Depravity and Citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven
In the official “Oath of Allegiance” required of new American citizens, we have these words:
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen
Can Osama bin Laden become an American Citizen? There are two barriers it seems he would have trouble overcoming.
Here’s what the “Guide to Naturalization” says:
To be eligible for naturalization you must be a person of good moral character. USCIS will make a determination on your moral character based upon the laws Congress has passed. In the following section, we describe some of the things USCIS may consider. Criminal Record. Committing certain crimes may cause you to be ineligible for naturalization (USCIS calls these “bars” to naturalization). Aggravated felonies (committed on or after November 29, 1990) and murder are permanent bars. You may never become a citizen if you have committed one of these crimes. Other crimes are temporary bars. Temporary bars usually prevent you from becoming a citizen for a certain amount of time after you commit the crime. The “Application for Naturalization” (Form N-400) asks several questions about crimes. You should report all crimes that you have committed including ones that have been expunged (removed from your record) and ones that happened before your 18th birthday. If you do not tell USCIS about these crimes and we find out about them, you may be denied naturalization (even if the crime itself was not a crime for which your case could be denied). |
Here are some “Examples of Things that Might Show a Lack of Good Moral Character,” according to the “Guide to Naturalization”:
• Any crime against a person with intent to harm • Any crime against property or the Government that involves “fraud” or evil intent • Two or more crimes for which the aggregate sentence was 5 years or more • Violating any controlled substance law of the United States, any state, or any foreign country • Habitual drunkenness or drunk driving • Illegal gambling • Prostitution • Polygamy (marriage to more than one person at the same time) • Lying to gain immigration benefits • Failing to pay court-ordered child support or alimony payments • Confinement in jail, prison, or similar institution for which the total confinement was 180 days or more during the past 5 years (or 3 years if you are applying based on your marriage to a United States citizen) • Failing to complete any probation, parole, or suspended sentence before you apply for naturalization • If you have recently been ordered deported or removed, you are not eligible for citizenship. If you are in removal proceedings, you may not apply for citizenship until the proceedings are complete and you have been allowed to remain in the country as a Permanent Resident. • Terrorist acts • Persecution of anyone because of race, religion, national origin, political opinion, or social group |
Poor Osama. Not a person of “good moral character.” He can’t become an American citizen.
But let’s change the law a little bit. Suppose we were to say that Osama bin Laden could become a citizen if he “paid his debt to society.” Suppose Osama made restitution of the hundreds of millions of dollars of damage his terrorist acts have allegedly caused.
All well and good, but we still have the problem of the murder of over 3,000 people on 9/11. Osama would have to have over 3,000 death sentences carried out against him.
Amazingly, none of this is an obstacle to Osama’s becoming a citizen of heaven. All the death sentences were laid on Jesus. He paid all the restitution.[1]
But we have to deal with Osama’s loyalty to Al-Qaeda. We have to look at Osama’s heart. No matter how forgiving the U.S. government will be of all the crimes Osama committed, it seems hard to imagine Osama even wanting to become a citizen of “the Great Satan.”
And no matter how much mercy and forgiveness God offers to mankind, the offer of citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven is always declined by citizens of the kingdom of Satan.
All human beings are born terrorists against the Kingdom of Heaven. Our great-great-great-great-etc.-grandfather, “Osama bin Adam,” rebelled against the Kingdom of Heaven and was stripped of his citizenship. All of his descendants are born hating “the Great Satan,” which is really God and His Kingdom. We are all under a death sentence.
In fact, spiritually speaking, we are already dead. Utterly incapable of even filling out the application form for citizenship in heaven. It is less likely that a sinner would want to have his citizenship in heaven than Osama bin Laden would want his citizenship to be in the United States. It’s completely against the sinner’s character. We would have to be put to death and resurrected as completely new people.
Which is what the Bible says.
As a result of our inborn corruption inherited from Adam, the natural man is totally unable to do anything spiritually good; thus Calvinists speak of man’s “total inability.” The inability intended by this terminology is spiritual inability. It means that the sinner is so spiritually bankrupt that he can do nothing pertaining to his citizenship. It is quite evident that many un- saved people, when judged by man’s standards, do possess “good moral character” and do perform virtuous acts. But in the spiritual realm, when judged by God’s standards, the unsaved sinner is incapable of applying for citizenship in heaven. The natural man is enslaved to sin; he is a child of Satan, rebellious toward God, blind to truth, corrupt, and unable to save himself or to prepare himself for salvation. In short, the unregenerate man is dead in sin, and his will is enslaved to his evil nature. He is completely unable to renounce his loyalty to the old empire.
Man did not come from the hands of his Creator in this depraved, corrupt condition. God made Adam upright; there was no evil whatsoever in his nature. Originally, Adam’s will was free from the dominion of sin; he was under no natural compulsion to choose evil, but through his fall he brought spiritual death upon himself and all his posterity. He thereby plunged himself and the entire race into spiritual ruin and lost for himself and his descendants the ability to make right choices in the spiritual realm. His descendants are still free to choose-every man makes choices through- out life-but inasmuch as Adam’s offspring are born with sinful natures, they do not have the ability to choose spiritual good over evil. They have no desire to become naturalized citizens in the Kingdom of Heaven. Consequently, man’s will is no longer free (i.e., free from the dominion of sin, free from allegiance and fidelity to a false god) as Adam’s will was free before the fall. Instead, man’s will, as the result of inherited depravity, is in bondage to his sinful nature. He is loyal to a false god: himself.
The Westminster Confession of Faith gives a clear, concise statement of this doctrine. “Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.”[2]
To become a citizen of heaven, you must abjure all loyalty to death, and you can only do this if God gives you life. You must be “born again” (John 3). You must experience “regeneration.” We can’t regenerate ourselves. Our application for citizenship in heaven is filled out for us by God. We gain citizenship in heaven not by our own will, but by God’s will:
5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew Him not.
11 He came unto his own, and His own received Him not.
12 But as many as received Him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name:
13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1)
Let’s outline the Biblical data:
A. As the result of Adam’s transgression, men are born in sin and by nature are spiritually dead; therefore, if they are to become God’s children and enter His kingdom, they must be born anew of the Spirit.
1. When Adam was placed in the garden of Eden, he was warned not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil on the threat of immediate spiritual death.
Genesis 2:16,17: And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
2. Adam disobeyed and ate of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:1-7); consequently, he brought spiritual death upon himself and upon the race.
Romans 5:12: Therefore as sin came into the world through one man [Adam, see vs. 14] and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.
Ephesians 2:1-3: And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Colossians 2:13: And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.
3. David confessed that he, as well as all other men, was born in sin.
Psalm 51:5: Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Psalm 58:3: The wicked go astray from the womb, they err from their birth, speaking lies.
4. Because men are born in sin and are by nature spiritually dead, Jesus taught that men must be born anew if they are to enter God’s kingdom.
John 3: 5-7: Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ “ Compare John 1:12,13.
B. As the result of the fall, men are blind and deaf to spiritual truth. Their minds are darkened by sin; their hearts are corrupt and evil.
Genesis 6:5: The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Genesis 8:21: . . . the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. . .
Ecclesiastes 9:3: . . . the hearts of men are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live. . .
Jeremiah 17:9: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt,’ who can understand it?
Mark 7:21-23: “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.”
John 3:19: And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Romans 8:7,8: For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
I Corinthians 2:14: The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
Ephesians 4: 17-19: Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart,’ they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness.
Ephesians 5:8: For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. . .
Titus 1:15: To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.
C. Before sinners are born into God’s kingdom through the regenerating power of the Spirit, they are children of the devil and under his control; they are slaves to sin.
John 8:44: You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.
Ephesians 2:1,2: And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.
II Timothy 2:25,26: God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
I John 3:10: By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother.
I John 5:19: We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one.
John 8:34: Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin.”
Romans 6:20: When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
Titus 3:3: For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by men and hating one another.
D. The reign of sin is universal; all men are under its power; consequently, none is righteous-not even one!
II Chronicles 6:36: . . . for there is no man who does not sin. . . .
Compare I Kings 8:46.
Job 15:14-16: What is man, that he can be clean? Or he that is born of a woman, that he can be righteous? Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his sight; how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!
Psalm 130:3: If thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
Psalm 143:2: Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for no man living is righteous before thee.
Proverbs 20:9: Who can say, “I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin”?
Ecclesiastes 7:20: Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.
John 6:65: And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
Romans 11:35,36: “Or who has ,given a gift to him that he might be repaid ?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
I Corinthians 2:14: The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
I Corinthians 4:7: For who sees anything different in you? What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?
II Corinthians 3:5: Not. that we are sufficient of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our sufficiency is from God.
For further Biblical confirmation that men are unable of themselves to do anything toward gaining salvation, see the Scriptures in a future post on "Efficacious Grace." Note especially those verses which state that GOD gives faith, grants repentance, creates a new heart within the sinner, and other similar expressions.
[1] This is a spiritual metaphor. If I steal your car, and then become a Christian, I should still make restitution to you for the loss of your car, following the commands of Scripture.
[2] Chapter IX, Section 3
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