I have been thinking of the “depravity of
humanity” lately (seriously, I have been. Just watch the news and you can’t
escape it), and this week we are studying humanity, both our depravity and also
the love God has for us.
Have you ever thought about out of all of
us seven billion people, none of us, not
one, are perfect? Do you every think that maybe God has some
responsibility in the defect of our design? Have you ever wondered like Paul
says, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will? … Why have You
made me like this?”
(I am treading lightly on this because Paul’s
inspired response was “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? … Does
not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel
for honor and another for dishonor?”) See Romans 9:19-20 (NKJV).
Why are we humans so
depraved, so sinful, so mean and evil to one another? There is a biblical
answer and hopefully by the end of the week, we will have a deeper understanding
of our wickedness…and how God still loves us.
When my two sons were younger, one of them
asked me this question, why did God
create us so prone to sin? It was a good question and like all good
questions, it made me think to come up with an answer.
If we go all the way back to the beginning
to Adam and Eve, they were created sinless and innocent, but they were not
perfect. They were still given the freedom of choice. In fact, you might think
it was careless for God to place the forbidden fruit “in the midst” (or in my
translation “the smack-dab middle”) of the garden of Eden. Why was the tree so tempting
and why did the fruit look so appealing (pardon the pun if you think it was an
apple).
And while we are asking, who let that smooth-talking
serpent come into the garden?
Going even further back, the Bible doesn’t talk a lot about how Satan and the demons were formed, but
from Genesis to Revelation, there is no mistaking it, there is a real and literal
devil and his entourage of fallen angels. We can surmise that Satan was created
not just sinless and innocent like Adam and Eve, but he was created without having
a tempter to tempt the one who would become the ultimate tempter.
When Satan or Lucifer fell, he was not
tempted by a choice or a forbidden fruit or by some design flaw, but rather he
fell because he was created so perfectly and so beautifully that he thought he
could ascend to become like the Most High (I base this on Isa. 14:13-14).
Getting back to my sons’ question, I turned
it around to them. “Which would be
better?...
…to be born perfect (or in the angels’
case, created) and if you sinned once, you would be forever damned to torment
in hell…
or
…to be born as a sinner (as all of us born
after Adam and Eve) and if you did just one thing right by accepting God’s
forgiveness through Jesus Christ, you would be forever blessed with eternal
life.”
I and my two boys agreed that it is far
better to be in the latter category than the former with the fallen angels and
that smooth talking serpent.
This week we will be looking at humanity
and ponder the musings of one of my favorite hymns which says, “and wonder how
He could love me, a sinner, condemned unclean.”
