The Nature of Fallen Man
God created Adam in
his image. Adam was made without sin, holy and perfect. He was naked in the
presence of God and did not have any sin conciousness. Adam was in his
probation period, when God gave Adam a law, a commandment.
Ge
2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of
it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Being a perfect holy
man he had capacity to obey the above law. This was a covenant that God made
with Adam, where his probation period would end and that he can gain eternal
life through the obedience to the above commandment. Obedience was required in
this covenant, and eternal life is promised by works of obedience.
Then the enemy came with all his deception and said to the woman,
Ge
3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Adam and Eve
listened to the enemy, and violated the commandment of God as they ate the
fruit then they realized that they were naked and hid in the bushes. What is
sin?
1Jo
Sin entered the man for the first time and with sin came death.
When Adam sinned against God, we too sinned in Adam. Adam was the fountainhead of the entire human race. The entire human race including all of us were in the loins of Adam. Adam sin affected all men.
Ro 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Ro
Death came to men in three ways.
The spiritual death. God
made man in his own image, when sin entered that image of was shattered. We
died spiritually. Man from his birth is alienated with God as man as
Ps 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Ro
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
When Christ came he came to the elect, and even the elect were enemies of God. They too were born sinners.
Ro 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Col 1:21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.
Ro 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Once God makes pardons the sinner and declare him not guilty of his sins by the sacrifice of Christ, God make the believing sinner righteous in Christ, this is what we call justification.
Now there is great transformation in the relationship between God and the sinner. Before God was angry with the sinner. The sinner was an enemy of God. Now there is peace between the sinner and God.
God is angry with the wicked every day. (Psalm 7:11)
In what way the unbelievers
are enemies of God.
We saw from the above scriptures that the unbelievers are enmity with God. The word enmity means, unfriendly, hostile an enemy. We see this enmity in their decisions in life, their affections toward God and in their lifestyle. Their value of God is extremely low. When it comes to their friends they have a very high value of them, as they think very highly of them and even cover up their weaknesses. On the other hand when it comes to their enemies they have no value over them, it is the same way toward God. They are like Pharoh who said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice? Exo. 5:2.
What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him? (Job 21:15)
They do not count the Lord to be worthy, neither they love God nor fear God. But they do not behave like that to their own fellow men. They value their friends more than God. They are more afraid offending them and displeasing them than God. They treat God as mean and worthless but they value all the pleasures of worldly enjoyment higher than God as they get very excited in their worldly pleasure and enjoyment but not towards God. They value God the lowest in their priority list.
They have a great distaste for God. Gods perfections are manifested by the light of nature, and also they have heard of God, but in reality they do not like God and have no desire for God. They have heard that God is infinitely holy, pure and righteous and they do not like that. They have no desire to meditate upon Gods holiness and perfections. If they have to do that that will be not out of desire but out of grudgingly to please other Christians. God is omniscient knows all things, he is omnipotent and all powerful, God does not change, and the unbelievers do not like for God to be all knowing and all powerful and all holy or any of Gods attributes.
The unbelievers wants to have distance with God as far as possible. They do not meditate or have a true communication with him.
Ps 10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.
They do not think of God, even if they hear of God, they do not meditate upon those thoughts and they are soon forgotten. It is easy for them to forget these things of God but they will remember all the worldly pleasures. It is like the seed that fell to the ground but the birds came and ate the seed or the seed that fell on the rock there is no root, they remain the same. They will remember the entertainment and other things of life but God is not in their minds in their daily life. They remember God only on Sunday. They love to pray in front of people, but have no time for secret prayer. Their labor is for the flesh and have no time to wake up early and pray.
Their will is contrary to the will of Gods will. They hate Gods will but will do those things that God hates as they are opposed to Gods will. The unbelievers are in opposition to God. They hate the authority of God.
Ro 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
They are enemies to God in
their affections.
They are mischievous to God and hatred toward him. Many times their hatred and enmity toward God cannot be seen and it is hidden. They may look outwardly very nice people, as long as they are left alone and they are not disturbed by God. But if God touch their consciences by manifesting to them a small portion of his wrath against their sins, you will see their hatred will break out against God. They will use filthy words, blasphemous words and thoughts against God, before they looked like a dove and now they are like a viper spitting poison at God.
Many a times when things are going out well, there is no hatred toward God. But when things turn against them, and the situations, temptations and circumstances change, their true heart will come out and you will see them against God. Pharaohs hatred toward God was not more than any other unbeliever. Pharaoh never raised his finger at God, when things were moving smoothly, but when God intervened, we see him as a different man. If other unbelievers were in Pharaohs shoes we would see the same corruption. A natural man has a heart like the heart of a devil; only corruption is more under restraint in man than in devils. If God takes away the restraint they can all become like Hitler. There is a difference between a wicked man on earth, and a wicked man in hell. The one in hell is not restrained, the old corruptions will break out without restraint.
The natural men walk in the flesh and seek things after their flesh. Remember the great multitude of people that followed Jesus. He fed them bread and fish, all were filled and satisfied. Later we see when Jesus left them, they were still seeking Jesus.
Joh 6:24 When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus.
Joh 6:25 And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither?
26 Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
In the same way there are many who are seeking Jesus, but they are seeking in their own flesh. The unbelievers will have a religion, the whole world will acknowledge them in their religion but they will not walk in the spirit as they are not born of the spirit.
We need to understand that we were not different than Pharaoh or any other unbeliever. It was only by Gods grace that we are saved, and the war against God is finished now we have peace with God, he removed the guilt in us and Christs righteousness is imputed to us, and we stand in God not in our goodness but in His grace. Now we can rejoice what he had done for us and give glory to Him!
Ro 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
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