Human race, and sin

As a result of the fall, human beings have become separated from God through sin, and are divided amongst themselves. All are in a condition of spiritual blindness, slavery and death, and are incapable of saving themselves from this situation.

All the human race is sinful

Romans 3:9–12 See also Psalm 14:1–3, Psalm 53:1–3; Genesis 6:5–13; Job 15:14–16; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 1:18–32; Revelation 18:1–5 Babylon symbolises human society which in its opposition to God has become thoroughly corrupt.

What then? Are we any better? Not at all. For we have already made the charge that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin. As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

The human race is estranged from God

Isaiah 59:1–2 See also Genesis 3:8–10, Genesis 3:22–24; Psalm 5:4–5; Ephesians 2:12, Ephesians 4:17–18; Colossians 1:21

Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.

The human race is spiritually callous, blind, enslaved and dead

Ephesians 2:1–3, Ephesians 4:17–19 See also Romans 1:21, Romans 5:12–14, Romans 6:16–20; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 John 5:19

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience. All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. Having lost all sense of shame, they have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity, with a craving for more.

The human race is divided

The human race is divided individual against individual

Genesis 4:3–9; Romans 1:28–29

The human race is divided man against woman

Genesis 3:8–12, Genesis 3:16; Proverbs 21:9

The human race is divided nation against nation

Genesis 11:1–9; Matthew 24:6–7

The human race is divided Jew against Gentile

Acts 10:27–28; Ephesians 2:11–12

The human race is divided rich against poor

Amos 8:4–6; James 2:1–7

The human race has been weakened by sin

The human race has become subject to death

Genesis 2:16–17; Romans 6:23 See also Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21; James 1:15

And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Human beings have become weak and frail

Isaiah 40:6–7 See also Job 14:1–12; Psalm 90:3–6, Psalm 103:13–16; Ecclesiastes 12:1–7; 1 Peter 1:24–25

A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall when the breath of the LORD blows on them; indeed, the people are grass.