Sin (Part II)

Okay, so I'm going to read the portion of our state of faith that we are working on and this is in the part that has the heading humanity sin. And to speak of humanity in this present age is to speak of humanity in sin.

Humanity in Adam and the Reality of Human Condemnation

The part that we are working on right now is the part that says now in union with Adam sorry I'm going to reemphasize that now in union with Adam the entire human race inherits a corrupt nature that is opposed to God and his law.

Therefore all humans are under condemnation. This depravity is radical and pervasive. It extends to the whole personality mind body soul spirit conscience will and affections. Thus man can only think judge assess speak work will do only that which is displeasing and hostile to God and his law unread unregenerate.

Humanity lives under the dominion of sin and Satan and is at enmity with God and hateful of God. As a result humans are unable to save themselves or contribute in any way to their acceptance before God.

That that's probably the most depressing part of the statement of faith. But it's depressing it ought to be depressing in the sense that there is no hope for humanity from humanity no hope for humanity from within ourselves.

The Three Views of Fallen Human Ability

And I'm just gonna tackle this in three parts hopefully to get out very clearly what it is we're saying and trying to accurately reflect what scripture is saying here. I'm gonna start by reading something from Charles Hodge's systematic theology when he talks about total inability the inability of humans to do anything pleasing to God he says there have been three general views as to the ability of fallen man which which have prevailed in the church.

The first the Pelagian doctrine Pelagian which asserts the full ability of sinners to do all that God requires of them. The second is the semi Pelagian doctrine and we could just say the Arminian doctrine taking the word semi Pelagian in its wide and popular sense which admits the powers of man to have been weakened by the fall of the race but denies that he lost all ability to perform what is spiritually good.

And thirdly the Augustinian or Protestant doctrine we can call this doctrine the Calvinist doctrine that teaches that such is the nature of inherent or hereditary depravity that men since the fall are utterly unable to turn themselves unto God or to do anything truly good in his sight.

So really we have three. Well we have we have four options because there's hyper Calvinism as well. But the three main options that you'll find in Christendom is there's Pelagianism and that's just outright heresy and that was dealt with in the early church and brandished as heresy and anyone who actually believed that or taught that or ascribed to subscribe to that would be outside of the church and outside of the possibility of salvation they would be accursed using Paul's wording when he does not love the Lord Jesus let him be a curse let him be anathema.

The second of those two is the more popular form that everybody from the woodwork comes out comes out of the woodwork. And if they've never heard of Arminianism or Calvinism before yet they still by default fall under that category because usually it's assumed that humanity is not so sinful that we can't do anything spiritually good.

Usually it's assumed that we have a free will and that free will is something that God cannot touch that's beyond his jurisdiction and that sin hasn't really radically affected. It's something that's damaged it maybe but it's not something that sin really has dominion over.

That's Arminianism and that is you find that pretty much everywhere Alliance churches Baptist churches there's even a denomination I believe it's a dumb denomination called free will Baptist free will Baptist churches.

I'm not gonna say that that's it's nearer to the heresy. Then is the other option which would be Augustinian ism or Calvinism which asserts that there's the third option that mankind is utterly unable to do anything pleasing to God ever.

So it's complete inability. So why is that. And that third option it must be clear is what we represent and what we believe the Bible explicitly and implicitly teaches. So the first heading why is that is now in union with Adam the entire human race inherits a corrupt nature that is opposed to God in his law.

Adam, Original Sin, and Imputation

Therefore therefore all humans are under condemnation. In the in the fourth century the British monk Pelagius did not assert like all everybody else was that when Adam sinned he sinned as a for everyone else.

Pelagius taught that Adam sin was something that affected himself but it was not something that was passed on generationally. He taught that when babies come into the world they come in tabula rasa which means a slate.

And furthermore if anyone does sin in real life in real time because sin is not a substance that's not actually something that really sullies the soul it doesn't actually affect the person in any way shape or form.

It's an action that you do. But once you commit that action you can go right back and do a good action. And Augustine on the other hand with the backing of the whole church said that is not true. Adam sinned and as is explicitly taught in scripture that did affect literally every human except Jesus.

And as to the second part sin being not a substance why then now we don't have to really say sin is a substance but that it does damage the soul he would take from the Psalms when David prays Lord heal my soul for I have sinned against you.

So the Pelagians basically took man and Pelagians not the Calvinists made man out to be a robot. One action one bad action. You can swing right back and do a good action. You can swing back and do a bad action swing back and do a good action and you are not changed.

Whereas scripture teaches that sin is enslaving sin is original sin is enslaving. You practice sin and you're the slave of sin. And you're going to build that into your personality and the use of your members for that sin is binding.

So Romans 5 from the scriptures from the scriptures it's really clear in Romans 5 that from verses 12 to the end of the chapter one man sinned and because of his sin we all die. Why do people die. Adam sinned.

Why do people sin. Adam sinned. Okay. Why are people saved. Why do they have eternal life. Christ obeyed. Now the relationship there is important. Adam acted and he acted for all humanity under him whom he was representing.

Christ acted as a new Adam as the last Adam and he represented it all in a new humanity. He acted for them on their behalf and the benefits that accrue to those that receive Jesus Christ our righteousness and eternal life and grace and the Holy Spirit as opposed to on the other hand sin and condemnation and the flesh and the law and death.

So therefore just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned they're sinning. So when Adam sinned he acted as our representative.

His sin was our sin. And one might raise and as has often been the case someone might say well that's unjust for God to do that. It's unjust for God to punish others for someone who sinned on their behalf.

But you only have to flip this around and see how God justifies others for the sake of Christ's obedience. We don't contribute in any way shape or form to us being put right before God. It's all because of Christ's act received by faith.

So on the flip side it's completely just for God to do that. And number two who are you. Oh man to answer back to God if God has done something it's only your limited sight your puny human mind that can't comprehend God's doings.

There's nothing wrong with what God has done. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. But sin has not counted where there is no law yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those who sinning was not like the transgression of Adam there's a type of one who has to come.

It's not as the Pelagian said that because people faced their own tree of knowledge of good and evil and they decided to act rebellious against God then they became sinners. This kind of heresy can actually be seen in the as modern a book as oh it's not to train up a child is it.

I think it's to train up to child. Pearl his last name is pearl. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I think that's it to train up a child. Right. To train up a child. Yeah to train up a child. So it's a child rearing book and it's got some helpful points in it.

But basically his philosophy is that people that children come into the world without a knowledge of good and evil they are not complete. Just like they're not mentally and physically mature. So they are not mature individuals in their soul their soul is not fully formed.

Well that's what that's pure Pelagian ism. And the result is is that when you look at children and humanity through that lens you're really looking at them as have they fallen or have they not. When will they fall.

And to its greatest degree. And its logical conclusion you're looking at somebody and saying this person if they do the right things consistently they might not need the cross. And that's why Pelagian ism is so terrible.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass much more of the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin.

What was the result for the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation. Now he's pairing these he's juxtaposing putting on opposite sides Adam and Christ. What did Adam do is one trespass brought condemnation for those represented.

That is very clear. And that's what we must believe. Anyone who doesn't believe that anyone who nowadays would agree with Pelagius that Adam just represented himself he just himself. We come in Blake Slate's and it's our parents that form us and it's society that forms us.

And it's us that have all of we are completely responsible so that we die for our sin only. No that's not to be found in the scriptures so but we do die also we are condemned for our own sin. But that's not where it begins.

So so this this text clearly explains our legal guilt before God based on Adam sinning on our behalf and resulting in death to so all humanity is under condemnation. And it's not only from from this text that you could see that but it's in the places of scripture where it says that that whoever does not obey the Son of God the wrath of God remains on them in John 3.

Or that the light has come into the world and people loved darkness rather than the light and they were condemned already. So it's not just in Paul that he says this but it's also in it's in John in Psalm 51 5 when David is confessing his own sin he brings up the fact that he was he was conceived a sinner.

He's confessing his sin. He's not confessing his mother's sin as if it was a sinful act for his mother and father to procreate. Behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

So we see that not only begins at conception which it does and which should inform how we react to abortion but sin is imputed is accounted to every individual at conception which was why there needed to be a virgin birth as a sign.

So these both Adams guilt when he sinned in the mind of God everyone born of Adam everyone to be was accounted a sinner right then and there and and under condemnation and that is called immediate imputation.

God without any sort of means the Lord accounted to everyone Adam sin. And thus we die. Secondarily when babies are born babies are conceived and then born inherent sin is passed on to the child so that it can say perfectly in the scriptures that they go astray from birth.

Speaking lies you don't have to teach your child how to steal they already. I didn't I don't ever really remember watching anything from my parents maybe from a movie. But I'm not really sure about stealing.

And when I was in kindergarten I stole a toy and it developed later on to me stealing and lying bigger things and more important things and involving other people in my lying. I was inventing evil from my heart and I didn't have to be taught by anybody.

I was a little con artist myself so and I'm not just a spat some special specimen. Every single child born of Adam is what Ephesians 2 says that I chill a child of wrath sons of disobedience. And that wrath is not our own like children of anger as if the angers from us the angers from God and a child of wrath only has wrath to be bequeathed to them.

It's only that's the only inheritance that a sinner has. Secondly this depravity is radical and pervasive. It extends to the whole personality. And then we've just put in brackets basically you name it it's messed up.

Okay mind body soul spirit conscience will affect us. Whatever you throw in there that is part of the whole gamut of humanity. I mean like if you put also in there the Old Testament version of the heart in the New Testament Greek the kidneys yeah that too is depraved.

Your kidneys the deepest part of you the deepest in most being your inner man or inner woman. That is a lump of coal without any diamond in it. It's worthless it. This depravity extends the whole personality.

Thus man can only think judge assess speak work will and do only that which is displeasing to God and hostile to God and his law. This is this is born in Scripture born out of Scripture rather. And it's the doctrine of total depravity or you could call it total inability.

RC scroll. The late RC scroll preferred the term radical depravity. And we've used radical here because radix in the Latin refers to a root depravity meaning something that is crooked and skewed. And that crookedness is deep-rooted in our very nature.

So that human nature the whole of human nature whatever section you are looking at it is all crooked at creation. When Adam was made in the image of God there was uprightness there was a walk with God and there was a blamelessness before God in in everything.

But now that he has sinned his sinful nature has been photocopied if it if you will to all of us this doesn't mean total depravity. And this is the reason why some people prefer like radical depravity.

Total depravity doesn't mean someone is as bad or as wicked as they could be as given to wickedness as they could be. My my child is not equal to Hitler in wickedness. I am NOT equal to to Hitler or Mussolini or whoever or Nero in in slavery to sin.

Yet everyone and in every part of at the base at the core of them in every part there's futility. There's an absolute inability to please God. There's no desire for God. They don't seek for God. There's no fear of God before their eyes.

And it's like Jesus said to the the Jews who had believed in him in acts or sorry in. In John 8 whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave doesn't have rights. A slave owes work to the master and does what the master wants whenever he wants it.

If sin is your master then it doesn't matter whether you're a goody two-shoes. You go to church you are good in school and you stay out of trouble and don't join the people in school that do bad things.

You are a slave to sin and God hates sin. You could be the best out of all the people that you know. Morally upright in the eyes of and yet in God's eyes you are his enemy because you don't fear your God and all of your thoughts are opposed to him.

You are self-righteous and self-trusting. You are in a word cursed in Jeremiah 17. Listen to what it says to the one who trusts in man trusts in themselves. In Jeremiah 17 5 it says. Thus says. The Lord cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength whose heart turns away from the Lord.

So average Joe sinner. No matter how upright or good they may be in the eyes of people this is what they are like. He is like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any good come he shall dwell in the parts places of the wilderness in an uninhabited salt land.

Now we remember from John the Baptist preaching every tree that doesn't bear good fruit is going to be cut down and thrown into the fire. Well what is average humanity. Look like they're a piece of garbage shrub that doesn't bear good fruit at all because they trust in themselves.

Proverbs says. Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool. Rightly. God says to the rich man fool this night your soul is required of you. In just a couple verses after it describes the blessedness of the man who trusts in the Lord.

It says in verse 9. The heart is deceitful above all and desperately sick. Who can understand it. Now this isn't the blood pump. This isn't your aorta that is desperately sick. This is your inner you who you are at your deepest core level.

The the heart is used in Scripture for where you think and for where you make your choices what you desire your emotions. It's the it's the place where all of that goes on that your soul you could say or your spirit you could say because each of these is used interchangeably throughout the Bible that is desperately sick and deceitful above all things.

So radical depravity. We can we we use this word just like we use the word Trinity or incarnation. It the word itself is not in the Bible. But we we get that teaching throughout Scripture ever since Adam fell no one is good.

No not one. The heart the very core essence of a person God says is deceitful above all things. So you can lump in there your mind your heart your will your affections desperately sick deceitful above all things.

Not only that you could you could put in there your conscience as well. Why else would the prophets say that that people call light darkness and darkness light and put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

The conscience itself is even depraved. It is touched by sin as well. It's like a it's kind of like a an airplane that gets into a crash pieces mangled and scattered everywhere burnt because the thing blew up when it hit the ground.

And people are looking through the wreckage to see if there's anything salvageable to see if they can recognize any faces of people on the plane and what do they find. They find the black box that's in this plane and it's unscathed.

And they take out the black box. And they listen to the recording to see what went on and why this plane crashed. Try to figure it out. You know what. There's no black box in the human. Everything is a wreck everything is mangled.

There's nothing good left nothing salvageable. So that in Romans 8 it Romans 8 7 for the mind that is set on the flesh and the flesh here contrasted with the spirit means not born again human nature sinful nature.

The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. For it does not submit to God's law. Indeed it cannot. So that those sorry those who are in the flesh. So those that are unsaved cannot please God.

This is not only this isn't just Paul's. This is God's picture of humanity at war with God hostile to God. I want elbow space. I don't want you Lord of my life. I want to do what I want to do 100 of the time 10 out of 10 times.

If you ask me will I submit to God and I'm in the flesh. I will say no and I will put my foot down. That's what humanity is like. And it doesn't do what God wants. Human human beings men and women the run save don't do what God wants.

They don't savor God because they can not. There is an inability of humans to do that. Reading scripture to them. It's just like putting on a light for a person who's blind. They can't perceive it unless God works a grace that must raise people from the dead in order for them to see that light and savor it and come to it.

Otherwise there's just hatred for it. And there's just not realizing that this is for me. So the mind set on the flesh hostile to God cannot please God. This also is coordinated with our need for grace.

What pleases God in Hebrews 11. You remember what pleases God. Faith without faith it's impossible to please God. Okay. Well we need faith in order to believe the gospel. Well if you're unsaved if you're in the flesh you cannot please God.

So that means you cannot have faith. Therefore faith must be a gift from God. Romans 6 sorry. Romans 6 verses. Romans 6 verses 16. I believe. So what then are we to sin. This is verse 15. Because we are not under law but under grace.

By no means do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves you are slaves of the one whom you obey either of sin which sinners only present themselves to which leads to death or of obedience which only believers yield themselves to which leads to righteousness.

But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. That committed is passive. It's something God God does.

God hands us over to the gospel. We were slaves obedient to sin leading to death. God worked in our hearts to commit us to to give us hand us over to the gospel. And having been set free from sin have become slaves of.

I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. He's speaking in what human terms. Slavery. Slavery and mastery. You know Armenians will especially say to Calvinists you're making humans out to be robots.

Well okay maybe robots doesn't really help to describe human beings. But slave and master does. And he Paul says I'm using this kind of language because you can't fully grasp the the idea here. But you do understand slavery.

And you do understand masters. When you come to Christ you're transferred from the ownership of sin Satan over to Christ. You were sin slave. Now you're the slave of righteousness. Skip a verse. He says.

For when you were slaves of sin you were free in regard to righteousness. Humanity that is not saved that has not trusted in Christ is free in only one regard. They're free from righteousness. They're free only to sin.

So that it can say in Proverbs the plowing of the wicked is sin or the lamp of the wicked is sin. There's literally nothing that a person can do that is not affected by sin. So of course everything that a man or woman produces is utterly displeasing to God.

Even your righteousness is. Isaiah 64 6 is like filthy rags to God. The best that man can do is suck. And so I mean it's like a well. Okay we get this principle with a well. If you have a bucket and you put the bucket down the well and you you bring up that bucket.

You get what was in the well. Right. You don't get something else. You don't expect something else. You get what water was in the well. Well humanity you know all of its nature whether it's the the the mind will or the emotions or whatever.

It's a polluted sickly disgusting smelly well and everything that is thought comes up and just pollutes. And everything that is brought up to be spoken. It pollutes and it kills and it damages. And you put it on a plant and the plant dies and falls to pieces.

Everything from within us comes out and it's it's utterly useless to God and his kingdom requiring nothing less than you to be completely remade in regeneration. So unregenerate humanity is the third point lives under the dominion of sin and Satan and is at enmity with God and hateful of God.

Human Inability, Grace, and Salvation in Christ

As a result humans are unable to save themselves or contribute in any way to their acceptance before God. This is kind of the same as the first point. We are so bad that God needs to remake us and that there's nothing that we could do that would actually if God will not be pleased by the least thing that a sinful human being gives to God.

Then how could anyone think to ever provide a ransom for their soul. That they would be able to enter into glory. That they would be able to take the appropriate steps and do enough good works to enter God's presence.

It's it's being in God's presence is the greatest thing ever. And that is the fullness of salvation is being right with God in a right relationship and being in his presence and having his favor and his acceptance upon you.

But man cannot do that. Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2 views all people in one stream heading down to destruction. Starting in verse 1. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

Walked means to live. That's how you lived your life. You lived your life for sin. And you were dead in it not just hurt by it dead following the course of this world following the prince of the power of the air that spirit the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience aka Satan.

If you're on an unbeliever you're Satan's follower among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh. There you go. Emotions are affected carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. There you go mind and the will that's affected.

And we're by nature children of wrath like the rest. What's the only. But God being rich in mercy is mercy deserved. Absolutely not. Mercy is by nature undeserved because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

The purpose of salvation is to glorify God for its grace. It's to show off God's glorious grace. If it was any other way we would be boasting before God. And this is exactly what Paul ran into again and again encountered again.

Whether it was in the churches of Galatia or whether it was with the Corinthians or the Ephesians or the Philippians of the Colossians. It doesn't matter everywhere he shuts down boasting in ourselves and places it all.

This is where it should be boasting in the Lord. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God not a result of so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

It doesn't matter what style it comes in whether it is a cult or whether it's Pelagian ism or whether it's outright Judaism. Any kind of works based salvation works coming from us is is like the slaves in Egypt that were told to make the and yet they're not getting any kind of materials to make.

There's nothing that a human as a slave of sin can actually do to to produce works pleasing to God. God is not going to be bought. And which leads into the next section of the statement. Faith is the gospel.

We couldn't do it. There's no way in hell we could do it. God sent his son Jesus Christ who was born of a virgin so that he would be without sin and he would be another representative to live the kind of life that none of us could ever live and and obey perfectly everything his father laid down for him and us and give a sufficient life of righteousness in obedience to God and then offer himself his body as a sacrifice on the cross to take away all of our mountains and piles of so that we could be purified so that we could be reconciled so that we could be forgiven so that the anger of God could turn away from us and our enslavement to sin could be broken.

And he was buried. And on the third day God vindicated Christ by raising him from the dead showing that he was who he said he was and he did what he came to do. And the father accepts his work. And now he offers life from God and reconciliation and peace with God and forgiveness to everyone who will believe the gospel.

Not rest on themselves not try to please God by doing something for him but by resting on Christ and what he has done. And he's made this gospel available and he sent it across the whole world. Whoever believes will be saved.

Whoever remains in unbelief remains in condemnation. So repent. Turn from whatever it is you're trusting in and whatever it is you're pursuing. Turn from your backwardness to God and believe to Jesus Christ to be saved by him and him alone.

And he promises I am the door. Whoever enters by me will be saved. Go in and out and find pasture. And for believers this doesn't have to be a pessimistic depressing doctrine. This is it's all for our good.

When we remember as we're struggling we have to remember that there's nothing we could do to please God in the first place. And yet he demonstrates his love for us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

We were still ungodly. You're still weak. We're still sinners. We were not righteous. We were not good. And yet God loved us and died for us if he's already done that. And he's made you right with him through faith in Christ and he will take you all the way because it's not dependent on you it never was.

And it's all glory to God. The Lord be glorified in this this sermon.

Is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton Alberta Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us please visit our website at grace Edmonton dot CA.