Why do we still sin?

[guest]

From what i know, man sins as punishment because man sinned. What I mean by that is in the beginning Adam and Eve sinned, which is known as "The Fall of Man". Please do correct me if I'm wrong but i believe that is why we are all sinful. We humans are all born into sin - "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Ps. 51:5) - and in the first part of Romans 3:23 it is stated "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". From these two verses we can conclude that we are born into sin and we all sin. The second part of the ladder verse is "and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus". why must all of man (with the obvious exception of Jesus) still sin as punishment for two individuals? Did Jesus not come and die on the cross to save of from punishment for that sin? The punishment being eternal d**nation to hell, that is.. Please let me know what you think. Thank you for your time

[Mike Miller]

Thanks for this great question. I want to begin by correcting what seems to be a misunderstanding on your part. You stated that "man sins as punishment because man sinned," then you went on to talk about our inherited sinful nature. It is true that we all are sinners. We are born that way. It is in our nature. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners. We have inherited Adam's fallen nature. However, our sin nature is not the punishment for Adam's sin; it is the consequence of it. Punishment and consequences are different. For example, if a guy gets drunk and has a car wreck that kills three people and paralyzes himself, we would say that the deaths of the innocent are not punishment for that man's sin, but the consequences of it. In fact, his own paralysis isn't punishment either, but the jail time he will face is. Well, on a profoundly spiritual level, when Adam sinned, he passed on that sin nature to all his offspring. That is one of the consequences of the fall.

Now, why do we still sin? Because we're still sinners. You correctly said that Jesus bore the wrath of God that we deserve, so he has taken away the eternal consequences of our sin. And when we come to Him, we receive the Holy Spirit, having been born again with a new nature. That new nature doesn't want to sin anymore, but we still do as long as we are in our mortal bodies of flesh.

Now, let's consider some pretty deep theology by talking about imputation. When we come to Jesus by faith, his righteous is imputed to us. Imputed righteousness does not mean that we become perfect non-sinners. It means that we now have a perfect legal standing before God as righteous. The perfect righteousness of Jesus is credited to our account. In other words, now that I am in Christ, I am judged by His righteousness and not my own. Romans 3: 21-22 explains that this righteousness has nothing to do with my goodness, but that it is a gift of God through faith in Jesus.

Moreover, imputation goes two ways. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." In other words, on the cross, our sin was credited to Jesus, and He was punished for it. Then, when we accept Him by faith, His righteousness is credited to us, and we are exonerated for it. Jesus didn't become a sinner when He became sin, and we don't become perfect when we become the righteousness of God. It all has to do with our standing before God.

So, to summarize, we are all sinners as a consequence of the fall of Adam. However, Jesus was punished as our substitute (substitutionary atonement), and we are justified (declared righteous) by faith in the sight of God (imputed righteousness). We still live in the flesh and wrestle with sin, but because of our new nature, we have power over sin, and the Holy Spirit works throughout our lives to make us more like Jesus (sanctification). Just like Paul in Romans 7, we all struggle, but according to Romans 8:1, we are no longer condemned. One day, Jesus will return, and we will receive resurrection bodies that will be free from the curse of sin (glorification).

Hope this helps. Let me know if I can clarify.

[Guest]

Yes thank you. I never thought about it that way. That makes a lot more sense.