Psalm 58:3 Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies.
In this psalm by David the point is made not only that men and women are wicked by nature but that the problem starts while they are still in the womb. There is still a widespread belief that children are born innocent but then the corruptions of this world get to them and they become wicked. That is not the case. As David says, rather it is from birth that the wicked staert going astray, it is even while they are still in the womb that their waywardness starts, the kying and the deceit. This is the same teaching as in Psalm 51:5 where David says Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. As Jesus says flesh gives birth to flesh. This is the doctrine of original sin, which states that human beings, simply by being born, inherit a tainted nature and a proclivity to sinful conduct and so ar ein need of regeneration. The 1689 Confession following The Westminster Confession reminds us how Adam and Eve "being the root, and by God's appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of the sin was imputed and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free." It also says that "From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions."
