Question:
Do we sin because we are sinners or are we sinners because we sin? You can not find the phrase “sinful nature” anywhere in the Bible so you either are assuming it or twisting passages like Psalms 51:5 and Romans 7:18 to support your belief. Psalms 51:5 is not referring to the sins of the one who is in the womb but to the sinful world in which the one in the womb is coming in to. His mother, father, etc. all sinned and were sinning. How can a baby, much less than a couple of cells after conception have a sinful nature when that forming baby has not yet sinned? Did not God, after making Adam and Eve, say that it is good? God created man with a human nature not a sinful nature. God said, concerning man, it was good, not it was bad. We all receive a human nature from Adam, not a sinful nature from Adam. In Romans 7:18, “in the flesh,” in contrast to “in the Spirit,” is not referring to Paul’s human nature passed down thru Adam but to Paul’s will. Paul is talking about the difference between doing his own will (in the flesh) to submitting his will to God’s will (walking in the Spirit). Romans 3:23 & 5:12, where it says that “all have sinned,” would be meaningless if we are all born with a “sinful nature” received from Adam. These passages do not say that “all have a sinful nature received from Adam.” We must not blame Adam or God for our sins. Jesus was born human, with a human nature. To be human you have to have 46 chromosones, 23 from the father and 23 from the mother. The Father of Jesus was God, so God created 23 chromosones and used 23 chromosones from Mary to form the human body of Jesus. (God in flesh.) God created humans with a human nature, with a human will, which God claimed to be good. Being human is not sinful. When our will is outside of God’s will then we sin. You can say we have a sinful nature because we sin but not because we received a sinful nature from Adam. Just as Adam sinned,who got outside the will of God, we too sin by getting outside the will of God. Romans 9:10&11, prove that we do not have a “sinful nature” received from Adam but a human nature. If we had a “sinful nature,” verse 11 would say, “For the children being not yet born, was evil or did evil, etc. All have sinned means that we all have got outside of God’s perfect will. We can blame only ourselves.
Answer:
A dog does not become a dog by barking, but barks because he is a dog. The same is true about us. We do not become sinners by sinning. We sin because we are sinners. Check out this Scripture in Romans 3:10 which states, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:” One more good verse for good measure. Look at Ecclesiates 7:20 which states, “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”