The Fall: Understanding Humanity's Descent and Hope for Redemption

We examined as far as we can in the light of scriptural teaching what this image of God in men really means we found that he was in correspondence with in fellowship with God reflect something of the glory of God happy careful able to live without toiling eating of the fruit of the Garden in a state of bliss and possessed of an original righteousness an uprightness his moral being and character corresponding to the god with whom he was thus in Fellowship. [00:34:36]

The whole statement in this chapter is given to us as history there's no suggestion of allegory here at all it offers itself to us as plain unvarnished fact and history and if you begin to say that it isn't history or that parts of it are not history you'll find yourself in a utterly contradictory position for instance we are told there about the punishment that followed men's sin and transgression in verses 14 and 15. [00:12:34]

The first thing he tells us is this that evil and sin and temptation came from the outside they came from Satan using the serpent the thing I'm anxious to emphasize is this there was nothing in men's own Constitution that produced it there was no physical necessity at all to produce it it was nothing sensual in men that produced it it came to men enti L from the outside and he had a perfect free will to decide what to do with it. [00:18:33]

The woman began to listen to the Slanders of the devil against God she began to doubt God's word and began to doubt God's love then you remember we are told she began to look at the thing at which of which God had prohibited to look then having looked at it and having seen that it was good to each she began to last after it and to desire it this thing which had been prohibited and that in turn led her to a definite Act of Disobedience. [00:20:12]

The real essence of what took place was that they pushed on one side God's plan God's purpose and substituted for it their own idea and their own method the famous Professor Emil Bruner has quite an interesting psychological analysis if you like of what took place he puts it like this he says there were three elements desire the Apple then the whispered doubt about God which stirred and inflamed the desire still more and then he says that finally ambition turn the scales. [00:24:54]

Sin is only only possible to men and was only possible to men at the beginning because he has a free spiritual personality it isn't possible to an animal it's only possible to man men's being made in the image of God in a most extraordinary way made sin possible for him because of his free personality because of his free will the very fact I say that he was made in the image and likeness of God exposes him in and of itself to this possibility. [00:27:01]

The first thing that we are told is that they became conscious of their flesh it's an extraordinary thing this man as he was made originally by God was quite unconscious about his flesh and about his body the men and the wom were naked and that was no trouble to them at all but the moment they said the moment they fall they become conscious of their flesh they become ashamed of it a shame develops in connection with the body and they try to cover themselves. [00:29:39]

The break of this link with God produced a spiritual death in he's he's in an entirely State and condition the next thing that we are told about him is that he was driven out of paradise out of the garden and not allowed to return there in and of himself and by his own valtion you remember the Flaming sword that was there to guard and to Bar his entry in and of himself he's sent out of paradise he's not allowed to come back. [00:32:21]

There was no need for him to die if men had obeyed God and had continued living his life in correspondence with God he would never have undergone physical death it was possible for him therefore not to die the result of the Fall was this that now it is not possible for him not to die per some of you would like this in Latin the original condition was non Mari it is now non Noni before possible not to die now not possible not to die he must die. [00:34:36]

When men fell he did not cease to be men he was still men he didn't lose any of his essential qualities or elements or attributes what he lost was that original righteousness that correspondence to God but his intellect remains his power of self analysis remains his understanding remains his will remains these things remain we'll come into to that later in Greater detail but he lost his original righteousness he lost that fellowship with God he became fearful of God he hides himself he becomes asham self-conscious in a bad sense doesn't know what to do with himself. [00:37:57]

The best thing I've ever read or ever heard about men as the result of the Fall was what was said of men by an old Puritan called John how he said men as the result of the Fall reminded him of some of these great buildings which you see in London and in the country and in ious Eastern countries where there was once some great palace or great building it's now fallen to ruins and there's a sign outside and the sign says centuries ago such and such a king once dwelt here and John how suggested that written over men everywhere as the result of the Fall is this inscription here God once dwelt. [00:39:19]

We've looked together tonight at one of the profoundest and most Awful Truth that men can ever face that's why men and that's why the world is is as it is tonight from that to this yeah God once what a terrible what an awful what a calamitous thing evil and sin rarely. [00:40:05]