The Nature
of Fallen Man
The fall of Adam
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 consciousness.
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.
Inherited Sin
Inherited sin is sometimes called the original sin.
What did sin do to Adam?
1. He died spiritually.
a) He lost fellowship with God.
b) He lost the ability to communicate with God.
c) He lost the ability to be righteous before God.
2. He died physically.
a) The aging process began to set, as the poison of sin infected his blood. His chromosomal structure changed, the DNA was corrupted.
Adam violated the commandment of God and became a sinner.
1Jo 3:4 whosoever committed sin transgressed also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
Adam was righteous before the fall became unrighteous after the fall.
1Jo
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 was imputed to 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.
What is the reason we sin? It is not that we learn how to sin but it’s in our nature. You do not have to teach a toddler to sin, one of the first words a toddler say is “No.” Because we are born sinners
Ps 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
The result of the
inherited sin.
Everyone who was a descended from Adam
was born into the same condition.
Spiritual death.
“As you were dead in your transgressions
and sins,” (Eph.2:1) Also Colossians 2:13. The result of the spiritual death is
total depravity. It means his body, mind, soul and the will was corrupted
by sin. Every part of man was corrupted by sin. But God is infinitely
pure, holy and righteous and man is spiritually dead, he is carnal and the heart of man is deceitful above all
things. (Jer.17:9) The holy God is separated from man. (Isa. 59:2) God and the sinners cannot live
together. (Psalm 5:4) Because God is 100%
righteous and he will not expect anything below his standard. God‘s
standard is given to mankind in his ten commandments. They are righteous
standards. God’s holiness is manifested in the Ten Commandments. On
the other hand with reference to man, “There is no one righteous not even one.”
(Rom.
If you are spiritually dead, then
you cannot understand God. “There is no one who understands God.”
(Rom.3:11) You can witness about the Lord to a very educated highly
intellectual man and he may think how foolish you are to believe the
gospel. The reason is he can be alive in his education and position but
in the presence of God he is dead in his spirit. “The man without the Spirit
does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
(1Cor.2:14)
“There is no one who seeks God.”
(Rom.3:11) It is impossible for man to seek God when he is spiritually
dead. In fact man is fleeing God. When Adam and Eve sinned they
were not seeking God but running away from God and hiding from him. Today
we see many people seems to be seeking God. They are not seeking the holy
and righteous God of the Universe but a god that they have made. A god who will
compromise their sins and they believe that they are right before their god as
their god is less holy tolerates and compromises sin, and their god is
not the God of the Bible.
“….There is no one who does good, not even one.” (Rom.
This seems to be like another
contradictory statement from the human perspective. We see many good
people in the world today, no matter what their religion is. There
are people who help and offer kindness to others in various religions.
But the Bible is very clear when it says that not even one does good. Jesus said only God is good. When
men do good things it is to show how good they are. It is done to please their
flesh, so the flesh would be glorified which will be the result of a type
of humble pride. Only God knows the inward thoughts and the motives of
man. All the hidden sins are exposed by God. If one has created a movie
camera that could also express the inner thoughts and the motives of men
verbally. Then one day this man becomes busy filming the person who
thinks who is good, without his knowledge. Then at the end he will call
all the good man’s friends and show him the movie that was taken which also
verbally expresses the inner motives and thoughts of him. What would you
think of the outcome? 100% good that is to the standard of
God, of course not. Instead there are unprofitable thoughts,
immoral thoughts, sensual thoughts, evil thoughts, unlearned
imaginations, prideful thoughts, lustful thoughts, greedy
thoughts, and hypocritical thoughts. In front of God’s great majesty
and glory instead of crying up to him and saying, “God merciful to me a
sinner” the man says see God how good I am. “All of us have become like
one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”
(Isa.64:6) “Those controls by the sinful nature cannot please God.” (Rom.
8:8)
“Who can say, I have cleansed my
heart, I am pure from sin.” (Prov. 20:9) Every
part of man’s body is affected by sin, and that is total depravity of man.
That is why all the parts of our body gets old, decay and die.
Natural Man is an enemy of God.
Many unbelievers would have a respect to God in general but in reality they are enemies of God, because they keep on breaking the laws of God daily.
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.
God is angry with the
wicked every day. (Psalm
Even the believers were enemies of God before salvation.
Ro
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 Pharaoh who said,
“Who is the LORD that I should obey his voice to let
Unbelievers serve a god that would bless them physically as they are concerned only of their flesh.
What is the Almighty that
we should serve him? and what profit should we have,
if we pray unto him? (Job
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 when they are in trouble. 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.
Many times their hatred and enmity toward God cannot be seen. They may look outwardly very nice people, as long as they are left alone and they are not disturbed by God. But if their sins are exposed and God shows his wrath against their sins, when things in life turns bad, difficult, situations change and become tough, when in under pressure you will see them as they will curse God as their hatred will break out against God. They will use filthy words, blasphemous words and thoughts against God, before they looked innocent as a dove and now they are like a viper spitting poison at God.
Pharaoh’s 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 man seek Jesus for their flesh
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
Joh
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 unbelievers are not different than Pharaoh. 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 Christ’s 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.