Every other religion says that man is basically good, and that he needs to be reminded of the goodness in him so that he could walk in uprightness and start loving God. But the Bible says something different about our heart condition, that we are completely dead in our sins. By nature, we are not only unwilling to love God, but incapable of loving God. That means, we would need a help from outside of us to actually change us. This is why God’s intervention is absolutely necessary.
How do you view your relationship with Christ? Do you relate yourself to Him as a sinner or as a saint? If you relate to Him as a sinner then you’re unlikely to experience the joy of forgiveness: justification, adoption (into God’s family), and the certainty of eternal life. However, relating to Christ now as a new creation (saint) also does not negate the fact that you’re a sinner. In this passage, we learn what kind of identity we are given in Christ and the implications of that in our daily lives.