In his delightful labor, Reformed Dogmatics, Herman Bavinck
writes, “The point of the “fall” narrative in Genesis is to point to the human
desire for autonomy from God. To “know good and evil” is to become the
determiner of good and evil; it is to decide for oneself what is right and
wrong and not submit to any external law. In short, to seek the knowledge of
good and evil is to desire emancipation from God; it is to want to be “like
God.” The temptation and fall of man is a tragedy that no human being is
capable of escaping. Man’s desire was a desire planted in his mind by the
fallen angel, Lucifer. And Lucifer’s fall was along the very same lines as
man’s fall. Lucifer sought to surpass the greatness of the glory of his Maker.
Adam, no less than Lucifer found the idea seemingly irresistible. He bought the
story hook, like, and forbidden fruit.
In terms of the narrative laid down
in Genesis, one has only two choices. Either the narrative is a straightforward
account of actual history or it is myth or some other genre. The trouble with
taking Genesis any other way than simple, honest historical narrative is that
there seems to be no good reason offered by those who take it as such, that
does not itself reduce to an arbitrary rescuing device designed to save their
prior philosophical commitments. There are no objective literary rules that
lend themselves to the view that this account is legend, myth or even poetry.
The literature and grammar of the text demand historical narrative as the
genre. The only way to arrive at any other conclusion is to formulate a
philosophical approach to Scripture as a whole that is informed by something
other than Scripture itself, say modern historical critical methods that are
themselves entangled in numerous difficulties, contradictions, and obvious
controversies. The fact is that the historical character of Genesis 3 has been
something that the Church has maintained for centuries. Only in the shadows of
modernity do we have competing views offered for what the account actually
reflects. One has to ask if such modern notions are the product of faithfulness
to the biblical text, or perhaps the outcome of unbelief borne out of the very
fall it seeks to interpret.
Orthodox Christianity has held that
the temptation and subsequent fall of Adam and Eve into sin was an actual
historical event that happened just as Genesis describes. John Frame tells us,
“The normative definition of sin (“sin is lawlessness, 1 Jn. 3:4) is often
prominent in Scripture, especially because the first sin was disobedience to a
specific divine command. Adam decided to reject the law of God in place of his
own law. We do not have to observe humanity very long before we see men doing
the very same thing today. There is an enormous distaste for law even within
the ranks of the Christian community. Men despise an overpowering imposition,
even if it is God’s overpowering imposition. Observe how Christ is offered to
men in modern times. There idea that God demands repentance and complete
surrender has been displaced and God is not pictured as a kind old father
begging people to just give him a chance and if they do, he will show them just
how happy and satisfied he can make them. That is NOT the gospel! But that is
what you hear, or nearly hear, in nearly every Church in the Western
hemisphere. That message is designed to accommodate the law-hating reality that
is at the very core of humanity. Sin is lawlessness.
John Gill writes, “Adam, being the
common parent of mankind, may be considered as the ground of the derivation of
a corrupt nature to them.” He goes on to say, “Adam stood in the relation of a
federal head to his posterity.” As a result of the fall, Scripture reveals that
all men now are born guilty and corrupt before an infinitely holy God. This
guilt is what we refer to in theology as reatus
poenae. We are born in the state of being found guilty as criminals in
relation to the divine law. This
condition we designate original guilt. Death serves as the overwhelming
evidence for this doctrine. Paul tells us that sin entered the world through
one man and infected everyone and we see this is the case because all men die. Paul
tells us that through the transgression of one man, all men became condemned.
Through one man’s disobedience, the many were made sinners. It was not through
actual transgression that we were condemned and made to be sinners but rather
through Adam who stands as our federal head. In Adam, all die. (Rom 5:12-19; 1
Cor. 15:22)
Not only are we born into this world
with original guilt, we are also born into a state of original corruption. Eph.
2:3 explains that all men live in the lusts of their flesh, indulging in the
desires of the flesh and mind, and are by
nature children of wrath. Berkhof writes, “But original sin is not merely
negative; it is also an inherent positive disposition toward sin.” (Systematic
Theology) Col. 1:21 informs us that all men are alienated from God, hostile in
mind and engaged in evil deeds. That an infant is born in this state is exegetically
irrefutable. Just as Adam was created in the image of God and then corrupted
that image, Seth was born in the corrupted image of his father and his children
after him and their children after them. Paul described this condition in more
detail in the New Testament. In Romans 8:7, he informs us that the mind that is
set on the flesh (all unregenerate minds) is hostile toward God and it does not
submit to the law of God and indeed is not even able to do so. The reason this
is the case has nothing to do with what men do, but rather, what men are from
birth. Men are born natural haters of God. That is the state of original
pollution or corruption into which all men are born. Francis Turretin, in his
Institutes writes, “The necessity of regeneration without which no one can see
the kingdom of God (Jn. 3:3). For why ought men to be renewed by regeneration
unless he is naturally corrupt by generation?” Paul, writing to the Corinthian
Church says, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they
are spiritually appraised.” (1 Cor. 2:14) All men are natural men until the
Spirit of God regenerates their being.
“There is, indeed, nothing that
man’s nature seeks more eagerly than to be flattered.” (John Calvin, The Institutes) We see, even in my
dispute with Dan Trabue, one position that elevates humanity, giving it the
greatest benefit of the doubt, even placing it in a position to make moral
judgments about how God handles His own guilty creation, juxtaposed against my
position, which seeks to exonerate and defend the actions of the Creator as,
set down in Sacred Scripture. Calvin writes, “Yet it is at the same time to be
noted that the first man revolted from God’s authority, not only because he was
seized by Satan’s blandishments, but also because, contemptuous of truth, he
turned aside to falsehood. And surely, once we hold God’s Word in contempt, we
shake off all reverence for him.” Indeed, the denial that Scripture is binding,
authoritative, authored by God for a very unique purpose is nothing short of
holding God in contempt. “Therefore all of us, who have descended from impure
seed, are born infected with the contagion of sin. In fact, before we saw the
light of this life we were soiled and spotted in God’s sight.” (Calvin, see Job
14:4)
Modernism, and I speak of the
philosophy, seeks to elevate man above his supposed ancient religious
superstitions. The law of God is viewed as an ancient mechanism produced by evolution
designed to preserve men until he could evolve into a more enlightened state.
Once there, man could discard such silly mechanism and replace them with things
like science. In so doing, man has simply replaced one religious commitment
with another. Science seeks to displace the sort of laws found in religious
ideals like the law of God. Just like Adam, man desires to remove the weight of
the law of God and wants to replace it with a law of his own. That is, man
wants to determine for himself what is good and evil. The corruption that began
so long ago in the garden continues to express itself to even much greater
degrees in our own day. The denial of original sin is a denial of the force and
binding nature of the law of God itself. It is a doctrine that seeks complete
freedom from the Creator. Jesus warned that lawlessness would increase in the
last days. Paul tells us that the man of lawlessness must be revealed before the
second coming of our Lord. Sometimes I wonder if the man of lawlessness is more like an ideal state
or condition of mankind in general as he seeks to destroy any traces of the law
of God in his own existence.
If Dan is right and original sin is
a false doctrine, then one has to wonder in great bewilderment how sin has
become so pervasive. If he is right, what need have we of a Savior or Redeemer?
If man is a sinner because he sins and there is nothing corrupt about his
natural state, then it follows that he could, if he willed, avoid sin
altogether. And if that is actually the state of affairs that has obtained,
Christianity is nothing more than a superfluous religion that is in some ways
very fascinating, but in others quite insane.
Original sin points us back to the
place of the law of God and its prominence in the reality of human affairs. For
the Church, original sin reminds us of our desperate need for a Savior, a
Redeemer, One Who will rescue us from our helpless condition. However, this
also points out the need for the Church to never leave behind such topics in
her preaching, her teaching, and her discipleship. The lawlessness we see in
the Church is more than just a little disturbing. Christian pastors, teachers,
and Christians mock law keeping all across the Church. It is as if grace has
destroyed the idea of divine law. Yet, John tells us that those who claim to
love God but who refuse to obey His law are liars. How can it be that the
Church has come to hate the law of God so intensely? Many ignorantly refer to
divine law keeping as legalism. One pastor I know constantly framed it up as
list keeping. Moreover, because he was too vague in what he meant, people
thought that Christianity had no ethic by which to order practical living. The
love of God expressed in Christ points to the law of God violated by humanity.
Christ did not come to negate the divine law. He upheld the law of God. He
fulfilled the Law of Moses. Christians without law cannot be a city set on a
hill for all to see.
The denial of original sin is a
denial of biblical Christianity. The denial of the binding and authoritative
nature of Scripture is a denial of biblical Christianity. The denial of God’s
righteous nature in how He judges unbelievers, even young ones, is a denial of
biblical Christianity. The denial of God’s design for marriage is a denial of
biblical Christianity. The endorsement of gay sex under any circumstances is a
rejection and denial of law of God over the area of human sexuality and is
itself a denial of biblical Christianity. For this reason, the Church,
throughout the centuries and from her early beginning, insisted on basic
confessions of belief before she would either baptize or receive into
membership anyone claiming to know Christ. We must purge the heretical leaven
from the Church because it spreads like a cancer and will infect the entire
body eventually and the results will be nothing short of cataclysmic.
