WHAT WE BELIEVE AND TEACH ABOUT THE NATURE OF SIN

"Sin that dwelleth in me." Rom. 7:17, 20.

We, the Holiness People, believe that the tendency to evil is inherited by every member of the human race. This is seen in the plain declarations of Holy Writ, both in the Old Testament and in the New.

In the Old Testament such passages as these stand out:

"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Gen. 6:5.

"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one." Job 14:4.

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Psa. 51:5.

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jer. 17:9.

In the Gospels our Lord's declarations are emphatic:

"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man." Mark 7:21-23.

We further believe that this sinful virus remains even in those who are born again, and are thus the recipients of God's pardoning grace. Few who are evangelically minded will question this statement even though some may differ from us concerning the deliverance from it of which we shall later speak. From the time of the apostles onward, the Church in general has taught that within the believing soul there has remained, after conversion, a nature tainted with evil.

In the Epistles, especially those of the Apostle Paul, all this is fully endorsed. Turning to his letter addressed to the Christians at Rome, it is important to notice the word, sin, used so freely as a singular noun, found seventeen times in chapter six and in many other places. Corollary with this are other expressions such as "the body of sin," "The body of the sins of the flesh," "The body of this death," "our old man, the carnal mind," and so forth, for which see Rom. 6:6; 7:17; 8: 8,9,12,13; Gal. 5:17; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9. All of this has clear reference to the believer's remaining sin problem.

Beyond these specific passages is the general trend which every careful reader cannot fail to notice. Throughout the entire range of Scripture the soul newly born and consciously living in the realm of grace is viewed as being ''yet carnal having within it tendencies to evil which become a painful drag upon the spiritual life. An example of this is seen in the Corinthian Church:

"And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?" I Cor. 3:1-4.

Down through the years the Church in general has acknowledged this condition; the notable exception being the Moravian leader, Count Zinzendorf, who insisted that when a repentant sinner received Divine pardon, he was in that instant made free from sin of every kind -- both the act committed and the tendency inherited -- his heart in that moment becoming as pure as the heart of his Lord.

It was this teaching which Wesley so vigorously withstood, declaring that within the believing soul, even after conversion, there remained the seed of sin which even the fact of God's forgiving grace did not remove.

Wesley's position with regard to this is that which is found in the creeds of practically all the churches, Catholic and Protestant alike. Likewise the testimonies of God's people in general, as they express their consciousness after conversion, witness to the fact, that though Spirit-born, the nature of sin remains within them.

This nature of sin is not ours through personal action but is imparted to us by hereditary processes; therefore it is something for which God's forgiving grace is not applicable since forgiveness implies responsibility. As later we shall see the Bible reveals another method by which God deals with this phase of the sin problem. ^[1] 

1. For a fuller discussion of sin within the believer, see the author's larger work, Foundations of Doctrine in Scripture and Experience.