(HELPFUL FOR BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION)

NATURE/CONSTITUTION/CHARACTER/MORAL/VOLUNTARY/INVOLUNTARY/ATTRIBUTES/
FLESH/TEMPTATION/CONCUPISCENCE/MORAL DEPRAVITY/PHYSICAL DEPRAVITY/TOTAL DEPRAVITY

NATURE: The Particular combination of qualities Belonging to a person, animal, thing, or class By birth, origin, or constitution; (PBB)
The Native or Inherent Character. (NIC)
The Instincts or inherent tendencies Directing Conduct. (ID)
(PNI)

CONSTITUTION: The System of fundamental principles According to which a nation, state, corporation, or the like, Is governed. (SAI)
The Way in Which a thing is composed or made up; makeup, composition.
The Physical Character of the body as to strength, health, etc.
The Aggregate or Combination of a person’s Physical and Psychological characteristics.
(SWPA)

CHARACTER: The Aggregate or Combination of features and traits That form the individual nature of a Person or thing. (ATP)
One such feature or trait; characteristic.
Moral or ethical quality.
(AOM)

MORAL: Of, relating to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct.
The Distinction between right and wrong; Ethical.
Expressing or conveying truths or counsel as to right conduct.
Founded on the fundamental principles of right conduct rather than on Legalities, Enactment, or Custom.
Capable of conforming to the rules of right conduct.
Conforming to the rules of right conduct.
(ODEFCC)

VOLUNTARY: Done, made, brought about, or undertaken of one’s own accord.
By free choice.
Of, relating to, or acting in accord with the will.
Of, relating to, or depending on voluntary action.
(DBOO)

INVOLUNTARY: Not voluntary; Independent of one’s own will;
Not by one’s own choice.
Unintentional; unconscious.
Acting independently of volition.
Done or occurring without volition.
(NINUAD)

ATTRIBUTE: The Quality, Property, or Characteristic Belonging to or Produced by something. (QPC-BP)
PHYSICAL/NATURAL ATTRIBUTES are totally involuntary, and therefore can possess no moral quality (No sin or righteousness can ever be ascribed or imputed to an individual’s PHYSICAL/NATURAL ATTRIBUTE, as it is totally involuntary).
MORAL ATTRIBUTES are totally voluntary, and therefore do possess moral quality determined only by the individual’s free-will choice to do good or evil. (No sin or righteousness can ever be ascribed or imputed to another without the individual first freely and voluntarily making this choice or decision to do good or evil; and, of course, this person must be in existence and of the age of accountability by being intellectually and morally developed to know the difference between good and evil).

FLESH/SENSIBILITIES/DESIRES:
(NOT A “SINFUL NATURE”)
The Phenomenon of the sensibilities.
The Longing for or the wanting what the mind perceives to be good or desirable.
The Existence of constitutional desires are not sinful in and of themselves, but their unlawful indulgence is.
(PLE)
FLESH consists of DEP4ASE:
Desires
Emotions
Passion
Pain
Pleasure
Propensities
Appetites
Sensations
Every kind and degree of feeling
as the term feeling is commonly used

TEMPTATION:
The demand of the sensibilities for gratification, contrary to that end or goal to which the heart/will is devoted.

CONCUPISCENCE: SEXUAL LUST
This is what Augustine said that he was unable to overcome: this concupiscence (sexual lust). He was held captive by this sin even as a professor of Jesus Christ. This bondage to his own flesh caused Augustine to fabricate the Doctrine of Original and Inherited Sin (SINFUL NATURE) in about 422 AD.
Augustine hung out with the Manichaeans (a Gnostic religious sect) for about 9 years. The Gnostics believed that all matter (flesh) was sinful, but their spirit was always pure; therefore, in their own minds, they weren’t really sinful, even when they committed sin. (FALSE REASONING!!!)
This heretical belief was addressed by John in 1 John 1:8 to specifically address and condemn the Gnostics who said they did not have sin, when John knew they truly did. 1 John 1:8 was NEVER meant to be interpreted that all people, by necessity, are always living in sin all the time just because they are humans born with fleshy desires just like Jesus.
One false doctrine will beget yet another false doctrine creating a domino effect of falsehood: If the “truth” of the original false doctrine is predicated or based upon itself, rather than on God’s Holy Word, then the fabrication of subsequent doctrines will be false as well. How sad that the vast majority in the Church have been bamboozled or duped by this false doctrine of a “Sinful Inherited Nature” at birth, even at the moment of conception, as God supposedly creates us all after the fall/sin of Adam.
What a slap in the face to the true character of God who would never create us with a nature that can only sin, and then send us to hell because we can’t obey. This is ABSURD reasoning, and, of course, an ABSURD doctrine and defames the character of God and our God-created natures.
Yes, we are all created with constitutional desires, as was Jesus, but these desires are not sinful in and of themselves: But only when we choose to UNLAWFULLY INDULGE them. Now, of course, we all must be of the age of accountability to be able to make this reasonable choice depicted in James 1:13-15. No man can sin for another according to literal Scriptures, and not using figurative or poetic “proof-texts” to “prove” such nonsense.
If man, by necessity, is caused to sin by his “SIN NATURE”, then how could Adam, Eve, Lucifer (known as the angel of light in heaven prior to his rebellion against God and his own God-created nature, then becoming known as Satan, the devil, the serpent by, with, through or via his good created nature chose to disobey God and go his own willful/sinful way), and one third of the angels in heaven who followed Satan possibly sin???
We know that they were not created with a “SIN NATURE”. This “SIN NATURE DOCTRINE” wasn’t even fabricated until about 422 AD. What purpose would God have in creating all of mankind with a nature that could not obey Him after the sin of Adam? That would be punishing sin with a nature to sin which God hates. That is not Scripturally or reasonably sound based on the character of God. God would be working against His Kingdom of holiness and righteousness rather than for it. It would be more Scripturally and reasonably sound to believe that God punishes mankind for Adam’s sin with a PHYSICAL DEPRAVITY and not a MORAL DEPRAVITY, as the consequence for sin showing its pervasive effect on all mankind.
However, PHYSICAL DEPRAVITY does not separate us from God nor put an infant under God’s wrath from birth as this absurd “SIN NATURE” doctrine advocates. We all know reasonably that infants are INNOCENT; not
VIRTUOUS or SINFUL, but INNOCENT at birth, unless being born is truly a crime.
FLESH as depicted in the King James Bible does not equal SIN NATURE as depicted in the NIV Bible,
and others using this erroneous term.
Yes, I truly believe that the King James Bible is infallible. However, various versions of the Bible such as the NIV and others where the term “Sin Nature” replaces the term “flesh” in the King James Bible is simply not according to the truth using literal Scriptures of the Bible which prove it to be false.
James 1:13-15 NASB
[13] Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.
[14] But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.
[15] Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
The Scriptures above apply to all mankind in the same way they did before the fall and after the fall.
If we deny that Jesus was 100% man and 100% God, then we deny the Holy Word of God. If we truly believe that all of mankind was born sinful with a “sinful nature” after the fall as per Augustine’s doctrine, yet Jesus did not have this “sinful nature”, then we must, by necessity, be denying that Jesus was 100% man. We must not deny the Holy Word of God!!!
Jesus certainly could not be the example to follow as depicted in 1 Peter 2:21-25 if He did not have a “flesh” and a “nature” just like our as clearly expressed in Hebrews 2:14,17,18 and again in Hebrews 4:14,15. We must not deny literal Scriptures in order to support a doctrine.

TEMPTATION does not equal sin, otherwise, Jesus was a sinner. What is true according to literal Scriptures and reason about the DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL INHERITED SIN?
MORAL DEPRAVITY:
Is the depravity of free-will, not of the faculty itself, but of its free action.It consists in a violation of moral law or Voluntary Transgression of moral law. Depravity of the will, as a faculty, is or would be physical and not moral depravity; which would imply an INABILITY to obey.
It would be depravity of substance, and not of free responsible choice. Moral depravity is depravity of choice. It is a choice at variance with the moral law, or moral right. It is synonymous with sin or sinfulness. It simply states that once a free-will evil choice has been made by our will/heart (living according to the flesh); we cannot at the same time be living according to the Spirit. See Matthew 6:24 and Romans 6:16.

PHYSICAL DEPRAVITY:
Is commonly and rightly called disease. It consists in a physical departure from the laws of health; manifesting a diseased, degenerated, lapsed, or fallen state, in which healthy organic action is not sustained.
When physical depravity is predicated or based upon the mind, it is intended that the powers of the mind, either in substance or in consequence of their connection with, and dependence upon, the body, are in a diseased, degenerated, lapsed, or fallen state, so that the healthy organic action of those powers is not sustained.
Physical depravity, being depravity of substance as opposed to depravity of the actions of free-will, can have no moral character; therefore, no sin.

PHYSICAL DEPRAVITY: A human being who has been created by God into God’s image and likeness, and purely innocent at birth (neither virtuous nor evil), but as a consequence of Adam’s sin, now has a mortal body subject to physical disease and death, but has no moral character. (Absolutely no guilt or sin of Adam or any other Moral Agent can be imputed to anyone, and especially to an infant. Sin is not physical and cannot be transferred genetically such as genes from our parents. Sin must involve a choice of good or evil by each individual, and of course, we must be in existence to make this choice. No one can sin for another.
James 1:13-15, Romans 5:13, Ecclesiastes 7:29, Ezekiel 18:20, Deuteronomy 24:16, Genesis 6:12 and Romans 1:24,26,28.
Were we truly born morally corrupt at the moment of conception per the Doctrine of Original Inherited Sin, or do we corrupt ourselves by our free-will choices once reaching the age of accountability? The Scriptures above should answer this question quite clearly without ambiguity.
WE CORRUPT OURSELVES!!! Let Scripture speak, not the doctrines of men, if they are in conflict. Remember, God’s character would be in question if He truly created us with “Sinful Natures”, then sends us to hell because we simply CAN’T OBEY according to the dictates of this doctrine. We must promote the honor of God as true believers in Jesus Christ.

TOTAL DEPRAVITY:
Moral depravity of the unregenerate which is without any mixture of moral goodness or virtue, that while they remain unregenerate, they never in any INSTANCE, nor in any DEGREE, exercise true love to God and to man.