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God's Remedy For Sin in the Judgment Hour
William Diehl
The sin nature that all the natural-born descendants of Adam inherit is not passed on to us through the genes or our biological makeup. That is, our sinful nature is not due to a biological transference from our father or mother as Augustine believed through the marriage union of a man and a woman.
Rather we are born alienated from God by a Legal and a Moral inheritance from Adam.
What does that mean? Well, because of Adam and Eve's sin, all of the human family has legally been sold into the slavery of sin and are born as rebels into the kingdom of Satan. Just as the children of a slave are not born as free men and women, but rather they are born as bond-servants just the same as their parents are bond-servants. This bondage is not because of any biological transference from the parents, but rather is because they are LEGALLY in bondage to slavery unless they become legally emancipated.
So the primary sense in which we are all born into this world separated from God is due to our legal separation from God, because of Adam's headship of the human family. Legal condemnation came upon the entire family of Adam as the result of the Fall. Because of Adam's sin we are born under the "curse of the Law", that is, death. The human family is now born separated from the union with God which Adam enjoyed prior to the fall. In Adam all are legally separated from fellowship with God. The death sentence of Adam came upon the entire human family.
However, besides being legally separated from God, there is also another sense in which we are separated from God. Once Adam broke his covenantal union with God, he lost the indwelling Holy Spirit which gave Adam the power and will to be morally obedient to God and to reflect the moral image of God in his nature. At the Fall the Holy Spirit departed from Adam and Eve and they were left naked and with a moral bent in their human nature which inclined them to sinful self love which defaced the original unselfish moral image of God in mankind. The carnal mind is not subject to the Law of God and neither indeed can it be.
To summarize regarding the fall of man:
Sin and suffering and death entered God's perfect creation as a result of Adam and Eve's first act of rebellion against God. Because of the original sin of Adam, all are now born separated from God. All are sinners and:
1.) we all are born legally separated from God and under the condemnation of God's holy Law.
2.) we all are born without the indwelling Holy Spirit and thus posess a carnal mind and heart with a natural propensity towards sin.
3.) because of number 1 and 2, we all sin willfully by thought, word, and deed.
Legal Separation: We who are born after the natural order are sinners and are born legally separated from God, because Adam and all his descendants have been sold into the slavery of sin due to Adam's original sin of seeking to be God. Just as parents who are slaves give birth to children who are slaves, so it is that all the natural-born sons and daughters of Adam are born into the bondage of sin and are the legal bond-servants of Satan and his kingdom. The children have no legal right to be free and are servants of the kingdom of darkness as surely as are the parents. (Legal corruption)
Moral Separation: All who are born after the natural order of things have sinned and all continually fall short of the glory of God. We who are born after the natural order are sinners in moral nature, because when Adam sinned he cut off himself and his descendants from the original indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The natural heart of fallen man is selfish, unholy, unkind, unloving, pompous, self-righteous, and despises God's holy Law of unselfish love for God and neighbor: the Ten Commandments. All of Adam's natural descendants are born without the Holy Spirit and hence the heart and mind of Man has a sinful nature which is morally polluted with inherited (this is a spiritual inheritance NOT a biological inheritance) tendencies and propensities to sin. (Moral corruption)
Active Separation: We who are born after the natural order are sinners by our deeds because all the natural born children of Adam actively cultivate sin and willfully sin in thought, word, and deed. (Active corruption)
Jesus Christ a New Creation
Christ's Human Nature: Our Lord Jesus Christ however was not a sinner and neither did he have a sinful nature or carnal heart. While He was born with a body that was AFFECTED by sin, He was not INFECTED with sin in any way. His person was absolutely holy and undefiled. He was NOT born a sinner legally separated from God. Also, He was born with the fullness of the indwelling Holy Spirit and had no propensity to sin. He never sinned in thought, word, or deed.
Christ's human nature was NOT born after the natural order of things. His human nature was born as the result of the overshadowing of the virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. Christ was made in the "likeness" of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3) and He was tempted in all points as are we but yet "without sin". Christ did not have a fallen sinful heart with an inclination or propensity to sin like we all have. Our Lord Jesus Christ was NOT born in sin. That is, He was not born legally separated from God through Adam's sin. His human nature was conceived of the Holy Spirit from His conception in His mother Mary. Christ's human nature was NOT that of the natural children of Adam. The human nature of Christ was the result of the union of Mary and Holy Spirit to produce a New Adam with no legal or moral separation from God. Thus, Christ's human nature received from Mary was AFFECTED biologically by nearly 4,000 years of sin, but His human nature was not INFECTED with natural propensities and a bent to sin. Only of Christ's human nature could the angel say of the baby conceived in Mary, "And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the HOLY THING which is begotten shall be called the Son of God." Luke 1:17
Christ's Divine Nature: But this is not all that was involved in the incarnation of Christ. Christ's human nature was the "tabernacle" in which dwelt the Son of God, the eternal Almighty God who had existence from all eternity.
The Son of God, the second person of the Deity, Jesus Christ, did NOT receive His divinity from the Holy Spirit when the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary to conceive Christ's human nature. Christ's divine nature as the Son of God existed from all eternity as the Logos who was one with the Father from all eternity. Christ has from eternity been the visible manifestation of the invisible transcendent Father whose face no created being has ever seen.
The transcendent and unseen Father has always been revealed to His creation as the eternal Son of God, the Word, who is the visible manifestation of the unseeable Father. Christ is the knowable expressed image of the unknowable Father whose face no creature has seen. Christ has always from eternity been God's communication or "Word" to universe. Thus to see Christ is to see the Father. Christ is the revelation of the Father to all the created order.
When our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, His human nature died, but His divine eternal person as the Son of God did not die. But yet because of the incarnation of Jesus Christ as both the Son of God and the Son of Man, when Christ's human nature died upon the cross, He paid the legal debt that we owed to the Law of God for the salvation of the entire human family.
Christ was NOT a sinner in ANY way. When Christ died on the cross, our sins were legally IMPUTED to Him, laid upon Him vicariously or substitutionally.
"He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Cor 5:21 The phrase "made to be sin" is a substitutionary phrase from which the Christian faith derives the very heart of its doctrine of the vicarious atonement for sin. It is this doctrine of the substitutionary atonement which is being DENIED by Jack Sequeira in his mistaken interpretation of the "in Christ motif". He denies the legal substitutionary atonement of Christ and seeks to replace it with a teaching that makes Christ's atonement for sin to be solely a matter of genetic biological sinful flesh which was put to death on the cross. This is why Sequeira must insist that Christ took our sinful carnal nature in His incarnation. The atonement according to Sequeira was a matter of putting to death the sinful human nature which he assumes that Christ took upon Himself.
But sin is NOT a matter of biological inheritance. Sin is a matter of legal guilt as Paul clearly tells us in Colossians 2:13 "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross." Paul is telling us here that the LEGAL INDICTMENT which contains all the charges and crimes and sins that are against us is what was blotted out at the cross.
The "sinful nature" which all sinners receive from Adam is a matter of the CARNAL MIND not a matter of the CARNAL BODY. The carnal heart is what is at enmity with God NOT our physical nature or body. The term FLESH as Paul uses it in his epistles is a matter of fleshly "mind" not a matter of biological inheritance of the body. This is the context of the message that Paul is presenting in Romans 1-8. That is, the carnal sinful heart and mind of man is born in spiritual AND legal slavery to sin. The sinless life and shed blood of Christ answers all the legal demands of the Law of God, because God legally IMPUTED the sins of the world unto Christ. The sins of the world were not IMPARTED to Christ through His flesh or his biological inheritance. The sins of the world were placed upon Christ SUBSTITUTIONALLY or VICARIOUSLY.
The Law of God demands that all sinners should die. Christ as the second Adam paid our debt to the Law and redeemed us by paying the purchase "price". God could now legally allow all who by faith repent and confess Jesus as their Savior and Lord to be set free from the condemnation of the Law. This is the meaning of the term, "Justification", that is, to be declared legally innocent and righteous before the Law of God on the basis of Christ's doing and dying as the "guilty One" upon the Cross. The Guiltless One was declared to be the Guilty One for us and our salvation. Those who believe in Christ as their Savior are forgiven and then given the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit to begin the life-long work of sanctification which is a process of taking on the mind and character of Christ. In sanctification, the Law of God begins to be written upon the heart and mind of the believer as he grows up and matures in Christ.
But no matter how sanctified and holy a believer may become, he must always only trust in the imputed or reckoned righteousness of Christ for his hope of acceptance with God. This is because our sanctification always falls short of the perfect righteousness of Christ. Even the most Christ-like believer is only a faint reflection of the goodness and holiness of Jesus. So at every step in the Christian life, the repentant believer must always be justified and forgiven by faith in the sinless life and atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
How could the death sentence be set aside? Because Jesus Christ as the second Adam lived a sinless life equal in every respect to the broadest demands of the Law for righteousness. The life that Jesus lived on earth was the very righteousness of God Himself. Christ has thus been made unto us our righteousness and our sin bearer for all the sons and daughters of Adam who by faith repent of the their sins and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. God justifies only those who are "in Christ". Those who are not in Christ are not justified. Paul's point in Romans 5 is not that Christ has justified the whole world at the cross, but rather that "all" who are "in Christ" by faith are justified. Being justified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Whosoever will call upon the name of Jesus in contrite repentance for the forgiveness of their sins shall be forgiven indeed, be infilled by the Holy Spirit, and inherit the promise of eternal life!!!
The benefits of Christ's sin-atoning death upon the cross of Calvary are OFFERED to "all" the world, but the atonement is only EFFECTIVE for all who personally call upon the name of Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord and daily call upon Him for forgiveness and cleansing from both the penalty of sin and the power of sin. Those whom He justiflies He also begins to sanctify by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Acts 3:18-19 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled.
Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,
Hebrews 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
Hebrews 10:16-17 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Without a doubt, in Christ Jesus, God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, and received into glory to be the eternal Mediator between God and Man. Eye has not seen neither ear heard nor entered into the heart of Man the things that God has prepared for those who love Him. But He has revealed them unto us by His Spirit.
Bill Diehl
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