Charles Ryrie showed the sinfulness of sinners by explaining the imputation of Adam’s sin directly to sinners and the inheritance of sin indirectly from Adam through the parents of each succeeding generation. Ryrie explained the difference:
Imputed sin is transmitted directly from Adam to each individual in every generation. Since I was in Adam, Adam’s sin was imputed to me directly, not through my parents and their parents. Imputed sin is an immediate imputation (that is, directly, not through mediators between Adam and me). This contrasts with how the inherited sin nature is transmitted. It comes to me from my parents, and theirs from their parents, and so on back to Adam. Inherited sin is a mediate transmission since it comes through all the mediators of generations between Adam and me.[1]
Paul explained the imputation of sin when he declared that “all have sinned,” in Romans 5:12. Paul explained that death passed on all men because of Adam’s sin and then he added because “all have sinned.” All sinned in Adam. How did all sin in Adam? Paul in Romans 5:13 then noted that although there was no Mosaic Law to disobey from Adam to Moses, sinners still died. Why did they die? Not because they personally disobeyed God’s Law, but because they sinned in Adam. When Achan stole, God said, “Israel has sinned” (Joshua 7:11). Michael Horton observed, “Just as the sin of Adam was imputed to the human race” in the Old Testament we see “the notion of imputing the sin of one person to each Israelite and thus to the nation.”[2] The imputation of Christ’s righteousness which is the result of the penal substitutionary death of Christ is the remedy for the imputation of Adam’s sin.
Not only are sinners sinful because of the imputation of sin but Paul also explained that all are presently “falling short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23). This present condition of sinning is because of inherited sin.
In reference to “falling short” Leon Morris “contrasts the complacent young ruler who asked, ‘What lack I yet?’ (Matt. 19:20 ὑστερῶ [fallen short]) with the Prodigal who felt his destitution in Luke 15:14: And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need (ὑστερεῖσθαι [fallen short]).”[3] Morris next quoted H. Moule, “The harlot, the liar, the murderer, are short of it; but so are you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine, and you on the crest of an Alp; but you are as little able to touch the stars as they.”[4]
In Romans 3:13-19, Paul describes the result of the fall which is total depravity which means that every aspect of man is affected by sin. Thomas Constable described the importance of 3:13-19 in reference to total depravity:
In verses 13-18, Paul described the words (vv. 13-14), acts (vv. 15-17), and attitudes (v.18) of man as tainted by sin. This passage is one of the most forceful in Scripture that deals with the total depravity of man. Total depravity does not mean that every person is as bad as he or she could be. It means that sin has affected every part of his or her being and consequently there is nothing anyone can do to commend himself or herself to a holy God.[5]
Paul in Romans 3:23 teaches the sinfulness of all men which requires penal substitution. The Word of God emphatically teaches people are basically sinful because Adam’s sin was passed on to his descendants. We inherited Adam’s sinfulness. David confessed, “In sin did my mother conceive me” in Psalm 51:5. Before salvation, Paul says we were “children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2) and by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). Our intellect is affected by sin (Eph. 4:18), our emotions (Rom. 1:21, 24, 26), our will (Rom. 6:20), and our bodies (Rom. 6:12; 7:18). The remedy for the sinfulness of man is the penal substitutionary death of the God/man.
[1] Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology, 259.
[2] Michael Horton, The Christian Faith, 633.
[3] Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 177.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Thomas Constable, “Constable Notes” at NetBible on Romans 3:13-18.