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  NATIVE DEPRAVITY AND THE LAW
  by Daniel Steele
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Summary: The sermon explores the relationship between native depravity
and the law, highlighting the need for atonement and the role of the
second Adam in purifying the nature inherited from the first Adam.

Topics: "Original Sin", "Divine Grace"
Scripture References: Romans 5:12, 1 Corinthians 15:22, Ephesians 2:3, 1 John 1:9, Revelation 7:14

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DESCRIPTION
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Daniel Steele discusses the views of Arminian theologians on native
depravity and its relation to the law of God, emphasizing the need for
both the first Adam's tainted nature and the second Adam's grace for
every child born into the world. He explains that while native depravity
does not carry native demerit, the atonement is necessary for
purification from this taint, required for both justification and
sanctification from the beginning of responsibility. Steele highlights
the importance of penitent faith for pardon and the believer's
purification through faith in Christ, stating that the heritage of grace
is unconditionally applied to infants who die before moral
accountability, removing the evil unconditionally inherited. He rejects
the legal fiction of condemnation through the first Adam and
justification through the second for newborns but acknowledges the
provisional repair of moral damage by the second Adam, the Lord from
heaven.

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CONTENT
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THE opinions of Arminian theologians respecting the relation of native
depravity to the law of God are in a state of solution. In what form
they will crystallize does not yet appear. But it is enough for me to
know that every child born into the world has two fathers: the first
Adam, from whom he inherits a nature morally tainted and prone to sin;
and the second Adam, from whom he has a heritage of grace sufficient to
purify this taint. This grace comes from the atonement and is necessary,
not for the justification of the infant -- for native depravity is
without native demerit -- but for his purification.

Properly speaking, law takes cognizance of actions and the resulting
character, and not of the nature with which we were born. From the
beginning of responsibility the atonement is needed for both
justification and sanctification. This is true of all actual sinners.
Their first pressing need is pardon through penitent faith; their second
need is the entire purification which comes to the believer through
faith in Christ. In the case of those who die in infancy before moral
accountability, the heritage of grace is unconditionally applied to
remove from their natures the evil unconditionally inherited --"Washed
in the blood of the Lamb."

While we cannot accept the legal fiction of condemnation through the
first Adam, and justification through the second, as true of the newborn
babe, at one and the same time, we can accept the truth of a moral
damage entailed by the first Adam provisionally repaired by the second
Adam, the Lord from heaven.

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/daniel-steele/native-depravity-and-the-law/
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