04.2. Man Depraved
MAN DEPRAVED The Fall
Although God created man innocent, upright, good, and in his very image, yet man rebelled against the Word of God in the Garden of Eden, and plunged himself and all his race into a state of misery and hopelessness. The effects of this fall were catastrophic and widespread: the image of God in man was marred (but not completely obliterated); man was placed under a curse of immense proportions, changing the delightful responsibilities and privileges that he had enjoyed into a sorrowful and exhausting toil; all of creation was plunged into a curse and made to exist in vanity; mankind came under the sentence of the eternal punishment of death; and all the descendants of that first man and woman were made the heirs of the sinful nature, curse, and punishment into which their first parents had plunged themselves. Its nature 1. Misconception of God
Malachi 2:17 1 Corinthians 2:6-16.
Misconception of Self
Genesis 3:4-5 2 Chronicles 26:16
Ezekiel 28:2-9 Ezekiel 28:12-19
Daniel 5:20-21 Revelation 18:7-24.
Unbelief
4. Disobedience
Genesis 3:6 Deuteronomy 18:18-19
1 Samuel 15:22 Ecclesiastes 5:1 Jeremiah 7:22-24
John 14:23-24 Its effects
1. Curse
Genesis 9:24-25 Deuteronomy 27:26 Deuteronomy 30:15-20.
Distortion of all previous responsibilities The Responsibility to Obey
Genesis 11:1-9 Numbers 14:21-23 The Responsibility to Exercise Dominion
[According to one interpretation, this passage is speaking of mighty rulers who perverted their authority, engaged in unbridled polygamy, and bore children who ruled oppressively and unjustly in the earth.]
Ezekiel 45:8-9 The Responsibility to Multiply
Genesis 19:4-9 Genesis 19:30-38
Genesis 38:7-10 Genesis 38:13-17
2 Samuel 11:1-4 2 Samuel 13:1-17 Leviticus 18:3-25
Creation-wide vanity
Genesis 6:17 Ecclesiastes 1:2-8 Jeremiah 9:10-13
Death
Romans 5:12 1 Corinthians 15:21-22
Physical Death
Hebrews 9:27 Separation from God (Spiritual Death)
Colossians 2:13 2 Thessalonians 1:9 3. Inherited Depravity
Distortion of God’s Image
Romans 5:19 1 Corinthians 15:48-49 Man’s Depravity
After Adam’s fall, all mankind was plunged into a state of total depravity. Adam gained a sinful nature by his rebellion, so that he was no longer able to do good; and all of his offspring inherited that same evil nature. Even man’s best acts, after the catastrophe in the Garden of Eden, are as filthy rags before God, for they are shot through with many imperfect and God-dishonoring motives. Every responsibility that man had in the Garden was perverted and corrupted by fallen humanity, and every individual came under God’s death sentence. And man was hopeless to find a remedy: he was the slave of sin and of the Serpent who had first deceived him, and blinded and unable to understand God, let alone come to him in faith, or follow him. In short, man’s fall brought utter catastrophe, and it would take a divine and sovereign act of mercy ever to restore him to his lost estate of righteousness and fellowship with God.
1. His Corruption
Proverbs 20:9 Ecclesiastes 7:20
1 John 1:8 2. His blindness
John 3:19-21 Ephesians 4:17-19
Ephesians 5:8 3. His bondage to sin and Satan
1 John 5:19 4. His Evil Nature
James 1:13-27. His Inability (to believe in God, come to him, seek him, etc.)
Romans 3:10-11 Man’s Reward So great a fall brought equally great consequences: God is utterly holy, and the sinful state into which man had plunged himself could not be overlooked by the righteous Judge of all the earth. God had promised that if Adam disobeyed he would be punished with death: this punishment came, and all men now die physically; but more horrible yet is the fact that all die spiritually, and are no longer able to be found in the presence of the Holy God, the knowledge of whom is eternal life. If no salvation is found from this desperate plight, then Adam’s seed is justly doomed to spend eternity in hell, away from the presence of the Lord of Glory. The negative side of baptism is a fitting symbol of this final judgment: when God brought Noah through the waters of judgment in the ark (a type of Christ), the world was destroyed in that baptism; when God delivered his people from Egypt through the Red Sea, Pharaoh was destroyed in that baptism; and when John came proclaiming the baptism of repentance, he told the people that the Messiah would judge the world in a baptism of fire.
1. Hardening and Reprobation
2. Punishment Examples of God’s Wrath
Genesis 11:5-9 Genesis 19:14-29
Jude 1:4-11 The Baptism of Judgment
[See also the examples of the flood and the destruction of Pharoah in the Red Sea, under “Examples of God’s Wrath”] Final Punishment in Hell
Matthew 10:28 Matthew 11:20-24 Matthew 23:33-36
Romans 2:5-12 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10 Revelation 20:10-15 Summative description: Man depraved is not able not to sin.