Consequences of Sin to Adam's Posterity

To begin, I would like to present the terms deprave/depravity which is to make morally bad or evil; the state or conduct, depraved acts like being a crooked person.  Its main operation is to come into places where peace may be there, and to bring evil or bad ungodly behavior.  This works well with in weak or very soulish religious churches.

As a result of Adam's transgression, all his posterity are born in the same state into which he fell, but since the Law is the all-comprehending demand of harmony with God, all moral consequences flowing from his transgression are to be regarded as sanctions of Law, or expressions of the divine displeasure through the constitution of things which He has established.  Certain of these consequences, however, are earlier recognized than others and are of minor scope.  It will, therefore, be useful to consider them under the three aspects of depravity.

Depravity

Even more clear, we mean, on one hand, the lack of original righteousness or of holy affection toward God, and, on the other hand, the corruption of the moral nature, or bias toward evil.  In that such depravity exists has been abundantly shown, both from scripture and from reason, in our consideration of the universality of sin.

Let me give the scriptural references.  You've been a good apprentice to me, a part of my teaching, my manner of life, direction, faith, steadiness, love, patience, troubles, sufferings---suffering along with me in all the grief I had to put up with in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra.  You also well know that God rescued me!  Anyone who wants to live all out for Christ is in for a lot of trouble.  There's no getting around it.  Unscrupulous men will continue to exploit the faith who are as deceived  as the people they lead astray.  As long as they are out there, things can only get worse.

Do not let it phase you.  Stick with what you have learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers. Why, you took in the sacred scriptures with your mother's milk!  There's nothing like the written word of God for showing you the way to salvation through Christ Jesus.  Every part of scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another--showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, and training us to live God's way.  Through the Word, we are put together and shaped for tasks God has for us.

Salvation is two-fold.  It involves deliverance from evil related to the penalty and power of sin, and accomplishment of the good---likeness to God and realization of the true idea of humanity.  It includes all these for the race as well as for the individual removal of the barriers that keep men from each other; and the perfecting of society in communion with God, or, in other words, the Kingdom of God on Earth.  It was the nature of man, when he first came from the hand of God, to fear, love, and trust God above all things.  This tendency toward God has been lost.  Sin has altered and corrupted man's innermost nature.  In place of this bent toward God, there is a fearful bent toward evil.  Depravity is both negative, that is an absence of love and of moral likeness to God and the positive which is the presence of manifold tendencies to evil.  Two questions only need detain us which relate to depravity in partial or in its totality.

The scriptures represent human nature as totally depraved.  The phrase "total depravity", however, is liable to misinterpretation and should not be used without explanation.  By total depravity of universal humanity we mean:

A. Negatively, in that not every sinner is:
(a) destitute of conscience because the existence of strong impulses to do right, and of remorse for wrong-doing show that conscience is often keen;
(b) devoid of all qualities pleasing to men and useful when judged by a human standard, for the existence of such qualities is recognized by Christ;
(c) prone to every form of sin, for certain forms of sin exclude certain others; and
(d) intense as he can be in his selfishness and opposition to God, for he becomes worse everyday.

According to II Timothy 3:13, evil men and imposters shall wax worse and worse.  Depravity is not simply being deprived of good.  Depravation is more than depravation.  Left to himself, man trends downward, and his sin increases day by day, but there is a divine influence within which quickens conscience and kindles aspiration for better things.  The immanent Christ is the light which lighteth every man (John 1:9).  In so far as God's Spirit is at work among men and they receive "the light which lighteth every man," we must qualify our statement of total depravity.  Depravity is not so much a state as it is a tendency.  With growing complexity of life, sin becomes more complex.  Adam's sin was not the worst.  Matthew 11:24 states that "It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than thee."  Is this a warning to those who would be party to this in the Church in anyway?

Men are not yet in the conditions of demons.  Only here and there have they attained to "disinterested love of evil."  Such men are few, and they were NOT BORN SO.  Even Satan will become worse than he is now.  The phrase "total depravity" has respect only to relations to God, and it means incapability of doing anything which in the sight of God is a good act.  No act is perfectly good that does not proceed from a true heart and constitute an expression of that heart.  Yet we have no right to say that every act of an unregenerate man is displeasing to God.  Right acts from right motives are good, whether performed by a Christian or by one who is unrenewed in heart.  Such acts, however, are always prompted by God, and thanks for them are due to God, and not to him who performed them.

Reprobate

B. Positively, that every sinner is:
a. totally destitute of that love to God which constitutes the fundamental and all-inclusive demand of the law,
b. chargeable with elevating some lower affection or desires above regard for God and His law,
c. supremely determined in his whole inward and outward life by a preference of self to God,
d. possessed of an aversion to God which, though sometimes latent, becomes active enmity, so soon as God's will comes into manifest conflict with his own.
e. disordered and corrupted in every faculty through this substitution of selfishness for supreme affection toward God,
f. credited with no thought, emotion, or act of which divine holiness can fully approve, and
g. subject to a law of constant progress in depravity which has no recuperative energy to enable him successfully to resist.

Every sinner would prefer a milder law and a different administration, but whoever does not love God's law does not truly love God.  At this time, I am going to throw something hard out to all you lukewarm Christians, a reprobate soul.

A reprobate soul is a depraved or wicked person who is beyond hope of salvation, and is morally depraved.  Every Pastor sooner of later will see this person or persons in their career. It's good not to think you are God.  Just be ready and go to the next person.  Remember they can come as a real Christian, but they are totally a counterfeit sent to kill, steal, and destroy every God given vision or effort. 

The sinner seeks to secure his or her own interests rather than God's.  Even so-called religious acts are performed with preference of his own good rather than God's glory.  He disobeys, and always has disobeyed the fundamental law of love.  He is like a railway train on a downgrade and the brakes must be applied by God or destruction is sure.

There are latent passions in every heart which if let loose would curse the world.  There is no part of man's nature which is unaffected by this world.  Man's nature is all of a piece, and what affects it at all affects it altogether.  When the conscience is violated by disobedience to the will of God, the moral understanding is darkened, and the will is enfeebled.

We are not constructed in water tight compartments, one of which might be ruined while the others remained intact.  Yet over against total depravity, we must set total redemption, over against original sin, original grace.  Christ is in every human heart mitigating the affects of sin urging to repentance and able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through Him (Hebrews 7:25).  Even the unregenerate heathen may "put away...the old man" and put on the new man" (Ephesians 4:22,24), being delivered out of the body this death....through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:24,25).


Thank you for your continued viewing and reading.  If this Blog and its contents have been a blessing to you, then I ask, with God's leading, that you consider supporting Artesian Well Church.

Talk to you soon,
Pastor Norman

Artesian Well Church
6031 Linden Avenue
Long Beach, Ca

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