Was man brought forth in iniquity or made upright? Psalm 51:5
David said he was “brought forth in iniquity,” but Solomon taught that “God made man upright” (Ecc. 7:29). Which is true? (Psalm 51:5 states, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.")
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Tim Maas
Supporter
As indicated in the cited verse from Ecclesiastes, God DID originally make man "upright". However, humans were also given free will, with the power to obey God or to reject Him through the commission of sin. Ever since the time that humans first disobeyed God (as described in Genesis 3), and thus became sinful, all subsequent humans have (as described by David in Psalm 51) been conceived and born with a sinful nature -- including even David, whom the Bible described as a man "after God's own heart" -- as evidenced by David's sin with Bathsheba, and ordering the death of Bathsheba's husband Uriah (2 Samuel 11-12).) Only Christ escaped this fate through the miraculous manner in which He was conceived (Luke 1:26-38).
Paula Fether
Supporter
We must remember that this Psalm is a deep lament over personal sin, expressed with typical Hebrew hyperbole. Ezekiel 18 makes it clear that children aren't held to account for the sins of parents, and scripture doesn't say sin is passed down. Also, if nature is what makes us sin, then what made Adam & Eve sin? It's a "special pleading" fallacy to say they sinned without a sin nature. If our nature makes us sinners from conception, then we can't be blamed for sin, and this in turn makes God the author of sin. This view removes the seeming conflict between those passages.
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