“Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.” Romans 5:14
I think all my life I have been taught the wrong way to think. I’m not pointing a finger of blame. I think it’s just the natural way to think, I mean the way I’ve been taught. And what have I been taught wrongly about? Sin.
I think Sin is bigger and worse than I was ever really made to see. I think Sin is worse than the things I have done to disobey God or hurt others. I think that is only a small part of Sin. I think when I look at Sin as acts done here and there, it makes me think less of Sin where I can call it sin instead. If sin is just sin, then sometimes maybe I sin and sometimes I don’t. Therefore, sometimes I am guilty and sometimes I am not. If that’s the case, then it makes me think I only need God sometimes, not ALL the time. If that’s the case, sometimes I could be good, right, and only sometimes I am bad.
But that’s not how Sin works. Did you ever stop to really think about what happened in Adam’s life when he welcomed Sin into his world? Yes, it entered because of an act of disobedience on Adam’s part, but what led to that? Adam’s created nature was for the glory of God. He was given everything and entrusted with all things in order to proclaim and spread the beautiful, glorious, loving, powerful, image of God over all creation. This is what humanity was created to be like. But Adam allowed Sin to enter and twist and contort his purpose. Adam’s sin affected the whole human race from that day onward, twisting and contorting everyone of us because now we naturally fall under the power of Sin, instead of naturally falling under the power of God who created us to be His very own image. This is not what humanity was intended to be like, yet this is why the world is the way it is now.
Sin isn’t just bad. Sin has totally changed every one of us. None of us stay pure like babies because from the moment we are born, Sin reigns over us. Everyone of us has this problem and none of us can fix it on our own. Sin is just too powerful for us. Look what it does. Adam and Eve had a beautiful mutually supportive joyful relationship with each other and God before they succumbed to Sin. Look at their relationship afterward. It was filled with blame, misunderstanding, longing, unmet needs, selfishness, mistrust. Look at mankind’s relationships after that: rebellion, murder, robbery, rape, slavery, etc. And there is one thing that overpowers us all besides Sin—DEATH.
John Piper says, “Our individual sins are not the problem…Adam’s sin is the fundamental problem, not ours- just as Christ’s righteousness is the fundamental solution, not our righteousness.” Am I willing to admit that this is a condition I suffer from? Am I willing not just to admit that I have some faults but that I am a depraved and corrupted sinner, that my human nature isn’t good left on its own? Am I willing to admit that it’s a bigger problem than me sinning sometimes, that Sin, that warlord that Adam invited in, that terrible tyrant rules me as well, unless I am willing to submit to the rule of Someone stronger than him?
It’s not like I don’t sin, but there is this terrible union of every and all humans with Adam. The whole human race is united in Sin. We are all not only fallen, but warped. Now, unless I see myself as warped, why would I cry out for help? Come on, be honest, look at the world and look at ourselves. Don’t tell me that you don’t see corruption and sinful behavior. Yeah, across the world, but not in yourself, right? Don’t be blind, even “bad” behavior is corrupt when the original you was created to bear the image of God. “All have sinned.” Through Adam- “sin was in the world.” We have all become unnaturally sinful by nature and behavior.
The Bible calls us children of wrath. But it’s not how we were created. Something happened to us because of Adam’s sin. It altered our very nature. There are “none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10) We are “slaves of sin” (romans 6:6,17,20). How do we remedy this? How do you find the cure for anything? First, you have to admit the disease. Then, you have to submit to the correct cure. There are no exceptions.
Sin- hamartano– is about missing the mark. I don’t think it’s like trying to shoot an arrow and missing the target or like shooting a basketball and never making the net. I think it’s tied in with what the arrow or basketball is. An arrow is created to fly through the air and hit it’s target, whether the ring in the hay or the deer. the basketball is made to be bounced and passed and fly through the net hanging from the hoop. In other ancient writings it’s used to describe failing to achieve one’s purpose. So is it really about the mark missed, or is it about not fulfilling our created purpose? Could it all be about swerving or erring from who I, we, were created to be? Is it the fault of the created thing or the mark we leave? If I have warped my own original creation, then I would have thrown my own purpose off.
I was reading a commentary to help think about these words of Paul’s. I came upon a statement by a pastor, “Sin makes us stupid.” I think that is just a judgmental critique made by someone who may not have even seen some of his own stupidity amidst his own self-rightousness. Sin warps us. Sin bends us. Sin conforms us into something we were not created to be. Sin takes our natural man and makes him look nothing like God and blinds us to what it has done. It keeps us looking like arrows and baskeballs, but it contorts the shaft so we go off course; it warps the ball so we can only bounce crooked.
But you and I, we are still affected by Sin. It’s not because we committed a sin. I mean, I have and you have. We all have committed sins. Except babies, they haven’t committed sins. But the Sin that we are all guilty of is lumped in with how God has identified us with Adam. I don’t even have to disobey a direct command of God like Adam did to be guilty of sin. Why? Because sin, as was defined earlier, isn’t just one act of defiance or disobedience. Sin is what human nature now consists of from the heart, at our very root. The nature of man, because of Adam’s choice to allow himself to be warped, has affected every one of us. We don’t like to hear that but man is not good left to his own nature.
Don’t believe that? The U.S. founding fathers did. That’s why they made a democratic government with three branches, the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, each to keep the other in check. Why? Because they knew that, because of the condition of our hearts, no man should be trusted with absolute power. We are not skilled at keeping ourselves from being twisted and contorted.
So what is the remedy? How can I become free from this slavery to sin? How can I loose my connection to Adam in his sin? I must trust by living faith in Jesus Christ. He will justify me. He will set me free from the power of sin. He will straighten my shaft so that I can be and do all I was created for in Him. He will take what was warped and make it fully functional and glorious again in Him. I will no longer be condemned because He will justify me. As for my corruption and depravity, His Holy Spirit will continue the sanctification process in me day by day by day. Justification legally removes my condemnation, and sanctification does the work of righteousness in me that I had no power to do on my own. This is the beauty of a life lived in Christ. Not only am I freed from Sin and made right before God, but I am “re-purposed” back to my intended purpose and equipped to live for God and not for sin daily.
Why do I need to understand the depravity of the human race, including my own? Why do I have to understand this contorted nature and union in Adam’s sin? Because, if I don’t, I’ll be caught up in it due to my own blindness. I can get so focussed on me only sinning sometimes that I think I’m pretty good because there are others worse than me. I can get caught up in seeing everyone else as stupid, write them all off as lost, and puff myself up as God’s gift to people. I can be so blinded to my own need for help, that I dig my heals in deeper and settle in my own “lesser” depravity.
If I know the truth about me, that I am naturally depraved and helpless on my own, then it will be so much easier for me to admit I need supernatural help. I will want the Sin to be put to death and I will want to be remade in the image of God. I will be ever so much more grateful for salvation and the work of God in my life. I can understand why the world is the way it is and why people, including me, are the way they are. And I can be ever so much more compassionate for those around me because I will realize what God intends for us, if only we would trust the One who can break our union with Adam and our union with Sin. Understanding my depravity, and the grace and gift of God to deliver me from it, through Jesus Christ, is the most relieving, resplendent, thing ever to happen in my life, in our lives. Wouldn’t I want to share that great news with others?
A Deeper Treasure 