A recap from my last post: Adam was created without sin, then plunged himself and all of his progeny into sin. But God, as the creator, has no obligation to accept us just as we are. We can point to human frailties with a sense of dismissal, but God looks to any nonconformity to His standard as cosmic treason. And who do we think we are if we decide this to be unfair? What is unfair is that Jesus was given to us that we might look upon His death, burial and resurrection as the satisfaction for our sins. The gospel is scandalous in this way! We don’t deserve it, which is what makes grace… grace.
Q & A 6
Q. Did God create people
so wicked and perverse?
A. No.
God created them good1 and in his own image,2
that is, in true righteousness and holiness,3
so that they might
truly know God their creator,4
love him with all their heart,
and live with God in eternal happiness,
to praise and glorify him.5
1 Gen. 1:31
2 Gen. 1:26-27
3 Eph. 4:24
4 Col. 3:10
5 Ps. 8
I have a working theory, a way of looking at the history and future of the world. I call it two mountains and a valley. The shortened version is that Eden was a mountain. Yes, it is referred to as such in the Bible, but this is a metaphorical mountain I’m speaking of. A high place where the presence of God is near. We are given certain bits of information about what it was like and what it was intended to be throughout the Bible, but much of it is covered up in God’s expectations for His image bearers. You have to look for it.
There is another mountain that is spoken of in terms of the eventual state of humanity restored to God and with God. That mountain will be the culmination of all that Eden was supposed to be and more. You can see glimpses of it in some of those same passages that reveal God’s expectation of us. But right now we are in the valley between the mountains. Because of the fog we can’t clearly see very far up either mountain and we can’t determine how close we are in the journey from one mount to the other. But we do honor God by combing over His word and believing in faith that His work will be completed and His people get to be parts of it.
The reason this works is because God does have every right in the world to expect us, as His image bearers, to fulfill the roles that He originally intended. Yes, we are all fallen short of the glory of God. But rather than demand that our creator accept our second (on a great day) best it is God who provides His best on our behalf. The very righteousness of Christ.
GENESIS 1:31
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
In the very beginning, God looked at all He had created, including our common ancestors Adam and Eve, and it was all very good. Note that God didn’t declare it to be very good. God beheld it as very good. This is massive! All was in balance, all was in the opening stages of glory. Adam and Eve were very good in an objective sense. They were not glorified yet and had not graduated from the test to obey God, but every indication was that they would.
EPHESIANS 4:24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
I hadn’t considered this before, but Paul wrote in the letter to the Ephesians that they ought to put on the new self, and then pointed to one created after the likeness of God. Adam and Eve were created in the image and likeness of God, and that is made quite clear in Genesis.
GENESIS 5:3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
Something that is oft overlooked, though, is how the image begins to distort through the sinful lens of humanity. By the fifth chapter of the Bible we see that even the godly line has been corrupted until men are born in the image and likeness of Adam. Yes, they are still in the image and likeness of God, but there is a certain measure of dilution. The image and likeness are not of the purity any longer. We are mongrels now, still the image of God but also the image of Adam. Adam is, after all, the federal head of all mankind until those called according to God’s purpose change federal headship to Jesus.
COLOSSIANS 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
As Christians, we are no longer slaves to sin but are now slaves to righteousness. We are to recognize our new self in light of this. So much of the Christian life we live is a struggle to believe what God has said about us! Let every man be a liar if that is what it means for God’s word to be held as true. This is what it looks like to take off that old self so that you can put on the new self. The new self is being renewed in this knowledge of hope, the old self ought to be discarded. But our sin continues to hound us for the remainder of our days.
Even so, we are right to marvel at the way God has lavished His grace upon all who bear His image, both redeemed and not. It is only those whose hearts have been changed who can rightly ascribe to God the glory He is due, or at least make a valid attempt. The gospel is, in one sense, God’s reclamation project. We are both the ones being reclaimed as well as the ones working to reclaim others. The fields are white for harvest, and those working the fields were once harvested themselves. Ours is a hope of multiplication, not merely addition.
Q & A 7
Q. Then where does this corrupt human nature come from?
A. The fall and disobedience of our first parents,
Adam and Eve, in Paradise.1
This fall has so poisoned our nature2
that we are all conceived and born
in a sinful condition.3
1 Gen. 3
2 Rom. 5:12, 18-19
3 Ps. 51:5
The corruption is there, and we must overcome it. Sin is now our birthright, given to us from Adam and Eve as our incoherence. And that does not absolve us of our personal guilt, not in the slightest. God remains fully within His rights to demand that His creation function as we were designed. We all continue to have the responsibility to reflect the glory of God all throughout the world. No exceptions!
ROMANS 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Our sin is compounded. We have the stain from our first parents, we suffer from the sin all around us, both the moral sins of ourselves and of others and also the natural sin of calamity, as creation groans in anticipation of the lifted curse. Sin has tainted the environment we live in at every level. Total Depravity applies to creation beyond sinful people. Everything has been influenced by it. Adam was to exercise dominion over all of creation as the ruler of all that we can see. As ruler, his fall affected everything under his authority.
Q & A 8
Q. But are we so corrupt
that we are totally unable to do any good
and inclined toward all evil?
A. Yes,1 unless we are born again
by the Spirit of God.2
1 Gen. 6:5; 8:21; Job 14:4; Isa. 53:6
2 John 3:3-5
This is a truth that many people will balk at. We like to compare ourselves to other people around us when we determine our own level of depravity. And it is even better if we can compare ourselves with someone hypothetical! I’ve never killed anyone, neither have I ever abused a baby animal. This is merely a way to justify yourself as being something other than completely depraved, but that is not the standard that has been set before us. The standard is the perfection of Christ. Nothing short of that will do.
GENESIS 8:21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done."
Think about it. The evil in the heart of mankind was so excessive that God sent a flood to kill every living thing on the entire planet with the exception of those on the ark. Their hearts were set toward evil continually. What happened during the time floating on the water to change this? Nothing. What was done to the hearts of Noah and his family as they disembarked? Nothing. Creation got a reset in that calamity as the world was destroyed and a whole new world existed on the other side. But the heart of mankind continued to be stained by the same sin as before. The purpose of the flood was not to remove sin from the world. The purposes of the flood were achieved as the justice and the mercy of God were put on display. And mercy and justice only apply when you realize the plight of humanity. We all deserve justice, but mercy is extended to some and not because any of us deserve it.
John 3:3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
There are some who find favor with God though. Noah found favor with God. Was this because Noah was better than those around him? Not at all. Again, we have a fondness for comparing Noah to his contemporaries who were filled with every sort of wickedness, but they are not the standard of evil, nor are they the counter-standard of good. The only standard that God will accept is perfection. We try to shame God into accepting our third best, justifying our own shortfallings (to coin a term) by accusing God of being unreasonable.
I have no better explanation for the common sentiment that God will accept someone because they aren’t as bad as they could have been or because they had circumstances that God hadn’t taken into consideration when He set the standard. The original temptation was that Eve would be “like God” and that continues to be what we seek. We want to take the place of God and determine for ourselves whether something is good or evil.
Which is why we need the intervention of God. We seek to engineer a redo on our own terms, but our depraved hearts are not predisposed toward God or the things of God. In order to desire God we must be given new hearts, a phrase spoken of in the prophets. Another way to describe the transfer of will that we need is to say that we must be born again. Without such an action being performed on us by God we cannot see the kingdom of God. Without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6) This implies that with faith it is possible to please God.
1 THESSALONIANS 4:1-8 Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
