our sin:

1. a bad day
2. that’s not what I meant
3. I did what my father always did to me
4. I wouldn’t have done this if you hadn’t done that

Have you ever used any of these excuses? Could you add others to the list? All these statements minimize our evil and thereby minimize the greatness of God’s grace in atoning for our evil.

Grace isn’t about God lowering His standards. It’s about God fulfilling those standards through the substitutionary suffering of Jesus Christ. Grace never ignores or violates the truth. Grace gave what truth demanded: the ultimate sacrifice for our wickedness!

God’s grace is greater than my sin. However, my ability to measure the greatness of His grace depends on my willingness, in brokenness before Him, to recognize the greatness of my sin.

“ Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” – 1 Peter 5:5

THE PROUD DENY THEIR EVIL; THE HUMBLE CONFESS IT!

A profound awareness of my evil should move my heart to praise God for the wonders of His grace.

Having Sin Natures Doesn’t Mean…

Having sin natures doesn’t mean we are as evil as we could possibly be or that all people do equal amounts of evil.

“Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who always does good and who never sins.” – Ecclesiastes 7:20 AMP

The above passage affirms that a man can’t always do right, NOT that he can never do right. Jesus said that some will bear Judgment Day better than others.

“But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.” – Matthew 11:24

Why? Because some have sinned less than others. Jesus said some will be punished more severely than others.

“And that servant who knew his master’s will and did not prepare himself or do according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes.  But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes shall be beaten with few…” – Luke 12:47-48

Do some unsaved humans commit less evil than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot? Yes. Paul wrote, “But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” – 2 Timothy 3:13

If evil men can go from bad to worse, then obviously they can be bad, without being as bad as possible.

Jesus made clear in the sermon on the mount that we can do the right thing with the wrong motives and thereby be evil-doers. But clearly, an unbeliever can do some things from better motives or worse motives.

Residual Goodness

Despite our bondage to sin and our inability to earn God’s favor, human beings can make some good choices.

The credit for anyone’s good attitude or action ultimately goes to the good God who creates people “made in God’s likeness” (James 3:9).

We might call the goodness in human beings a residual goodness, a marred form of the goodness of the pre-fallen state. If we retain a likeness to a good God, even as sinners, might that imply the capacity for some goodness?

In the case of believers, God graciously empowers us by His Holy Spirit to act in accordance with the righteous nature granted to us in Christ. The Apostle Paul stated:

“But by the [remarkable] grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not without effect. In fact, I worked harder than all of the apostles, though it was not I, but the grace of God [His unmerited favor and blessing which was] with me.” – 1 Corinthians 15:10 AMP

This accounts for some of the startling acts of goodness done by Christians throughout the ages, sacrificing their lives not only in martyrdom but decades of cheerfully helping desperately needy people.

But does the Holy Spirit’s supernatural empowerment to do good in believers mean that only Christians can do good? The author doesn’t think so. Jesus asked:

“Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” –  Matthew 7:9-11

Here Jesus affirms that we are evil and yet, we know how to give good gifts to our children.

Of course, an unbeliever’s good deeds don’t win him a place in heaven. Nonetheless, Paul says:

“When Gentiles, who do not have the Law [since it was given only to Jews], do instinctively the things the Law requires [guided only by their conscience], they are a law to themselves, though they do not have the Law. When Gentiles, who do not have the Law [since it was given only to Jews], do instinctively the things the Law requires [guided only by their conscience], they are a law to themselves, though they do not have the Law.” Romans 2:14-15 AMP

This seems to confirm that sinners can heed a God-given conscience and sometimes do good.

Common Grace

The biblical teaching of common grace helps us understand how God infuses goodness into a fallen world. Common grace is God’s means by which He gives people innumerable blessings that are not part of salvation.

Not every person experiences saving grace, but all people, without exception even unrepentant sinners, daily experience common grace.

Even fallen humanity enjoys residual goodness in a world that God is still overseeing and holds together.

“And He is before all things, and in Him, all things consist.” – Colossians 1:17

Jesus said God makes “His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” -which must mean some people are good in some sense.

People can do good deeds. Consider the following:

• Joseph of Arimathea: “there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man.” – Luke 23:50
• The master calls his servant good and faithful: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things.” – Matthew 25:21
• Barnabas: ^“For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.” – Acts 11:25

God Restrains Evil

Imagine, if humans lacked all goodness, the human race could not survive.

• Drivers would disobey every traffic signal
• All police would become utterly corrupt
• Every pedestrian would be robbed
• Every house would be plundered
• Murder, rape, and other cruel acts would reign
• No driver would nod to let a man cross the street except to run him down
• The poor and disabled would face extinction
• Just laws would not exist.
• All parents would abandon their children on the streets.

In such a world as the above, no problem of evil would exist. It would not occur to us to question God’s goodness in allowing evil and suffering. That is unless we had some capacity to understand what goodness really is.

Our Sin Nature Rebels Against Taking Responsibility

Our sin nature rebels against taking responsibility for evil and suffering. Modern culture’s habit of denying responsibility and casting blame intensifies evil and suffering. Ever since Adam blamed Eve for persuading him to eat the forbidden fruit, and Eve blamed the serpent for getting her to eat it, impugning others has become the normal human practice (see Genesis 3:12-13).

ACCUSING ANOTHER ALLOWS US TO JUSTIFY OUR OWN SIN.

Our culture of blame, exemplified by frivolous lawsuits, goes hand in hand with a sense of entitlement.

• We think we deserve the best and are offended when we don’t get it.
• We feel outraged at wrongs done to us, whether real or imagined.
• Most fans of opposing teams watching the same sporting event believe the referees repeatedly make unjust calls against their team.

Blaming ourselves for what happens to us is a lost art we need to recover.

G. K. Chesterton wrote perhaps the shortest essay in history. The London Times asked various writers for essays on the topic “What’s Wrong with the World?” Chesterton replied,

Dear Sirs:
    I am.

Sincerely Yours,
G. K. Chesterton

---

Daniel, a righteous man, came before God confessing the sin of his nation. In his prayer, he did not say “They have sinned,” but, “We have sinned” (Daniel 9:5). He took ownership of his own contribution to the problem of national sin.

So should we all.

Instead of bemoaning our own predicaments, how often do we look at the world, with all it’s evil and suffering, and say to God, “Forgive me for my part in the world’s sin”?

It’s easy to blame God for not doing all He can to stop evil and suffering. But consider that our loving Heavenly Father God has:

• graciously allowed the world to continue while postponing final judgment.
• put us in this world with a mission that includes resisting evil and relieving suffering.
• entrusted us with vast resources to carry out that mission.

WE JUST MIGHT WANT TO ASK IF WE, AND NOT GOD, ARE TO BLAME...