Sin Makes No Racial Distinctions (pt. 1) by John H. Gerstner

Speaking of God's providence we noticed sin incidentally. We now bring it into focus. One cannot think of God's holy ways without thinking of our unholy ones. We cannot think of ourselves without thinking of our sin. Sin is the most important conviction any man can have. It is a bad theology which thinks man is good. Any good theology must start with man as bad.
In the opening verses of Ephesians 2, Paul describes unconverted persons by many different expressions. They are called "dead through trespasses and sins." They are seen as walking in the "course of this world," walking "according to the prince of the power of the air," fulfilling "the lusts of the flesh and of the mind," and "by nature" they are "children of wrath." The former terms refer to the expressions of their character. The last expression, "children of wrath," is the root cause of their character. It is because the unconverted or unregenerate person is by nature a child of wrath that he is dead in trespasses and sin and walks according to the will of the world, the devil, and the flesh. These evil works re¬veal him as naturally liable to wrath--the wrath of God, His abiding fury. In other words, the unconverted person, whoever he may be, is by nature doomed to destruction; for sin is no respecter of persons. Whether he is a Gentile, like those to whom Paul wrote, or a Jew, like Paul himself, he is a child of wrath. Sin makes no racial distinctions.
All people, in and out of the church, are by nature children of wrath. Paul begins his description of the unconverted by referring to the Gentiles, the Ephesians, who were outside the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the promises of God, and so on. However, before he finishes his description, he includes Israel as well in the indictment, saying, "Among whom also we [we Israelites also] had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Paul thereby teaches that al-though Israelites had received circumcision, which was "the seal of righteousness by faith," they were not thereby changed in nature. Because they had been en-grafted into the visible church, they were not thereby necessarily engrafted into the invisible body of Christ. They, just like the Gentiles ("pagans"), whom they de-spised as being outside the law, needed to be born again. Though they were heirs of the promises, they still remained by nature children of wrath, even as the others. It was a Jew--and a Jewish ruler at that, Nicodemus--to whom Jesus had said, "Ye must be born again" (John 3:3).
What Ephesians says about the universal sinfulness of man permeates the entire Bible's teaching. It is corroborated everywhere in Scripture. David says in Psalm 51, "I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." In Psalm 58:3 we read: "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." Eliphaz, one of Job's three friends, is very emphatic: "What is man, that he should be clean? And he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no trust in His saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in His sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?" (Job 15:14-16). In Job 14:14 Job asks, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" Job is here speaking expressly of man being born of a woman, as spoken of in verse 1. This is given as a reason for man's not being clean; that is, being a human creature, proceeding by ordinary generation, man is naturally polluted.
The Bible sees man so constantly and universally associated with sin that it virtually uses the term "man" as being synonymous with "sinner." For example, "Cursed is he that trusteth in man," the Lord said in Jeremiah 17:5. Christ said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan . . .for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men" (Matthew 16:23). This plainly signifies that to be carnal and vain, as opposed to what is spiritual and divine, is what properly belongs to men in their sinful state. Compare also 1 Corinthians 3:3; 1 Peter 4:2; Job 15:6.
That man is more wicked and destructive than even voracious and wild animals is clear from a somber re-mark our Lord made when He sent forth His disciples into the world to bear witness of Him: "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves . . . but beware of men." It was as if He had said, "I send you forth as sheep among wolves. Why do I call them wolves? Because I am sending you forth into the wide world of men, who are far more dangerous than wolves."
Jonathan Edwards was justified in saying, "There is no one lust in the heart of the devil that is not in the heart of man. Natural men are in the image of the devil. The image of God is razed out and the image of the devil is stamped upon them" (from the sermon "Natural Men Are In a Dreadful Condition").
One writer tells of a Christian who in prayer cited the words of Jeremiah: "The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked," and then continued by saying, "O Lord, Thou knowest we no longer accept this interpretation." This amounts to saying that we no longer accept the Bible's interpretation of sin. But for us to reject the verdict of the Word of God about sin is a dreadful act of sin, is it not? So if we deny the sin which the Bible says is in our hearts, we prove that it is there, do we not? Perhaps the very best proof of the sin of our hearts is that we deny the sin of our hearts!
In or out of the church, then, the unconverted person's liability to eternal destruction is not occasioned by his environment, but by his inherited nature. "We are by nature children of wrath." It is not by what we do that we are children of wrath, but by what we are. We do not become children of wrath by doing evil things, but we do evil things because we are children of wrath. Of course, doing evil makes us more and more the children of wrath. As Christ said, the proselytes of the Pharisees became twofold more the children of hell than they were (Matthew 23:15). We are not the children of wrath by our environment, but by our nature. It is our nature which makes our environment evil, not the other way around. This is the startling thing that the inspired apostle taught in Ephesians 2:3.