Fall, Sin, and Punishment

Intro: When asked how you are doing, some of you are fond of the reply: “Doing far better than I deserve” I agree with the statement, but don’t typically use it. Reason: Tried it once and it backfired. I was in a grocery story and worker asked me how I was doing. When I gave the gospel reply—I was shocked by the response, “You deserve the best”

I could be making too much of that encounter, but I think it may be tied to the broader view of humanity—people are generally good. They surely don’t deserve hell; they deserve the best.

Ch 6 in the 1689 Baptist Confession—The Fall, Sin, and Punishment

Key concepts and statements

The fall and definition of sin

Confessing the Faith: The 1689 Baptist Confession for the 21st Century VI. The Fall of Mankind, and Sin and Its Punishment

God created humanity upright and perfect. He gave them a righteous law that would have led to life if they had kept it but threatened death if they broke it. Yet they did not remain for long in this position of honor. Satan used the craftiness of the serpent to seduce Eve, who then seduced Adam. Adam acted without any outside compulsion and deliberately transgressed the law of their creation and the command given to them by eating the forbidden fruit.2 God was pleased, in keeping with His wise and holy counsel, to permit this act, because He had purposed to direct it for His own glory.

Summarizes Gen 1-3

A key passage is Gen 2:16-17

Command: with biding promises of blessings and curses (Covenant wording)

Here we know what makes sin, sin—transgression of the law.

1 John 3:4 ESV

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

We also keep in mind—Eve was deceived; Adam disobeyed. Adam—the Head of Humanity, is charged with the guilt.

2 Corinthians 11:3 ESV

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

2. Original sin (6:2, 3)—we are sinner by nature.

Confessing the Faith: The 1689 Baptist Confession for the 21st Century VI. The Fall of Mankind, and Sin and Its Punishment

6:2 By this sin our first parents fell from their original righteousness and communion with God. We fell in them, and through this, death came upon all. All became dead in sin4 and completely defiled in all the capabilities and parts of soul and body

Confessing the Faith: The 1689 Baptist Confession for the 21st Century VI. The Fall of Mankind, and Sin and Its Punishment

By God’s appointment, they were the root and the representatives of the whole human race. Because of this, the guilt of their sin was accounted, and their corrupt nature passed on, to all their offspring who descended from them by ordinary procreation. Their descendants are now conceived in sin7 and are by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, and partakers of death9 and all other miseries—spiritual, temporal, and eternal—unless the Lord Jesus sets them free.

3. Actual sin—remaining sin

Confessing the Faith: The 1689 Baptist Confession for the 21st Century VI. The Fall of Mankind, and Sin and Its Punishment

During this life, this corruption of nature remains in those who are regenerated. Even though it is pardoned and put to death through Christ, yet both this corruption of nature and all actions arising from it are truly and actually sin.

Key Verses

Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV

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.

Genesis 6:5 ESV

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.

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

*Noetic effects of sin=our thinking is not right (Rom 1:21)—became futile in their thinking

Romans 5:12 ESV

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

1 Corinthians 15:21 ESV

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

Hosea 6:7 ESV

But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.

Why does this matter?

B/C We live in a “You deserve the best world”

D.A. Carson recently described this day as an ungrateful age. When we don’t see the depth of our depravity, when we have an over-inflated view of self, we will be ungrateful.

But when we come to grips and own our sin, we know we deserve to be punished.

Punishment

(6:3) Unless the Lord Jesus sets them free

Hebrews 2:14 ESV

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,

1 Thessalonians 1:10 ESV

and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Redemption: It restring sinners to the original goal of creation. God does not give up on creation, or push reset; he is not frustrated. Jesus fulfills with the first Adam failed in—full obedience that leads to everlasting life.

Two Takeaways

1. A right understanding of the doctrine of sin enables us to guard the gospel in a “You deserve-the-best” Man-centered, self-oriented world.

“The pure delight in obedience adds to the ethical value of the choice” —Geerhadus Vos, Biblical Theology

2. A right understanding of sin leads us to worship, adoration, love, trust—the One who took or punishment, our sin-defeating, Satan crushing Savior. (Maundy Thursday)

The most hopeful words:

“Unless the Lord Jesus sets them free” —something that Jesus promised.

John 8:36 ESV

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.