Scripture is very clear and consistent in its teaching that we were all born into a state of sinfulness, guilt, and spiritual death. When we truly comprehend our fallenness, we can immediately see that our own sin is a moral and spiritual dilemma from which we are utterly unable to loosen ourselves.

• Paul told the Ephesian believers: "[You] were dead in trespasses and sins: wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Ephesians 2:1-3).
  
• Look closely at what he says there: Every unregenerate person is spiritually dead, walking in accord with Satan, by nature a child of wrath. We are born into this world as thorough going sinners—not merely tainted a little bit by sin, but completely, hopelessly in bondage to it. Every aspect of our being—mind, emotions, desires, and even our physical constitution—is corrupted, controlled, and disfigured by sin and its effects. No one escapes from that verdict. We are totally depraved. What does this mean ?