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{Sermons on John 1:47
The Doctrine Confirmed
The Principles and Doctrines of Godliness Are Not Fantasy
Sin
Mankind Are Sinners}
Every person is a sinner by nature, a sinner in practice, and in a sinful state. The whole world lies in wickedness (1 John 5:19). Running on in a sinful course, all people have gone out of the way and are universally sinful (Psalm 14:1–3). This sour leaven [sin] has leavened the whole lump; every part of a person, head, heart, hands, inside, and outside, are all full of wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores (Isaiah 1:4–6). Every person is a great sinner; the heart of every person is desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9); his heart has become like those bad figs of which Jeremiah speaks: those that were good were very good and those that were bad were very bad (Jeremiah 24:2). “Their inward part is very wickedness”141 (Psalm 5:9)It is expressed in the abstract, not “wicked,” but “wickedness,” and in the plural number, “wickednesses.”142 There is a compounding of all sorts of wickedness, and sin is so rooted and (as it were) incorporated into the hearts of people that it is as though their natures were even transmuted into a mass of corruption. Is this nothing but imagination? “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5 NASB). “The Lord saw …” God’s eye cannot be deceived. People may think they see what they do not really see and may not see what is before their eyes, but can God’s eye fail Him?
141The Hebrew has הַוּוֹת [havoth], which is הַוָּה [havvah] in plural form. It is translated “very wickedness” in the KJV. It may mean destruction or calamity, wickedness or mischief. The NASB translates as “destruction itself,” where the italics indicate that “itself” was inserted by the translators.
142See footnote above.
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