happiness, glorifying and praising Him.
Do you believe this is the reason that God gives you your life, why He created you?
11. What is the source of this corruption of man?
It comes from the disobedience and fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve. By this fall, our nature has become so spoiled that we are conceived and born in sin (Ps. 51:7). “By the sin of one man sin entered the world,” said Saint Paul, “and by sin, death; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned.” (Romans 5:12).
The sign of our personal corruption for which we are responsible, is that we are pleased with ourselves in this state of sin, and apart from the intervention of the grace of God, we love sin. God does not hold the guilt of Adam’s sin against us, as though it was a sin we did not commit; the guilt of the sins and faults abound in us. For these we are, whether we wish or not—personally responsible.
We feel their testimony in our conscience (albeit intermittently).1
We know that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.1 John 5:19
Bible readings:
1. The fall of man: Genesis 3.
2. Our responsibility: Jer. 2:4–9, 12–14, 17, 21, 22, 26–35.
12. Are we so corrupted that we are completely “inclined to evil” and “incapable of doing any good?”
Yes we are lost, unable to find our Savior again for ourselves, and do his will. To be under the impossibility of loving God, of serving and pleasing Him, even despite our “wishes” and our “good resolutions,” is perdition, or “lostness.”
Can the black Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard change his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to evil. Jeremiah 13:23
Bible readings:
1. How God sees us: Romans 1:29–32; 3:9–20.
2. We are slaves to our sin: Psalm 51.
3. The slave of sin will be rejected: John 8:34–35.
13. But would it not be unjust for God to require of man in his Law those things he cannot do?
Not at all; because God created him able to do all those things. But at the instigation of Satan, man has deprived himself, and all his children, of these gifts by his wickedness and disobedience.
14. Will God allow this disobedience and fall to go unpunished?
Absolutely not! God reveals himself to be the Lord to whom belongs, by the law of creation, the right to condemn my sin.
God feels a holy wrath against sin. “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things, which are written in the book of the law, to do them” (Deuteronomy 27:26). God neither can, nor will treat the guilty as innocent (Ex.34:7).
God says about those who become hardened in sin: “But as for Me, My eye will have no pity nor shall I spare, but I shall bring their conduct on their own heads.” Ezekiel 9:10.
“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your apostasies will reprove you; know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the LORD your God, and the dread of Me is not in you,” declares the LORD God of hosts. Jeremiah 2:19
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life. Galatians 6:7–8.
Bible Readings:
1. The righteous severity of God: Genesis 3:9–19.
2. Why would I pardon you? Jeremiah 5.
3. The wrath of God: Romans 1:18–22.
We are more inclined to accept the Scripture passages we find agreeable, about pardon and love, than those that judge and condemn us. The characteristic of faith, though, is to accept and believe all the words of God. Do you accept and believe, as God says, that He can curse the sinner, hold him guilty, have no more pity on the one He rejects, because he is under no obligation to pardon, and justly bring our crimes on our heads?
15. But is God not also very merciful?
Yes! God is very merciful, and this is the first word of our faith. But he is also just. It is because his justice requires it that sin (which is committed against his sovereign majesty) must be punished in body and soul to the highest degree, which is to say, by a most severe punishment.
The Name LORD: And the LORD descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the LORD. Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands; who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.’ Exodus 34:5–7
The boastful shall not stand before thine eyes; thou dost hate all who do iniquity. Thou dost destroy those who speak falsehood; the LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. But as for me, by thy lovingkindness I will enter thy house, at Thy holy temple I will bow in reverence for thee. Psalm 5:5–7.
. . . what partnership has righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? 2 Corinthians 6:14–15
The soul who sins will die. Ezekiel 18:4
The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Romans 1:18
Bible Readings:
1. Jesus condemns sinners: John 3:17–21, 36; 5:29–30; 8:21–26; 12:47–48.
2. How will I be righteous before God? Job 9:1–20.
3. God calls me in righteousness: Job 14, 17:13–16.
Because of our sin, we are therefore condemned to death. We can no longer hope for acquittal. The sentence is pronounced by our Judge, and it appears to be without appeal! (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:14).
1. In the original, Dr. Marcel’s sentence reads, “God does not hold the guilt of Adam and Eve’s sin against us, sins we did not commit, but the guilt of sins and faults which abound in us, and for which we are . . .” A L’ Ecole de Dieu, page 33.
Part Two: Man’s Salvation and Faith in God
Lesson 3
The Necessity and the Existence of a Savior
SUMMARY: God reveals himself to me as the One who searches for me and wants to deliver me from my sin and all its consequences. Only Jesus Christ, who is true man and perfectly righteous and who is also true God, can discharge my debt, bear my
