Are all people born good?

If deliverance from evil and from judgment is to be fully known, it is important to go back to its source, the fact of our being first born as sinners. In the book of Romans this question of inherent sin is not considered until chapter 5, because it is necessary first that man should face that for which he is responsible. He is not responsible for having a sinful nature, but he is responsible for allowing it to express itself in sinful acts. We all know this, much as we might like to excuse bad actions on account of having a sinful nature. But we know it is not an excuse, and here David refers to it rather as going to the root of his guilt (v. 5), to judge himself rather than only what he has done.

He says, "In sin my mother conceived me." He is not speaking of a sinful act, but of the fact that, since his mother had a sinful nature, she could only give him the same nature. For this reason he speaks of truth in the inward parts, that is, it is vital to probe the root of the matter, to honestly judge this, that the nature itself will be restrained from pressing itself. The teaching of scripture concerning this self-judgment is found only in th New Testament (Romans 5,6,7,8, so David did not fully understand it though he did face facts honestly at this time, which is the first step in finding deliverance from the power of the sinful nature, the flesh, and leads to a recognition of God's work in making one to know wisdom (v. 6).

In the first part of Romans, what we have done - our sins, is the chief subject, and Christ delivered for them in grace, so that they are gone for ever for those who believe. But there is another question to be settled - not only what we have done, but what we are. These two questions are raised in Genesis 3. God said to Eve, in verse 13, "What is this that thou hast done?" and to Adam (v. 9), "Where art thou?" God has, so to speak, asked the question in the first part of the epistle, "What hast thou done?" And when everything is brought to light, and all that we have done is nothing but sin, in His love and grace He has given His Son to put it away. This is up to Romans 5:11. Now the question of what we are by nature is taken up, "Where art thou?" Then, how God delivers us, not only from our sins, but from what we are as children of Adam, from our sinful nature - which is a much deeper thing. Why do we commit sins? Because we are all born into this world with a corrupt, fallen nature, as in Psalm 51: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Yes, a little infant is born in sin; and how soon the sinful nature begins to manifest itself! How soon does a child begin to have a will of its own, to show temper and to be disobedient! The testimony of Scripture is plain as to this evil nature, that it is utterly bad, and not only so, but unimprovable (a fact which many of us are slow to learn).

Like produces like. This is one of the fundamental laws of nature as established by God. It is stamped upon the Creation chapter—fish, fowl, and flesh were all ordained to bring forth each “after his kind.” And man could do no other than this. “Adam,” we read, “begat a son in his own, likeness, after his own image” (Gen. 5:3). And so it has been throughout all the generations of men. Sinful men beget sinful children. Therefore it is written, “They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies” (Ps. 58:3), and “all we like sheep have gone astray” (Isa. 53:6), and “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). In the great penitential Psalm, David confesses, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me,” which simply means, ‘I have come of a sinful stock, my very nature is sinful, ‘ and this is true of every man born into the world. Does it matter then or does it not, how the Lord was born into this world? Had He come by natural generation, would He not have been as every other man? To deny the Virgin birth is to deny His pre-existence in the Godhead, and to deny the holiness of His Manhood, and apart from these two great truths as to His glorious Person, He could not have been the Saviour.

Like produces like. This is one of the fundamental laws of nature as established by God. It is stamped upon the Creation chapter — fish, fowl, and flesh were all ordained to bring forth each "after his kind." And man could do no other than this. "Adam," we read, "begat a son in his own likeness, after his own image" (Gen. 5:3). And so it has been throughout all the generations of men. Sinful men beget sinful children. Therefore it is written, "They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies" (Ps. 58:3), and "all we like sheep have gone astray" (Isa. 53:6), and "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). In the great penitential Psalm, David confesses, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me," which simply means, "I have come of a sinful stock, my very nature is sinful," and this is true of every man born into the world. Does it matter then or does it not, how the Lord was born into this world? Had He come by natural generation, would He not have been as every other man? To deny the Virgin birth is to deny His pre-existence in the Godhead, and to deny the holiness of His Manhood, and to rob mankind of the one and only Saviour.

Like produces like. This is one of the fundamental laws of nature as established by God. It is stamped upon the Creation chapter — fish, fowl, and flesh were all ordained to bring forth each "after his kind." And man could do no other than this. "Adam," we read, "begat a son in his own, likeness, after his own image" (Gen. 5:3). And so it has been throughout all the generations of men. Sinful men beget sinful children. Therefore it is written, "They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies" (Ps. 58:3), and "all we like sheep have gone astray" (Isa. 53:6), and "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). In the great penitential Psalm, David confesses, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me," which simply means, 'I have come of a sinful stock, my very nature is sinful,' and this is true of every man born into the world. Does it matter then or does it not, how the Lord was born into this world? Had He come by natural generation, would He not have been as every other man? To deny the Virgin birth is to deny His pre-existence in the Godhead, and to deny the holiness of His Manhood, and apart from these two great truths as to His glorious Person, He could not have been the Saviour.

You see the first baby born into this world—Cain—was “born in sin”—born outside the garden of Eden. And so you and I were “born in sin and shapen in iniquity.”

1892 30 Pursuing the subject of the natures of creatures in Lev. 11 we have man brought before us in the succeeding chapters. In the twelfth we find him to be of such a nature — shapen in iniquity … conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5) — as to require that there should be a sin offering even in connection with his birth, before he had committed any action good or bad, and then under the figure of the leper we have a truly frightful picture of that which a sinful man may become.

Here we have the positive activity of evil, the actual energy of self-will. For, be it remembered, sin is doing our own will in whatever line that will may travel, whatever form it may assume. It may present itself in the shape of the grossest moral depravity or it may array itself in the garb of a cultivated and refined taste, but it is self-will all the while, and self-will is sin. It may be only like the acorn, the mere seed, but the acorn contains the wide spreading oak. Thus the heart of the newly born infant is a little seed-plot in which may be found the germ of every sin that ever was committed in the world. True, each seed may not germinate or bring forth fruit, but the seed is there and only needs circumstances or influences to unfold it.

Some would teach us that every man is born with qualities and capacities which, if rightly used, will enable him to work his way back to God. This is a plain denial of the fact so clearly set forth in the history now before us. Cain and Abel were born, not inside, but outside of Paradise. They were the sons, not of innocent, but of fallen Adam. They came into the world as the partakers of the nature of their father; and it mattered not in what ways that nature might display itself, it was nature still — fallen, ruined, irremediable nature. "That which is born of the flesh is (not merely fleshly, but) flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is, (not merely spiritual, but) spirit." (John 3)

“By one man sin entered into the world.” Innocence existed in one man — Adam. God made Adam free from evil; without the knowledge of sin. This was the starting point of man's existence upon earth — a life in its moral characteristics totally distinct from our present life. But Adam preferring disobedience to obedience, and exercising his will, his nature became evil, and thereupon the character of the fountain of human life became changed. Innocence disappeared from the earth, and sin entered the world. This is the origin of our sinful nature which we received through our parents, and with which we were born. We trace the river from this present day to the past generation — we follow it back further and further till we reach its source — and we find that every age has produced a nature which is sinful.