I have been curious about the term sin nature for a long time. When did it become part of being a human? What caused it to become something we all struggle with? When messages are given with the term in it, it seems like something Adam created. Obviously, anything created was created by God. Also, God foreknew everything from beginning to end and no surprise to Him.
I decided to search for the answers in Scripture to help me understand it. I discovered man being made in God’s image with the “free will to choose” was there from the beginning of creation, even before the “fall”. Eve was tempted by the serpent, saw the fruit was “pleasing to the eye”, and chose to please herself by taking the fruit from the tree prior to the act of eating the fruit, even though Adam told her God said not to eat. Also, Adam took the fruit from Eve and chose to eat it knowing that God said not to touch it or eat it. The bent to please themself was in them and they disobeyed God before the actual act of eating the fruit. The fall happened because they wanted to please themselves, not God, which is the definition of sin. Every person since then, including us, struggles with this sin nature, putting self-first.
Genesis 3:1-7
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so, they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
After they ate the fruit from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”, God expelled them from the Garden so they would not eat from the “tree of life and live forever”.
Genesis 3:22-23
22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
Sin entered the world and disrupted God’s perfect creation when Adam and Eve gave into their sin nature, but it was no surprise to God. His plan from the beginning was that sin could be forgiven through believing in Jesus’ sacrifice. However, there is one sin that cannot be forgiven.
Mark 3:28-29
28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”
Surrendering to Jesus and Living by the Spirit sets us free from the condemnation of our sin.
Romans 8:1-8
Life Through the Spirit
8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
Sin nature is seeking to please self, not God. Without the Spirit’s constant guidance, we cannot stop sin natures effect in our life and are deserving of God’s wrath.
Ephesians 2:3
3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
I discovered our sin nature, or bent to please ourselves, is with us at birth. Any parent of a toddler can testify to that. However, it is the willful rejecting of God’s gift of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit’s guidance that is the unforgivable sin. I thank our Heavenly Father for giving us a way to be forgiven, by living by the Spirit not living by the flesh. Praise His Holy Name.
Christian Life Coach 