All right. Well, let’s start with a couple of shorter catechism questions and answers. We went over this last week. Does anybody remember the answer to this question, what is the chief end of man? If you’re under 20, you can answer. What is the chief end of man?
Yes, ma’am. Let’s see if you’re right. Oh, excellent. Very good. That was review. Let’s do one a little bit harder. This is the second. What rule has God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him? Again, we’re going to lower the bar a little bit more. If you’re under 16, you can answer this. Don’t be shy. I get things wrong quite often. All right, here we go. I was under 20 and you were lower than the bar. Oh, I see. If I was under 20, I would have done the first one. OK.
Here we go. The Word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him. There’s the answer. Now, does anyone have a problem with this language? Any problems? No one has a problem. What about this word here? Is contained.
The word of God is, what else is contained in the scripture other than the word of God? I wish they would have used a different word. They didn’t ask me, but there you go. The Word of God is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament, is the only rule to direct in us how we may glorify and enjoy Him.
Where else can we go to find out how to glorify God? Can we go to the library? I used to live very close to a library, a huge library. It’s called the Library of Congress. Is there any other book in the Library of Congress that could tell us how to glorify God?
No? That’s it? OK. The Bible. OK. There are all kinds of versions of the Bible, so anyway. OK. All right. Good. Elder, younger Elder Johnson, could I ask you to pray for us and the Sunday school classes about to leave? Gracious Father, what a delight it is to come into your house this day and worship you. Amen, amen, thank you. All right, the elementary school class is dismissed. Did you have something to say, Mrs. Cashen? Okay, thanks.
All right, if you’d open up your copies of God’s word now to Genesis. We’re going to continue our study in the Westminster Confession this morning, Lord willing, in chapter 6 of that confession, which deals with the fall. Where would you find in scripture a description of the fall? Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3, excellent.
We’re going to skip the actual sin part, and we’re going to go to verse 16. And now the Lord has observed and knows that Adam and Eve has sinned against him. And so now he begins or continues to speak first after he has spoken to the serpent, who we know to be Satan. He speaks now to the woman. Let’s give attention to the very word of God.
To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain, you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. And to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it.
Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
A man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin, and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, in knowing good and evil.
Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed the chair beam and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
As far in the word of God. Amen. Would you pray with me? Father, we ask now that you’d help us as we continue to look into the fall from grace and what has happened to us as a result. Guide and direct our hearts now all for your glory. We ask this in Christ’s name, amen. All right, so I’ve been studying Westminster. What’s the first chapter about? And why do we start with scripture? We need that, right? Because everything else we’re going to study flows out of scripture. And so we begin with scripture.
Second chapter is about God. What do we learn about God? How many gods are there? In how many persons? Three. OK. Very good. There is one only living and true God who is infinite and being in perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible without body, parts, or passions. Only one.
Kind of important as we continue on with God’s eternal decrees, what are they? The decrees of God are His eternal purpose according to the counsel of His will, whereby for His own glory He hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. Again, we’re building upon building, right? We’re building upon who God is and what He’s done. And how does God execute His decrees? And that’s why creation is next, right? What did God create?
How did he do that? Well, yes, out of nothing. But how? Part of his power, okay. And how long did it take? Yeah. Oh, excellent. Well, why did he create? For his glory. For his glory. For his glory, for the manifestation of his glory. We think that there are other purposes, right? And that’s where we go off the track. When we forget that God created for his glory, and we go off on another tangent, that’s a big problem. So we have to remember that. All right, so somebody said, God executes his degrees through creation and providence. What’s providence? It’s a big word. We don’t use it very often.
I was able to use it on Friday with our dental student. As the dentist walked out, this is a side, this is a rabbit trail. So we go to Tufts University and the dental students work on our teeth. But a dentist comes in and checks to make sure the student’s doing the right stuff. And so the dental student said, well, this is what I’m planning on doing. I’m going to do this. And the dentist comes in and listens to that. And as she’s walking out of the room, the dentist says, well, good luck. I said, oh, no. That’s a problem.
So we started talking a little bit about luck and God’s providence. God, the great creator of all things, does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things. from the greatest even to the least by his most wise and holy providence according to his infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of his own will to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy. So what is it that God doesn’t uphold, direct, dispose, and govern? What’s excluded from that?
Nothing, okay, good. All right, and so we’ve been studying the fall. We’ve been studying the fall. In 10 words or less, who can define the fall? Something that we should kind of have in our back pocket, right? Adam went from being very good to being very evil. Is that 10 words? No, is it more? I don’t know.
Our first parents being seduced by the subtlety and temptations of Satan sinned, and eating the forbidden fruit, their sin, God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel to permit, having purpose to order it to his own glory. So again, we go back to what has God directed? What has he ordained? What has he decreed?
Well, this is part of it. And remember, this is all review, right? William Perkins said this sin, It contained many sins, unbelief of the truth of God’s word, contempt of God, pride, ambition, ingratitude for God’s good gifts, craving to be wiser than God, the blasphemies of charging God with lying and envy. Isn’t that what Eve was doing? Well, isn’t that what Satan was doing and Eve was kind of agreeing?
He doesn’t want you to have this because he knows it’s really going to be good for you. You’re going to be like him. Why did this happen? This their sin, God was pleased according to his wise and holy counsel to permit having purposed to order to his own glory. Okay, we’ve got to remember that.
For God is consigned to all disobedience that he may have mercy on all the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable are his ways. If we were in charge, would we have done that? No, it’s a good thing we’re not in charge, right? The wisdom of God, how unsearchable are his judgments. All right, that led us to our second paragraph.
By this sin they fell from their original righteousness in communion with God and so became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body. There’s this cataclysmic change that happens as they sin against God. And that cataclysmic change happens within their hearts. Dead in sin. Lost original righteousness, right? As God approaches Adam, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? What does the man say? It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s the woman that you put here with me. She’s the problem, but you made her. It’s your fault.
He lost the original righteousness as the first words that he speaks to God. Well, maybe not the first. It’s the woman who you gave me. He blames God. Original righteousness, gone. He lost communion. We read that. Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. There’s a division now between God and man created by sin. God’s holy, holy, holy.
He can’t be in the presence of that which is evil. And Adam is now evil. And so he must be excluded. He’s taken out, he’s driven out, he’s lost that communion with God, that sweet communion that he had as he walked with God in the garden in the cool of the day. He’s lost life. Now, Adam is an eternal being. He’s made that way. But he lost the opportunity to have life in unchangeable estate of goodness. So he’s lost that. What happens is he’s driven from the garden. Cherubim and a flaming sword turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Yes, ma’am, you have a question. Can we go back to verse 21? Verse 21. We can. Why would you want to do that? And Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them. I think that’s a good opinion. I don’t know about the animal. It is. Yeah, their covering was insufficient, right? Fig leaves just didn’t do what needed to be done. Good, good point. All right, the lost original righteous, oh, sorry, I went the wrong way.
Lost communion, lost life. They became dead in sin. What is that? What is it to be dead in sin or totally depraved or wholly defiled? Talked about it last time. This is all review. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That’s the description of being dead in sin. Every intention. Not one. There’s not one intention that is seeking good. Every intention. That describes us. And then Paul really digs into this a bit in the first chapter of Romans. We’re going to look at the first chapter of Romans again in the preaching of the word today, not this part, the part before this.
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Another description of what happened in the fall and what happened to us, a description of being dead in sin. And then, in Paul’s letter to the saints at Ephesus, he’s describing this nature that we’ve inherited. You were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air. Who’s that?
Satan, the spirit that is now at work, and 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, a description of what it is to be dead in sin.
So that leads us just to touch upon this topic of total depravity. And as we read this last time from Boykin and Rice, it’s helpful to consider that this truth goes beyond the principle that all sin. Total depravity deals with the nature and extent of sin, And the point is that we are all radically sinful, so much so that we cannot even take the smallest of steps toward God, unless he first intervenes, right?
This is from Hermann Bavink in his Reformed Dogmatics. I know it’s a lot of words, but stay with me here. As extensive as original sin is, And that’s what we’re talking about, original sin. As extensive as it is in humanity as a whole, so it is also in the individual person.
Bob Ingram is saying, corruption extends to everybody, everyone, all of us here, everybody, with one exception. Who’s that? Jesus Christ. Okay, great. He said, that’s extensive, but it’s also extensive in the individual, in each of us. It’s extensive in us. It holds sway over the whole person, over mind and will, that should be a lower case w, heart and conscience, soul and body, over all one’s capacities and powers. Complete.
One cannot renew one’s self. And that’s what Boyce and Rykin were saying. We can’t even take the smallest step toward God. I can’t renew myself. We can’t understand the things of God. We can’t submit to the law of God. And one is dead through trespasses and sins. Upon these firm announcements of scripture, and he has a lot more scripture proofs in here that I didn’t put in. Augustine and his followers, and later the reformers, built the doctrine of humanity’s incapacity for…
No, that’s not right. Anyway, what I didn’t write correctly here built the doctrine of basically total depravity. Okay? You can blame me for dictating at this point here from Bobbing. Bobbing got it right, I got it wrong. This doctrine of total inability, which declares that men are dead in sin, does not mean that all men are equally bad, nor that any man is as bad as he could be, nor that anyone is entirely destitute of virtue, nor that human nature is evil in itself, nor that man’s spirit is inactive, and much less does it mean that the body is dead. That’s Boyce and Rykin. So you’re getting the picture on total depravity, total inability. What it does mean is that since the fall, man rests under the curse of sin, that he’s actuated, meaning I’m motivated, I’m moved by wrong principles as opposed to good principles, and that he’s wholly unable to love God or do anything meriting salvation. Again, Boyce and Rykin. Okay, questions. You got this? Okay, we’re gonna move on.
They, being the root of all mankind, they being who? Adam and Eve, the guilt of this sin was imputed and the same death and sin and corrupted nature conveyed to their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation. And we said last time ordinary generation. means that we’re all from Adam. We’ve been generated ordinarily. There’s only one who’s been generated unordinarily, if that’s a word. Who’s that? Jesus. Okay.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God. He created him male and female. He created them, the root of mankind. Adam represented all mankind in the covenant of works. We want to talk about that briefly. Adam was what theologians call a federal head. in that he acted for all of his posterity, all those who would descend from him by ordinary generation. What he did, along with the reward or punishment for what he did, was credited to all of his descendants. Again, from a broccol, a human nature in its totality, as well as the entire human race in Adam, were created in that covenant.
Abrakel is saying that we’re all in this covenant of works in Adam. That’s the theology that he is proclaiming. We’re all in that covenant. For this reason, all men are still born within this covenant of works. And so from Abrakel’s perspective, you’re born into the covenant of works. Upon Adam’s breach of that covenant, the human nature in its totality, that is the entire human race, broke the covenant.
Well, if you’re in the covenant and Adam’s acting for you, then his actions count for you or are imputed to you. That’s what he’s saying. He’s therefore righteous that this nature of the human race is rendered guilty. He’s saying, well, because you were in Adam, because you were in the covenant of works and he acted for you and he broke the covenant, and punishment now descends upon him as a result of his breaking of the covenant, and because you’re in Adam and you’re in the covenant, then it’s right that you’re guilty as well. and that every human being, every person, by virtue of having the same nature, has the covenant breach imputed to him. Do you understand that? He’s saying, basically, you are in, you’re born into the covenant of works, and Adam was your representative in that covenant. So what he did counts for you.
He broke the covenant, you’re a covenant breaker, and the punishment The breach imputed to you as well. And you’re deemed worthy of condemnation. In other words, we inherited Adam’s sin. You inherited Adam’s sin and the punishment for it. Because, according to Abrakel, you were born into the covenant. Right? That’s an Adam all dying. Paul. Yes.
So guilt, we talked about that, renders a person a debtor to the law, it binds him to pay a penalty in money or suffering. Guilt, therefore, implies both criminality and liability to punishment. You did the act that is a breaking of the law, you’re guilty of doing that, you actually broke it, and guilt also indicates that now you’re liable or you’ve brought upon yourself that punishment for breaking the law, both. Guilt can have both aspects to it and does have both aspects to it.
All right, I’m moving through this quickly because this is all review. Impute, to impute, we don’t use that word very often. Again, it’s crediting something to your account. And so the punishment for that sin has been credited to your account. That’s what it means to impute.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all men Because all sinned. Now that’s an interesting passage because all sinned. That’s where a Brockles getting his statement from. And he follows it here. We do not read that all men are sinful. I mean, all men are sinful, but that’s, he’s, he’s looking at that verse. He’s saying that first doesn’t say all men are sinful. It says that all men have sinned.
The reference is not to propensity, meaning that the reference is not to your inclination to sin, which you do have, but he’s saying it’s to the commission of an act. The reference here is to a deed that which follows also refers to one deed or offense. Do you see what he’s saying? He’s saying, hey, you know what? Paul is saying here that you actually sinned in Adam. He’s not merely saying, or it is true as well, that you have a sin nature that you’ve inherited from Adam, but he’s saying in this verse, what he’s saying is you actually sinned in Adam.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience, the many were made sinners, not sinful. They were made sinners. So by one man’s obedience to many will be made righteous.
Okay. Good. Unless it’s evident. I’m not done yet. Oh, I see what you, yes, that was the good news. Yeah. Most of this is we’re setting you up for the good news. Yes, sir. Pastor, when you say all sin, the question is when did we all sin in Adam? The answer’s in the garden. When he ate, we ate. Yes. When he reached out his hands, we reached out our hands, because we were in and with him. Yes. Federally represented. Yes. Exactly.
It is thus evident that a little bit. And so Barakos now, he’s trying to prove what he said, what he wrote. And that’s what some of these guys did. Like they knew they were going to receive opposition. And so they go into this, these proofs, one after the other, after the other.
And here’s one of his proofs. It’s evident that little children prior to birth must also be guilty of sin before they die. According to verse 14, they are not guilty of actual sin. They are therefore guilty of a sin which has been imputed to them, and no other sin is imputed to them other than Adam’s covenant breach. That’s one of his proofs.
OK. I’m trying to drive this point home because this is so important for us to understand. When Adam lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image. That is a powerful statement. And then as David writes this, after he sins with Bathsheba and has her husband killed, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 51.
All right, now questions. That was just fascinating. I’ve never had it explained to me that way. Praise God. Or I may have never heard it that way. But thanks for that. OK. Very good. We’re going to move on. That was all review. Yes, sir. I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for that question. Sorry. I don’t find it in Scripture. They believe that baptism erases sin. Yeah. To the extent… Well, once they start sinning, actual sins afterwards, they need to do all the other sacraments. Well, yeah, sure, sure.
I mean, there was the belief at one point in time that I’m not going to get baptized until I’m about ready to die. And so I can live the way I want, just before I take my last breath, baptize me, and I’ll be clean, and I’ll be able to get to heaven. It doesn’t really work that way. All right, we did read this last time, but we didn’t get into it.
From this original corruption, whereby we were utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. Okay, so we wanna dig into a little bit about this concept, this truth of being utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good. Wholly inclined to all evil. So if we become robots, as a result of being, no, okay.
As a result, I’ll ask the question, then we already got the answer. Are we forced to sin? Are we forced to disobey God? Do we have no other choice? My hands are tied behind my back. I can’t do anything else. I really wanna be good. I really wanna be good. No, because we have a moral nature and we still know what is right and wrong. and we make a choice. Oh. Okay, let’s see if that’s right. I wasn’t gonna, look, I wasn’t gonna bring that up today, but you just opened the door.
So Paul writes in Romans, none is righteous, no, not one, none understands, no one understands, no one seeks for God, all have turned aside. And this is where the divines get this. They get it from Paul, they get it from from Psalms, all have turned aside. Together they’ve become worthless. No one does good, not even one.
Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under the lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Can you describe wickedness any more completely than this? It would be hard to do. Feet are swift to shed blood. Their paths are ruin and misery. The way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Wow. Utterly indisposed and disabled.
And then Romans chapter 8, for to set the mind on the flesh is death. But to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. It’s always interesting to go back to the Greek because the English, in order for us to understand what’s going on, we usually add some words. Sometimes that’s not helpful.
So verse 6 could actually read, the mind of the flesh is death. It’s equating The mind, the heart that is of the flesh, of sin, of evil, is equal to death. Utterly indisposed and disabled. I think this is the key. at least from my limited perspective, James.
Let no one say when he’s tempted, I’m being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. So James is saying, don’t blame Adam. I mean, you can blame Adam if you want, but for your actual sins, don’t blame Adam, because it’s your desire. You’re lured and enticed by your own desire. You’re following your desire. And desire, when it’s conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. This dates me a little bit. Do you know who Monty Hall is? Some of us do. Those in the first row here probably don’t.
There was a show on when I was a child, Let’s Make a Deal. And I can’t remember, I guess people would dress up and Monty Hall would go and look at some person who was dressed up a particular way and say, okay, let’s make a deal. And they’d come down and ultimately he’d be asking them to choose a door. And there’d be something good behind one of the doors, something really good behind one of the doors. And so you had to choose well. Most people didn’t. But you had options, door number one, door number two, door number three. So the contestant would pick one of those doors, and they would get whatever’s behind the door. And you’re probably thinking, well, Chris, what does this have to do with anything? Every time that we’re given a choice, being born in Adam, we are not going to choose door number one.
We don’t want it. I don’t want door number one. And we’re not gonna choose door number two because door number two is indifferent. I really, I just don’t care. I don’t care. That’s not the case either. Every single time, we’re gonna choose door number three. I want to pursue evil. We wouldn’t say it that way. But that’s our desire in Adam. Every single time, it’s door number three. I want to pursue my sin. I want to pursue that which is in opposition to God. I want to pursue that which my desire, and my desire is constantly and always opposed to God, never aligned with Christ. Does that make sense? Monty Hall, let’s make a deal. Utterly indisposed and disabled. And this jumps us forward a little bit, but this is what Misty was saying.
Chapter nine of Westminster Confession of Faith of Free Will. Man by his fall into a state of sin, and that’s what we’re talking about right now. We’re talking about the fall. We’re talking about that fall into a state of sin has wholly lost all ability, and that’s the appropriate word, all ability of will to any spiritual good. So we can take out cups of cold water, but that’s not spiritual good. All ability of will, ability, power of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. That’s the idea.
That’s what we don’t have any power to pursue on our own. So as a natural man being altogether averse from that good, we’re always picking door number three, always number three. Altogether averse from that good and dead in sin is not able, doesn’t have the power by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto. Yes, ma’am. I would put it a little bit differently.
I would say in our natural state, in Adam, we don’t want God. We’re always going the other way because that’s our desire. And so we’re unable to do any spiritual good accompanying salvation because we are completely and utterly depraved. Can’t take a first step toward God because we don’t want to. And so every time we choose joy number three.
Again, from Bovenk, humans have not, as a result of sin, lost their will and their in-created freedom. Bobbink uses some interesting words, in-created freedom. He’s saying you haven’t lost your free will. What humans have lost is the free inclination of the will toward the good.
Remember door number one was good. Door number three is, that’s every time, we’re headed there. They now no longer want to do good. They, he’s referring to you and me, they. They now voluntarily, by a natural inclination, do evil. The inclination, the direction of the will has changed. That’s what happened in the garden. And Adam has passed that along to us. Oh, sorry. This is from Augustine.
The will in us is always free, but it is not always good. Yes, sir? In creative freedom. What he’s saying is you’ve been given, you’ve been created with a free will. You’re a moral creature, created in the image of God. You can make your choice, right? The problem is in Adam, every choice we make is for evil.
Okay. Questions? Yes, sir? When we think we’re doing good, it’s out of selfish reasons, typically, which makes it evil. Yes. So you help the lady across the street. You’re not doing it to glorify you. You’re doing it to glorify you. Yes. That’s a nice example, kind of like a cup of cold water. Yes. All right, we’re gonna move on. We got two more, I think. Gotta get done. Paragraph five.
This corruption of nature during this life does remain in those that are regenerated. Well, I thought when we trust in Christ, everything was going to be better, good. It is better. I thought it was gonna be like free from sin. And that’s not what they’re saying here.
This corruption remains in those that are regenerated. Even though you’ve got a tender heart, the heart of stone’s been removed, now you have a fleshly heart, they’re saying that this corruption remains. And although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself and all the motions thereof are truly and properly sin. Hmm. Is that your experience? Yeah? There it is. There’s Romans 7. There are those theologians that believe that Paul here is not speaking about his converted self, but speaking about his unconverted self, as he writes this.
I don’t agree with those. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. So at least as I understand this passage, Paul is saying, I’ve been regenerated, I’ve been converted, I love the law. And I want to follow the law, but I don’t. I continue to sin, right? And that’s what they’re saying back here. And those that are regenerated, although they’ve been pardoned and sin has been mortified, the corruption of the nature does remain.
First John, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we’ve not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Who’s John writing to? Yes, believers.
Romans 8, there is good news, you’re pardoned, right? There’s now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin he condemns sin in the flesh.
You’ve been pardoned. We know that our old self was crucified with him. That’s good news. Your sin’s been mortified. In order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin, for the one who has died has been set free from sin. Oh, you’ve been set free. Right? These things seem to be a little bit in contradiction to one another, but they’re not. Questions on that? Is that your experience?
That even as you’re regenerated, even as you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you know your sins are pardoned. You know you have forgiveness in Christ. You know that sin no longer is having mastery over you. And yet, you still sin. Is that your experience? You know, in terms of whether Paul is a sinner, I mean, was converted, I just, I have a very simple answer to that. It’s the whole progression of his argument would indicate that he is wrestling with sin as a believer. It’s almost like you’re going back to chapter three and restating, I know that’s not a theological proof to defend it, but it’s just, it’s just, it just flows right in that he is a believer, you know. I agree. Yes, sir. Paul says a little bit further down in that chapter, O wretched man that I am. They go, hey, me, not I was. So he’s speaking as a believer. It’s just painfully clear. And just set free from sin, what does it mean? Set free from the power of sin, the presence of sin. Very good. I like that.
We’re simultaneously saint and sinner, as Luther said. I remember one commentator, I think it was Jeffrey Wilson, he said in Romans 7, if Paul was not a true believer, Good thank you all right. We’re gonna try to finish it up. Can we do it in? Six minutes All right good, so what so what does this really matter It’s just doctrine But is there any, I mean, you’re pardoned. Sin’s been mortified. So, OK. Praise God. So what? Any problems? Does this really matter to you? Yes. OK. Because we keep realizing that it helps us, by the grace of God, be humble. That is one aspect, yes. That should be 6.6.
Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto does in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, the curse of law, and so made subject to death with all miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal. Oh, so you can’t blame everything on Adam, right?
There’s still these issues. You’re dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind, the wrath of God. It’s still there. It’s still gonna be poured out on all those who are not in Christ. Still under a curse. Galatians 3, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, curse be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. We’re subject to death, for the wages of sin is death. Why did that come back? Somebody messed up.
All misery’s spiritual. Ephesians 4, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. Due to their hardness of heart, they become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. Miseries of this life, spiritual miseries. Eternal miseries.
This is Jesus Christ ascribing his return to his disciples. And he will separate all into either the sheep fold or the goat fold. The goats are on the left. And so now he’s describing the goats. Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me you cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. All right.
So in a sense, what the divines are doing is they speak of the fall. They’re speaking of the result of the fall. And this is the end result. If a person does not turn to Christ, if a person does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you don’t sincerely trust in Him, repent of your sins, this is the end. And so for those who would say, well, this is just all words in the Bible, so what does it mean to me? This is what it means. This is what it means.
The good news comes next, right? But chapter six is really the bad news, isn’t it? It’s all for the glory of God. We remember that. But in a sense, a person needs to be brought to understand the bad news first. And so that’s what they’re doing. And that’s exactly what Paul does in Romans, I think. As he’s writing his gospel to the Church of Rome, he’s setting forth the bad news first. And then he gets to the good news. And that’s what they’re doing here. You need the bad news in order to answer the questions, saved from what?
Yes. Yeah. I don’t want to sound like I’m being too uncharitable to other believers, but when you don’t get this right and you go out and evangelize people, you try to make the gospel as playable to people’s desires as it can be, and then you win them to something that’s not the gospel. Yes. Thank you. All right, we’ve got- So what you’re saying is be forthcoming, right? Yes. With love. With love. Okay. We’ve got about a minute. Is there a short question? Is this clear? Yes? All right. Let’s pray.
Father and our God, we thank you so much for the way in which you work. Lord, as we see this, we see the wretchedness of our sin. We see what it brings upon us. And yet, Lord God, we know that Christ has come. He’s gone to the cross, that he has suffered in the place of all those who trust in him. So we thank you and praise you. We thank you, this is showing forth your glory.
And so help us. And help us now as we think about worship, as we think about Worship that is to be again in a few moments. Make our hearts ready to hear your call and to respond. Help us, Lord. Wash us clean in the blood of Christ. We ask all this in his precious name. Amen.