Are Men Born Sinners? - Library of Theology

flesh and of the mind." And then, summing up the wickedness, the guilt, and the ill-desert
of their former life, he says "and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others."
But to teach from this text that babies are born with a sinful nature, and that they come
into this world under the awful wrath of God because of that nature is a shocking
doctrine. What? Is God really ready to let loose the terrors of his anger and the
consuming fires of his wrath upon innocent little babies for the nature with which they
are born? Shame on the church for teaching such an abominable, God-dishonoring
doctrine!
Adam and Eve had two natures; yet we know that they were not created with two natures.
They had the nature they were created with, which was good and upright, and they also
had a sinful nature after they had sinned. It was this last nature, a voluntary nature, which
made them "By nature the children of wrath." Men may have a nature in three distinct
ways:
1. By birth. This is the good and upright nature with which we are all created.
2. By having sinned and come short of the glory of God. This is a voluntary nature. It is
the nature that makes us enemies of God, children of the devil, and "by nature the
children of wrath."
3. By being born again. John 3:3. This is also a voluntary nature in which we, by faith,
become "partakers of the divine nature." II Peter 1:4
The word nature in the Bible, when it refers to our birth, never refers to a sinful nature.
This is shown in Rom. 2:14, which says: "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law,
do by nature the things contained in the law..." Now the word nature in this text does
refer to the nature we receive at birth. But it is evident that the word nature used here is
not a sinful nature. For how would a sinful nature ever cause us to "do by nature the
things contained in the law"? A sinful nature would not cause us to do the things
contained in the law a sinful nature would only cause us to commit sin! (See Rom. 1:26,
27; I Cor. 11:14; and Rom. 2:14, 15, which show that our nature teaches us the
differences between right and wrong, but never causes us to do the wrong.)
To maintain that we are born with a sinful nature is to charge God, the Author of our
nature, with creating sinners. Men are not "born short of the glory of God." They "sin and
come short of the glory of God." Our Lord took on human nature. We know therefore
that human nature is not sinful in itself. Finally, that babies are not born with a sinful
nature and are not "children of wrath" by birth is evident from what Jesus said of them:
"For of such is the kingdom of God." Luke 18:16.
IV. Job 14:4 "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one."
This text is supposed to teach that sinful parents will bear sinful children. But this is to
completely ignore its context, which shows that Job had his eye wholly on the frail and