Implications of Man’s Rebellion against God
Read Isaiah 59:2 and Romans 5:12 - 6:23
There is a problem—your sins have cut you off from God. Sin is essentially man’s failure to trust in God—an act or state of unbelief, and an assertion of autonomy. Christians also define sin as “missing the mark.”
God’s very good world became marred by man’s sin. Man’s rebellion against God, that is, his falling away, is known as The Fall. The result of sin is death (Genesis 3:3; Romans 6:23). Death in this biblical context refers to spiritual death, and according to most interpretations—physical death as well. The result of Adam and Eve’s sin had enormous consequences. Indeed, mankind has been forever tainted and condemned. Reflecting the traditional Christian interpretation, the NIV Study Bible (page 1713) says, “Physical death is the penalty for sin. It is also the symbol of spiritual death, man’s ultimate separation from God. The context of Romans 5:12 shows that Adam’s sin involved the rest of mankind in condemnation (Romans 5:18-19) and death (Romans 5:15). We do not start life with even the possibility of living it sinlessly; we begin it with a sinful nature.” While someone can deny this situation, he cannot escape it. It is because of man’s sinful nature precipitated by, or at least demonstrated by, Adam that necessitated the ultimate coming of Christ to overcome man’s sin. Man has separated himself from God’s standard. God ultimately gave his only son to pay the ransom for man’s sin. Justice had to be done. While man proved himself unwilling and incapable of God’s standard, God—out of inexplicable mercy and grace—provided a way to satisfy the judgment through Jesus Christ. (More on this later.)
The Bible has an answer to the problem of evil and suffering. It is a different answer than any other worldview or religion. If you deny the Fall, what other explanations exist? Here are some alternatives:
· Marxism says that evil is the result of economics—that capitalism precipitates aggression against the weaker. Yet the Marxist revolution led to the murder of 70 million Russians.
· Communism and Islam have somewhat similar views in that law and education can make us righteous. Yet these utopian philosophies always lead to failed states and oppression of the worst kind.
· Darwinism said our problems are biological. Yet Hitler, applying the Darwinian model, perpetrated the Holocaust.
· Humanism, similar to Communism and Darwinism, denies the evil in the human heart. It says that we are all really good after all. Each of these views are atheistic philosophies that place man as the center of all that matters rather than God. But they face problematic realities at their core. If there is no God that determines moral absolutes and human rights, ultimately political power becomes the determinant of what is right. A lack of any objective basis for morality must lead to chaos, struggle, and oppression—and if taken to its logic extreme ultimately to nihilism and despair.
· Still others say that sickness, pain, death, and evil are nothing more than natural realities. Or perhaps that aggression is necessary for progress, and thus what we think of as evil is really good. Thus some simply cop-out by saying that aggression is just the way we are—or that evil and wickedness are just social or cultural conventions. Eastern religions fall into this category, as they often say that evil is an illusion. Thus Hinduism and Buddhism teach that we must accept evil.
Freud said that our distortions are all psychological—it’s either just in our head, or worse, that we must blame our parents’ treatment of us for our hang-ups that make us do evil. But Freud’s theories, while popular for a short while in human history have been discounted and abandoned.
God’s very good world became marred by man’s sin. Man’s rebellion against God, that is, his falling away, is known as The Fall. The result of sin is death (Genesis 3:3; Romans 6:23). Death in this biblical context refers to spiritual death, and according to most interpretations—physical death as well. The result of Adam and Eve’s sin had enormous consequences. Indeed, mankind has been forever tainted and condemned. Reflecting the traditional Christian interpretation, the NIV Study Bible (page 1713) says, “Physical death is the penalty for sin. It is also the symbol of spiritual death, man’s ultimate separation from God. The context of Romans 5:12 shows that Adam’s sin involved the rest of mankind in condemnation (Romans 5:18-19) and death (Romans 5:15). We do not start life with even the possibility of living it sinlessly; we begin it with a sinful nature.” While someone can deny this situation, he cannot escape it. It is because of man’s sinful nature precipitated by, or at least demonstrated by, Adam that necessitated the ultimate coming of Christ to overcome man’s sin. Man has separated himself from God’s standard. God ultimately gave his only son to pay the ransom for man’s sin. Justice had to be done. While man proved himself unwilling and incapable of God’s standard, God—out of inexplicable mercy and grace—provided a way to satisfy the judgment through Jesus Christ. (More on this later.)
The Bible has an answer to the problem of evil and suffering. It is a different answer than any other worldview or religion. If you deny the Fall, what other explanations exist? Here are some alternatives:
· Marxism says that evil is the result of economics—that capitalism precipitates aggression against the weaker. Yet the Marxist revolution led to the murder of 70 million Russians.
· Communism and Islam have somewhat similar views in that law and education can make us righteous. Yet these utopian philosophies always lead to failed states and oppression of the worst kind.
· Darwinism said our problems are biological. Yet Hitler, applying the Darwinian model, perpetrated the Holocaust.
· Humanism, similar to Communism and Darwinism, denies the evil in the human heart. It says that we are all really good after all. Each of these views are atheistic philosophies that place man as the center of all that matters rather than God. But they face problematic realities at their core. If there is no God that determines moral absolutes and human rights, ultimately political power becomes the determinant of what is right. A lack of any objective basis for morality must lead to chaos, struggle, and oppression—and if taken to its logic extreme ultimately to nihilism and despair.
· Still others say that sickness, pain, death, and evil are nothing more than natural realities. Or perhaps that aggression is necessary for progress, and thus what we think of as evil is really good. Thus some simply cop-out by saying that aggression is just the way we are—or that evil and wickedness are just social or cultural conventions. Eastern religions fall into this category, as they often say that evil is an illusion. Thus Hinduism and Buddhism teach that we must accept evil.
Freud said that our distortions are all psychological—it’s either just in our head, or worse, that we must blame our parents’ treatment of us for our hang-ups that make us do evil. But Freud’s theories, while popular for a short while in human history have been discounted and abandoned.
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These explanations fall short on examination. They underestimate the call and reality of evil. There are no real answers to the question of evil apart from Christianity, which teaches that evil is real and that it is a product of man’s sinful nature. The Bible teaches that there are moral laws that are just as firm as physical laws. If it does not matter what we do, life is meaningless. While other worldviews, carried to their logical extreme end in despair, Christianity offers hope. We are living in an abnormal world—not the world that God created nor the one that he will restore in the end. |
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