ChristianDebates

Psalms 58:3-5

"The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
That is God's Word confirming the age that God sees sin in Children, and when He holds us accountable. And what is God's judgment? He says, "Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth." Isn't it amazing how God doesn't see children as some of the Church today see them. We need to understand that to a righteous God, our sinfulness makes us comparable to poisonous vipers. And whether we are a small viper (snake) or a large viper, we are still vipers. Children are neither born righteous, nor are their sins unaccountable.

This is another misapplication of Scripture, easily refuted. It does not say that the wicked are wicked from the womb, now does it? It only says that they are estranged from the womb, and they go astray from birth. That word, "from," in, "from birth," indicates an ongoing, continuing action, just as in the case of stating that they grow old from birth. Just as they do not grow old immediately AT their birth, they do not speak lies immediately AT their birth. (Going astray from birth is like an arrow that is shot from a bow, but with an incorrect aim. The straying arrow began its journey from the same bow as the one that is correctly aimed, but as time goes on, the deviation becomes apparent, and the arrow eventually misses its mark. The arrow did not go astray AT the bow, but it went astray from the bow onward). David's description is of those who are wicked now, as adults, whom he hates. He does not consider himself to be a part of those whom he calls the wicked, much less does he consider all men to be a part of these wicked. As such, his description is not a progressive one, where he speaks of the birth of the wicked and then describes the future of their life. Rather, his description is a regressive one, looking back upon the lives of real, wicked adult men whom he has in mind, and describes how these men who are wicked have been estranged from the womb and have gone astray from the moment of birth. This description explains why it is that these men are now wicked liars, but it does not portray infants and unborn as wicked or speaking lies. The fact that an infant cannot speak should have been a clue. Look at the next verse, 58:6...

Psalm 58:6

6 O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!

Is it Warren's contention that David is telling God to break the teeth in the mouths of every infant that is ever born?--or of any infant, for that matter? Obviously not (infants don't even have teeth)! Now, why is David telling God to break their teeth? Two reasons are given in verses 4 and 5: "Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;" You see, verses 4-6 all speak of the wicked adults that David has had in mind from the beginning of this psalm. He describes their birth in v. 3, and then goes back to describing them as adults in v.4.

Men are estranged from the womb because all men sinned while in the loins of Adam, and thus are born spiritually dead, or separated from God. However, the Bible nowhere establishes that God will hold an infant accountable for the state of estrangement into which he is born. Rather, the Bible is explicitly clear in telling us that God will judge every man according to his deeds (and not the deeds of anyone else, such as Adam).

1st Corinthians 7:14

"For the Unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the Husband: else were your children unclean, but now are they Holy."
How can children be unholy except that they are unsaved? I challenge you to ask yourself honestly with no preconceived ideas about the answer, "If God Saved all children, would God's Word say that there were some who were unclean?" Again, the only honest answer is no. ...Children are not automatically Holy, Set Apart, nor Saved. And verses like these proves it to any objective and faithful Bible student...

Children are not conceived as already "holy." They are also not conceived as already guilty of sin. The only way that this can support Warren's position is if he is contending that the children of believers are saved, while the children of unbelievers are not saved. The utter injustice of basing a child's eternal judgment on his parents needs no further opposition. It sinks itself. Besides, if this verse were speaking of salvation, then the unbelieving spouse would also be saved, having been sanctified by the believing spouse.

...If Adam and eve had no knowledge of good and evil (making them unaccountable), then they would not have been accountable for eating from the tree of knowledge when they were commanded not to. So how do we reconcile this seeming contradiction? The truth is found in man being made in the image of God so that he had an inherent knowledge of good and evil, and that is why God held Adam and Eve accountable. Adam did not sin before He ate from the tree, but he most certainly had knowledge of good and evil, but not the experiential knowledge of good and evil which his disobedience gave him. Very much like someone saying that he knew his wife, meaning intellectually. And someone saying he Knew his wife, meaning physical union. In the same way, when Adam ate of the tree, for the first time he then 'knew' good and evil because he physically knew or experienced evil. He knew before that he shouldn't disobey God and eat of this tree when God commanded him not to, but after he ate, He then knew good and evil on another level. One is a knowledge of what is good and evil, and the other is knowing good and evil eperientially. Which is also illustrated in Adam and Eve not knowing their nakedness as it was sinfulness until 'after they disobeyed.' In other words, before he ate of the tree, they were naked and not ashamed to be that way because they had not 'experienced' sin and in this way had no sinful thoughts about their nakedness. After they ate, they gained knowledge of sin through their disobedience and thus saw themselves in their nakedness, and had pride (sin) and self respect that they wanted to cover up. A whole new knowledge which they obtained 'through' disobedience. And God uses this as a spiritual example of how all men stand naked in their sin (children included) and how we all must be clothed with Christ. This was represented by the sacrifice of those skins for Adam and Eve to be clothed with. We too, when we gain knowledge of good and evil, see ourselves as naked before God in our sin, and recognize our need for a covering (rev. 3:18).

Interesting speculations. One thing is certain: Adam and Eve knew that eating from the tree would be morally wrong. Regardless of how you explain it, it is also certain that the Bible plainly indicates that gaining "the knowledge of good and evil" was simultaneous with their first sin. Therefore, when God says, in Deut. 1:39 (which we will get to later) that little children do not have that knowledge, it strongly indicates that they have not committed their first sin. As for the correlating shame of nakedness, Warren's argument fails, since children are not ashamed of nakedness from birth, but gain that shame after some development. The early Church father, Tertullian, postulated that the shame of nakedness in a child indicated that the child had arrived at the point of the knowledge of good and evil.

To be continued...