The DNA of Imperfection

Original Song: DNA (click for lyrics)

It’s in my blood — I didn’t choose it
The stain of Adam — I can’t undo it
From the moment life began
Sin marked every child of man

It’s deeper than skin — it’s wired within
A chain I could never break

The DNA of imperfection
Runs in every generation
But the cross rewrites the code
Jesus paid the debt I owed
The DNA of imperfection
Broken by His resurrection

I tried religion — it left me chained
I tried good works — but none remained
Every effort — every fight
Fell before the Judge’s light

It’s deeper than deeds — it’s born in me
But Jesus holds the key

The DNA of imperfection
Runs in every generation
But the cross rewrites the code
Jesus paid the debt I owed
The DNA of imperfection
Broken by His resurrection

Not by law — not by might
But by the blood that made me right
Grace alone — faith alone
In Christ I find my perfect home

The DNA of imperfection
Lost in new creation
At the cross, my chains explode
He alone rewrites my code
The DNA of imperfection
Was broken by His resurrection

DNA – We all have it. It’s what makes us what we are, physically. It defines us. Without DNA, we would have no physical presence at all.

Deoxyribonucleic acid is the molecule that carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of all known organisms. It is passed down from our parents. It determines the color of our hair, eyes, and skin. It is the foundation of our physical selves — present before our first breath, unchanged by anything we do after it.

I am going to use physical DNA as a window into the human condition before God. I use it because nothing else fits as well.

Inherited Corruption

Using the same letters, we can talk about our innermost nature — what we are made of spiritually. It is the Depraved Nature of Adam.

D = Depraved: Morally corrupt; wicked; evil; having no goodness at its core. 
N = Nature: The basic, inherent essence of who someone is — not what they do, but what they are. 
A = Adam: The first human being created by God. A representative of the entire human race.

Just as physical DNA is inherited at conception — present before any choice is made, before any act is committed — so is this. The Depraved Nature of Adam is not something you developed. It is something you were born with. It is in you at the foundational level, the same way your blood type is.

Paul put it plainly:

When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. (Romans 5:12, NLT)

This is not about behavior. It is about condition. The distinction matters enormously, as we will see.

It Isn’t What You Do. It’s What You Are.

Most approaches to the human problem before God start with behavior — a list of commandments broken, a moral standard failed, a record of wrong deeds. The problem with that starting point is that it misses where the problem actually lives. Behavior is downstream of nature. You do what you do because of what you are.

A tree does not become corrupt because it produces bad fruit. It produces bad fruit because it is already corrupt. The fruit is evidence of the condition, not the condition itself.

Isaiah understood this:

We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind. (Isaiah 64:6, NLT)

Notice what Isaiah is saying. It is not just our evil deeds that are worthless before God — it is our righteous deeds. Our best efforts, our finest moral moments, our most sincere religious performances — filthy rags. Why? Because the condition producing them is corrupt. The source is compromised, so everything that flows from it is compromised, however impressive it looks on the surface.

This is not pessimism. It is diagnosis.

Since Isaiah’s words for “filthy rags” refer to menstrual rags, the modern equivalent would be a used tampon. So we might say it’s like offering God a used tampon on a stick. If that makes you recoil, put yourself in God’s place when you try to show Him what a good person you are. Like Jesus said in Mark 10:18, “no one is good, but God alone”. When He asked “why do you call me good?” (since the man called Him “good teacher”). He was not declaring Himself to not be good, but rather addressing the man’s belief that people can be good if they are rabbis.

Why Religion Cannot Fix This

Here is where every religious system in the world runs into the same wall.

I define religion as human effort directed toward a spiritual goal — doing something to earn acceptance from, or standing before, a higher power. By that definition, there is no religion on earth that does not depend on human effort to obtain some result. Prayer wheels and beads, pilgrimages, sacraments, moral codes, dietary laws, good deeds, charitable giving, baptisms — all of it is effort. All of it is something the person does.

But the DNA is not a behavior problem. It is a condition problem—the essence of what we were created into.

You cannot modify your physical DNA by being more careful. You cannot remove it by being more disciplined. The condition exists at a level that effort simply cannot reach — not because the effort is insufficient, but because effort is the wrong category of tool entirely.

Religion, then, is not the solution to the Depraved Nature of Adam. Religion is what the Depraved Nature of Adam generates as a coping mechanism. It is the human attempt to manage a condition that human effort is structurally incapable of addressing. The most devout religious person on earth and the most irreligious person share the identical spiritual DNA. One is simply busier about it.

Solomon identified this pattern:

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads only to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

He said it twice — verbatim, in two different proverbs — which should tell us he considered it load-bearing and worth repeating. The way that seems right is not the obviously wicked path. It is the morally serious, spiritually disciplined, religiously devout path. The one that feels like progress. The one that feels responsible. And it leads to the same destination as open rebellion, because it never touches the actual condition.

No amount of good works will change the essence of who we are. Paul confirmed it:

The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. (Romans 8:3, NLT)

The Law was never designed to save. It was designed to show us that we cannot save ourselves.

The Same Condition

One more thing worth saying plainly before we get to the solution.

The person writing this has the same DNA as the person reading it. That is not a rhetorical device. It is structural fact. The Depraved Nature of Adam does not skip anyone carrying Adam’s physical DNA. It does not make exceptions for people who think carefully about theology, or who have followed God for decades, or who write blog posts about the human condition.

This matters because it changes the nature of the conversation. The gospel is not a verdict delivered by someone standing above you. It is a diagnosis shared by someone standing next to you — who happens to have found the only remedy that operates at the level where the problem lives.

When I share the Gospel of Christ—the solution to our inner pollution—I do not do so from a position of superiority. I do so as one who knows what it means. And now you know too. The Gospel doesn’t make us better, it makes us aware. When we receive it and accept it and walk in it in submission, then God gets to work on us. That is called “sanctification”.

God’s Solution: Breaking the Chain

Since the condition is inherited through human lineage, the only possible solution is someone born outside that lineage — fully human, carrying none of the inherited corruption, qualified to stand in the place of everyone who carries it.

This required one thing that has never happened before or since in human history.

The Holy Spirit placed a fully formed, living Embryo into the womb of a young woman named Mary. This Living Embryo (named Jesus) did not carry the Depraved Nature of Adam — physical or spiritual. Mary was as human as the rest of us, carrying the same inherited condition. But her corruption did not transfer to the Embryo placed in her womb. She contributed the womb, the gestation, the nourishment. She did not contribute the nature. The DNA was already established at insertion.

No physical DNA from Mary. No physical DNA from a human father. No Depraved Nature of Adam. The chain of inherited corruption did not reach Him.

Paul describes this contrast directly:

So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:45-48)

The virgin birth is not a miraculous detail added for effect. Mary was not “immaculate”. She was as dirty as the rest of us. It is the structural requirement of the solution. A savior who inherited the condition cannot address the condition. The math (or logic) does not work any other way.

And since He never carried the Depraved Nature of Adam, and never acted in accordance with one, He was in every way a perfect human being — the only one in our history of whom that can be said.

The Debt Paid

God is both perfectly just — a righteous Judge who cannot accept wrongdoing — and perfectly loving — desiring to pardon everyone. These are not competing attributes that He has to balance. They were resolved simultaneously at the cross.

The only currency God accepts is perfection sacrificed. This principle goes back to the beginning. Cain missed it when he offered God the leftovers of his crops rather than the best. Abel understood it—he offered the best. The entire sacrificial system of Israel pointed toward it.

Since no human being since Adam and Eve has been without the inherited condition, no human being can offer that currency. There is only one remedy — the perfect Flesh and Blood of Jesus, covering our sin. As a perfect human being, He was qualified to represent the entire human race in receiving the penalty that belongs to all of us. He paid what we could not pay, in the only currency that satisfies the requirement.

This is how God the Father can look at us and not recoil.

For more on how God resolves His justice and His desire to pardon simultaneously, see The Balancing Act of God.

The Response

The good news is genuinely good — but it does not operate the way religion operates.

There is nothing to do. There is nothing to contribute. Nothing to say or pray. Even faith is not something a person generates — it is a gift from the Father. (Romans 4:16, Ephesians 2:8) It is an open offer to all. The only human variable is receptivity — not generating faith, not earning it, not performing for it. Simply not closing the hand when the gift is extended.

It is a thing that happens in the heart, when a person realizes their depravity and inability to do anything about it. That is when the heart turns to Christ and submits to His act on the cross. It is a covering of His flesh and blood over our soul, not our own flesh and blood (DNA). The thing called “repentance” is what this turning of the heart actually is. And it is the only necessary ingredient that we can add. It is not an action, but a change of heart or perspective. Call it realization and acceptance.

If you are receptive to God’s gift of faith, He will give it to you. When received, the person is regenerated in their spirit by God’s Spirit. (John 3:5-6) This is not self-improvement. This is not religious transformation. This is a new birth — the only birth in history that addresses the condition at the level where it actually lives. And when a person turns from this acceptance they are falling from the only thing that can save them. See Hebrews 10:26:

Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins.

The continuance of sin is a reflection of the heart condition—that we did not actually turn from it. Yes, as John wrote, if we claim to have no sin, we are fooling ourselves. (1 John 1:8)

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.

The truth is that we do have sin and we cannot rid ourselves of it as long as we are in the flesh. Only the flesh and blood of Christ can cover us. And in this light, death of the flesh is a blessing, as well as a curse. Fallen angels don’t have this gift. Only humans have this gift of death.

Drop the religion. Start the relationship. Give yourself to your Savior, Jesus the anointed Messiah. Let Him solve your problem that you cannot.

What Comes Next

Justification — being made right before God through this acceptance of the cross — is the beginning, not the end. What follows is what we call Sanctification: cooperating with God’s Spirit in the daily work of living differently than the condition alone would produce.

This is not earning anything. It is not improving your standing. It is showing the results of what God has already done — not generating them. Paul put it this way:

Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. (Philippians 2:12-13, NLT)

HE is doing the work. Our part is cooperation, not contribution. The “work” Paul is encouraging us to walk in is the constant realization that our own efforts are meaningless. But fighting against our sinfulness is a good thing. It does not bring salvation—it brings alignment with the Holy Spirit, Who is doing the work in us. And Jesus is the One Who brought the method—the solution. But be careful to not get proud about helping in the fight. Don’t get caught up in your “goodness” as you fight your corruption. That’s what the Galatians did and they got corrected by Paul.

Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross. Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it? (Galatians 3:1-4)

And the final thing — what we call Glorification — is the transformation that occurs when Christ returns. The mortal, imperfect, DNA-filled body exchanged for one that is incorruptible, perfect, everlasting. The condition removed entirely. Not managed. Not covered. Gone.

That is the trajectory of the one who receives the gift.

The life you are living now is not your final condition. The offer is open. The remedy exists. The decision is yours.

In His love, 

Gary