He might regret that he had been given so bad a nature; but for this he would of course blame the One who had made him so inefficiently. The scorpion could not possibly be ashamed of its sting: though it might envy the butterfly its harmless beauty!

Guilt Eliminated

Actually the statement that men are born in sin does away with all possibility of a feeling of guilt for sinning, and of being brought to repentance. It is not repentance that such a man needs but a better birth! As an historical fact this attitude towards sin is enshrined in the aphorism humanum est errare, or "it is only human to sin", which is always quoted as an excuse for the evil that men do. Press this teaching and you soon arrive at the attitude, that it is really God's fault that men sin, and that you can't expect to be too good in this life. It is often remarked that there is no conviction of sin, even amongst Christians, nowadays. This is the inevitable and bitter fruit of this deadly doctrine. If you tell a man often enough that he is born to sin you can't expect him to fall down before God in contrition and shame! The immediate answer of a man who is told that he was born in sin is that he has had a raw deal, and has a legitimate ground of complaint against those who did such an evil thing, whether it be God or his parents. It would really be true that it would have been better never to have been born at all, than having been born to find that one had no chance of going right!

As a matter of experience even the New Birth, perfect though it is, is not sufficient by itself to keep a man from sinning, for it is not the soul which is born again but the spirit. The soul is only "adopted",44 and needs by constant surrender to the spirit to learn a new way of life in a new home.45 Nothing that God is able to do can take away from a man the freedom of will which is his birthright, nor put him into a condition in which he cannot sin. It is not inability to sin which God gives us by a sovereign act of His own, but the ability to refuse of our own will to sin, in the light of the truth He has shown us through our spirit. The Kingdom of God will not be a society of those who cannot sin, but of those who will not sin. If God could do anything which would compel men never to sin He would do it for all, for all are