Doctrine of Man and Sin

Doctrine of Man and Sin ST504 LESSON 14 of 20 Roger R. Nicole, Ph.D. Professor, Reformed Theological Seminary Corresponding Editor, Christianity Today This is now the lecture number 14 in the series on the doctrine of man and sin. Let us pray. Our gracious God, our heavenly Father, since you have called us to be in this tent for some time, groaning sometimes and weeping because of our own weaknesses and because of various trials and temptations through which we have to pass. We pray that you will give us that precious hope that looks beyond the difficulties of the present, toward the eternal glory which you have prepared for those who trust in Jesus Christ and whose assurance with you is not in terms of their own performance but in terms of the glorious work of the Mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who has taken upon Himself the guilt of our sins and who has provided for us eternal salvation and glory forever with you. Grant, we pray therefore, that these thoughts may give us new courage and new perseverance and new desire to please you in everything that we do, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. In addition to whatever was said already about the problem of suffering, we need to recognize certain Bible passages which do emphasize that even the severe sufferings through which we can pass in this life may result in some very real blessing for us in the life to come. See this passage, for instance, in Romans 8:18, where the apostle Paul tells us, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us. Or else, again, in the epistle of James, where the apostle tells us, Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. And, similarly, in Hebrews 12 we read as follows, that no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful; later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. And we know that if we partake or participate in the sufferings of Christ in this life, we will share also in the glory of His resurrection in the life to come, 1 of 10

as stated again by the apostle Paul. Thus God is able to transform that which appears damaging or tragic, at the present time, into something that is, in the end, a source of blessing and of joy in this life and especially in the life to come. The problem of theodicy goes further than just explaining the pain and the trouble which are experienced in this world, for it raises a question of the origin of such a reality as sin in a world that has been created by God. When we say that God is the creator of all things, both in heaven and on earth, we need to recognize that evil itself needs to be excepted. Evil and sin are not of divine origin. They are permitted by God in His world, they are parts of the plan of God; but, ultimately, to say that God is the author of evil is to go against the representation of God from beginning to end, which shows Him to be holy, which shows Him to have eyes that are too pure to see evil, as Habakkuk expressed it. To recognize that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all, as 1 John states expressly in chapter 1. To confuse God and Satan is one of the worst mistakes we can produce. And Jesus actually spoke in very severe terms of the sin against the Holy Spirit when the Jews, in the presence of a signal act of God s mercy, were prepared to say that this was something done in the power of Satan, rather than to recognize the divine mission that Jesus had accomplished in Matthew 12. We need, therefore, to insist that God is not the author of sin and that in this world, in which He created all beings that do exist, the presence of sin is not due to His creative hand. God is not the cause of evil, as He is the cause of that which is good; and this distinction needs to be made carefully. Some people say evil came from Satan, and it is true that Satan is at the origin of all that is sinful. The Scripture emphasizes that Satan is a murderer from the beginning, that he s a liar from the beginning, that he s the one who accuses those who seek to follow God and is at the foundation of everything that we have to encounter and which is not in line with the law of God. But then the question arises: Where does Satan originate? We need to say that Satan himself is a creature of God, and the Scripture acknowledges that Satan himself is not excepted from the encompassing wideness of God s creative activity. But when God created him, he was good; and the evilness of Satan is not to be ascribed to his condition as a creature. The evilness of Satan 2 of 10

and the sinfulness of Satan do not find their explanation in God, even though God perceived fully Satan as evil and anticipated fully that Satan would be evil and rebel against Him. Then the question is: Where, then, does evil come from? And that is a question to which no answer that is rational appears possible. We don t understand what could possibly have led Satan to deviate from the path which God had established for him. Here he was, as a creature of high standing before God, prepared for the functions that God had provided for him, and it is inconceivable that under those circumstances he could be tempted by something else, something less, or even something more than what God had prepared. There is, therefore, an element of irrationality that comes in at this point. There is a place at which we have to stop attempting to give an explanation and where we simply need to say, I acknowledge that God is all good. He could have prevented evil if He had wanted to, and yet, in some ways, which I cannot fathom, He introduced and included evil in His plans, without being Himself the cause of the sinfulness of that which is evil. He has permitted this to be present in the unfolding of the history that we find recorded in the Scripture from the creation to the second coming of Christ. The presence of evil, therefore, remains beyond an appropriate explanation in rational terms, certainly in terms of finite reason, as we possess it. This, in itself, ought not to be as discouraging as perhaps some people think it is, because it can be said that wherever evil appears any place in the picture, it introduces a seared element which cannot be properly accounted for in rational terms. This is true about the origin of evil. It is true about its commission by Satan at the start and by Adam and Eve, even though they were prodded by Satan at the time of their temptation. It is true in connection with the transmission of sin in the human race, where the principle of corporate responsibility needs to supplement the principle of individual responsibility, which is the basis for the divine judgment. It is true in the continuation of evil, even in those who are regenerate. And it is true in the final disposition of evil, in which we might hope that there will be a complete extinction, and there would be no place in the whole universe where evil continues to exist and to fester. 3 of 10

But the biblical doctrine of hell as endless conscious punishment does not permit us to think of it in those terms. It s therefore not surprising that when we face the question, Where does evil come from in a world created by God, a God who is all powerful and all good? we would not find a rational answer. In a sense, the irrationality of evil is part of the evilness of it. If evil were more readily amenable to human reason, it perhaps would not be as bad or as evil as it really is. It is a revolt against God not only in the realm of disobedience, but also in the realm of order. Evil is a disturbance in the cosmic order, and therefore we should not expect to find a purely rational explanation that accounts for it. Incidentally, the difficulty that is encountered at this point by the Christian faith is not unique to those who are Christians, but it is shared by all those who are theists, that is, who believe that the world is governed by a sovereign person who is at the same time powerful and good. This would be true, of course, of Judaism and of Islam, as well as of the Christian faith. The difficulty might appear to be alleviated, or at least placed somewhat further away from the realm of our daily consideration in other positions; but it is a situation in which no one can have a solution that takes account of the reality of evil and maintains, at the same time, the reality of God such as He is revealed in Scripture. In attempting to deal with this problem, we should, I believe, be prepared to acknowledge that this is a matter on which we do not have a light that is such that we can give a rational explanation that ought to be satisfactory to any inquiring mind. This is a case where we need to repeat with Job the statement that we find also in chapter 42 of that great book, where Job says, Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, Listen now and I will speak. I will question you, and you shall answer me. My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen Yyu. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. In the final analysis, the answer to the problem of evil that gripped Job in such a dramatic way is not found in an explanation that God would give him about his own situation; but it is found in the consideration of the magnificent wisdom of God the Creator. In chapters 38, 39, 40, and 41, this is what God manifests unto Job, that He as the Creator is greater than anything that Job had envisioned, and that therefore He is the one whom we can trust to have done what is right and not permit our own finite outlook upon evil to disturb the reality of God s own activity and of the 4 of 10

majesty of His own person. That is the point at which Job himself acknowledged to have spoken at times rashly; and, in addition, it is that which gave him the final comfort at the end of this terrible ordeal through which he was led to go. In the Lord s Prayer we are told, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. And here it might seem, at first, that we ascribe temptation to the initiative of God; but this is not the proper meaning of that passage. For in the epistle of James we are warned that we should not say when we are tempted God tempts me. For he says expressly that God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he or she is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin when it is full grown gives birth to death. And so the origin of temptation is not to be found causally in God Himself, but God has a sovereign plan, in which, at times, He permits our lives to be exposed to temptation. The Christian, understanding his own weakness and the frailty by which, at times, the response to temptation is yielding, rather than a steadfast adherence to the service and obedience of God realizing this, the Christian asks God to be spared temptation rather than to be pressed into it. The proper attitude that we should have about sin is to have a great fear of it, because sin is precisely what would estrange us from God. In our appreciation of our own weakness and of the reality of temptation, we naturally ask God to spare us this particular ordeal, as much as it is possible. Meanwhile, when we are led into temptation, we are not delivered into the hands of Satan without any recourse, but the other part of the prayer makes it plain: Deliver us from evil. God may deliver us by sparing us the temptation, or else again He may deliver us by sparing us and strengthening us through the temptation, through the trial to which we are called upon to pass. The attitude, therefore, of the believer in that prayer is an attitude of justified fear that we might dishonor God in one way or another when we are exposed to a solicitation from Satan in the direction of evil. Yet there is no suggestion that Satan inevitably will cause us to stumble when temptations are presented; but, as the apostle has put it in 1 Corinthians 10, God provides, with the temptation, also the strength that is necessary to resist it. Therefore we should never blame God for our failings, never imagine that if we did not succeed as well as we should it is because, in some way, God has not made provisions for us. But we should blame ourselves 5 of 10

for succumbing to the temptation. We ought to repent, and we ought to seek renewal of our strength and a strengthening of the equipment that God has provided for us, so that we may carry on manfully in the struggle in which we are engaged against the power of sin. Some people are very irked that there should not be a rational answer to the problem of theodicy, but we need not be dismayed by this; for surely, when we approach a subject like this one, in which God as the supreme good is confronting Satan as the source of all evil, we could not have expected that our finite minds should necessarily be able to comprehend in a rational way everything that takes place. The attempt to insist that our minds are the ones to whom every judgment is possible and who are entitled to revolt if there is something that we don t understand these attitudes are not befitting to one who is cognizant of his or her own limitations. I would like to consider further the question of the impact of sin upon human nature. We find that sin has corrupted everything that we have and are in a pervasive and radical manner. As I stated earlier in discussing the nature of sin, sin is like a cancer which extends its impact from a sick area of our body into every other area of the body; so, ultimately, as to paralyze our functions, as to squeeze life out of us, and ultimately to bring to us a death which is often marked by very severe suffering. Sin has an impact upon our bodies. Adam and Eve were created in a form in which they did not need to die. Perhaps we might say that if they had rejected the temptation of Satan and stayed in a spirit of obedience to God, there would have been for them some access to the tree of life. And God, in connection with that tree, would have bestowed upon them physical immortality, an immortality that would parallel that of their souls. As it is, however, they did eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and the result was that the seed of death was implanted in them. And Hebrews can say It is reserved for all men and women once to die, after which comes judgment. So death, at the physical level, is a universal phenomenon. It is true that those who will be alive at the time of the second coming of Christ will not have to die, because they will be transformed immediately, as the apostle Paul makes it plain in 1 Corinthians 15 and in 1 Thessalonians 4. In both of those passages, it is emphasized that the persons who are alive at the second coming of Christ will experience an internal transformation, by which 6 of 10

their nature will be suited for life everlasting. And this would carry them beyond anything that can be attained in this life under ordinary circumstances. One of the problems in relationship to the necessity of dying is that we have therefore here an unnatural separation of soul and body. That which was created to remain united is now separate, and so the body goes to the tomb, where it decays. The soul goes into the eternal condition in which those who are righteous enjoy the presence of Jesus Christ and those who are condemned sense already the weight of God s judgment upon themselves and are in a position that precedes and foreshadows the pains of hell. This is expressed in Luke 16, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, where we see the rich man in torment, even while his brothers were still alive on this earth. The presence of disease in humanity is also the fault of sin. It is not clear that there were no diseases in the world before the appearance of humanity. And, quite possibly, in the animal series, there were animals prior to that who were sick. Certainly, there were many who died. There were some species that were extinct before Adam and Eve appeared. But what we do note is that this separation from body and soul is unnatural. This is not part of the destiny of human beings as originally created, and it is a concomitant of the commission of evil that we should not now be clothed with immortality at the physical level; perhaps more manifest the impact of the presence of sin upon the soul of humanity. And here we begin by recognizing that the ability of human beings to acquire knowledge, to explore the world and understand its functioning, and to relate this to our lives in relationship to God is an area where the presence of sin has very gravely damaged the cognitive powers of humanity. We have here what is called the noetic influence of sin in human life. This comes from the Greek word nous, the mind. It is suggested that, by virtue of the presence of sin now in our beings, there is a damaging that is brought about in the functioning of the human mind, as compared with the perfect condition in which he was created at the very start. Indeed we see the effects of this impact in the way in which people make use of the powers of the mind. They can use them in order to understand the world around us, but they can use them also in order to attempt to persuade people by arguments which are fallacious in nature. There are people who persuade themselves that their arguments are good and that 7 of 10

therefore they are taking the bull by the horns and achieving a single victory in taming the wild animal, but this is not so. In fact, the deterioration of the human mind, by virtue of the process of sin, is by no means something that is a new development. And we find an attitude whereby even the power of reason, which God has left us, is used as cross purpose by human beings. We were given reason so that we may recognize the order in the world, that we may classify animals, among other things, and recognize certain similarities and certain differences between different species. When, in the theory of evolution, an attempt is made to derive all living forms from one original, very simple living form, this tends to be an extension of an evolutionary philosophy. We need to recognize that species are different one from the other. The species is the basic genetic unit, and ordinarily experiments that are made outside of the species, by bringing together two animals which do not belong to the same species, do not get any offspring. The sexual union of these animals is not such as to permit the realization of an offspring. Furthermore, we would say that the differences between various forms of life are more substantial when we go from the mere question of species to the question of phylum. The phylum is a larger unit in the classification of animals and living things, and there certain very simple chemical principles are in evidence, which will permit us to recognize a certain closeness between elements, which we otherwise might have thought to be fairly distant one from the other. The darkening of the mind, by virtue of the presence of sin in our lives, is especially apparent in matters that are matters of religion. There it would seem that people multiply their efforts to prevent a line of thinking in which they would have lost the power to control an argument by virtue of their finite reason. It is one of the devices of Satan to cause us to fool ourselves into thinking that we have now achieved a satisfactory answer, when, in fact, one of the major elements of the problem is always missing. It is better to say our minds having been darkened, we are inclined to see the solution in one direction or perhaps another. But we ought not to be so arrogant as to think that we have resolved the problem of evil. 8 of 10

One very clear manifestation of the fact that our reason has been damaged by the presence of sin is found in the practice of rationalizing, as it is called. Rationalizing is a process by which we attempt to give a logical explanation for something that was done and which was not proper. It therefore assumes that when we are free to act, we do always that which is proper. And therefore if somebody finds fault with it, we would excuse ourselves on the grounds that whatever we ve done was led by God and that therefore it is bound to be proper. This is not an explanation that can endure, and often it is due to a psychological condition in which we identify with our own acts and feel that in some way whatever we do can be and should be explained in clearly rational terms and those finites as well. Pascal, whose mind was probably one of the sharpest ever produced in the human race, discusses this matter in one of the chapters at the very end of the Provincial Letters, where he makes it plain that something that is viewed as truth in France may be considered an error in Spain, because the aspirations of those two nations were in conflict. And they both desired so very much to have rule over the same ground of territory. Therefore one would ascribe to a divine providence what the other would consider to be, rather, the work of Satan. In fact, the more issues tied in with morality, the less reliable are we to find our minds. We do not perceive the error in our rationalizations, in our reasoning, in attempting to justify ourselves. We may sometimes have a sneaking suspicion that this will not be persuasive for others; but, in fact, we are not conscious of promoting some fallacies or pieces of [self-interst]. And yet, this is exactly what happens. We are carried away by our own prejudices, to the point where we don t see readily fallacies in the kind of reasoning that we present. At this point, it would be good if we have some folks who are strongly in the business of getting an explanation to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, and an explanation that would also account for the fact that sin, in coming into the human race, has darkened our minds to the point where often we do not perceive properly our limitations and insist on pressing for an explanation of all the phenomena that we see. It is better to say, Here I seem to be in line with what many think concerning the condition of the future in heaven. But my understanding of the second commandment does not warrant me, for one, to use every form of language. It would seem that the language that the 9 of 10

Scripture itself uses must be repeated at this point. Rationalizing is a term that is used at times to indicate a use of our reasoning powers, intended to cover up something that, in fact, should not be covered; that is, to give a reasonable excuse for something that we know better should not be excused. This distortion of reason has occurred right from the very start of the fall of humanity. For in Genesis 3, we find that God asks of Adam the following question: Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? Adam did not answer this by a yes or no, which would have been a sufficient answer. He should have said, Yes, I have eaten. But he does not do that. He attempts to answer the question Why did you eat? And then he passes the responsibility of it upon his wife, Eve, and perhaps, indirectly, upon God Himself, who has placed Eve at his side. Therefore we read this answer: The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it. Here we find a use of rational powers that is intended to excuse something that is in itself inexcusable. And a use of this type is frequent in our lives. We use it to account for our action to others, attempting to excuse ourselves for something that we have done that should not have been done. We use it, at times, in the presence of decisions to be taken; and, at that point, we desire to suggest or supply us with a reason in order to do something that we know very well we should not do. This is a distortion of a gift of God, and it shows the darkening that has come to our minds by virtue of the presence of sin, [that we use] them as a principle of stability in everyday life. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 10 of 10