Notice all of the scriptures below are in reference to man after his fall. If we believe the Bible is truth, it proclaims:
Genesis 8:21“…for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”
1 King’s 8:46 “…for there is no man that sinneth not,”
Ezra 9:6 “O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens.”
Ezra 9:15 “Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.”
Job 14:4 “Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No-one!”
Job 15:15-16 “If God places no trust in his holy ones, if even the heavens are not pure in his eyes, how much less man, who is vile and corrupt, who drinks up evil like water!”
Psalm 14:3 “They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
Psalm 38:5 “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.”
Psalm 53:3 “Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
Psalm 90:8 “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.”
Psalm 143:2 “Do not bring your servant into judgement, for no-one living is righteous before you.”
Ecclesiastes 7:20 “For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not.”
Isaiah 1:5-6 “Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness.”
Isaiah 64:6 “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf: and our iniquities, like the wind have taken us away.”
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Jeremiah 30:12-13,17 “This is what the Lord says: Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing. There is no-one to plead your cause … but I will restore you to health and heal your wounds.”
Nahum 1:3 “Before the Lord is no man unguilty.”
Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”
Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
1 John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
These are all of the scriptures I can find concerning how bad and lost and hopeless our case is after the fall. I bet there are lots more. What is startling though is there is no mention or suggestion that we are born into this world as atheists. An atheist is a person that doesn’t believe in God. I think the average Christian views himself as an atheist that must be changed or has been changed into a believer, and we deliver the Gospel message in that vein of thought.
Notice the difference in the two concepts. One concept has us as not accepting God. The other concept has us as haters of God. If we are natural haters of God then God has to change our natural state supernaturally. Ask yourself: “Why do I hate God so much?” The only correct answer is that: “I was born that way and want to share in His Glory”. We do not want our salvation to be all of grace (unmerited favor). Forgive me God, for I am dust, a fallen creature, yet originally created in your image. I understand this will be ultimately cured in heaven.
Sidney C. Phillips MD.
June 2003
