Is Sin Natural?

Is sin natural? It’s an interesting question. On the one hand, sin is not the natural state of mankind. But don’t we have a sin nature? Depending on one’s perspective, either answer could be correct. And I think it’s worth exploring both perspectives.

Sin is Natural

The doctrine of original sin seems to require that sin be natural. Paul writes in Ephesians that we were all “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:3). By nature, we are objects of God’s judgement because we sin. We sin by nature.

Through Adam, we are all born into sin. We inherit a fallen nature. From the moment we start existing, we are “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). We do not merely sin. We are slaves to sin, whose wages is death (Romans 6:23). And slavery is not a claim only to our labor or actions. It is a far more substantial claim — the claim to our desires, our heart, and our life. Thus sin lays claim to our very nature. We are sinners, not just people who sometimes sin.

Sin’s claim to our lives is so thorough that “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). We cannot divorce our lives from our sin nature apart from the supernatural work of Christ. We must die and be born again if we wish to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). Therefore, along with Paul, the Christian says

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

Sin is Not Natural

From an eternal perspective, however, sin is very clearly not natural. We may be sinners by nature, but we inherited a fallen nature. When God created us, he created us “very good” (Genesis 1:31). But as our federal head, Adam sold us into slavery.

“Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

Hence, the entire history of mankind has since been the working of God’s great plan to redeem us from slavery to sin — to buy back our souls from sin and to restore us to our former glorified state in his presence.

We know this to be true. We may suppress the truth (Romans 1:18), but humans universally feel a deeper longing, one that sin utterly fails to satisfy.

“The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you” (St. Augustine, Confessions)

Takeaways

Both perspectives shine light on different valuable aspects of our relationship with sin.

We cannot underestimate the grip of sin. In reality, we were sinners by nature. We were dead in our trespasses. We were slaves to sin. It is not something that we can overcome on our own. One who is dead can do nothing to change his condition.

But the good news is that our union with sin is temporary, little more than the blink of an eye in light of the eternity we will spend with Christ. Our sin nature is crucified with Christ, and he gives us a new heart with new desires. We can see past the empty promises of sin to what our new hearts truly desire and find rest in him.