God created the universe with such precision that the slightest change in any one of its properties would preclude our existence and God designed the earth as a home for man. God placed certain powerful angels in charge of His creation and instructed them to be good stewards. Some angels began to oppose God under the leadership of Satan, the most powerful and intelligent of all rebellious angels. Satan exercises a pervasive, structural and diabolical influence, on whatever he touches, which caused all creation to be captured by the bondage of evil. That which God created as good began to exhibit a pain-ridden, bloodthirsty, sinister and hostile demeanor. “Mother Nature,” became an inherently violent and terrifying system dominated by disease, suffering and death – a system red in tooth and claw. Man had not yet been created.
God set aside some real estate for the Garden of Eden and restored it to its condition prior to Satan’s diabolical influence. He then created Adam and Eve to live in this Garden. In full view of all the angels in Heaven, Satan demanded unrestricted access to Adam and Eve and, although they were created sinless, Satan won them over. Evil had taken up residence in the soul of man, that particular evil called sin. The will, intellect and heart of Adam and Eve had been possessed and permeated by sin. But what about us, the descendants of Adam and Eve?
God is just. God does not impute to us the individual sins of Adam and Eve. But He knew it would be pointless to allow the offspring of Adam and Eve to be born sinless. He knew they would follow exactly the same path as their created ancestors. So He allowed the generations of Adam and Eve’s offspring to be born with a sin nature. We are all born corrupt, averse to God and inclined to evil. However, for this depraved nature we are not responsible, and no guilt or demerit attaches to it. We become responsible for this sin nature only after attaining the age of accountability and ratifying it as our own. The age of accountability is not the same for all persons and, for many, it may be very young indeed.
One of the core beliefs of Christianity can be stated as follows:
Each person who responds to God’s grace and the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ by confession of sin, remorse, repentance, faith and obedience receives the great gift of salvation. Each person who resists God’s grace is condemned to everlasting punishment.
- Each person who responds to God’s grace and the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ by
- confession of sin (Ps 32:3-5; 1 John 1:8-10),
- remorse (Ps 66:18; Luke 18:13),
- repentance (Mat 3:8; Rom 12:2, 13:14; Eph 4:23-24; Rev 2:5, 16, 3:3, 19),
- faith (John 6:29, 3:16-17; Acts 16:31; Eph 2:8-10) and
- obedience (Mat 28:20; Luke 11:28; John 14:15; Rom 1:5, 6:16; Heb 5:9)
- receives the great gift of salvation (Acts 4:12; Rom 1:16; 2 Cor 7:10; 1 Thes 5:9; Heb 5:9; 1 Pet 1:9, 18-19).
- Each person who resists God’s grace is condemned to everlasting punishment (Mat 25:46; 2 Thes 1:8-9).
Christian belief must be preceded by repentance and followed by obedience to qualify as faith. Faith is not just an intellectual exercise (Jam 2:19) or an emotional experience (Jer 17:9).
These steps culminating in salvation cannot be bypassed. Without confession of sin, it is not possible to have true remorse in your heart. Without remorse, it is not possible to repent. Without repentance, there is no faith; belief must be preceded by repentance and followed by obedience to qualify as faith. Without faith, there can be no obedience. Break any link in the chain and your salvation will be derailed! (See Section 2.3 of Theology Corner)
The first step is confession of your own sin nature and behavior. The sin nature is that evil appearing in the soul of man at conception. It holds every man and woman in a vice-grip; it is enormously desirable to your will, intellect and heart. But how can it be described? What form does evil take in the soul of man?
“[Sin is] something thought, spoken, or done against the law of God; or the omission of something which has been commanded by that law to be thought, spoken, or done” (Arminius quoted in Miley, v1, p 528)
“Sin is disobedience to a law of God, conditioned on free moral agency and opportunity of knowing the law.” (Miley, v1, p 528)
“The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz. my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away (Heb 9:26) – an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization – I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has one basis, my claim to my right to myself…Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. ‘And this is the judgment’ (the critical moment), ‘that the light is come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light.” (Chambers, October 5th)
“We have to recognize that sin is a fact, not a defect; sin is red-handed mutiny against God. Either God or sin must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue. If sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is no possible ultimate but that. The climax of sin is that it crucified Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will be true in your history and in mine. In our mental outlook we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact of sin as the only explanation as to why Jesus Christ came, and as the explanation of the grief and sorrow in life.” (Chambers, June 23rd)
“Man’s nature as he is born into the world is corrupt, is very far gone from original righteousness, is averse to God, is without spiritual life, is inclined to evil, and that continually. However, for this depraved nature he is not responsible, and hence no guilt or demerit attaches to it. This is not because depravity is uncondemnable, but because through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the free gift reversed the penalty as a consequence of the universal atonement. We hold, therefore, as truly as later Arminianism, that man as he comes into the world is not guilty of inbred sin. He becomes responsible for it, only when having rejected the remedy provided by atoning blood, he ratifies it as his own.” This happens at the age of accountability. (Wiley, v2, 137)
“…all are not only regarded as sinners but made sinners also through the inheritance of a nature of itself inclined only to evil.” (Pope, v2, p 48)
Karl Marx denounced every religion as ‘the illusory sun around which man revolves, until he begins to revolve around himself... A being only considers himself independent when he stands on his own feet; and he only stands on his own feet when he owes his existence to himself.’ (Marx, quoted by Colson and Pearcey, p 235) The ultimate religious motivation behind this philosophy is to make each of us equal to God.
My personal sin can be summarized as: my claim to my right to myself -- God has no hold on me. The word humanism frequently describes how sin works in our lives. A humanistic culture is one embracing the concept that men and women can begin from themselves and derive the standards by which to judge all matters. There are, for such people, no fixed standards of behavior, no standards that cannot be eroded or replaced by what seems necessary, expedient or fashionable.
If you embrace humanism, Marxism or the power of WOKE or if you simply claim your right to yourself and declare that you are your own God, you will indeed, someday, be free from any interference by the creator and sustainer of the universe. His prevenient grace will never again call you, awaken you, draw you near or convict you of your sins. You will truly be set free from God for eternity.
(See also Sections 8.1, 8.6, 8.9, 8.11, 8.13 and 9.4 of Theology Corner)
