The Fall of Man: Understanding Sin and Salvation

I would remind you that last Friday evening we began our consideration of the doctrine of the fall of men we looked at the modern world and we saw that there was a very great difference between the picture we see there and the picture that we had looked at the previous week when we looked at men as created by God in his own image and likeness and set in the Garden of Eden in Paradise and we considered together the uh account which is given in the third chapter of the Book of Genesis of what produced the difference the fall of men the first sin and we went on to trace some of the immediate consequences some of the things that happened at once in the case of Adam and Eve. [00:01:19]

The curse that was pronounced upon the serpent you find that in the 14th verse of the third chapter of Genesis and the Lord God said unto the serpent because thou Hast done this Thou Art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust Thou shalt eat all the days of thy life and I I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. [00:65:24]

Cursed is the ground for thy sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life Thorns also also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shalt eat the herb of the field and then it goes on to say something which we did consider last time in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread now this again is a consequence that followed as the result of the fall of men because of men's fall the very Earth was cursed and thorns and Briars came into being and into existence increasing men's toil and effort confronting him with a Perpetual problem. [00:165:44]

We are face to face with effect of the universality of sin now this is something that is rarely agreed upon by all they don't all call it sin some are not willing to call it sin but in various ways all people whether they are Christian or not have to admit and to grant that there is something universally wrong with men everywhere doesn't matter where you find him it doesn't matter how primitive he may be whether he's civilized or uncivilized there is something in men which is clearly lacking there is something which causes misery and unhappiness. [00:306:36]

The Bible asserts this fact of the universality of sin everywhere right through in its teaching I'll simply select certain well-known passages more or less at at random in order to show you how it does so take the great statement in the 53rd of Isaiah and the 6th verse all we like sheep have gone astray all of us but in many ways of course the classical statement of this Doctrine is the one which we've already read together in the third chapter of the epistle to the Romans the Apostle goes on repeating it there is none righteous no not one the whole world has been found guilty all have sinned and come short of the glory of God there's no exception. [00:436:52]

The Bible teaches clearly that sin is a special kind of evil now you you can have evil which in a sense isn't sin I mean by that that evil can be something general something physical perhaps calamities and things like that now that's a manifestation of evil but not a necessity of sin what is the difference then well it's this sin is moral or ethical evil not evil in general but a particular kind of evil ethical evil moral evil and the Bible has quite a number of terms which it uses in order to describe sin. [00:623:27]

Sin is moral or ethical evil not evil in general but a particular kind of evil ethical evil moral evil and the Bible has quite a number of terms which it uses in order to describe sin here they are it has a word for sin which means missing the Mark or deviating from the right way that's a word that it uses very frequently a man sins he misses the mark he deviates from the right way another word which it uses which is translated as Sin means an absence s of want of Integrity being true and whole a want of rectitude a departure from the appointed pathway. [00:647:68]

The Bible always defines sin in terms of our relationship to God that is where the biblical concept of sin must be differentiated so sharply from moral ideas which don't derive from the Bible itself God is always in involved and what makes sin sin is that it's a wrong relationship to God it is man in a condition in which he doesn't live love God and live entirely for God's glory and for God's honor always related to God another thing that it always emphasizes this is the fourth is that it is something that's in the heart of men not something on the surface of men's life but right down in the very depths it is out of the heart that pred EV thoughts murders adulteries and so on. [00:911:32]

Sin does not consist of actions only but essentially in a condition now there are those who have defined sin only in terms of actions and they have forgotten that it is a condition before it man itself in acts in other words it's a good way I think to think of it in this way first of all we are in a sinful State because we are in a sinful State we tend to develop sinful habits and because we are creatures of sinful habits we indulge in Deeds or in Acts of sin that's the way to look at it in layers if you like the whole state and condition is sinful that leads to these habits of which we are so constantly guilty. [00:1000:39]

The Bible tells us that it is all directly due to the sin of Adam that all this has resulted directly as a a consequence from that original sin which we were considering together last week now there are those I say who don't accept that they say that what happens is that we are all born into the world in a kind of neutral condition but we immediately see the bad example that is set for others and we imitate it and thereby we sin that's a denial of the biblical doctrine of original sin that does not connect it directly with Adam but it says that Adam left a bad example which was followed by others and this process of imitation has continued ever since we mustn't think of it like that if we want to be biblical. [00:1159:12]

The first theory is which is generally called The Realistic theory that sin is universal because the whole of human nature was in Adam God made Adam Adam the argument is is the whole of human nature entire Humanity was resident in Adam therefore it argues that when Adam sinned and when Adam fell the whole of human nature fell with him all human nature itself comes out of that original human nature which was in Adam if that fell therefore all that has come out of it must of necessity have fallen but not only that it all fell in Adam at that one moment. [00:1261:12]

The second theory tells us that we have all inherited this sin and that sin has become Universal because Adam was not only the natural head of the human race but that God made a covenant with him and appointed him as the representative of the human race that God made men and said now you are going to represent the H of humanity and I'll make a covenant with you if you do what I tell you I will bless you and you'll grow and develop and eventually you will reach that full maturity but on the other hand if you fail not only Will you fail but all who will come out of you and all whom you represent will fail in the same way it says that Adam was the kind of federal representative of the entire human race that God regarded him and appointed him as such and therefore anything that Adam did will have con consequences for all who come out of Adam and therefore when Adam fell we all suffer the consequences. [00:1604:12]