WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SAY WE ARE SINNERS?
The Bible means we are by nature sinners. We sin because we are sinners and we are not sinners because we sin. All we do is tainted and we are dead to doing true goodness. We have a selfish motive when we help somebody.
1 Cor. 2: 14: The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged.
Gen. 2: 17: But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou
shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die.
Rom. 5: 12: Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the
world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for
that all sinned.
2 Cor. 1: 9: Yea, we ourselves had the sentence of death within
ourselves, that we should not trust in our¬selves, but in God who
raiseth the dead.
Eph. 2: 1-3: And you did He make alive, when ye were dead through
your trespasses and sins, wherein ye once walked according to the
course of this world, ac¬cording to the prince of the powers of the
air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobe¬dience;
among whom ye also all once lived in the lusts of your flesh, doing
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
children of wrath, even as the rest.
Eph. 2: 12: Ye were at that time separate from Christ, alienated
from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of
promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Jer. 13: 23: Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his
spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
Ps. 51: 5: Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did
my mother conceive me.
John 3: 3: Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, Except one is born anew, he can¬not see the kingdom of
God.
Rom. 3: 10-12: As it is written, There is none righteous, no not
one; There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh
after God; They have all turned aside, they are together be¬come
unprofitable; There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one.
Job 14: 4: Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.
1 Cor. 1: 18: For the word of the cross is to them that perish
foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God.
Acts 13: 41: Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish; For I work
a work in your days, A work which ye shall in no wise believe, if
one declare it unto you.
Prov. 30: 12: There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes,
And yet are not washed from their filthiness.
John 5: 21: For as the Father raiseth the dead and giveth them life,
even so the Son also giveth life to whom He will.
John 6: 53: Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His
blood, ye have not life in yourselves.
John 8: 19: They said therefore unto Him, Where is thy Father? Jesus
answered, Ye know neither me, nor my Father; if ye knew me, ye would
know my Father also.
Matt. 11: 25: I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that
thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and
didst reveal them unto babes.
2 Cor. 5: 17: If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. John
14: 16: (And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another
Comforter, that He may be with you forever,) even the Spirit of
truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth Him not,
neither knoweth Him; ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall
be in you.
John 3: 19: And this is the judgment, that light is come unto the
world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their
works were evil.
John is a good lad but just the once he steals something. So he has
stolen but that in a sense does not make him a thief. We mean that being a
thief is not part of his character. His stealing was a once off.
Calling us sinners does not mean we are people who sin but we are sinful people
who show what we are by our actions. Sinner is a reference first and
foremost to your character. It means you don't want God on his terms and
you love your sin so much that you won't turn to him on your own which is why he
has to help you with grace. Sinner is another way of affirming the
Protestant doctrine of Total Depravity. It is a doctrine that is common in
Christianity. Famously, Calvinism is based on the concept.
Total depravity teaches that we willingly sin and make ourselves depraved and we
cannot escape from this in the sense that it is a bad habit we don’t want to
break. It teaches we necessarily sin but we don’t coercively sin (page 97, The
Institutes of Christian Religion). This means then that salvation is a reward
for sinning because it involves God making us righteous not in ourselves but by
imputation. It would be different if we were forced to sin but when you sin
freely and God does that he is clearly rewarding your sin. The claim that Jesus
paid for the sin and so it is not rewarded is just a cop-out. It is like a
reward to the sinner therefore it is a reward and is as bad as a reward.
One thing that could have stopped Calvinism and all religions which accepted
total depravity from gaining greater popularity is the problem of people who are
said to have been unsaved or unrescued by God who cannot find anything bad on
their consciences at times. For the doctrine to be correct it is necessary that
you sin always until you are saved.
The Bible claims that if you cannot find a sin on your conscience you will find
plenty of sins committed in ignorance. For example, if you forget to send the
poor money it is a sin or if you have not thought of attempting to convert a bad
person it is a sin. God told the Jews that he expected those who inadvertently
committed a sin to repent of it and ask forgiveness for it turn him against them
for they become guilty of sin (Leviticus 4,5).
God said a person who breaks his Law and does not know it is guilty and shall bear his sin (Leviticus 5:17). Jesus sanctioned this frightening teaching even with his dying breath when he asked God to forgive those who crucified him because they did not know what they were doing (Luke 20:34).
In Acts we read that God did have to ignore the sins committed in ignorance
for some purpose but now he expects everybody to repent (17:30). In 1 Timothy 1,
we read that God had mercy on Paul for persecuting the Church and cursing Christ
because Paul did not know any better. He was forgiven because he was foolish.
You are only forgiven by God if you have sinned. So ignorance is a sin. This is
how Christians can accuse everybody of being wicked and even the greatest saint
of being a sinner. It is reasoned that since saying to a policeman that you
didn’t know what the speed limit was won’t get you off it is the same with God.
Religion says that there is such a thing as culpable ignorance. If you refuse to
learn that something is wrong and then d it then your ignorance does not excuse
you. When sin is the supreme evil it follows that no excuse for not knowing is
acceptable.
It is naïve to reject this teaching on the grounds that ignorance means that you
don’t know what you are doing when you do wrong so you cannot be to blame. You
know that neglecting or hesitating to educate yourself in right and wrong and to
try and figure out what could go wrong in the day and the right way to handle it
is wrong. Ignorance could lead you to cause somebody’s death or some other awful
disaster so by embracing it you are really saying that you don’t give a toss
about anybody. Your good works are mockeries in that case. Also, anybody you
care about is not really cared about – it is the feelings you have for them you
are worried about and not them.
Even the anti-Calvinist tome, The Other Side of Calvinism, accepts the claim
that ignorantly doing evil is sinful (page 100).
Total depravity condemns our good tendency to do what is best for ourselves and
to hell with God. It is a disgraceful doctrine for our desire for independence
is a virtue.