"Satan Cannot Enter the Mind Without Our Consent—We should present before the people the fact that God has provided that we shall not be tempted above what we are able to bear, but that with every temptation He will make a way of escape. If we live wholly for God, we shall not allow the mind to indulge in selfish imaginings. {AH 402.1}
If there is any way by which Satan can gain access to the mind, he will sow his tares and cause them to grow until they will yield an abundant harvest. In no case can Satan obtain dominion over the thoughts, words, and actions, unless we voluntarily open the door and invite him to enter. He will then come in and, by catching away the good seed sown in the heart, make of none effect the truth.7 {AH 402.2}

How does this fit with your understanding APL? It doesn't.

Mike, I believe that at some point, every sinner has to have his or her first sin. Doesn't that seem reasonable? For every baby to be a sinner at birth requires that he or she has sinned already by that point. I believe the primary sins that a fetus could commit center around the emotions. Selfishness is early experienced, and early imitated. These first sins are sins of ignorance, certainly, but nonetheless sinful. These sins are inherited from the parents.

No blastocyst or zygote could ever hope to survive outside the womb. The early stages of pregnancy develop the brain and spinal cord. Without a mind, no choice is made. Without a choice, sin is not committed. But the mind begins its development long before the internal organs are developed enough to sustain life outside the womb. By the time life can be sustained apart from the mother, even the earliest of premies will have participated in selfishness. As the wise man said, "foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child."

When a baby takes its first breath, its own independent life officially begins. Even the Bible speaks of infants being circumcised on the eighth day, something that would be impossible if one tried to enter the womb to do this on the eighth day after conception. So the baby's age is counted by God as beginning at his or her birth.

I have often thought how interesting it is that in 1888 the message of righteousness by faith was introduced to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and yet we still forget all about that doctrine - especially in our definition of sin.

DNA determines how people turn out - what they look like, their gifts and talents, personality, tendencies, predispositions, etc. The fact all of us are conceived and born predisposed to sinning is evidence our DNA is faulty and at fault. People sin because they are born predisposed. They sin by default. They cannot not sin. Rebirth is necessary to cease sinning. Rebirth, however, does not eliminate or eradicate the sinful tendencies we were born with and cultivated. Sinful flesh remains to tempt us from within to sin. It is not a sin to be tempted. We are not guilty of sinning because we have sinful tendencies or because our sinful flesh tempts us to be unlike Jesus.

If before the birth of her child she is self-indulgent, if she is selfish, impatient, and exacting, these traits will be reflected in the disposition of the child. Thus many children have received as a birthright almost unconquerable tendencies to evil.{MH 372.4}

I agree with you to the point where you say the rebirth does not eliminate sinful tendencies. . . This does not mean the sinful flesh is gone, that will not happen until the second coming. But the tendencies to sin can be silenced. Jesus before the cross had silenced all the temptations the devil could throw at him.

The truth about justification by faith is essential to our salvation - especially to our peace of mind. Jesus must justify pardoning and saving penitent sinners. Why? Because law and justice demand death for sin.