The Inherited Heart Defects
From Chapter 5 of The Christian's New Heart
by Frank Allnutt

After being cast out of Eden and placed into the world, Adam and Eve began to
populate the planet with children. But their children were born into spiritually dysfunctional families. And all because they had inherited spiritual heart defects.(1)

Just as certain physical heart defects can be handed down from generation to generation, so too are spiritual heart defects inherited. Everyone inherits these spiritual heart defects; no one is immune. You inherited your spiritual heart defects from your parents, and your parents inherited their defective spiritual hearts from their parents. All your ancestors inherited this defective spiritual heart—all the way back to your first father, Adam. (See Hebrews 7:5, 9-10; 1 Corinthians 15:22.)

Scripture tells us that Eve sinned before Adam sinned; however, it was through Adam, the lineal head of the human race (Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21, 22), that his “original sin” corrupted his human nature, which was passed on to his descendants, through his seed.

“Seed” must be properly understood here. While Adam and Eve both contributed genetically to the procreation of children, it was through Adam’s seed or sperm that sin “spread to all men” (Romans 5:12), giving mankind Adamic, fallen, sinful, fleshly, or nature human nature. In this way, original sin is passed from generation to generation through the seed of the male. (Jesus did not inherit Adam’s sinful nature because He was not conceived of the seed of man, but of the “seed” of the Holy Spirit.)

You were born “in Adam”
In technical terms, you were positionally and ontologically born “in Adam,” in darkness and sin. The Apostle Paul taught that everyone is born “in Adam” and therefore is spiritually “dead” or separated from God. However, Christians are spiritually reborn “in Christ,” are given new spiritual hearts (Ezekiel 36:26), and are spiritually “alive” or reconciled to God: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Paul further wrote: “You were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8). All Adam-hearted people are born positionally in the spiritual realm of darkness, separated from God and His holy realm of light. Darkness also has ontological significance in that it denotes the sinful or fallen moral quality of a person’s life. This is often referred to as the “flesh” and “sinful nature.” The Adamic person, because of where he is and what he is, experiences adverse spiritual bondage, sorrow, adversity, judgment, and death.

How you became a living person
Your personhood was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26, 27; Acts 17:28), and your sinful human nature (body, soul, spirit and life) was procreated in Adam’s likeness (Genesis 5:3; 1 Corinthians 15:49). God “fashions the hearts” of all people (Psalm 33:15) by combining personhood with procreated human nature. David wrote this Psalm: “For Thou didst form my inward parts. Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to Thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Thy works” (Psalm 139:13-14a).

At the time you were conceived in your mother’s womb, a sperm from your father fertilized an ovum within your mother which formed a zygote in the fallen likeness of Adam. This Adam-like micro-organism had a spirit, natural life, a soul, and the DNA from which your body developed.

While your just-conceived zygote had all the necessary elements to become like Adam in terms of body, soul, spirit and life, it did not have Adam’s personhood. In fact, it was without any personhood. Procreation produced only a zygote. That organism, in and of itself, was not a person. However, at the moment that organism was conceived within your mother’s womb, God created your personhood, unique and morally innocent in His spirit-being image (Genesis 1:26, 27, 9:6; Malachi 2:10; 1 Corinthians 11:7; James 3:9). He placed your personhood into the zygote, where it became united with the soul, spirit, life, and physical elements that would become your body. Together, your personhood, spirit, life, and soul comprised your spiritual heart. From that moment on, you were a living human being; you were a person. And, after you were born and began to mature, you became self-aware, self-determining, and self-expressing (Job 12:10; Isaiah 42:5, 57:16; Jeremiah 38:16).

But all was not well and good with you at the time you came into existence. At the moment God placed your morally innocent personhood into that organism, it was immediately and permanently corrupted and damaged by the organism’s innate sin-nature. In this way you were born of Adam’s seed, with his sin-corrupted life and sin-nature. You were spiritually “dead,” which means you were without eternal life and were separated from God.

To compound your dilemma, you had inherited Adam’s soul—his depraved fleshly faculties of mind, emotion, and will.

Your body was also corrupted by sin and subject to death and decay.

You were “in the flesh”
Adam-hearted people are “in the flesh” and therefore function “in the flesh” or “according to the flesh.”

As noted earlier, “flesh” has several meanings in Scripture. Now, let’s examine those meanings more closely. “Flesh” is a translation of the Greek term sarx(2) (Romans 8:6, 7; Hebrews 9:10). “Fleshly” is a translation of sarkikos (Romans 7:14, 15:27; 1 Corinthians 3:1, 3, 4, 9:11; 2 Corinthians 10:4; Hebrews 7:16). Our English versions of the Bible translate sarx as “flesh,” “carnal,” and “sinful nature.” “Flesh” is translated from the Greek New Testament and “carnal” is translated from the Latin translation in the King James Version. “Sinful nature” is not a literal translation of sarx, but an interpretation.(2)

“Flesh” sometimes refers to the physical body. You were born with a fleshly, sin-and-bones, “natural body” (1 Corinthians 15:44) that will perish. In this sense, Jesus also was born “in the flesh.” Scripture tells us that “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). The “Word” refers to Jesus. He became flesh in that His complete spirit being or spiritual heart was enjoined with a sinless “body” that was conceived of the holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. Because this “body” was not conceived of the seed of Adam, it did not have Adam’s original sin.

Another meaning of “flesh” can be found in God’s promise to give each of His children a new “heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). This use of “flesh” is different from the foregoing. The new heart is likened to flesh to indicate that it has life and is capable of growth. This is in contrast to the “heart of stone” that is spiritually lifeless and separated from God.
Finally, “flesh” and “in the flesh” are frequently used Bible terms that describe the old realm and state of human existence (Figure 5-4; see Genesis 6:3; Romans 8:8, 9; Ephesians 2:1-3).

Adamic man is in the flesh positionally, as an “old man” of the old age, as well as being in the flesh relationally because he is “in Adam.” This stands in sharp contrast to the Christian who is positionally in the Spirit as a “new creature” in the age of the New Covenant, as well as being in the spirit relationally by virtue of being baptized in (brought into union with) the Spirit of Christ (see Romans 8). Ontologically, Adamic man is in the flesh state of being. This is to say he has Adamic life and fleshly, sinful human nature by virtue of his inherent sin-corrupted and sin-dominated spiritual heart and physical body.

To summarize, Adamic man is flesh because sinful flesh characterizes the moral nature of his spiritually dead life. He exists in the realm of flesh, which also is the realm of sin and darkness. He is also in the flesh conditionally because he functions out of a fleshly old spiritual heart, and this produces sinful behavior and “fruit for death” (Romans 7:5).
You had an unregenerate heart

As an Adam-hearted person you had an unregenerate heart. The Random House Dictionary gives this pertinent definition of unregenerate: “Not regenerate; not renewed in heart and mind or reborn in spirit.” Your life was Adam’s spiritually dead life, your nature was Adam’s sin-nature, and your spiritual identity was in Adam and the same as Adam’s—that of “sinner.” And, because of sin, you were separated from God:

Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned... (Romans 5:12).

But your iniquities [actual sins] have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear (Isaiah 59:2).

You were a sinner
As an “old man” species, you were in a state of total depravity or total inability to relate with God in a spiritually intimate way. Scripture tells us that we were “in Adam”—were physically and spiritually descended from him, and derived our natural life, spiritual nature, and identity from him (Genesis 1:1-3, 20). When Adam sinned, we all sinned (Romans 5:12b). When Adam died spiritually, we all died spiritually and were separated from God (Romans 5:15; Isaiah 59:2). Obviously, nonbelievers are alive; so this “death” does not indicate the end of a person’s existence; the spiritual heart of natural man is everlasting, though separated from God. When Adam became a sinner, we all were made sinners (Romans 5:19). When Adam was condemned by God’s law and the curse of death was placed on him, we all were condemned (Romans 5:18). Because we inherited Adam’s life and nature, we were “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3).

You had a sense of morality
Having been created in God’s image, you had free will and possessed a strong creative or achieving drive. You were able, within the limitations of your fallen and fleshly state of being, to make moral discernment between good and evil because God wrote His moral laws on your heart (Romans 2:14, 15). However, in and of yourself you did not have the power to overcome sin in your life or to become “good” (i.e., holy and righteous). You needed Jesus to deal with your sin problem and to re-create you—through co-crucifixion and co-resurrection with Him—into a holy and righteous creature.

Adamic man is capable of building empires, probing the depths of outer space, and in countless other ways contributing to the betterment of mankind’s temporal environment. However, his works are born out of the flesh, are considered “fruit for death” by God, and have no standing with Him. All of this is because Adamic man is without eternal life and is “in the flesh” (Acts 7:51). His entire being—spiritual heart and body—exists in the realm of darkness, flesh, and sin, and his heart’s spirit chamber-part is devoid of God’s Spirit. The darkened and depraved soul of his heart (2 Corinthians 3:15) contains sin-corrupted or fleshly faculties of mind, emotion, and will.

David spoke on behalf of all people when he wrote: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). As natural-born sinners, all of us were “strangers to the covenants of [God’s] promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).

As an Adam-hearted person, your future held no hope. But God, out of His love for you, had a plan.

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(1) In my illustrations the apple in the spiritual heart symbolizes the fleshly human nature of sin-corrupted and spiritually dead or unregenerate mankind that is passed from generation to generation through the seed of the male. (The apple is traditionally held by some to be the forbidden fruit, though it is not named as such in the Bible.)

(2) If you use The New International Version of the Bible, note that, in Romans 8:5 and other verses, the term sarx is translated as “sinful nature.” Some linguists believe a better rendering is “flesh.” To translate sarx as “sinful nature” can be confusing because the “flesh” is not necessarily synonymous with “sinful nature.” The Adam-Hearted Person can be said to have a “sinful nature” in that his life and human nature are corrupted and dominated by sin. But, as we will discuss in more detail further on, the Christian has a righteous spiritual nature, though his behavior can be fleshly or flesh-like. It is incorrect to say the Christian has a “sinful nature” or a “flesh nature” when “nature” refers to the ethical or moral quality of the believer’s life.

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Ch. 6: The New Creature

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