Human nature is good. According to Genesis, God created us in His image and likeness, breathed His breath of life in us and we became living souls. On the final day of creation, He made us and said it was very good. Satan didn’t create or give life to humanity. God did that. So we are all good men and women created for holiness.
But we have been corrupted to the point of death. The tempter (having the form of a creature he didn’t create) convinced us that we could be like god without God. With disobedience of unbridled desire and placing the created above the creator, rot set in. In the presence of God who seeks us, our corrupted nature can only offer fear and blame. Disobedience, disordered desire and disordered thought are invasive seeds of sin and unnatural. Infected, we cannot stand to be in the presence of the one who created our nature. Death is the only result.
Had we been dead from the very beginning, there would be no hope for us at all. If the corruption had completely killed us, there would have been nothing left to save. Expelled from His presence and cycled in self-destruction, God continues to give life. But life apart from Him rots and dies.
Taking the goodness, likeness, and life of our form, God made our restoration possible. Through the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit and the womb of a virgin mother, our restoration became possible. Corrupt as we men and women may be, if we seek after and imitate the hope and purity of This infant, there is hope for our restoration.
West Point Orthodox Christian Chapel 