The Universality of sin

The bible says, everyone is a sinner. As 1 Samuel says, David is a man after God’s own heart. However, this great king of Israel also said frankly that,“Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”(Psalms 51:5) 

As Psalms says,“The Lord looks down from heaven on the Sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”(Psalms 14:2~3)

Here, “not even one” is in term of God’s standard of good and evil. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he is not a sinner if he does not murder, burn, steal or lie. Ordinary people have various negative mentalities such as selfishness, greed, hatred, envy, pride, etc. Therefore God says, “there is no one who does good, not even one.” Previously we learnt the story of Abraham. Abraham was chosen by God. He was the best man at that time. Abraham could be considered as a God-centered man. He had a firm faith in God. Abraham did pretty well, but still had faults and sinful nature. Moses was more like this. When God asked him to do something, he always had an excuse. By God's standards, he still hadn't done good deeds fully and truly. That is to say, he still had a sinful nature. 

Regarding sin, we must differentiate between sinful nature and Sins.  Sinful nature is the nature of humans, which is the innate Original Sin. Sins are external manifestations of the internal sinful nature. The so-called sinful nature is the self-centred mind. After Adam and Eve, the first ancestors of mankind had sinful nature, the relationship between man and God broke. From then on, people were no longer God-centered, but self-centered. Therefore, all descendants of Adam and Eve have a sinful nature, without exception.

The behaviours manifested from humans’ internal selfishness are sins. So how does one count as a sinner? It’s not that a man becomes a sinner when he commits a sin. But humans are born with sinful nature and must sins. Therefore, all humans are sinners. We all have sinful nature such as selfishness, pride, envy, greed and hatred, which lead to various sins. john 3:4 says,“Everyone who sins breaks the Law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.” This kind of sins means humans fighting against God’s Commandments directly with words and actions.