Princess Diana of Wales has been an inspirational icon to many, both in her life and after her tragic death. She has many heartwarming quotes attributed to her—quotes such as “anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can,” or perhaps “hugs can do a great amount of good—especially for children.”
However, the quote I think of when she is mentioned is her life advice regarding the heart:
“Only do what your heart tells you.“
Princess Diana
Princess Diana is not alone in making this assertion. You have likely heard the advice to “just follow your heart” quite often. It is a well-saturated idea in our culture. Following your heart is a pursuit you are to prize above all else.
Well, biblically speaking…it’s bad advice (with all due respect to the Princess). Scripture tells us our hearts are desperately wicked. Self-serving. Thoroughly instilled with sin.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Jeremiah 17:9
This is bleak news, and it is a drastically different view of humanity than the one the world espouses, but it is the truth. The reason for our depravity is the sin nature that every single human being has, which all stems from original sin.
What Is Original Sin?
Original sin is the idea that all of humanity is born with a proclivity to rebel against the perfect order of God and disobey his commandments because Adam, the first man, brought sin into the world through his own disobedience. This event is known as the Fall.
I like the way GotQuestions, an excellent resource for Christians researching theology, puts it:
[Original sin is] the moral corruption we possess as a consequence of Adam’s sin, resulting in a sinful disposition manifesting itself in habitually sinful behavior.
GotQuestions
Take a look at the origins of original sin in scripture:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Genesis 3:1-8
This is an account of the first sin. The fall of man. There is a lot of information and implications about original sin to unpack from what we just read, so let’s dive in! This passage sheds light on original sin because:
It Demonstrates What It Is to Sin
The original sin is a perfect, simple-to-understand picture of what it is to sin: it is to disobey. It is God telling us not to do x or telling us to do y, only for us to do x and not do y. It is spurning a holy, just, and loving God, directly going against his instructions in the same way a teenager goes against his parents’ instructions when he stays out past his curfew or goes to a party to which he was not supposed to go.
Original Sin Brought Death, Decay, and Pain
Before the original sin, there was no death. There was no pain or suffering. Thorns and thistles didn’t even spring from the ground to terrorize rose-garden enthusiasts!
When God initially created the world, it was flawless…and then man sinned. Zoom down to Genesis 3:16-19 and see what happens when God confronts Adam and Eve over their rebellion.
To the woman he [God] said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” 17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Genesis 3:16-19
As you can see, sin introduced us to dysfunction, suffering, and misery, followed by death. Man could no longer live forever.
Upon reading the previous passage, though, you may wonder how it wasn’t God’s fault all these horrible things entered creation. After all, he does seem to be the one making them happen, doesn’t he? To understand why they are not his fault is to understand why they had to be there.
When people think of God, they often think of only one part of his nature: his love and mercy. Maybe his compassion that led him to send his Son to suffer and die for us. These are wonderful attributes of God’s character, and they are worthy of meditation. However, we also must understand that God is a God of justice, righteousness, and holiness. These are part of the essence of who he is, just like love (in fact, they magnify his love, as you will see later on in this article).
Think about it: why did Jesus have to die for us? The answer is sobering. Sin necessitates death. Romans 6:23 directly informs us that “the wages of sin is death.”
As the righteous and just judge and creator of the universe, God cannot allow sin to go unpunished—that would make him unjust. Furthermore, nothing tainted by wickedness can enjoy relationship with him or rest in his presence because he is utterly, unfathomably, no-words-to-describe-it holy. And good. And full of unmarred beauty.
Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!
Psalm 96:9
There is none holy like the Lord; there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.
1 Samuel 2:2
It is in his perfectly just nature to punish sin. This is why he gave Eve pain in childbirth. This is why he allowed the ground to be cursed with thorns and thistles. This is why he told Adam and Eve they will one day return to the dust.
Sin necessitates death.
Original Sin Separated Man from God
23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:23-24
It is no inconsequential detail that Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden of Eden after the original sin. Their departure from paradise demonstrates how sin separates us from God. Eden was the place in which they physically dwelled with God. We know this from way back in verse eight when God walks through the garden in the cool of the day.
In forcing them to leave, God shows us the relational wedge sin places between him and mankind. This is why we are in need of reconciliation with him in the form of a savior. This is why we feel so far from God when we disobey him. Just as you hurt the bond between yourself and a friend when you wrong them, we hurt the bond between ourselves and God when we wrong him. And all sin is a wrong against him.
Original Sin Unleashed Evil into Humanity
The original sin was much more than just an isolated event. It was a cataclysmic tragedy that set off a domino-effect of human wickedness. When Adam and Eve sinned, humanity became infected with a sin nature. Read what Paul has to say about the sinful nature every human has inherited from Adam.
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.
Romans 5:12
Here, we clearly see Paul telling us the origin point of our sinful nature. When Adam, the representative of humanity, sinned against God, he passed on that same rebellious and God-defying inclination to his descendants. Now we are all born into sin, in dire need of a savior so we may have reconciliation with God.
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Psalm 51:5
The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.
Ecclesiastes 9:3
There is a lot more to this idea of inherited sin nature, and we will discuss it more in next week’s article on the transference of original sin.
Original Sin Showed God’s Love
Remember when I said God’s justice and righteousness magnify his love? Here is why.
Reading about the consequences of original sin may leave you feeling down. This is understandable, as it is a lot of bad news. With that said, it isn’t all bad. The original sin, and God’s judgement towards the sin that followed, powerfully demonstrate his loving mercy.
After Adam and Eve sinned, God could have washed his hands clean of them. He could have disowned them and never given them a second thought. He could have annihilated them off the face of the earth and started humanity over again.
Fortunately, he did not do that. He still loved them. He still stuck with them and their equally sinful descendants. As humanity continued to sin, God continued to love us unconditionally. This love culminated in him leaving unspeakable glory to come down to us in the flesh. He made himself the servant of the very people who should be serving him, only to receive contempt and derision in return. Then, he suffered and died for us, acting as the spotless sacrifice for mankind’s sin so we could be made flawless in God’s eyes.
The almighty judge brought our evil to justice through the death of his son. He didn’t want to destroy us. That is indescribable, glorious love.
What Now?
Take sin seriously like God does. Not just some sin, either—take all of it seriously. It is not a small matter. God is a God of love, but he is a God of justice as well, and he absolutely detests evil.
We cannot let sin have even the smallest foothold in our life. As it turns out, the smallest foothold can abominably morph into the largest, most impenetrable stronghold. We need to constantly take stock of our decisions and our lifestyle to ensure that we are living in a way that honors him and follows his commands. Are we watching something that we wouldn’t have been watching when we were first saved? Are we getting lax with our language? Is it on our heart to perform acts of service and work in the harvest field, but we keep ignoring the call?
Maybe you are doing what I like to call sin-settling, which is a middle ground between eradicating a sin from your life and keeping it in. Perhaps now that you’re only looking at inappropriate imagery on your computer once a week, you feel content with where you are. Perhaps you’re only blowing up in anger at your family members a few times a month, now, so you feel that you are all set.
Don’t get me wrong, any progress you make in beating a habitual sin is cause for celebration, but that does not mean the fight is over simply because it now occurs less than it used to.
To take sin seriously, just like every other aspect of your spiritual life, you will need to humbly submit to God in prayer and rely on the Holy Spirit to be successful. Know that your struggle with sin is not unique to you. This is a battle mankind has fought since the original sin. Take heart and keep fighting.