The Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction Chapter 2: God s Broken Image I. What is sin? II. III. The Effects of Sin A. The image of God defaced B. Man under the dominion of sin and death C. Man guilty before God D. Man in the grip of Satan Salvation How the Gospel meets our need WHAT IS SIN? There would seem to be a number of good ways to get started with this study of the major doctrines of our faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith begins with a statement of about special revelation that is the Holy Scriptures. In Chapter 1 the WM divines named and defined source of knowledge that they were appealing to for what they wrote in the Confession, even naming which books are included and which are not. So they first named the Bible in its original languages, containing the individual books that we have now, as the ground of what they believed and then sought to base everything they wrote on that. Makes sense to me because it begins by answering the question How do I know what I know. As we will see tonight when Mark begins his series on the Heidelberg Catechism, that document begins with a beautiful and personal statement about a believer s relationship to Jesus, including Christ lordship over all things in a believer s life and the great assurance and confidence that that brings and how Christ s work in us results in a life lived for Him.
Paul begins the Book of Romans, the book that scholars say contains the greatest single statement of doctrine in the Bible, with a statement of his call as an apostle and a summary of God s redemptive plan through history that climaxes with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. So a study of foundational Christian doctrine can begin in more than one good place. Our study will begin with the bad news of the Gospel that is the bad news of the Good News, so to speak. I m sure you know that as we grow in Christian maturity the Good News looks that much sweeter when we begin to realize more and more the true nature of the bad news. So we begin with the devastating news that Sin (capital S) has put a chasm between a Holy God and natural sinful man that can never be bridged by good deeds and intentions. In particular we ll name four significant effects of Sin of our lives and how the Gospel begins to undo those effects. First, I want you to see that this is information that we would not and could not know intuitively. As natural-born unbelievers, why could we never know the extent of the effects of Sin in our life? Because Sin itself has so clouded my judgment and view of myself that I cannot rightly or fully assess my condition which the Bible describes as spiritually dead. You see, without the internal work of God Holy Spirit I could not know the state that I am in because I just don t feel guilty at least not so guilty as to know that I deserve the wrath of a Holy God. As an unbeliever, I am like someone who is deathly ill and doesn t know that I could drop dead at any moment. I m reminded of the death of the famous basketball player of the 1970s, Pete Maravich who one minute was playing a pick-up game with friends and the next moment with no warning lay
dead on the court of massive heart attack. No one, including himself, knew that he had lived his whole life with some kind of genetic heart problem that could cause his death any second. The condition had never been diagnosed. Well, this beginning chapter in our study diagnoses the serious nature of a problem that each person has, whether he/she knows it or not. As we begin, I encourage you to make this information personal. Think about these things in relation to your own life and relationship to Christ. It is more than head knowledge that we are seeking here. As Mark reminded us last week, knowing is for living. Doctrine is more than interesting and intellectual; it is practical and very personal. And there is no more personal subject than the effects of Sin in our lives. Everyday I need to be reminded of what I would naturally be were not for the work of Christ in my live. Quick small example of the practical value of doctrine: Wednesday night on the way home from a Session meeting, I was listening to a program on NPR in which several everyday people were discussing the Sarah Palen phenomena. One man was a public school teacher who was upset that in light of Palen s daughter s pregnancy, the media was not talking more about safe sex. And as the other voices chimed in more than one was critical of the Governor s handling of the situation. As I listened I began thinking that the thing that was missing from the discussion that would be central to rightly understanding the situation were two key doctrinal concepts that were never mentioned: sin and repentance. What I mean is this: there was no one saying that sin has consequences, but as we seek God in the midst of difficulties, even those we bring upon
ourselves, He uses those trials to build our faith and trust in Him. This is the way right doctrine leads to a right view of God and ourselves and the world. That truth leads to right living. I mention that just to demonstrate that you that as you find yourself in life s difficult situations, doctrine becomes practical and has everything to do with how you understand and react to the circumstances of your life. So first, let s define what we mean by Sin. There are a variety of expressions given in Scripture that help us understand the nature Sin. Let me just point to two that get to the heart of the issue: 1. In Genesis 3 when tempted by the serpent, Eve (and then Adam) disobeyed God s one law. WCF in Chapter 6 summarizes their condition before and after this disobedience: By this sin they FELL from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin. So, they WERE righteous and in perfect communion with God, but the fell from that ideal position. 2. Romans 3:23: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God The picture of Sin is this: Adam and Eve were in a position of perfect righteousness and communion with God, but they disobeyed, and fell to this position where all of humanity has been ever since. We as their posterity are also born into that condition. So, think of sin as no longer attaining to the mark or position of perfect righteousness and communion with God. Missing (or falling from) the mark (goal or position) for which we were created and in so doing becoming a rebel against the loving King.
We tend to think of Sin in far less cosmic ways than that. Sin is saying a curse word or some moral failure. When we see that Sin is the condition we were born into, as well as those things we do it is easier to see how we all fall short. In fact, fall short almost begins to seem like an understatement. If we are breathing, we are living in Sin because we ourselves, as well as the whole of creation, are part of this fall. There at least four broad ways that the Scripture describes that this fall has marred our existence. 1. The image of God has been defaced. Genesis 1:26, 27 says: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Now if we launched into a discussion of what the image of God means we could likely go on for quite some time. Is it the ability to communicate with words, or some physical characteristics? And indeed scholars have continue to wrestle and define what this means. But let me point you to what seems to be the most obvious meaning, right here in the text we just read. This may not be an exhaustive meaning, but I think it gets to the heart of the issue and it s not a complicated thing. In this passage, our author suggest that we can see that the image of God means that man was originally created as a righteous ruler. He was put in
charge of God s creation to rule the creation as God would rule it. He was created and placed on earth to be God s personal representative. But at the moment of his disobedience, that relationship with God changed. In other words, he no longer bore this image of God in the same perfect way he had before, and things began to deteriorate in his relationship with God, as well as with the creation and with his wife. No longer was man a righteous ruler, but he had become an open rebel. Instead of reflecting the image of God, he began to reflect the opposite (antithesis) of the image of God. For the very blessing that God had given him to righteously oversee, he transformed into things to be used against his Maker. For example, is it not true that the very breath that God has given us is used many times each day in sin that is an affront to the Creator? Likewise, the unregenerate mind plots against His Creator. We take the blessings of the physical world and use them not only for our selfish pleasures and advantage but in way that oppose God. That leads us to the second way that sin has marred us: 2. Since the fall, we now live under the dominion of sin and death. Adam was warned of this early on in the Genesis narrative (2:16, 17) And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." And, of course, this was the warning that Satan successfully tempted Eve with when he said in 3:4 You will not surely die.
Only a chapter later God warns Adam (4:7) that sin is crouching at your door. I m reminded of the scenes from the movie Amistad when the slave traders would be laying in wait in the jungles of west Africa, then jump out of nowhere, throw a net over their prey, kidnap him or her and drag them off into slavery for the rest of their lives. This is you and me before being rescued by Christ. I know we don t realize it, but that s why the Scripture has to inform us. This is part of what Mark has been preaching from Romans that by nature, we are under sin as slaves. It is as if we have been kidnapped by sin and drug off into slavery to it and to live under its dominion and unlike the slaves n Amistad, we don t even fight against it, but revel in it because we have been born into a life that is under the dominion of sin. 3. Thirdly, because the image of God has been defaced in us and we use His gifts against him; and since we live under the dominion of sin and death: We stand guilty before God. In unbelief, we may not feel guilty. Or we may be hoping that God grades on the curve. If so, we are like the defendant who strolls into the courtroom confident that that his lawyer can get him off, only to have his case pulled out from under his feet when the surprise eye-witness is called and the truth is revealed and He is clearly shown to be guilty. This is the emphasis of the first section of Romans 2 in which Paul tells us that that God s judgment is according to truth and reality and that on that day God will judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. Later in 3:19 Paul writes:
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. John makes man s guilt even more clear in John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. So, sin has RIGHTLY brought the judgment of God on me, despite the fact that I think that would be unfair. 4. Sin has left man in the grip of Satan. Untrue! Some would say. I am a free agent. I m not under the grip of anyone. Well, as Mark reminded us last week as he quoted Bob Dylan: You Gotta Serve Somebody. It is the true nature of man, as the Scripture tells us that we are all slaves. It is just a question of which master and Ephesians 2 answers that question for unredeemed man: 1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 1 John 5:19 even goes further to say: We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
So to summarize, whether we know it or not, sin has left us with: 1. Marred image of God 2. Under the dominion of sin and death 3. Guilty before God and awaiting his just punishment 4. Under the power of Satan And none of that is good news. But the glory of the Gospel is that these are the very things that Christ rescues us from, restores in us and even more. For, as Mark has been preaching for several weeks from Romans, in Christ we gain more than we lost in Adam. For although Christians are not fully restored to the image of God until heaven, they are considered so now, and thus in salvation Christ breaks the dominion of sin and death, the power of Satan in our lives and we are declared not guilty. Why? Because Christ, the only one qualified to do so, has taken the punishment we deserve. The guilty verdict has been given, the judgment has been carried out, but on Christ, rather than me. And that He did voluntarily! Now, is that the justice we say we want from God? No, it is even greater than justice; it is mercy. And the wellspring of that mercy is the very gracious nature of God. That is why He chooses to fold sinners into His eternal plan to glorify Himself. I think that this side of heaven there is no full appreciation of that grace. We are left with our small attempts to worship Him through the obedience of our lives and showing the same grace to others through acts of mercy and service.
Let me encourage you, if some of these things are still foggy; if you really don t have a fix on this idea of the fall, study and pray about this. Ask God s Holy Spirit to open your mind to these things to more fully understanding the bad news so that you will more fully embrace and appreciate the good news that comes to us by the Christ Jesus. The remainder of this study will be concerned only with two things that flow out of this foundational doctrine of the broken image of God: 1. How does a sinner enter into this new relationship with God. 2. How do I get the grace and character of Christ into my life?