The First Exchange (II)

 It was during the time of Augustine that the doctrine of human depravity began to take root within the Christian Church.  Based on verses like Psalm 51:5 which says, "...I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me"  and Ephesians 2:3 which reads, "we were by nature children of wrath"  the concept of our original nature being holy has become too obscured to see.  What is obvious enough in the creation account of Genesis has been lost by the church's teaching about fallen humanity and sinful human nature. 

The truth is our original nature is not sinful, but holy.  To read those early verses of Genesis is to read of being shaped by the hand of God in such a way that we bear the likeness of the essence of the Creator Himself.  When the Apostle Paul wrote that those who "do not honor God and who do not give thanks to Him"  (Romans 1:21) "exchanged the glory of the immortality of God for images resembling a mortal human being..." (Romans 1:23), he is speaking of the loss of that original human nature which is holy and not flawed by sin.    

It is our sin that distorts and obscures the essence of who we are, not some failure of the Creator.  As we allow ourselves to come under the influence of sin, it becomes increasingly difficult to see goodness within us.  It is not because it has been eradicated, but because it has become so heavily covered with something the Creator God did not intend.  Sin does not have the power to destroy the light which is within us from the very beginning.  John wrote, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."  (John 1:5)   Sin may distort our original human nature, but it does not destroy it.  We are created in the image of the Creator and bear His goodness within us.