Devotional 35: Actual Transgressions: Every Sin Deserves God's Wrath

The Confession Read

From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

— Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 6, Section 4

Introduction

Imagine a man who wakes to find his garden overrun with weeds. He pulls every one. The next morning, there they are again, as thick as before. He pulls them again. And again. Until at last he drives a spade into the earth and discovers what he had refused to believe: the soil itself is diseased. The tangled roots beneath are the source of every weed that breaks the surface. He has been fighting symptoms, not the cause. This is a parable of the soul. We notice our actual sins — the sharp word, the wandering thought, the lust that flares, the resentment that simmers. They trouble us, and rightly so. We confess them, resolve against them, determine to do better. And yet they return, week after week, sometimes stronger than before. We exhaust ourselves pulling weeds while the root-system beneath remains undisturbed. Section 4 of our Confession addresses precisely this: the unbreakable connection between what we are and what we do. "From this original corruption… do proceed all actual transgressions." What the soil is to the weed, the fallen heart is to the sin. One begets the other with the inevitability of a bitter spring producing bitter water. We have come a long way to reach this point. In Section 1 we watched our first parents fall in Eden. In Section 2 we surveyed the devastation: original righteousness lost, communion with God shattered, every faculty defiled. In Section 3 we traced the transmission of that corruption to all Adam's posterity, together with the imputation of his guilt. Now the Confession turns from the nature of original sin to its activity. Original sin is not a static stain, a mere liability on the books. It is a living principle. Like every living principle, it produces effects after its own kind. The branch will not produce grapes from a thornbush root, nor the stream run sweet from a poisoned wellhead. The soul, until it is born again from above, will not and cannot bring forth fruit unto holiness from the corrupted rootstock of Adam's race. This truth, grim as it sounds, is the necessary backdrop against which the grace of God in Christ shines.

Scripture Foundation

The doctrine set down in this brief sentence, that all actual transgressions proceed from original corruption, is not a philosophical deduction nor a piece of medieval speculation. It is the uniform teaching of Holy Scripture, running from Genesis to Revelation like a dark thread through the fabric of human history. Hear the Word of God on this matter. Consider first the diagnosis rendered in the days of Noah. Genesis 6:5 records words of terrifying scope: "And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." The Hebrew word translated "imagination" is yetser, the formed purpose, the bent of the mind, the whole frame and direction of the inner man. It is not an occasional intruder but the settled disposition. And what does this yetser produce? "Only evil continually." The phrase is absolute. Not sometimes evil, not mostly evil, not evil with occasional flickers of native goodness — but evil without mixture, evil without interruption. And what was the source? Not education, not environment, not bad examples, though all these played their part. The source was the heart. The heart of man, left to itself after the fall, had become a factory of sin, and the flood of wickedness that grieved God to judge the world was nothing other than the outward expression of an inward corruption that had been transmitted from Adam through every generation. Genesis 6:5 is the historical proof of the confessional claim: original corruption produced actual transgression on a universal scale. But perhaps we imagine that the flood washed away more than water. Perhaps we think the post-diluvian world began with a fresh start, a morally neutral humanity emerging from the ark. Scripture disabuses us. Genesis 8:21 records God's assessment: "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." The same yetser, the same diagnosis, now with the added note that this bent is present "from his youth." Noah and his family carried the corruption through the judgment waters. The flood drowned sinners, not sin. The root survived, and the same fruit would appear again in Babel's pride and every subsequent outbreak of human rebellion. Our Lord Jesus Christ traced actual sins to their true origin with precision, in a passage essential to this doctrine. Mark 7:21-23 declares: "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man." Notice the direction of the movement. The sins do not enter a man from outside to corrupt him; they proceed from inside to express him. The heart — kardia, the inner citadel of reason, will, and affection — is not a neutral chamber that becomes evil only when contaminated by external influence. It is itself the fountainhead. Jesus lists thirteen categories of sin, a representative catalogue of actual transgressions covering thoughts, words, and deeds, and insists that every one of them "comes from within." The Pharisees imagined that defilement came through unwashed hands; Christ taught that defilement comes through an unwashed heart. This is precisely what the Confession means when it says that actual transgressions "do proceed" from original corruption. The verb is directional: out from the nature into the act. The Apostle James provides a detailed anatomy of this progression. James 1:14-15 reads: "But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." Here is the chain of spiritual causality in four links. First, lust — epithumia, the strong desire, the inward craving that is native to the fallen heart. This epithumia is not itself the full-grown act, but it is the womb from which the act is born. Second, temptation — the lust is drawn out, baited, enticed by some object that corresponds to its appetite. Third, conception — lust and opportunity meet, and sin is conceived in the will. Fourth, birth — the actual transgression emerges, and with it the certainty of death. James uses the language of generation: lust is the mother, sin is the child, death is the grandchild. The whole grim genealogy begins not with external pressure but with internal disposition. If there were no epithumia, temptation would find nothing to seize upon. The bait works because the hunger is real. Original corruption supplies the hunger; the world supplies the bait; actual sin is the bite. Finally, the psalmist testifies that this corruption manifests at the very dawn of moral consciousness. Psalm 58:3 declares: "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." The language is stark. Estrangement from God is not a gradual development; it is a condition present from the womb. And what is the first fruit of this condition? "Speaking lies." Not waiting until adulthood, not the result of careful instruction in falsehood — but as soon as speech is possible, falsehood emerges. The child does not need to be taught to lie; he needs to be taught to tell the truth. The natural bent, the yetser, the epithumia, asserts itself at the earliest opportunity. Original sin does not sleep; it is active, productive, impatient to express itself in actual disobedience. Every parent who has watched a toddler snatch a toy and deny it with wide-eyed innocence has witnessed Psalm 58:3 playing out in real time. The doctrine is not abstract; it is written in crayon on the nursery wall. These four texts establish the confessional claim. Genesis 6:5 shows the universal scope of corruption producing sin; Genesis 8:21 shows its persistence; Mark 7 shows its inward origin; James 1 shows its mechanism; and Psalm 58 shows its early manifestation. The Bible will not permit us to separate what we do from what we are. Our actual sins are not accidents, not unfortunate habits picked up from a bad environment, not occasional lapses in an otherwise sound constitution. They are the necessary outflow of a corrupted nature.

What the Divines Meant

The Westminster Assembly chose their words with care in this section. Each phrase carries theological weight. Let us slow down and weigh them. "From this original corruption." The divines anchor this section firmly to what has gone before. The "original corruption" is the "death in sin, and corrupted nature" conveyed to all Adam's posterity, as defined in Section 3. It is not merely the absence of original righteousness, a privation or vacuum, but a positive principle of evil, a bent, a bias, an active disposition. When the Confession says "from" this corruption, it means ex, out of, proceeding from. The relationship is causal. Original sin is the mother of actual sins. If the root were sound, the fruit would be sound. Because the root is rotten, the fruit cannot be otherwise. To borrow the language of our Lord, a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. "Whereby we are utterly indisposed." The adverb "utterly" matters. The divines are not saying we are somewhat indisposed, or partially indisposed, or indisposed in certain areas while retaining native capacity for good in others. No — we are utterly indisposed. The word "indisposed" means without positive inclination, without appetite, without natural bent toward what is spiritually good. The unregenerate man has no taste for the things of God. He may have taste for morality, for decency, for religious observance, for charitable works, all of which are good in their civic sphere. But for the spiritual good that flows from love to God, for delight in His law, for the embrace of Christ in true faith, for the mortification of secret pride — for these things he has no native disposition whatsoever. He is indisposed as a stone is indisposed to fly. The inclination, the appetite, the desire — these are absent. "Disabled." If "indisposed" speaks to the want of positive inclination, "disabled" speaks to the want of power. The fallen will is not merely reluctant; it is impotent. It cannot, by its own native resources, perform any act that is spiritually good and pleasing to God. The Confession is not denying that fallen man has free will in the sense of voluntary choice; he chooses what he prefers. But his preferences are themselves corrupted, and his will is held captive to his nature. A man in prison may walk freely about his cell; he cannot walk out of it. The fallen will operates freely within the bounds of fallen nature; it cannot transcend those bounds. This is what the Reformed tradition calls moral inability: not a physical constraint but a spiritual incapacity rooted in the heart's aversion to God. "And made opposite to all good." Here the divines go further still. Original corruption does not leave us neutral, merely lacking the inclination and the power for good. It sets us in active opposition to good. The Greek prefix anti in words like "antichrist" conveys not mere absence but hostility. So here: the fallen nature is not merely empty of good but hostile toward it. Paul captures this in Romans 8:7 when he writes that "the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Enmity is not indifference; it is active opposition. The natural man does not merely fail to love God — he hates Him, and would dethrone Him if he could. This is the terrifying depth of what original sin has done to us. We are not patients waiting passively for a cure; we are rebels shaking our fists at the Physician. "And wholly inclined to all evil." If the previous phrase speaks of opposition to good, this phrase speaks of propensity toward evil. "Wholly" — not partially, not in certain areas, but entirely. "Inclined" — bent, leaning, disposed, like a bow that curves always in one direction. "To all evil" — not to some particular vice depending on temperament or circumstance, but potentially to every species of sin. The Confession does not teach that every person commits every possible sin; circumstances, restraining grace, natural temperament, and the fear of consequences all limit the expression. But the seed of every sin lies in the fallen heart. Given the right provocation, the right temptation, the removal of restraints — any sin is possible for any person. The devout churchgoer carries within him the makings of an adulterer, a thief, a blasphemer. The corruption is total in its extent even where it is not total in its expression. "Do proceed." The verb is present and active. Original sin is not a historical deposit whose effects have faded; it is a living principle, a fountain that never ceases to flow. The actual transgressions of today are not leftover consequences of an ancient catastrophe but fresh productions of a nature that remains what it has been since the fall. The Confession uses the present tense because the corruption is present and active in every moment of our unregenerate existence. "All actual transgressions." The word "all" is comprehensive. Not some sins, not the grosser sins, not the sins we can conveniently trace to bad influences — but all of them. Every evil thought, every idle word, every deed of darkness, every omission of required duty, every defect in the motive even of outwardly good actions — all proceed from the same corrupted root. The white lie and the bloody murder are branches of the same tree. The lustful glance and the adulterous act are fed by the same sap. The divines would not permit us to partition our sins into those we can blame on circumstance and those we must own as our own. All of them are ours, and all of them spring from the same poisoned well. Historically, the Assembly answered several errors. Against the Socinians, who denied original sin altogether and taught that Adam's fall affected only himself, the divines insisted that there is a transmitted corruption from which actual sins proceed. Against the Roman doctrine of concupiscentia, which held that the disordered desire remaining in the baptized is not truly and properly sin, the divines insisted, as they would make explicit in Section 5, that this corruption is sin in the fullest sense. Against the Pelagians, who taught that actual sins arise merely from imitation and bad habit, the divines traced them to a deeper source. And against the Arminians, who softened the language of total depravity into partial weakness, the divines piled up the adverbs, utterly and wholly, to close every escape route. Man is not sick; he is dead. Man is not weakened; he is disabled. Man is not misguided; he is opposed. This is not pessimism; it is biblical realism, and it is the necessary foundation for a gospel of sovereign grace.

Theological Depth

The doctrine that all actual transgressions proceed from original corruption has been developed with care in the Reformed tradition. Hear from several of its finest expositors. Thomas Manton, in his commentary on James, gives a penetrating treatment of the passage we have already examined. Manton observes that James 1:14-15 traces sin to its "proper and innate principle" — not to God, who tempts no man, nor to the devil, nor to the world, though these may be outward solicitors — but to "a man's own lust." Manton writes that epithumia is "the fuel of sin, the matter that Satan kindleth." He notes the military language James employs: the man is "drawn away" — like a soldier pulled from his post or a fish drawn from its hiding place. Then he is "enticed" — the Greek word, Manton notes, derives from hunting, the bait that lures the prey. The lust within answers to the temptation without as tinder answers to the spark. Manton presses the point pastorally: the reason one man falls where another stands is not that the temptation is stronger for the one but that the epithumia is stronger. The corruption within determines the power of the temptation without. This is why mere moral reformation, mere avoidance of occasions of sin, can never be sufficient. The heart must be changed. The lust must be mortified at its root, or it will conceive and bring forth sin again and again. Manton's exposition leaves no room for a superficial doctrine of sin: the problem is not first our circumstances but our cravings, and those cravings are not accidental acquisitions but the native language of the fallen heart. Richard Sibbes, in The Bruised Reed, offers a different perspective. Sibbes is concerned with the comfort of weak believers, and his treatment of indwelling sin is pastoral rather than polemical. Yet he is ruthlessly honest about the reality. He writes that in the regenerate, original corruption is dethroned but not destroyed — "as a rebel who hath lost his kingdom, but yet holdeth out in some stronghold." The actual sins of believers, Sibbes teaches, proceed from this residue of corruption that remains after regeneration. The conflict Paul describes in Romans 7 — "the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do" — is precisely the experience of the regenerate man feeling the pull of original sin producing actual transgressions despite the new principle of grace within. Sibbes offers this comfort: the very grief you feel over actual sins is evidence that the root is being dealt with. An unregenerate man sins and is at peace; a regenerate man sins and is at war. The war is painful, but the war is proof of life. Yet Sibbes would never minimize the sin. The acts that proceed from remaining corruption are truly sinful, truly grievous, and to be mortified with all diligence. Thomas Brooks, in Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, takes up the practical side of this doctrine with characteristic vividness. Brooks is concerned with how Satan exploits original corruption to produce actual sin. He identifies this as one of the enemy's chief devices: to present the bait while hiding the hook, to kindle the epithumia while obscuring the consequences. Brooks writes that Satan knows the constitution of every man's heart — which lust is strongest, which inclination is deepest — and he "suiteth his temptations to the frame and temper of the soul." To the melancholic he presents despair; to the sanguine he presents pleasure; to the choleric he presents revenge. The corruption within and the temptation without are fitted to one another as key to lock. Brooks's remedy is twofold: first, know your own heart, your particular propensities — for the man who does not know where his own corruption lies strongest will be surprised again and again; second, fly to Christ, not only for the pardon of actual sins but for the mortification of the root from which they spring. Brooks would have us wage war not only on the acts of sin but on the disposition that produces them — which is precisely the confessional logic. If actual transgressions proceed from original corruption, then the wise Christian attacks the source, not merely the symptoms. Anthony Burgess, a Westminster divine himself, wrote a thorough treatment of original sin in English, over five hundred pages. Burgess distinguishes between original sin as the fomes, the fuel or tinder, and actual sin as the flamma, the flame. The one is the root, the other the branch. He makes a crucial pastoral observation: the actual sin is often what troubles the conscience most, because it is visible and particular, but the original corruption is what God chiefly hates, because it is the fountain of all the rest. A man may confess his drunkenness while never mourning the intemperate heart that produced it; he may repent of his anger while never mortifying the pride from which it sprang. Burgess would teach us to trace every actual sin back to its mother — to ask not only "What have I done?" but "What within me produced this?" Such self-examination is painful, but it is the path to true repentance. These four witnesses — Manton, Sibbes, Brooks, and Burgess — speak with one voice from different angles. Manton gives us the anatomy of temptation, tracing the mechanism by which lust becomes sin. Sibbes gives us the comfort of the conflict, assuring the believer that the war within is a sign of grace, not its absence. Brooks gives us the strategy of resistance, exposing how the enemy exploits the corruption within. Burgess gives us the depth of self-examination, urging us to hate the root even more than the fruit. Together they demonstrate that the doctrine we are considering is far more than a point of theology to be assented to; it is a lens through which to understand every moral struggle, a guide for mortification, and above all a tutor that drives us to Christ. For when we truly grasp that all our actual sins flow from a corruption we cannot cure, we cease looking within for resources and begin looking upward for redemption.

Puritan Application

The doctrine that all actual transgressions proceed from original corruption is not a piece of abstract theology to be filed away in the mind. It bears directly upon the daily life of every Christian. Here are five applications. First, learn to trace your actual sins to their source. When you have spoken a sharp word, do not merely apologize and move on. Ask yourself: what disposition within me produced that word? Was it pride, wounded and lashing out? Was it impatience, unwilling to bear with the slowness of another? Was it envy, smarting at another's success? The word was the fruit; the disposition is the root. If you only deal with the fruit, the root will produce more fruit tomorrow. The Puritan practice of self-examination was not morbid introspection; it was spiritual surgery. They understood that sin tolerated at the level of the heart will inevitably express itself at the level of the life. Jesus taught us to guard the heart, for out of it are the issues of life. Apply that principle: when an actual transgression surfaces, follow it inward. Ask the Spirit to show you the epithumia that conceived it. Then bring that lust to the cross — not only for pardon but for mortification. The gospel is an axe sharp enough to go after the root. Second, let this doctrine humble you to the dust. The Confession tells us that we are "utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil." Read that again slowly. Let the words sink into your conscience. This is not the world's estimate of man — the world tells you that you are basically good, that your problems are external, that you need only education, opportunity, and a little encouragement to flourish. The Bible tells you something radically different: that the fountain of your being is poisoned, that the bent of your heart is away from God, that left to yourself you would never choose Him, never love Him, never seek Him. This is humiliating doctrine. But it is also liberating. For when you have been brought low enough to see that you bring nothing to your salvation — not a spark of native goodness, not a flicker of spiritual desire — then you are ready to receive everything from Christ. The man who imagines he is slightly ill will be content with a mild remedy. The man who knows he is dead will rejoice at a resurrection. Let this section of the Confession perform its intended work: strip away every last shred of self-righteousness, silence every inner objection that you are not so bad after all, and leave you with nothing to cling to but the bare mercy of God in Jesus Christ. That is a hard place to be, but it is the only safe place. Third, recognize the absolute necessity of regeneration. If all actual transgressions proceed from original corruption, then the only way to stop producing sins is to have the corruption itself dealt with. And that is precisely what happens in the new birth. When the Holy Spirit regenerates a soul, He does not merely patch up the old nature or add a coating of religion over the top of the old man. He imparts a new principle of life, a new disposition, a new heart. Jesus told Nicodemus that unless a man is born anōthen — from above — he cannot see the kingdom of God. The logic is inexorable: a corrupt tree cannot produce good fruit; therefore the tree itself must be changed. Reformation is not enough. Resolution is not enough. Religion is not enough. You can whitewash a tomb and it remains full of dead men's bones. You can train a wolf to behave like a sheep and it remains a wolf. The nature must be renewed. Have you experienced this? Do not take refuge in church attendance, doctrinal orthodoxy, or moral decency. The question is whether God has done something in your soul that you could never have done for yourself — whether He has given you a new heart that hates the sin it once loved and loves the Christ it once ignored. Only the new birth addresses the root. Everything else merely prunes the branches. Fourth, understand the ongoing war. Even after regeneration, original corruption is not eradicated. Section 5 of our Confession will address this directly, but the principle is already operative here: the believer still carries within him a principle of sin that continues to produce actual transgressions. Paul's cry in Romans 7:24 is the cry of a regenerate man: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The indwelling sin that remains in the believer is a living, active, productive thing. It will not lie quiet. It will rise up, seize opportunities, conceive sin, and bring it forth — sometimes in ways that shock the believer himself. This is not to make peace with sin or to excuse it. It is to be realistic about the nature of the Christian life in this present age. The believer is simul iustus et peccator — at once righteous and a sinner: righteous in Christ by imputation, a sinner in himself by remaining corruption. The war between the flesh and the Spirit will continue until death or the return of Christ. Knowing this, the wise Christian fights daily. He does not expect a truce. He does not imagine that he has reached a plateau where temptation has no power. He puts on the whole armor of God, watches over his heart with all diligence, and flees to Christ every hour for fresh supplies of grace. The doctrine of original sin producing actual sin is not merely a diagnosis of the unregenerate; it is the daily reality of the regenerate — and the daily occasion for clinging more tightly to Christ. Fifth, fix your hope entirely on Christ. Throughout this chapter the confessional logic has been relentlessly downward — from the fall to total depravity to imputed guilt to the ceaseless production of actual sin. If we stopped here, we should despair. But the Confession does not stop here, and neither does the gospel. Chapter 8 will introduce us to Christ the Mediator. Chapter 11 will expound justification by faith alone. Chapter 13 will speak of sanctification — the gradual mortification of the very corruption we have been describing. The gospel is not that original sin is a minor problem and actual sins are easily overlooked. The gospel is that where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. The same Paul who cried "O wretched man that I am!" answered his own cry in the very next verse: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The fountain of corruption within us is deep, but the fountain of cleansing opened at Calvary is deeper still. The root of sin is strong, but the Root of Jesse is stronger. The epithumia of the flesh is fierce, but the love of Christ is fiercer, and it will not let us go. Every actual sin you commit is a fresh occasion to despair of yourself and hope in Christ. Every fresh discovery of the corruption within is a fresh invitation to look outside yourself for a righteousness you cannot produce. The saintliest believer on his deathbed will still confess that all his actual transgressions proceed from original corruption — but he will confess it with a smile, because he knows that all his righteousness proceeds from Another, and that righteousness is perfect, and that it is his by faith. Let this be your confidence: the root of sin in you is real and horrible, but the Root of your salvation is Christ, and He is planted in the soil of an unshakeable covenant, and His fruit will endure when all your sin is but a distant memory.

Prayer

O most holy and righteous God, who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, we come before Thee ashamed and confounded. The doctrine we have considered this day has laid us low, and we would not rise again except that Thy hand is stretched out to lift us. We confess that from the corruption of our nature do proceed all our actual transgressions — the sins of thought that no eye but Thine hath seen, the sins of word that have wounded others and grieved Thy Spirit, the sins of deed that have dishonored Thy name and defiled our own consciences. We trace them now to their source and acknowledge that the fountain is foul. We are not merely weak but disabled, not merely wayward but opposed to all good, not merely imperfect but wholly inclined to evil. Save us, O God, from every impulse to soften this truth or to excuse ourselves before Thy holy gaze. We bless Thee that Thou hast not left us in this condition. Where our corruption abounds, Thy grace doth superabound. We thank Thee for the new birth, whereby Thou hast planted within us a principle of life that wars against the old man and shall one day overcome him utterly. We thank Thee for the blood of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, which cleanseth us from all sin — original and actual alike. We thank Thee that Thou hast not dealt with us according to our deservings nor rewarded us according to our iniquities, but hast laid our sins upon a Substitute who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Grant us, we beseech Thee, the double grace of true humility and true hope. Make us honest about the corruption that remains, that we may never cease to mortify it. And make us confident in the righteousness of Christ, that we may never cease to rest in it. Teach us to trace every actual sin to its root, and to bring that root again and again to the cross. Preserve us from the Pelagian pride that imagines we can reform ourselves. Preserve us equally from the antinomian presumption that makes light of sin because grace abounds. Let the knowledge of our corruption drive us to Christ, and let the knowledge of Christ drive us to holiness. For Thy people who struggle this day — who have fallen again into the sin they hate, who feel the pull of the old nature and despair of ever being free — grant them the comfort of Thy Spirit. Remind them that the war within is proof of life, that the grief over sin is the fruit of grace, that the cry of "wretched man" is the prelude to the shout of thanksgiving. Sustain them in the battle until that day when the corruptible shall put on incorruption and the mortal shall put on immortality, and sin shall be no more. Until that day, keep us looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. In His name we pray, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.