People Aren't Bad!

Popular “Christian” Theology Today: People are not bad, they are human, we just makes mistakes.

This popular theology is unbelievably harmful to the church and flat out wrong. The idea is that man is inherently good but does have a few small blemishes. The bible teaches something very different: man is not only bad, He is wick, evil, enemies of God, hostile to God, rebellious, idolaters who would rather worship creation than creator, and it is proved by the fact that as God came in human flesh we nailed Him to a Roman Cross (Luke 11:13, Romans 5:9, Romans 8:7-8, Romans 1:18-32). Though we know God, we refuse to worship Him by active suppression of the truth. We not only know what is evil and do what is evil, we even give approval to others to do evil as well. We don’t make mistakes. We intentionally reject the law of God written on our hearts, we calculate how we can disobey the Lord, we purposefully ignore his commands and rebel against Him. We are not basically good, we are by nature children of wrath (Eph 2:3), dead in our sin (Eph 2:1), desperately sick (evil) in our hearts (Jer. 17:9).

In Romans 7:18 Paul says there is nothing good in us. Nothing. God has given us the law of God for one purpose, and it is not to show that we are basically good people, rather to show us that we not in any way good (Romans 3:19-20). Romans 3:10 tells us there is none righteous, not even one. Romans 3:18 tells us we have no fear of God. Isaiah 53:6 tells us that we all turned our own way. Jesus tells us men hate the light and refuse to come into the light apart from spiritual rebirth. He further shows that man is under the condemnation of God (John 3:18), and in John 3:36 we see that man is under the wrath of God. We are not bad, we are far, far worse than that. We are God hating sinners. The book of 1 John calls sin lawlessness. Living as though no law had ever been given. That is us. We are corrupt to the core. Bad doesn’t even begin to describe us. No we are not bad, we are totally depraved! Genesis 6:5 (before the flood) “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Genesis 8:21 (after the flood) “for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” We are just as evil now as those God condemned in the flood. When we understand this we will call upon the name of the Lord, because it is then that we understand that the only one who can save us is God, and we need Him to save us from Himself, for He is angry with sinners every day (Psalm 7:11)

When we see ourselves as basically good with a few minor flaws, we can easily understand why God might love us and save us. But when we understand the truth of God’s word and how evil we really are, then our eyes are opened to the wonder of this amazing grace bestow on us that we should be called children of God. He has taken wicked men and rescued us who deserve nothing but hell by transferring us to the kingdom of His Son! That will bring you to worship!

Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.