Yes, I have said we were spiritually dead. Again, so? It means we have no capacity to know God and therefore are cut off from Him. This does not make our hearts intrinsically evil.
The phrase "our hearts intrinsically evil" is not found in the Bible. However, the Bible does teach that the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (KJV).
This verse speaks of the human heart's sinfulness and its incurable nature. The Hebrew word translated as "desperately wicked" has the idea of a terminal, incurable illness
. This concept is also found in Romans 1-3, which speaks of the total depravity of mankind
. Total depravity does not mean that every person is as bad as they can be, but that every person is completely consumed by sin and there is no hope of turning it around and "getting better" on their own
. The only solution is for God to make our hearts new, washed clean from sin and fundamentally reoriented toward pleasing Him
. Therefore, while the Bible does not say that our hearts are intrinsically evil, it does teach that the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, and that only God can change it.
let's stay with what stands written and not lean on our own understanding of the text.
J.
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