SINFULNESS OF MAN

            

The good news of the Bible is redemption, offered by God through Jesus Christ. This is   necessitated by man’s sinfulness and is available for those who admit their helplessness. Christ Himself says in Luke 5:31, 32, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”    

SINNERS BY NATURE:

Man (including woman in generic sense) was created sinless. Through disobedience man became a sinner – guilty before God. The first man being the federal head, all his descendants inherit his sin nature and are sinners before God. Romans 5:12 says, “….just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all, because all sinned.” The consequence of sin is spiritual death - separation from God, though God had created man in His likeness for intimate fellowship with Him.    

SINNERS BY CHOICE:

Man is not a sinner because he sins, but he sins because he is a sinner. Man sins by choice. God says in Jeremiah 17:9, 10, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.” In Roman 3:9-18, Paul highlights how man sins in every aspect and concludes, “....all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Vs 23

SINFULNESS OF ‘GOOD PEOPLE’:

Some wonder about the goodness in people and those considered good by human standards. But God sees differently. Isaiah 64:6 says, “For all of us have become like who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind, take us away.”    

SINFULNESS OF RELIGIOUS PEOPLE:

Religions have rituals, rules and regulations to be observed. They offer no help to free sinners from guilt and bondage to sin. Religions advocate a life of legalism, lived by human strength, to please God. Even the Jews who had God given Law could not obey them. Religious efforts result in frustration or self-righteousness, leaving people in their sinful state before God.    

 

SINNERS WITHOUT EXCEPTION:

Unbelief in the God of revelation is sin. Rejecting Jesus, the God sent Savior is sin. Disregard for God’s righteous standards in social, moral and spiritual life is sin. Sins are manifested in ways such as actions, reactions, attitudes, motives, emotions, thoughts, words, ingratitude and negligence of responsibilities. God says, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” James 2:10

SINNERS’ DEPRAVITY:

God sees man’s spiritual condition as one of helplessness. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among them we too formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” Ephesians 2:1-3. God sees sinners as dead people, unable to do anything to merit or earn His favor. This is called ‘human depravity’. It does not mean that each person is as bad as he could be. But, it does mean that man, because of his sinful state, is incapable of pleasing God.  

SINS CONSEQUENCES:   

The Bible says, “The soul that sins it shall die.” Ezekiel 18:4. Again it says, “The wages of sin is death….”  Romans 6:23. These verses talk about the second death or eternal separation from God. Sinners are separated from God now and shall be separated through eternity. Sin thwarts God’s purpose of intimate relationship with people.       

SINNERS CAN BE SAVED:

The Lord Jesus illustrates in Luke 18:9-14, how, only those who admit their sinfulness will be saved. A Pharisee was praying to himself, “God I thank you that I am not like other people; swindlers, unjust, adulterers. Or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.” He was relying on his own righteousness and so was not justified by God. But a tax collector, stood some distance away, unwilling to lift his eyes to heaven was beating his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” He was justified, because he acknowledged his sinfulness and relied on God’s mercy alone. The sinner needs a Redeemer and Jesus Christ is the sufficient Savior. 

APPLICATION:

Honestly acknowledge sinfulness and helplessness to God.

Believe and receive as Savior, Jesus Christ the incarnate One, who died and rose again from the dead to save sinners.