22 - Man's Sinfulness, Part 2

Welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy. We are glad to have you with us. I am your instructor for today, Andrew Rappaport. Today we will be in our School of World Religions. In that school, this is specifically the class on an introduction to the major Western religions.

We're in the lesson, lesson number 10, on the topic of sin. That is today's lesson. This is part 2. We looked at man's sinfulness last week. We're going to continue this week. You can find more information about Striving for Eternity or other classes that they have at strivingforeternity .org.

You can also, while you're there, pick up a copy of the syllabus. That is the notes that go along with this class. You can pick that up at store .strivingforeternity .org. Syllabuses are about $25 each.

You can also, if you are interested in the study of world religions, you can pick up my book, What Do They Believe? That is a systematic theology of the major Western religions. All of that would be available at strivingforeternity .org.

The Sin Nature as Imputed and Inherited from Adam

With that said, I want to kind of do a little bit of a review of what we looked at last class and move forward into this class. We looked at first at the creation of man. As we mentioned this, we talked about the fact that man is not only a created being but separate from the angels.

We discussed then the sin nature of man. We discussed the doctrine of the sin nature. In that, we got into this question of the depravity of man. We kind of rushed there and ended with that, so I want to pick up there.

When we talk about the sin nature, we talked about it in two ways. We said it was imputed and inherited. Two different ways of understanding the sin nature. It's imputed from what Adam did when Adam, as the federal head, brought the curse of sin into the world.

It's actually the universe. It says in Romans 8 that the entire universe groans, that the stars groan at the cause of sin. The effect of that curse is seen, but that's what Adam did. We're going to get to some objections at the end of this class.

That's one of the big ones that people bring up. Well, I'm not going to be punished for what Adam did. You're right, but Adam brought sin into humanity as our federal head. We have sin inherited through our fathers.

It's not only imputed from what Adam did, but inherited. We will not be judged for what Adam did. We will be judged for the sins that we do. When we talk about the depravity of man, and I understand some people may mix this up with the understanding of total depravity, if you're familiar with that term.

We're not really specifically referring to that. It's the idea that because we have a sin nature, we are depraved. We are corrupted. The idea of total depravity is that our total being is affected and influenced by sin.

Specifically, our will. Where that comes in is when we look at how does a person become what Christians call saved. How does one come in a right state with God? The understanding that some have is that our will has to be free to choose God.

Others say, no, no, no, our will is enslaved to sin. Therefore, it can't choose God. That's where the debate comes over. The question is, is our will influenced by sin? The answer is yes. This doesn't mean we don't have a will.

It means we don't have a free will. I often have to explain this because people misunderstand free will with the ability to make choices. A volition, a will. We can make choices. We do it all the time.

But as an unbeliever, those choices are going to be for a sinful desire. It's not going to be to please God. Even when people say that they're making choices because they want to please God, usually if you dig a little, you're going to find that what they're really trying to do is earn God's favor so that he'll let them into heaven.

That's what you end up seeing. There's a big difference between those two. It's the idea that we can't, in our will, our will by itself, we can't choose God. That's the idea. But what really the heart of this means is this.

It doesn't mean that someone is going to be as sinful as they possibly could be. But it does mean that we are affected by sin. Now someone commented on last week's class and said that, well basically, they thought it was all make-believe.

That people aren't born with a sin nature. People aren't doing things because they have this sin nature. They learned it. My argument? The Daily News disagrees with you. I mean, just watch the news. People are not born good.

I mean, if this was not something that's part of our nature, part of our makeup, part of who we are as human beings, then you should see somewhere around the world some pretty good people that don't do wrong ever.

And we don't see that. Why is it that we see these people that our culture, our society would say are the good people, and yet what do we see? We see that they fall. They do things that are sinful. And everyone gets so upset when they do something that's true to their nature.

You have a president or a king or someone that's supposed to have everything, and then they go and do things, and you go, well, why are you doing that? You're supposed to be this good person. No, they're made up of the same depraved human race that everyone else is.

That's the point. And this is the thing that I really want to stress and try to help you understand because this is where, when you look at this, when you look at politics, we're coming upon, for many who may be aware, in America we're coming upon another electoral season, and you hear these people talk about this utopia of how the world should be.

And if everyone just gave to one another, there, oh, it could be this great world, except for one problem. Everyone, including the politicians, are sinners. They have a sin nature, and that's the thing.

We often hear politicians speak as if they forget this doctrine. This is where it comes into play. We don't make laws to keep people from doing good things. No, we write laws to keep people from doing bad things.

Because we're bad people, not as bad as we could be. But the reason for those laws is so that we would say, ah, I don't like that consequence, so you know what, I'm not going to do the things I was going to do or want to do because I don't want to pay the consequences.

And that's the thing that we have to try to remember. There are consequences to actions, and that's why we have laws. Every law is moral. It's trying to teach a right and wrong, what society thinks is right and wrong.

And so every law that gets passed is an issue of morality. And so when we look at the depravity of man, those laws are there because of the fact that we have to be aware that we, as human beings, have a sin nature, and having a sin nature, we're going to do things, we're prone to do things that are wrong.

And even when we say right and wrong, that requires God, by the way. If evolutionists were right, and that everything just evolved and there is no God, the problem with that is that there's nothing that would define what a standard is of right and wrong.

Because humans can't create that standard. Because humans, look, in any culture, and you will see when you have people that make laws, they make laws to exempt themselves, okay? They make laws of things they don't do.

You don't see people that do something wrong, that make a law saying that that thing they're doing is wrong. They make the law, but they'll always exempt themselves. So let's get into now, if we could, on the origin of sin.

The Origin of Sin in Satan's Rebellion

Where did sin come from? We've been talking about Adam and Eve, but that's actually not the origin of sin, is it? No, if you think about it, the original sin was committed, at a minimum, by Satan. We know this in Isaiah 14 and also in Ezekiel.

You can look in Ezekiel 28, 11 -19, but let's put up Isaiah 14, 12 -17. Now, let's understand that this is a prophecy that has a near-term and long-term fulfillment. And so the idea here is that people will say this is speaking of a king of Isaiah's time, but as you look at this, there's things that cannot be true of a king in Isaiah's time.

And so the way many interpreters understand this is that this is talking about Satan and his fall. So let's begin. Isaiah 14, 12 -17 says, How you are fallen from heaven, O day star, sun of dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!

You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will make myself like the Most High. But you were brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit. Those who see you will stare at you and ponder over you. Is this the man who said, who made the earth tremble?

Who shook kingdoms? Who made the world like a desert and overthrew cities? Who did not let his prisoners go home? What you have there is seven times, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.

That was the first sin. When Satan chose to rebel against God and think that he is going to rise up and he is going to ascend to be higher than any of the other angels. That he was going to ascend to the throne of God.

He, at some point, and we don't know when this occurred. I know there's some people who think that the fall of man happened on the eighth day of creation. There's no evidence of that. We do not know how long it was from Adam and Eve's sin.

Or sorry, from the creation of Adam and Eve to their sin. Now we know that angels were created before man because they saw that creation. They were eyewitnesses to the creation. If you need evidence or you want an explanation of that, go back to our systematic theology class.

We talked about angels and we worked through all that. But we know that angels were created before men. So at some point, were Adam and Eve in the garden for a year, two years, ten years, a hundred? We don't have a set time of how long it was before Satan, well Adam and Eve, but more so in this case, Satan fell.

And I say at a minimum Satan because we know that the other angels sided with him and became what we call demons. So there are still angels, right? You have holy and unholy angels. We now kind of refer to them as angels and demons.

But demons are still angels that fell. But did they fall because Satan talked them into it? So did Satan fall first and then he convinced some of the other angels? Or was it that they all fell at the same time?

We don't know. We don't have anything that explains the fall of Satan very much, or fall of demons I should say, in any great detail. We only have these two passages, Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, 11 -19, that we can look to for Satan's fall.

So scripture does not state when the demons fell. Whether it was a couple days, a couple months. What we do know is that it happened before Genesis 3. Before the test of man. Now it doesn't have to be before the creation of man.

Because it could be that they were in the garden for a while before Satan came and tempted Eve. This we don't know. But Satan's sin was the original sin of creation. The first sin in the universe. And man's sin was the first sin of the human race.

This is what brought the entire race under what Adam did to fall. Romans 5 .12 and following. We're just going to look at verse 12. But this passage is really the key that talks about the federal headship with Adam.

But it says, Romans 5 .12,. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sin. So you see there both the imputed and inherited there.

Satan's sin was an internal sin. It was something within Satan. Where man's sin was being influenced by Satan. So it was an external first. So with the angels, it was an internal that led to external.

With man, it was external that led to internal. Adam's sin was deliberate. Where Eve's, she was deceived. We see this in 1 Timothy 2 .14. It says,. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became the transgressor.

And so what you have here is the teaching that Eve was deceived by the serpent. Adam was not. Some think that Adam was actually with an earshot or maybe even standing right there in front of Eve. Kind of probably, if that was the case, can you picture Adam saying, I'm going to let her do it.

Let me see what happens. Okay, she eats that fruit. She didn't die the way I thought she was going to die. Maybe it's okay. Maybe the serpent was right. Maybe God lied to me. Let me try. Boom. And what happened?

Well, if you remember, God told Adam if he eats of that fruit, that's when the curse comes. And when he ate of the fruit, he immediately understood he was naked. There was an immediate change both for Adam and Eve.

But notice, Eve didn't recognize her nakedness until Adam had partaken. That's when the curse of sin affected the universe. And so Adam was not deceived. He knew what he was doing. And the promise was not to Adam and Eve that would bring the curse, but to Adam.

And that is because he is our federal head. A desire to sin arose within Satan. The first sin was rebellion against God's authority and pride in both man's and angel's potential. Both men and angels are fully accountable, meaning that they're responsible for their own sin.

They cannot, as one person tried to say, is that it's God's fault. God made me this way, and therefore if I sin, it's his fault. I was counseling an individual this week, and that was something that he argued.

It's not my fault. God made me this way. God rigged the deck. And he's trying to say he doesn't have responsibility for the sin he does. Though they were tempted, they were never tempted by God. And that's the thing to remember.

God does not tempt, nor can he tempt. James says this in James 1 .13. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. God himself tempts no one.

Remember that, because this is the thing that we're saying. People try to make this argument that somehow it is God's fault for their sin. No, we have to take responsibility. I do always find it interesting that anything bad that happens, we want to blame on God.

Anything good that happens, we want to take credit, right? Tornadoes, hurricanes, things like that, we call them an act of God. Oh, that's really bad. But then you have cases where something good happens, and we want to take credit for it.

It's not the way the Bible lays it out. The Bible lays it out that anything good is of God, and anything bad is from us. So let's look next at the extent of sin. The extent of sin. As we look at this, the extent of sin affects all of creation.

This is the thing that you have to, when we look at this, just pay attention to. Pay attention to these things, because we have, as I mentioned, I don't have a slide on Romans 8. But in Romans 8, it says the universe is groaning.

All of creation was affected by sin. When Eve sinned, the effects weren't realized, as I said earlier, until Adam partook. Let's look at that in Genesis 3. In Genesis 3, we see, it says, Genesis 3, 6 -7.

So 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 to be desired, to make one wise, she took of it, of its fruits, and ate. And she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

When the eyes of both were opened, then they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves, made themselves, why did I just lose my place, sorry about that. And they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves lincloths.

Okay, sorry about that. Losing my place. So, what we have here is a case where we see is that Eve sinned, she's deceived, and you see it says that Adam was with her, was he right there, we don't know, standing right next to her, don't know.

Okay, but what we do know is that she gives him the fruit, and it wasn't until they both ate that the effect was realized. Notice what it said in verse 7, that when they both had, then they knew they were naked.

Okay, it was upon Adam's sin, the creation began to experience the effects of sin. Look at this in the same passage there in Genesis 3. This is Genesis 3, 17 to 19, look at what that says. And to Adam he said, By the sweat of your face, and you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

So many will argue that this was now the beginning of the process of where now death enters into the universe, and you now have the beginning of the process of physical death. And that is true, at that point we believe that Adam and Eve would have lived in that physical body forever.

They were then cursed, and they were going to die, and in that death that they suffered, now that they suffer from that, the death process, the physical death process began. But they did die that day immediately, spiritually, and that's what we often forget.

When we talk of death, we often think of physical death. And yet what we know is, we know to the fact that they died spiritually, immediately. Did the physical death process begin? Yes. But the reality is that they died, and that's how they knew they were naked.

And what they tried to do, cover it up. So therefore, Adam's sin is extended to the entire universe as he began to physically decay. By the time after the flood, the full effect of sin on creation was experienced.

The extent of sin in angels is seen that they were conformed to holiness or sinfulness for all of eternity. The extent of man is revealed in the depravity, and that we can enter into a state of righteousness.

So the difference is, and I go into this in the classes on angels, but the difference is with angels and man is that angels had a one-time chance to choose to rebel against God or not. And then whatever choice they made was sealed forever.

Where you and I, from the moment we're born, we can choose God. We have this chance, this opportunity to be regenerated until the day we die, and then we're sealed in whichever state that we're in. Once we choose God, I should change that.

The moment that we choose God, I know there's people arguing, we don't choose God, God chooses us. I'll agree, alright? That point of regeneration, okay? At the point of regeneration, we now are righteous.

If we never choose, if we're never made righteous, then we die and we'll forever be in the state of depravity, okay? So, with that, let's get into, we have two more topics here, so let's look at the imputation of sin.

The Imputation of Sin and the Two Adams

The imputation of sin. What is this all about, this imputation, this big word? Okay, imputation of sin is the idea, imputation just means that you take something upon yourself, something that's accounted to you, that's really for someone else.

An imputation is really what the gospel is. It's the fact that when we look at the imputation that God took our sin upon himself, what did Christ do on that cross? He took the consequences of our sin, that's ours.

He took it upon himself. What does He give us in exchange according to 2 Corinthians 5 .21? He gives to us His righteousness. That's why we say we become His righteousness at the point that we're regenerate.

So, that's the transaction. What do we get? We get something that's not ours. It's imputed to us, it's given to us, it's attributed to us. The same thing is true with sin. Sin is imputed unto us because of Adam.

It's inherited to us through our fathers. So, the imputation of sin is the inheriting of sin directly from Adam through our fathers. Romans 5, I said 12 and following. This is a little bit of a longer passage.

Let's take the time to read this because this is where we get this understanding of the imputation of sin. Romans 5 .12 -19, and this is what it says. Therefore, just as sin came into the world, one man through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. Now, the law meaning the law of Moses was given. So, sin was there. People sinned before God gave His law to Moses. But sin was not counted where there was no law.

So, the idea being you can't break a law if you don't know it's a law. So, the point here is that the fact that there was a sin reveals that God put that law on our heart. We know what law is. Yet, death reigned from Adam to Moses.

So, you see what he's saying? Death is from Adam to Moses. So, there was sinning that happened. The death happened even before there was a law. And the reason this was important because that's the whole argument for the Jewish people was the law, obeying the law.

So, he says, even over those who sinning was not like the transgression of Adam who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift of the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.

And the free gift is not like the result of the one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following the many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to the condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by one man's disobedience the many will be made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.

And what you see here is this idea that as one man sinned, one man gave us the righteousness. If you deny original sin, and this is why this is so important, if you deny Adam and Eve being literal people, as some that try to argue that God used evolution and Adam and Eve were just mythical, if Adam and Eve are mythical, then you have no salvation according to that passage.

Because by the same federal headship that we get our sin imputed to us is the same federal headship that we have our righteousness imputed to us through Christ. If you don't have imputed sin from Adam, you cannot have imputed righteousness from Christ according to Romans 5, 12 -19.

That's the importance of that. This is what makes those that believe in sinless perfectionism a problem. Because they deny that we have sin imputed from Adam. If we don't have the sin imputed from Adam, then we don't have the righteousness imputed from Christ.

The one act caused a sin in every man even before there was a written law to explain the penalties. The immediate result of that one act of sin was death, physical, spiritual, and ultimately eternal death.

This death has been passed on from every generation to generation, even those not conscious of it. Finally, that by one act of sin, there was also one act of righteousness by Christ that remedies the act that Adam had done.

The contrast in that passage in Romans 5, 12 -19 parallels the sin of Adam with the salvation of Christ. It reveals the similarities and the differences between these two events in history, these two Adams they're sometimes called, the first and second Adam.

The sin of Adam was a real event and a real test in history and not a mythical account. The parallels between Adam and Christ are seen in the oneness. As you read through that passage and read it again, you'll see the oneness.

The result of Adam's sin was both physical and spiritual death. The oneness is revealed in the one sinful act of Adam and the one righteous act of Christ. The sin nature extends to all people except Christ because he didn't have a human father.

Sin was brought into the world by the one sinful act, not acts, not plural, singular. It's the one act that Adam did that brought sin into the world. Thus, Christ's death was one act, singular, not acts that brings righteousness.

Therefore, Christ died once for all, one act for all, for sin, not sins. It's not a continual working and it's not for the works. We don't have to repent of our sins, plural, the things we continue to do.

It's our sin nature, that pride, that arrogance where we want to be God. Due to Adam's sin, all men are rightly judged for their imputed sin. It is deserved and to all. However, grace is not to all men and completely and totally unmerited by men.

Because of this, not all men are in Christ, but all men who are born are in Adam except for Christ because he didn't have a human father. The result of being in Adam is condemnation. That's your blank there.

That's the first blank of the class. Wow, this is probably the longest we've gone in a class before having to fill in the blank. Wow. Okay, the result of being in Adam is condemnation. That's your blank there.

Condemnation where the imputation of righteousness by being in Christ is redemption. That's your next blank there, redemption. So, the result of being in Adam, condemnation. The result of being in Christ, redemption.

Those in Adam have certain death, both physical and spiritual. However, those in Christ do not have a spiritual death any longer and may avoid, well, I would say could avoid physical death in the rapture, but they will avoid the eternal death.

Now that we see the parallels and differences, we can see that there is a similarity and even more so a superiority between Christ and Adam. There is a similarity in being in Adam and those in Christ.

The one act of Adam and the one act of Christ, the union with Adam and those who are in union with Christ, however, the superiority is that in the nature of the act of Christ, which can be imputed to His righteousness to those who are in Adam, Christ's one act is the remedy for the result of Adam's one act.

The important note between the similarities in oneness between Adam and Christ is in a natural oneness versus a spiritual oneness. All people are in Adam naturally from nature, born that way, and some people are in Christ spiritually.

We are not all God's children. We are not all spiritually in Christ. We are all born in Adam, but we have to repent and trust in Christ to be in Christ, and that is that redemption. The superiority can be seen in the contrast between Adam and Christ.

Adam disobeyed. Christ obeyed. Adam's act was imputed to all people. Christ's righteous act is imputed to few people. Adam's act was the involvement and participation of each person. Christ's act was the involvement and participation only of Christ and not men.

You see, what Adam did, all of us sin. We all participate in that act of sin. None of us can participate in the act that Christ did on the cross. So that's where there is a contrast in the union as described in this.

The union with Adam is immediate at conception. The union with Christ is conditional based on faith and regeneration. All suffer through Adam because of his act, but only Christ suffered for his act. You see the contrast there.

No one can escape the imputation of sin. But few receive the imputation of righteousness. Therefore, all men deserve the imputation of sin, the consequences, and its judgment, but none deserve the grace of God and His righteousness.

Therefore, all sin is merited and all grace is unmerited. This is what makes the gospel so good. If you don't know Christ, if you're not in Christ, my challenge to you at this point would be to repent and believe in Christ.

Have the forgiveness of your sin. These two Adams, this contrast, the similarities and contrast between these two, it really lays out the gospel. And this is the problem, I think, with so much of American Christianity is because we have gotten away from wanting to talk about sin, we lose the preciousness of the gospel.

It is in what Adam did that we see what Christ did is so much greater. We see the superiority because we see the depravity. And if you try to avoid looking at the depravity of what Adam did and the depravity of our own soul, you will not see how great and glorious what Christ did.

That's why we can't avoid sin when we share the gospel. So let's answer real quick some answering objections. There are some objections that come up at this point. So let's go through a couple of these.

Objections to Original Sin and Accountability

There are some objections raised that can easily be answered. First, there is the objection that there is no sin prior to consciousness. However, so the idea that before, you know, like an age, there's some age when you first sin.

And then once you're conscious of it, you're accountable. However, the most sin is of nature rather than deliberance. Also, the first act that I think that an infant does is an act, a selfish act. It's a self-act of desiring milk and crying is the result.

That first cry that we do when we were born and come out of our mother's womb is an act of selfishness. Also, that cry for milk, I said that, is an act of selfishness. So even from an infant, this is the very first act that an infant does, an act of selfishness.

Now, people will say, but they're not conscious of it. Nobody knows that for sure. I mean, just because we can't remember doesn't tell us what we actually knew at that time. I don't know. I mean, we just don't.

We just don't remember it. But we have to realize that no one taught our children to sin. At earliest of ages, we see that children know to do wrong. When you teach a child, you say something is no, and you're instructing them not to do it.

Why do they have a desire to do the thing you just said no to? It is a thing where they recognize wrong, and they want to do what's wrong. No one had to teach them that. As soon as a child can speak, they start lying to us.

Whether they're conscious of it, we want to say that they can remember it, but they're conscious of it, they know they're lying. They know they're doing wrong. These are examples of sins from the sin nature.

Whether it's prior to them having a consciousness of it later in life or not, we don't know. The reality is, and this brings in the question that some people will raise, you're saying all children go to hell when they die.

I don't know that either. The Bible doesn't say whether they go to heaven or hell. What I do know is they have a sin nature. That I know. They're cursed by sin. That I know. Does God give them grace from the knowledge they have?

He says that every human being knows that God exists. Could a child repent in the womb? I don't understand that. But, he could. Second objection is that we cannot be responsible for what Adam did. However, and I think I've hopefully made this clear.

However, we are responsible for what we do. And because of Adam, we have a sin nature and therefore we sin. It is our sin that we're responsible for to God. God is not going to punish us for what Adam did.

He's going to punish us for the sins that we did. This can be followed with another objection that we cannot repent of Adam's sin. However, it is because of sin, and not sins, plural, right, that we need to repent.

Can we be guilty of Adam's sin? Adam made one choice that gave him and every person who followed him a sin nature. We're not guilty of Adam's sin. We're guilty of our own sin. That was actually in that passage in Romans 5.

Right? We sin not like the transgression that Adam did. But it's still a sin. Although Adam's one sinful act brought about a sin nature in that one sin. One righteous act of Christ brought about the availability for any to have His righteousness imputed to them.

Where the sin nature is once to all, righteousness is once to few. And that's the thing. That's where I want to challenge you to think about that message. As we look into next class, we're going to look at the lesson on salvation.

Okay? We're going to look at next lesson is going to be on the doctrine of salvation. Now, just for those who are watching live, we will not have, we probably will not have a class next week. I will be heading out to Toronto, and I will be doing some ministry out in Toronto.

And I will be flying back on Monday. If I can make it back in time, and everything's prepped, then we'll do class. And if not, so just be prepped. If we don't have class, my challenge to you is go watch another class.

Maybe watch this one again to make sure it sinks in. It's an important one before we get into the doctrine of salvation. But if you have questions about this lesson or any others, please feel free to email us at strivingforeternity .org.