The Fall of Mankind (LBCF 6.1)
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Handout
Confessing the Faith (Confessing the Faith)
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.
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
What are the main points of this paragraph?
What are the main points of this paragraph?
1. How was man made? (LBCF 4.1,2,3; Genesis 1:26,31)
1. How was man made? (LBCF 4.1,2,3; Genesis 1:26,31)
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Creation and the Fall Creation and the Fall
Their being “fit” for the life to God is expanded in defining their position as image-bearers consisting of “knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness.”
Creation and the Fall Creation and the Fall
they had “the law of God written on their hearts, and power to fulfill it, and yet under the possibility of transgressing.”
2. Would their original state granted to them life? (Genesis 2:16-17)
2. Would their original state granted to them life? (Genesis 2:16-17)
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
If the answer to this is No then the promise of Christ in the Seed was necessary prior to the Fall.
If the answer to this is No then Christ and His Earned Righteousness is also insufficient.
3. How did they fall? (Genesis 3:6,12-13; 2 Corinthians 11:3)
3. How did they fall? (Genesis 3:6,12-13; 2 Corinthians 11:3)
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
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.
What specifically happened to Eve?
What specifically happened to Adam?
4. What was God’s “role” in this event?
4. What was God’s “role” in this event?
He was the Redeemer and the Pursuer.
Man did not run to God for forgiveness, he ran from God and hid from God.
5. Could God have prevented it from happening?
5. Could God have prevented it from happening?
Absolutely! No tree in the middle no means of sin.
God created the means of sin but He did not author, coerce, trick or force them to sin.
6. How did God see fit to use it? (Romans 11:32)?
6. How did God see fit to use it? (Romans 11:32)?
For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
How did Eve and Adam, uncorrupted in nature, sin?
How did Eve and Adam, uncorrupted in nature, sin?
A Commentary on the Confession of Faith (Section I)
It appears to be God’s general plan, and one eminently wise and righteous, to introduce all the new-created subjects of moral government into a state of probation for a time, in which he makes their permanent character and destiny depend upon their own action.
He creates them holy, yet capable of falling. In this state he subjects them to a moral test for a time. If they stand the test, the reward is that their moral characters are confirmed and rendered infallible, and they are introduced into an inalienable blessedness for ever.
If they fail, they are judicially excluded from God’s favour and communion for ever, and hence morally and eternally dead. This certainly has been his method of dealing with new-created angels and men.
In the case of mankind the specific test to which our first parents were subjected was their abstaining from eating of the fruit of a single tree. As this was a matter in itself morally indifferent, it was admirably adapted to be a test of their implicit allegiance to God of their absolute faith and submission.
The LBCF 4.2, last sentence states
Confessing the Faith (Confessing the Faith)
Even so, they could still transgress the law, because they were left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject to change.
What does the Scripture say?
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
What are the issues this brings up?
What are the issues this brings up?
Divine purpose versus versus human choice
Man’s inability versus the power of Satan
The affect of fallen nature versus Adam’s and Eve’s perfect state
What does the Confession Teach About this?
What does the Confession Teach About this?
1. Are human choices voluntary?
1. Are human choices voluntary?
Creation and the Fall (Creation and the Fall)
All human choices are voluntary—that is the actualization of a preference built on the last dictate of the understanding. The confluence of all the factors that establish understanding at any given moment cause the choice, or rather they are the constituent elements of the choice, thus the voluntary action.
In that context, a process of consideration, reflection, evaluation, and resultant preference [most of the time, in light of the massive number of choices we make every day, this happens very quickly] constitutes the choice, or will.
Thus all choices, by definition are voluntary, and the voluntariness of choice makes each choice a matter of self-determination, the “self” being the moral agent that so chooses.
After Eve was deceived by Satan, he used her to seduce Adam “who, without any compulsion, did willfully transgress the law of their creation, and the command given to them” (2LC,VI.1).
2. Adam acted without any outside compulsion
2. Adam acted without any outside compulsion
Creation and the Fall (Creation and the Fall)
Though seduced himself by Eve’s own choice and her offer of the fruit to him, he transgressed “without compulsion.” Why is the concept of “without compulsion” important, both before and after the fall?
The 2LC gives a good summary of the nature of the will: “God hath indued the Will of Man, with that natural liberty, and power of acting upon choice; that it is neither forced, nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.”
All choices, therefore, are free, none of them being under compulsion, that is, none of the faculties that constitute the development of choice in a moral agent, “by any necessity of nature” as originally constituted at creation, have in themselves, a determination to either good or evil.
3. In his unfallen state was man upright in his affections?
3. In his unfallen state was man upright in his affections?
4. Is man ever seen to be immutable?
4. Is man ever seen to be immutable?
Creation and the Fall (Creation and the Fall)
The process of consideration, reflection and evaluation remains unimpaired as a natural faculty. One of the filters that aids in processing information is the state of the affections. In the unfallen state, man was upright in affections but not immutable.
Satan, therefore, appealed to the understanding through a discourse. He did not find a perverse moral propensity dominating the affections, and, therefore, engaged Eve through plausible reasoning about the way to accomplish a desirable goal.
God did not intervene to prohibit this interview and was under no obligation to do so, for he had granted them virtually unlimited freedom in their use of the garden and had given a clear and specific prohibition which they could have obeyed instead of listening to contradictory reasoning.
As “sincere and pure” in affections, Eve had the way before her to enjoy God, through knowledge of the Son of God, supremely and without any rival, and to enjoy all other things as gifts from him.
The triune God took pleasure in giving existence to all these things and gave permission for the man and the woman to enjoy them only in the manner in which he had prescribed.