Thursday, June 19, 2008

Jesus on Fallen Human Nature

It is difficult to understand those who cling to the doctrine of the fundamental goodness of human nature, and do so in a generation which has witnessed two devastating world wars and especially the horrors which occasioned and accompanied the second. It is even harder to understand those who attribute this belief to Jesus Christ. For he taught nothing of the kind. Jesus taught that within the soil of every man's heart there lie buried the ugly seeds of every conceivable sin -'evil thoughts, acts of fornication, of theft, murder, adultery, ruthless greed, and malice; fraud, indecency, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.' All thirteen are 'evil things', and they come out of the heart of every man. This is Jesus Christ's estimate of fallen human nature.
--John Stott in 1970, From "Christ the Controversialist"

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