The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent Kelcey W. during the 2009-2010 League.
Mission: Research on the Nature of Man
The world says that man is basically good, that though he may make mistakes, he is really innocent on the inside. Even those who have ruined their lives are just products of another's failures. No one can really take the blame for his own mistakes – he does not have to, because his nature is to be mostly good.
Or so they say.
The Bible paints a different picture. Man's nature let alone produces terrible wickedness. Paul writes in Galatians 5:19 that the works of the flesh are "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, distensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, [and] revelries." All of these things are inherent in every human. There is nothing good about us.
Still, the world loves to blame anyone else for its own problems. From the time we are children, the media spoon-feeds us lies about our own "goodness." If anyone dares to question our internal greatness, we do not listen, because, the media tells us, our few faults come from other sources like our parents or friends. Really all along the main problem is our own sin, but we have been taught to disregard this possibility. The blame game is nearly as old as time itself; to take a look at the first instance, we go to Genesis chapters one through three. Here we find that God created man to be happy, holy, and perfect. Adam and Eve, the first two humans, had everything they needed for a perfect life. Sin, at this time, was a foreign concept to man and the world in which he lived. This meant no thorns, no carnivores, no sickness, and no death. God declared His creation good in Genesis chapter one, but it was more than that – it was perfect. However, one problem slithered into the garden: Satan. A little whisper was all it took to shatter the entire perfectness of the world. Of course, after Adam and Eve sinned, neither one wanted to admit it to God. Adam blamed his wife, and Eve blamed the snake. Though they were the ones to disobey, they felt it was not their fault. God had a different opinion. Sin had consequences. He cursed the ground, making Adam's work difficult, and for Eve's disobedience He gave painful childbirth to every mother. These were the immediate effects of their sin, but all that paled in comparison to their eventual death and separation from God. Sin led to death, and Paul in the book of Romans tells us that, "Therefore just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, thus death spread to all men, because all have sinned." Man was no longer ""basically good," and he never would be again.
Though sin has corrupted all men, there is one way to become good, but it starts with a radical change. One cannot be rid of his sin nature until he has surrendered it to Christ and accepted His salvation to cover it. Paul says that those who live according to the the flesh (the old sin nature) can only think and do things according to the flesh, but those who have the Spirit of Christ can walk in the Spirit. What exactly does walking in the spirit mean? Paul tells in Galatians, that contrasting to the works of the flesh, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Apart from Christ, man can never achieve these things, but with the Savior living inside, the old man, who was enslaved by the works of the flesh, sheds his inherent sin nature and embraces a new life filled with the Holy Spirit. After this change, the nature of man is no longer corruption and sin; it is goodness and holiness in the eyes of God.
According to the Bible, the world's opinion of man being basically good is far from the truth. Man is sinful and corrupt – that is why death, thorns, hunger, slavery, hatred, and sickness reign in the world. Man's only hope of shedding his corrupt nature is to trust in Christ, who took all of man's awful nature on Himself when He died for mankind. If man trusts the Savior, his nature is completely forever changed into life and godliness. "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)
