The Nature Of Man
Man’s nature did not change when Adam sinned. The same nature in Adam that inclined him to disobey God inclines each of us to do likewise. The same nature that allowed Eve to question what God had said continues among millions today who question God’s Word. As soon as anyone entertains the possibility that God might have been wrong, he has demoted God in his own mind from Sovereign Deity. [1] If God is neither sovereign nor divine, the requirement to submit to Him does not exist. He has neither absolute authority nor the power to exercise ultimate authority; men are free to judge for themselves and follow their own thinking.
Adam and Eve were clearly shown to be able to doubt God’s word, God’s right and ability to judgement and pronouncement, and even to doubt God’s motives in setting His boundaries for their conduct . [2] The ability to doubt God, coupled with the urge to satisfy our fleshly desires, tempts men to disobedience. [3] Unless we come to have faith in God because He is God, temptation will give way to sin.
Man fell when he entertained the possibility that God had not spoken in absolute truth in regard to man’s best good. When God ceased to be fully God in Adam’s eyes, Adam sinned, and he died. [4] His essential nature had not changed, but his relationship with God changed forever.
We all as children of Adam possess Adam’s nature: a body of flesh with fleshly desires and a mind capable of either believing or questioning God. When we perceive things will satisfy us that God has clearly forbidden, we must reject one in favour of the other. If we are convinced that our sinful urge will satisfy us better than God can, or if we prefer to satisfy that urge in open rebellion against God, we have demoted God from His place as God in our own minds, and effectively set ourselves up as “God” in our own lives.
God graciously invited Adam into loving fellowship, to which He likewise invites Adam’s children. But that fellowship must be conditioned by the knowledge that God is God, Sovereign and fully Divine, the source and fullness of all Goodness, Whom we must approach with love and reverential fear.[5]
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