I already indicated that absolutely essential to becoming a Christian is the need to recognize the need for a Savior. We call it the "sin condition". Fine. If you don't have a sin problem, you don't need Christ. Simple as that. But there is more to the Nature of Man that, while not necessary to becoming a Christian, is essential to Christianity.
Christianity stands in stark opposition to the prevailing notion of the world that people are generally good. So stark is this opposition that it becomes not merely opposition, but actually opposite. Remembering that the first essential component of Christianity is the Scriptures, let's look at what God's Word has to say about the nature of Man.
According to the Bible, God doesn't have a lot of good things to say about Natural Man. Adam, the first Man, was created "good" (Gen 1:31). He was made with the ability to choose to do good and with the ability to choose not to. In this, he only had one bad choice he could make. God commanded "Don't eat of the tree" and that was the only possible bad choice Adam could make. And, of course, he made it. After that, the Bible says, "just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned" (Rom 5:12). Indeed, the Bible says of Natural Man that "the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gen 8:21), that he is "dead in sin" (Eph 2:1), "blinded by the god of this world" (2 Cor 4:4), and worse. He isn't basically good. He is unrighteous (Rom 3:10), hostile to God (Rom 8:7), prone to supressing the truth (Rom 1:18), and not doing any good at all (Rom 3:12). Man is, at his core, evil. He doesn't merely do evil. He doesn't, out of his basic nature, have the ability to choose to do good. David wrote, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psa 51:5). That is, since Adam this has been the condition of all humans born (with the sole exception of Christ, but that will come later.) It isn't an acquired condition; it is a birth condition. We're not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners. It's in our nature.
This concept is called "Original Sin" by the theologians. It refers to the sin nature. It refers to the fact that Man, on the inside, is inclined only to evil from birth and it is only the intervention of God that prevents him from being as bad as he possibly can be.
Recovering from this condition is outside of the capabilities of the human being. We serve the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25). We cannot comprehend spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14). Our hearts -- that innermost being -- are so deceitful and desperately wicked that we cannot even comprehend it (Jer 17:9). Absolutely essential, then, to Christianity is the fact that human beings are rotten at their core and no amount of self help will solve that problem. Without this grave problem, there is no need for the Gospel -- the good news. And the more serious that you see this problem is, the bigger that good news becomes.
There is another aspect to the Nature of Man that is fundamental to Christianity. It is stated at the outset. "God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness'" (Gen 1:26). Human beings are unique among creation in that we alone are made in the image of God. This gives an intrinsic value to human beings that no other creation has. Because of this particular aspect, God commands, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image" (Gen 9:6). We have tarnished that image by our sin condition, but God still demands that we are to recognize that we are made in His image and we are to honor that image. It is the basis of human rights endowed by the Creator. And it is essential to Christianity.
Thus, two fundamental essentials to Christianity are these two facts. We are made in the image of God and, as such, have an applied value given by God. That informs such necessary concepts as murder and abortion. And we are, from birth, inclined to sin. That makes the Gospel such good news, the death and resurrection of Christ so glorious, and the lies of the world around us that say otherwise so devious.
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