They would indignantly ask if we supposed them to be moral perverts. It may be that some of our own readers repudiate the charge that they have ever taken pleasure in sin, and would claim on the contrary, that from earliest recollection they have detested wickedness in all its forms. It is indeed striking to observe how often this discordant note is struck in Scripture. To love sin is far worse than to commit it, for a man may be suddenly tripped up or commit it through frailty. The fact is that we are not only born into this world with an evil nature, but with hearts that are thoroughly in love with sin.
Sin is our native element.
We are wedded to our lusts, and of ourselves are no more able to alter the bent of our corrupt nature than the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his spots. This is the great miracle of grace, for the Almighty stoops down and picks up a loathsome leper from the dunghill and makes him a new creature in Christ, so that the things he once loved he now hates, and the things he once hated he now loves. God commences by saving us from ourselves. He does not save us from the penalty until He has delivered us from the love of sin. Negatively, not by eradicating the evil nature, nor even by refining it.