James 1:14, 15
There is a proverbial statement that sin is a child which no one wants to claim. No person in his state of depravity wants to admit that the child is his own. Men are anxious to commit sin, but they are reluctant to acknowledge that they either conceived or gave birth to it.
The apostle James traced sin from its proper source to its final result (James 1:13-15). Temptation to sin is not from God, but from oneself. In every society, men have begun very early in life seeking to cast the burden of sin from themselves to another. Children go forth from the womb speaking lies (Ps. 58:3).
James pointed to the origin of man's sin when he said that every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust. The apostle did not say that man is drawn away by God, circumstances, or Satan. The word temptation is used two ways in Scripture: (1) It signifies trial when it is ascribed to God. God tried Abraham's faith (Gen. 22:1-14). Because Abraham's faith was supernatural, he was able to endure the test. (2) It indicates an endeavor by solicitation or other means to draw a person into sin (James 1:13-15). That temptation is not of God but from man's own heart.
Man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust. James was not only referring to sexual uncleanness here. He was speaking of the corruption that possesses all of the soul's respective faculties - understanding, affection, and will.
Some people have been mistaken in trying to determine causes of sin. Men have blamed God Himself for sin. God's decree is not a cause of sin. Proper distinction must be made between God's decree and the actual action that brought sin into being. God's decree has no causal influence on sinful action, since a decree as such does not operate to effect the thing decreed. God's purpose is one thing and His actual bringing into being that which He purposed is another. Sin entered the world by Adam's fall and not by God's creative hand.
Everything decreed does come to pass in time, but God's foreknowledge of an action does not necessitate the action. Whatever man does, good or bad, he does with as much willingness as though his will were really free. Foreknowledge of an action does not actively influence the action itself. God remains omniscient, and He knows every deed that every man will perform. Nevertheless, we must distinguish between God's foreknowledge of a thing and the activity of the foreknown thing.
Men have also blamed heavenly bodies for evil on earth. But the stars and planets imprint nothing upon men nor impel them to do evil. Astrology is a false science that professes to interpret the influence of heavenly bodies on earthly affairs. The so-called science of astrology is a direct attack on God. Intercourse between stars and a human soul is impossible because intercourse between animate and inanimate objects is impossible. (The sun, moon, and stars do influence things that have a nature common with themselves.)
Astrologers know nothing of God's grace. The Bible condemns them, classifying them with magicians and soothsayers (Dan. 1:20; 2:2, 10, 27; 4:7; 5:7, 15). Isaiah called them stargazers and monthly prognosticators (Is. 47:13), and he besought the people to save themselves from them.
Neither are providence, the times, people, and circumstances the causes of sin. They are only the occasions for sinning. Those are all indirect ways by which men charge God with their own sin. A man denies his responsibility for sin when he blames something or someone for his own sin. Christians refuse to attribute their sin to God. When God's providence placed Bathsheba before David's eyes, David did not charge God with his sin of adultery. The providence of God placed a boat at Jonah's disposal, but Jonah did not accuse God with his sin of fleeing on the boat and seeking to avoid fulfilling God's commission to him. The corruption of the times serves only as an occasion to bring forth the manifestation of the depraved wills of lost men.
Neither is the constitution and temper of man's body a cause of sin. Reaction to certain chemicals in a person's body does not cause him to sin. The body was made to serve, not to command. The cause of evil lies deeper than what is revealed in the act of sin itself. Many irregularities of the body actually stem from the heart, and not vice-versa: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jer. 17:9). All evil proceeds from the heart: "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man..." (Matt. 15:18-20). The actual committing of acts of sin does not cause a person's guilt for those acts. Rather, the determination of man's will makes him an alcoholic, an adulterer, a thief, or a liar: "Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children" (II Peter 2:14). A person with eyes full of adultery is one who is wholly seized and occupied in mind, heart, and will by gazing with desire. The same is true with every kind of sin.
Nor can man justly charge Satan with his sin. Satan is the tempter; and he is held accountable for the temptation; but the one who yields to his temptation is not excused. One man might plan a robbery and secure another man to carry out his plans, but the second man is not relieved of guilt. He also is responsible for the crime. In the same way, individuals who yield to Satan's temptations are responsible for their yielding.
What, then, is the cause of sin? It is found in man's depraved will. Jacobus Arminius claimed that all unregenerate men have by their free wills the power to resist the Holy Spirit, reject the offered grace of God, condemn the counsel of God concerning themselves, reject the gospel of grace, and refuse to open their hearts to Him who knocks. This is heresy. A more recent Arminian, following the teaching of Arminius, correctly stated that man is totally unable to save himself, but heretically asserted that man is able to exercise his reasoning faculties and freedom of will and choice.
The Arminian cries, "Free will!" as though the will alone had escaped the fall - as though Adam's sin had not affected that noble, virgin faculty. When a conservative Arminian and a liberal debate the subject of man's free will, the Arminian will assert that man has a free will, and the liberal will declare that he has a divine spark. However, free will and divine spark do not essentially differ. Both views are erroneous.
Man is depraved - enslaved to sin. If man has a free will to choose good or evil, why do men universally choose evil? The reason is that their depravity reaches even to their wills: "...ye will not come to me, that ye, might have life" (John 5:40). Men love darkness because their deeds are evil. They hate the light and will not come to it because they do not want their deeds exposed (John 3:19-21).
According to Arminians, the sinner possesses free will only while he is a sinner. When one becomes a child of God, he is subject to the will of God. Arminians say that all men can believe, but the Bible teaches that they cannot believe unless they are Christ's sheep (John 10:25-27). Arminians assert that all men can come to Christ, but the Bible teaches "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him..." (John 6:44).
Arminians make the greater subordinate to the lesser, but the Bible proves that God is greater than men. Therefore, there is no compatibility between the philosophies of those who believe in free will and those who believe in free grace. All who have received the grace of the sovereign God follow the teaching of God's Word on free grace.
Depraved man is allured and deceived willingly, drawn away to sin by his own lust. He is baited from his own lust: "...the corruption that is in the world through lust" (II Peter 1:4). The world is only the object, not the cause of his sin. Lust signifies desire for and inclination toward unlawful things. The desire for unlawful pleasures is the vice of sensuality. The desire for unlawful riches is the foundation for fraud. The sin of ambition causes one to use corrupt methods. The desire for religion without Christ is the foundation of idolatry and superstition.
Satan knows that suggestion is impotent without lust. The flame is the devil's, but the wood for the fire is in man's being. Man has the power to will and do natural (worldly) things, but he does not have the power to do spiritual things. Like a harlot, lust draws its victim into its embrace and then conceives, or becomes pregnant. Every man is drawn away by his lust and enticed. When his lust conceives, it brings forth sin. When sin is finished, it brings forth death. The conception is produced by the union of lust and will. Prompting passes into purpose. Desire passes into determination.
Depraved man is worse than a puppet or a robot. A puppet is guided by the skillful hand of the puppeteer, but the unsaved man is guided by the depravity of his own enslaved will. Man is a free agent in that he is not forced from without; but he does not have free will because he is bound within. Man's faculty of will was affected in the fall. He is able to reason and understand natural things, but he is unable to understand spiritual things: "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (I Cor. 2:14).
Man cannot determine his will toward good; the grace of God alone can determine that direction of man's will. A diseased will cannot provide a spiritual cure - the cure must come from outside of man. Like produces like; therefore, a depraved will produces a depraved will.
Advocates of free will believe that unless man is completely free, God commands him to do what he cannot. Man's sin must be considered at this point. God is not the cause of man's sin; nor is He the cause of man's fallen condition.
We all would agree that a person has the right to demand payment from a thief for the things stolen from his home - whether or not the thief can pay. In the same way, God has the right to demand uprightness from man who is incapable of performing it because of his own sin. God commanded the man with a withered hand to stretch it forth (Luke 6:6-10). Although Lazarus had been in the grave four days and was stinking, the Lord told him to come forth (John 11). Although man is impotent, he is nevertheless responsible. He is incapable of repenting and believing apart from grace, but God commands him to do both (Acts 17:30; 20:21). While man was without strength, Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6). The entire scheme of grace is built upon the fact that although all men are incapable they are responsible, and that Jesus Christ died for His own among them.
Freedom from coercion is one thing, but freedom from within is another. Fallen man is devoid of spiritual power, and spiritual death is written over every person. Like Nicodemus, man is shut up to the new birth (John 3:1-18); and like the leper, he is shut up to the will of God (Luke 5:12). The Bible holds man responsible, but it also strips fallen man of spiritual power. All boasting is thereby excluded, and all glory is accorded to the sovereign God (Rom. 3:26-28).
Man in his natural state is unable to be willing and unwilling to be able to come to Christ. His will is totally depraved, which is a result of his fallen condition. It must be made clear that natural ability and spiritual inability differ. A person's natural ability enables him to attend the place where the Word of God is proclaimed. Lydia's natural ability gave her power to go to the place where she heard Paul expound the word of God. However, it was an act of the sovereign God that opened her heart to understand the proclamation by Paul (Acts 16:13, 14). An individual's natural ability makes him responsible for his sin, but his depravity renders him spiritually unable to come to Christ. The depravity of the will is due to sin, and sin is the cause of man's lust. There is no hope for anyone apart from the grace of God.