|
“All have sinned and come
short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
What does it mean to be a sinner?
How sinful is fallen man? The Biblical answer to this question
will determine the true meaning of God’s grace. And what
Christians believe about man’s depravity will determine how they
view God’s grace. If man’s depravity is not “total,” then man’s
salvation will ultimately rest with his decision either to
accept or reject God’s grace. However, if man’s depravity is
total, then the work of God’s grace will rest solely upon God.
First Human Death
God told Adam, “If you eat from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will die” (Gen.
2:16-17). Adam and Eve ate of the fruit.
“When the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the
eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one
wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to
her husband with her, and he ate” (Gen. 3:7).
The couple died! They did not
instantly fall over physically dead, but they died. They died
on the inside. Their human spirits died!
Death in the Bible does not mean
the end! Death is not a ceasing to exist. Death means
separation! When Adam and Eve died spiritually, they were
separated from God. This separation was manifest by their
new self-awareness.
“Then the eyes of both of
them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and
they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin
coverings” (Gen. 3:7).
This eye-opening consequence was
not recorded until Adam ate of the fruit. Why? Adam, created
first in order and taken from the ground, became the
representative head of the human race (1 Tim. 2:12-15). He was
responsible solely to God. Eve, created second and taken from
the man, was responsible to God through the man. So the
spiritual impact of the fall occurred
when Adam sinned.
A new realization came into Adam
and Eve’s thinking. They became natural, physically limited
human beings. They responded to their feelings by sewing fig
leaves together, making themselves loin coverings. They
recognized that their relationship with God was not the same.
They compensated for their feelings of guilt toward God and each
other by covering themselves.
This fig leaf response was the
first act of human reformation. Reformation is man's attempt to
cover sin before God. It is man's way of dealing with the
consequences of sin but not sin itself.
Fig leaves could not hide their
sin from God. God had declared that the wages of sin is death,
not reformation. After the fall there was a barrier between God
and man – the barrier of death.
“They heard the sound of the
LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and
the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the
LORD God among the trees of the garden” (Gen. 3:8).
Man’s spiritual connection with
God had died! The natural response of the spiritually dead is
to physically move as far from God as possible. So Adam and Eve
hid from God.
“Then the LORD God called to
the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen. 3:9).
Who looked for whom? God sought
the man, not the other way around. Religion is man’s search for
God. Grace is God reaching into history and giving life to the
spiritually dead. God is the initiator of salvation not man! God
is the architect of grace, not man. Grace comes from God to man.
Separated From God
“He said, ‘I heard the sound
of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked;
so I hid myself’” (Gen. 3:10).
The Hebrew is very clear: “I
heard your voice.” Adam hid from the words of God. Man had never
known fear before. Sin produces fear. There was fear because the
sin barrier was there.
“And He said, ‘who told you
that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I
commanded you not to eat?’” (Gen. 3:11).
The question was designed to
provoke a simple response, yes or no. It was to bring Adam to
the point of admitting guilt before God. Rather than giving God
the simple answer, man had become proud. His pride moved him to
rationalism.
“The man said, ‘The woman
whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and
I ate’” (Gen. 3:12a)
Rather than saying, “Yes, I have
sinned,” Adam responded, “Look God, it’s this woman you
gave me. God, it’s really your fault for giving her to
me! She gave me this fruit, and I ate it.” First he blamed God,
and then he blamed the woman.
“Then the LORD God said to
the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ And the woman said,
‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate’” (Gen. 3:13).
The woman, like the man, passed
the buck. She too refused to accept the responsibility for sin.
The first mental step toward understanding grace is to
understand sin. Man still rationalizes away the responsibility
for sin along with his need for a Savior. Many will step into
eternity shaking their fist in the face of their Creator,
rationalizing away their guilt before Him.
“The LORD God said to the
serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you more
than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; On
your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days
of your life” (Gen. 3:14).
God began immediately to adjust
all of them to His righteousness. The beautiful serpent would
become a repulsive creature. He will be vulnerable and under the
foot of man. Notice that God treated the serpent differently
than the man and the woman. He did not give the serpent the
opportunity to repent. What is the reason for this? Salvation
is provided only for man, not for angelic beings (Psa. 8:4).
Redemption is only possible for members of the human race.
Satan’s Ultimate Defeat
“And I will put enmity
between you and the woman, and between your seed and her
seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise
him on the heel” (Gen. 3:15).
“Enmity” is the Hebrew word for
hostility. “You” is singular – Satan.
“Woman” is also singular,
speaking of course of Eve. But this prophecy looked forward
through the ages to Mary, the woman through whom God would come
into the world in the person of Jesus Christ.
“Seed” in the Hebrew is the word
for a “genetic descendant.” “Your seed” is plural - your genetic
descendants. The descendants of Satan would be those throughout
history that would align with him (John 8:44). This line will
culminate with the antichrist and the false prophet (Rev.
19:20).
“Her seed” is singular - her
genetic descendant, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ.
-
He (the Lord Jesus Christ)
-
shall bruise you (singular,
Satan)
-
on the head, (fatal, killing
blow)
-
and you (singular, Satan)
-
shall bruise him (the
singular Seed of the woman, Jesus Christ)
-
on the heel” (non-fatal blow,
the cross).
“And the God of peace will
crush Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20)
Role of the Woman
“To the woman He said, ‘I
will greatly multiply pain in childbirth, In pain you will
bring forth children’” (Gen. 3:16).
Because the woman was
taken from the man
and dependent upon him and because she was deceived, God gave
her the childbearing role. This role brought both suffering and
salvation. Pain in childbirth is part of the curse that
accompanied the fall. This pain is passed down to all future
mothers. Satan had deceived the woman. Because of this,
God allowed her womb to remain without sin. This once again
proved God's amazing genius. He left Himself a way to enter the
slave-market of sin hundreds of years later and not be
contaminated with sin. The woman was not the sin carrier.
Alone she could not pass the spiritual death seed on to a child.
Mary, Eve’s progeny, would bear a
child conceived by the Holy Spirit. This child, though born of a
physical woman, would not be a sinner. Mary herself was not
immaculate, nor sinless, nor was she “the mother of God.” She
was the daughter of a man named “Heli.” Because she was born of
man, she too was a sinner and in need of a Savior. Matthew
13:55-56 tells us that Mary had other children by Joseph. All
of them were born physically alive but spiritually dead. The
Lord Jesus Christ, however, was born without sin so that He
could become sin for us.
“Therefore the Lord Himself
will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child
and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel” (Isa.
7:14).
“Therefore, when He comes
into the world, He says, ‘Sacrifice and offering You have
not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me’” (Heb
10:5).
“But when the fullness of the
time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born
under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under
the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal.
4:4-5).
Physical Death
Remember, death in the Bible does
not mean a ceasing to exist. It does not mean the end. It means
separation. Notice the description of Rachel’s death.
“It came about as her soul
was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-oni;
but his father called him Benjamin” (Gen. 35:18).
When she died, Rachel’s soul
departed (was separated) from her body. Elijah prayed that a
child’s soul would return to him, and the child’s life was
returned.
“And he (Elijah) stretched
himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the
LORD and said, ‘O LORD my God, I pray, let this child’s soul
come back to him.’ Then the LORD heard the voice of Elijah;
and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived”
(1 Kings 17:21-22).
Notice that the soul did not
cease to be, but it did leave the child’s body. However, this
separation of soul from the body is not real death. It is merely
a shadow of real death. A shadow is just an image cast by the
reflection of a real object. The Bible refers to physical death
as a shadow in many places.
“Let darkness and the
shadow of death claim it” (Job 3:5a, KJV).
“Before I go to the place
from which I shall not return, even to the land of darkness
and the shadow of death” (Job 10:21, KJV).
“Even though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil,
for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort
me” (Psa. 23:4a).
The Second
Death
Real death is spiritual death!
This is the separation of the human soul and body from God. The
Bible implies that physical death is the first death. Physical
death is not the only death, because the apostle John calls real
death “the second death.”
“Then death and Hades were
thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the
lake of fire” (Rev. 20:14; see also 2:11, 20:6).
The second death is the soul’s
eternal separation from God. This is the “death” that Satan does
not want man to understand. This is a part of the “you shall
not surely die” cover-up (Gen. 3:4-5). Jesus Christ, the
greatest authority on the subject of death, said that the second
death - the death of the soul - is the one to be feared.
“Do not fear those who kill
the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear
Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”
(Matt. 10:28).
To the Christian, experiencing
physical death is similar to being hit with the shadow of a
truck. The shadow itself would not hurt! But spiritual death
could be illustrated by being hit by the truck itself.
There are no human words adequate
enough to describe the sorrow and anguish of experiencing
spiritual separation from God. It would be a conscious eternal
existence separated from the presence of God in perpetual
torment.
Spread of
Death
When Adam sinned, Eve was not the
only one affected. Adam and Eve were the first parents of the
entire human race. Every human life can be traced back to them.
If that is the case, then every human being’s physical DNA code
was present in Adam at the moment that he sinned! When Adam
disobeyed God and died spiritually, the entire human race died
spiritually “in him.” We were all genetically in “Adam’s body”
when he died. Therefore, spiritual death spread through Adam to
the entire race. Catch this glimpse!
“Therefore, just as through
one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin,
and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—” (Rom.
5:12).
That is “all sinned in Adam.”
“In Adam all die” (1 Cor.
15:22a).
If our great-great-grandfather
had died in the Revolutionary War, having no children, we would
have never been born. We would have died physically in our
grandfather. Likewise, we all died spiritually in Adam.
Have you ever bitten into an
apple and discovered that a worm got there before you did? How
did the worm get into the apple? This might come as a surprise,
but the worm did not eat its way into the apple from the
outside. Scientists tell us that the moth lays her eggs on the
apple blossom. When the apple matures, the eggs hatch on the
inside of the apple and the little worms actually eat their way
from the inside out. Adam's sin is written in on the genetic
imprint of every human heart. Death is born within man, and it
works its way from the inside out. This death nature has been
passed physically through the human father. Since we all come
into this world through human parents, we are inescapably
connected to Adam. Therefore, we are born physically alive but
spiritually dead.
A man approached Christ,
seemingly having the desire to follow Him. The Lord told him
that to follow him would not be an easy life. The disciple then
asked for permission to go and attend a funeral of one of his
people. Christ’s words are clear.
“But Jesus said*
to him, ‘Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own
dead’” (Matt. 8:22).
The entire human race died in
Adam.
Consequences of Death
“Yet your desire will be for
your husband, and he will rule over you” (Gen. 3:16b).
Many commentaries say that the
word “desire” means the natural physical attraction that a woman
has for the man. But if that's true, what does it have to do
with a curse? The word “desire” is the Hebrew word “masol.”
It corresponds exactly with the Greek word “kathistemi.”
It means to install into an office as an official position, as a
ruler.
Before the fall, there was
co-regency. The man and the woman were ruling together. There
was peace in the family. This is God’s design. But after the
fall, the woman was given a desire to rule over the man, or a
desire to control. But God gave the husband the role of ruler
over the woman (Eph. 5:22). This creates an obvious conflict
within marriage.
What is needed to reconcile this
conflict? The new birth from God is the only answer. When
believers in Jesus Christ submit to their Savior and grow in
their knowledge of Him through the Word, a harmony in the
marriage will surface. The spiritual man is to submit himself to
the Lordship of Jesus Christ and unconditionally love his wife
as Christ loved the church (Eph. 5:22-32). The woman will
respond to the spiritual man, submit to him, and learn to
worship God through Him.
This is what Paul meant:
“But I want you to understand
that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the
head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.” (2 Cor.
11:3).
This has nothing whatsoever to do
with inferiority or superiority as human beings. It has
everything to do with God’s design for the spiritual operation
of a believer’s home and function of the body of Jesus Christ
(the church) in the world.
“Likewise, I want women to
adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and
discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or
costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is
proper for women making a claim to godliness A woman must
quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But
I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a
man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first
created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived,
but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But
women will be preserved through the bearing of children,
that is the child bearing role, if they continue in faith
and love and sanctity with self-restraint” (1 Tim. 2:9-15).
It is what is on the inside that
counts. A woman who has trusted Jesus Christ as Savior will
find her greatest satisfaction and meaning in life, not in the
desire to rule her husband, but in fulfilling God’s design for
her as wife and mother with all faith, love, and holiness with
self-restraint. This spiritual headship produces harmony that
resolves the conflict between the man and the woman.
God then dealt with the man.
“Then to Adam He said,
‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and
have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you,
saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground
because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of
your life’” (Gen. 3:17).
Adam would gain his livelihood
only by working the ground, emphasis on work! What was
done before the fall with ease and enjoyment would be
accomplished with pain and sweat.
“Both thorns and thistles it
shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the
field” (Gen. 3:18).
The earth will be harsh to man.
It will resist his efforts to plant and to reap. It will produce
stickers and briars and cockleburs.
“By the sweat of your brow
you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because
from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you
shall return” (Gen. 3:19).
The spiritual death seed within
man explains why we have the desire to sin. Contrary to popular
belief, children do not have to be taught how to sin. The desire
to sin comes naturally! The desire to sin does not originate
from outside influences. Listen to the words of Christ.
“And
He was saying, ‘That which proceeds out of the man, that is
what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of
men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts,
murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as
well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and
foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and
defile the man’” (Mark 7:20-23).
There is no doubt that an evil
lifestyle influences others to live the same way. But evil
influences cannot make someone do something that they are not
predisposed to do already! Sinful lusts result from that which
is already in the heart and not from that which comes from
outside.
“What is the source of
quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your
pleasures that wage war in your members?” (James 4:1).
We are not sinners because we
sin; we sin because we are sinners. Nor are we held accountable
before God when we reach some “age.” That is simply not taught
in the Bible!
How Dead Are the Dead?
If the entire human race died in
Adam then we must ask this most important question. How dead is
spiritual death? Do those who are born in sin have any spiritual
capability at all? Can a spiritually dead person sift through
the available data and discover the information that would lead
to knowledge of God and to life? Is it possible for the
spiritually dead to exercise the human will and believe the
gospel? How can a spiritually dead person understand anything
spiritual? The real issue facing those who venture into the
study of grace is “how dead are the dead?”
If all men are truly born
spiritually dead, then there is no spiritual capability at all.
Death means the absence of life! There is no life within a
physically dead body and there is no life in the spiritually
dead. The spiritually dead are separated from God period!
So man’s need is not partial,
it is total. We do not need religion to make us better. We need
life. We do not need to reform ourselves in order to become
acceptable to God. We need life!
(See “Regeneration.”)
And this life must come from God and God alone.
Adam Receives Grace
So Adam and Eve died! What
happened to them? Their first response to their sin was shame!
The second act was to cover themselves with figleaves. Then GOD
DID SOMETHING AMAZING! He stitched some designer clothes for
them.
“The LORD God made garments
of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them” (Gen.
3:21).
This was the first act of grace
recorded in the Bible! God was the initiator of this gracious
act. God chose to be gracious. Grace always begins with God! God
demanded death for sin, and death it was to be. The skins
evidently came from a sacrificed animal. Blood had been shed! A
life had been given for a life. This gracious act sets the
precedent for God’s extended grace throughout history! God
chooses to extend grace to man based upon His will not man’s
works (Rom. 9:15; Acts 13:48). Grace is God giving life to the
dead.
“For by grace
you have been saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of
works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
|
