We believe that man was created in the image and likeness of God, but that in Adam’s sin, the race fell, inherited a sinful nature, became alienated from God, and is totally unable to retrieve his lost condition. Every area of our lives has been infected by sin so that we are incapable of earning any merit or favour from God.
Gen 1:26-27 (NKJV)
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Rom 3:22-23 (NKJV)
even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Rom 5:12 (NKJV)
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned–
Eph 2:12 (NKJV)
that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Isa 64:6 (NKJV)
But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.
Eph 2:8-9 (NKJV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
New King James Version®, NKJV® Copyright© 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.