Section 2
Suppose a mother has a bottle of poison at home. She keeps it in a specific place and tells her little boy never to touch that bottle. One day, while the mother is outside, the little boy, won dering what is in the bottle, takes it, opens it, and drinks some of the poison. When the mother finds out what happened, she is not concerned about the mistake her son has made. She is worried about the poison that has gotten into him. Most Christians think that man merely dis obeyed God and made a mistake in taking the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Not many realize that by man's eating the fruit of the tree of knowl edge, something evil and even satanic entered into man. Through the fall an evil, satanic ele ment was injected into him. The Bible calls this element sin. Sin is not merely a matter of lying or stealing. Such things are the fruit of sin, not sin itself. Sin is the very nature of Satan, the evil one.
In Romans 5 through 8 there are many indi cations that sin is like a living person: it entered (5:12), it reigns (5:21), it can lord it over us (6:14), it deceives us (7:11), it kills us (7:11), and it dwells in us (7:17). Once sin, the evil element of Satan, was injected into man, man was constituted a sinner. Now instead of being proper men, we are