Perhaps the most dangerous assumption of our modern culture, a dangerous assumption that has been around for quite some time and has done untold damage, is the assumption that all people are “basically good.” It’s the idea that we are all born with a mind and heart that is a “blank slate,” and that so long as people are exposed to good ideas, good parenting, good education, good feedback, and good experiences, that people will turn out to be good people. This assumption, that all people are “basically good,” is false and unbiblical; and it has stoked the fires of postmodern morality, critical theory, and progressive ideas of “privilege,” which have wreaked havoc on our culture and society today.
Take the recent demonstrations, throughout our country and online, in favor of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel. While I can’t guess everyone’s reasons for participating in these demonstrations (some participants may be filled with anti-semitic hatred, others may be evil, still others may simply be stupid fools), many view the Hamas attacks through a lens of what happened to those in Hamas prior to these attacks. You see, they have the assumption that every person in Hamas is basically, at their core, a “good person” and that their reasoning for carrying out these atrocities are because of how they’ve been treated and oppressed and the conditions/environment they grew up in. But, dear reader, to be perfectly clear: when a person murders a family in their home and decapitates babies (there are plenty of accounts of both of these things happening, as well as many other inexcusable abominations), we must recognize that person has absolutely no good in them whatsoever. Such things can only be carried out by wicked, evil sinners.
But here’s the thing we must understand if we are ever going to see any transformation and peace in our world: that wicked, evil, sinful capacity lies within each and every one of us. That might scare you, that might make you skeptical or angry, you may feel you’ve never had such inclinations (neither have I, praise the Lord!), but the capacity lies within us, because the Bible makes it clear that we are all born into sin! Below, I list just a few Biblical examples where this truth is stated plainly:
- Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone.” (Mark 10:18).
- Romans 3:10-18 – “as it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.’ ‘Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving,’ ‘the poison of asps is under their lips’; ‘whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness’; ‘their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known.’ ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.'”
- Romans 3:23 – “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
- Psalm 51:5 – “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”
- Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”
- Ecclesiastes 9:3 – “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men. Furthermore, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives.”
- Ephesians 2:1-3 – “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
- Genesis 8:21 – “The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, ‘I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.'”
All of us are born into sin, all of us have the capacity for immense evil, and this is why we see such evil and hatred present in our world. And here is the thing we must be very clear about if we are ever to come to any kind of solution to these problems: no amount of education, reasoning, persuasion, fighting, bickering, arguing, coddling, appeasing, begging, ransoming, or “equity-creation” will ever rid us of our sins or of the evil consequences of our sin. The only solution is that people would be born again in Jesus Christ!
The Bible is clear that, in Christ alone, a person can be born again by repenting of their sins and trusting in Christ for salvation (read John 3 in its entirety).
- Mark 1:15 – “[Jesus said] ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'”
- Romans 10:9 – “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
- 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
- Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
- 1 John 2:29 – “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”
In order to be saved from our sins and set free from the power of sin (that we might be free of our capacity for great acts of evil), we must be born again in Christ. We must respond to the Father drawing us to Christ by repenting (turning our will from sin and self, and toward Jesus) and believing on Christ (trusting in His sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection and asking Him to save us on the basis of that atoning sacrifice). And once a person is born again, then that person truly has the capacity to love and to do good in the name of Christ and in the way God designed us to love and do good.
Though God made mankind in His image, and all of God’s creation was made good, we are all born into sin because humanity rebelled against God. And the only reason more unsaved people don’t commit heinous acts of evil is because of God’s restraining grace, for which we thank and praise God! One day Christ is coming again to judge the world, and on that day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. On that day evil will be totally done away with, with all perpetrators of evil thrown into the eternal lake of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth according to God’s just wrath. But if we want to see transformation and peace in our world today, if we want to see people saved from their sins and from the real-world consequences of sin (their sins and others’), and most importantly, if we want to glorify God, then we must share the gospel message, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). Education can’t do it. History lessons can’t do it. Manmade laws can’t do it. Force can’t do it. Logical, sympathetic reasoning can’t do it. Only the gospel can change lives and change the world. May God help us and convict us to do so!
Chase Thompson 