Psalm 51:5-7 Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.… Men may come upon this doctrine one of two different ways. — 1. As a dogma in theology. The first thing that some theologians do is to assail human nature, to describe it as covered with wounds, bruises and putrefying sores, and as deserving nothing but eternal burning. And human nature denies this. It says, "No, I have good impulses, upward desires, generous emotions; I resent your calumnies." 2. The second way is totally unlike this. Here is a true believer in Jesus Christ, one who loves Him with passionate devotion, and grows daily more like Him. From this attitude he looks back upon his former self, compares the human nature he started with, with that which he has attained, and involuntarily, by the sheer necessity of the contrast, he says, "I was born in sin." What he never could have understood as an opinion he realizes as a fact. Let a tree be conscious. Tell it in April how bare and barren it is. It will defend itself stoutly. Go to it after it has had a summer's experience, and it will confess, "I am not what I was; I was as you said, but now I feel as if I had been born again." (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.WEB: Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity. In sin my mother conceived me. |
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