“Q & A 6 Did God create man so wicked and perverse? No. God created him good and in His own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might truly know God his creator, love Him with all his heart, and live with God in eternal happiness, to praise and glorify Him.
Q & A 7 Then where does this corrupt human nature come from? The fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are all conceived and born in a sinful condition.
Q & A 8 But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil? Yes, unless we are born again by the Spirit of God.”
“I know I’m somebody ‘cause God don’t make no junk.” Those words hung at the front of my school bus in middle school. “I know I’m somebody ‘cause God don’t make no junk.”
I remember reading those words and wondering, ‘so what is wrong with me?’ Even as a kid riding the bus, I had a sense there was something faulty about me. I had the sense that if I were a manufactured product, it would be right for me to be returned for repairs. I was right. I was right about the condition of man. The same is true about you. You are not what you should be.
That poster said that God didn’t make junk, but we humans are not what we should be. Now if God is so wise in His purposes and meticulous in His works, why are we faulty? If God is so good at what He does why are we so corrupt and perverse when compared with Jesus? Why do we do the evil we want to avoid? Why don’t we do the good that we wish we would? If God doesn’t make junk, why are we so crooked?
The fact of the matter is that God didn’t mess us up. He is, however, willing to save us from what we did to ourselves. That is the claim of this sermon: God didn’t mess us up. He is willing to save us from what we did to ourselves.
We see this in three points. First: God created us good. Second: We fell into sin. Third: there is hope for the hopeless.
First: God created us good. The Catechism tackles the question put to me by that poster on that bus, “if God doesn’t make junk, why are we so crooked?” It asks, “Did God create man so wicked and perverse?” Now that is a valid question. Some of us too quickly shy away from hard questions that seem irreverent. There are probably dozens of questions that people in this sanctuary want to ask and have wanted to ask for years but they are afraid to ask aloud lest they be thought irreverent. The Catechism doesn’t share this reluctance. It asks the question that you might be afraid to ask, “Did God create man so wicked and perverse?”
If God did create us as wicked and perverse as we are, what hope do have? If God created us this way, He either is a cosmic bumbler who can’t create correctly or a malicious tyrant whom we can’t possibly oppose. If you rightly recognize that we must have been created by a being we call God and if you rightly recognize that we are wicked and perverse by nature, those are options which are on the table.
My guess is that you have asked yourself why you are so crooked by nature. If you have read Scripture, you know the most compelling answer and have stopped asking. If you haven’t read Scripture on this matter, you don’t know the answer and you need to know the answer. You have no access to that information through any of our sciences. If you are to know the answer to that most important question, it must be revealed to you.
The Scripture is this revelation. The Scriptures are not man’s best contemplations about God. They are God’s revelation of Himself and His purposes. God tells us that, of course, He didn’t create us wicked and perverse. He created us very good. In fact, after He created us, He called everything that He created “very good” for the first time.
The Catechism helpfully summarizes what Scripture says about what you were created to be. It says, “God created [man] good and in His own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might truly know God his creator, love Him with all his heart, and live with God in eternal happiness, to praise and glorify Him.”
God didn’t create you to be as wicked and perverse as you are by nature. He created you to be like Him. “God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.”
Now there are books upon books written on the meaning of that phrase “the image of God” and we only have time to do the smallest bit of justice to it this evening.
What does it mean to be created in the image of God? To be created in the image of God does not mean that you look like Him. Don’t take that language of image literally. God is Spirit and any Scriptural language about His appearance is merely literary license.
To say that man is made in the image of God means that God made Him to be like Himself. The man who most likely wrote this Catechism explains this saying, “[The image of God] is the spiritual and immortal nature of the soul, and the purity and integrity of the whole man; a perfect blessedness and joy, together with the dignity and majesty of man, in which he excels and rules over all other creatures.”
That understanding of the image of God is made up of attributes. Your soul is spiritual because you were made in the image of God and He is spiritual. Your soul is immortal because you were created in the image of God and He is immortal. God is pure; mankind was created pure. God has perfect integrity meaning He is never divided within Himself; man was created with such integrity. God enjoys perfect blessedness and joy and that is what man was created to enjoy. God rules over all creatures; man rules over the other creatures which God has made. That is a list of attributes which God created man to share with Himself.
God created mankind to be like Himself to serve as a representative of Him on earth. Some scholars think this is one of the reasons that God prohibited images of Himself in the second commandment. Man should not make any graven images of God because man is the image of God. If you want to understand something about God, look at man. That was, at least, the plan from the beginning. While a few aspects of this image of God remain, even these have been badly distorted. If mankind was created as a mirror to reflect the perfections of God, we are now a funhouse mirror which gives a rather grotesque reflection of God’s righteousness, holiness, blessedness, and integrity.
We are still, however, created in the image of God and that gives us worth. This worth is obvious in the creation account, but it was made particularly explicit later when God laid out the death penalty for murder. “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.” Man’s murder must be avenged because man has worth; he has this worth because he is made in the image of God.
You have significant worth by virtue of being created in the image of God. You can’t consider your worth without considering the worth of God. That is true for you and that is true for each person you encounter.
Now this makes our wicked and perverse nature all the more pathetic. It is one thing to see a dog eating its own vomit. It is quite another thing to see a human doing it. That thought repulsed you because man has too much inherent worth to be doing something so pathetic. He has that worth because he is made in the image of God.
Humanity’s fantastic worth makes the misery which we studied last week all the greater. When you recognize the heights for which you were created, you recognize how far you have fallen. Scripture describes the heights for which you were created as the image of God. You were created good, righteous, and in holiness. You were for uninterrupted love with God and others, and for eternal happiness and these have been lost. When you see what you are lacking, you recognize the extent of your misery.
You recognize the extent of your misery when you consider Jesus. He is the image of God. You were made in the image of God, but he is the image of God. “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” You discern your miserable nature when you compare your righteousness with his, your holiness with his, your blessedness with his, and your integrity with his.
We Christians have an excellent word to describe the difference between what we were created to be and how what have become. We call it the fall. It signifies both the heights for which we were created and its difference from the depth into which we have plunged. We see that in our second point: we fell into sin.
Joni Eareckson Tada has been in a wheelchair for decades. Now she did not invent a story of diving into shallow water as a teenager to explain to herself why she is in a wheelchair. That dive happened on July 30, 1967. Joni’s current condition is explained in terms of a historical event.
The fall into sin in the Garden of Eden is not a story we invented to explain why we are corrupt and perverse by nature. Our current condition is explained in terms of a historical event.
As a result of her dive, Joni has been in a wheelchair. As a result of the fall, our human nature has been corrupted. “Then where does this corrupt human nature come from?” asks the Catechism. “The fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are all conceived and born in a sinful condition.”
We are each so corrupt and perverse by nature because Adam and Eve sinned. A psychologist often looks into her patient’s past to understand the problems of the present. Scripture looks even further into our past to understand our problem in the present. “Sin entered the world through one man,” as Paul put it, “and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned… one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people… through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners.”
Our corrupt and perverse nature has its origin in a moral failure. This is the doctrine known as original sin. “We believe,” explains the Belgic Confession, “that by the disobedience of Adam original sin has been spread through the whole human race. It is a corruption of the whole human nature—an inherited depravity which even infects small infants in their mother’s womb, and the root which produces in humanity every sort of sin.”
You didn’t learn to sin. No one sat you down and taught you how to judge others. No one ever gave you step by step instructions on how best to lose your patience. You knew how to do that from birth. David reflected on this truth after his adultery with Bathsheba. He wrote, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” David recognized that he wasn’t pristine before this grievous sin. He had a corrupt and perverse nature from before birth.
There is liberation in that thought. If you think that you would have been whole if only you hadn’t done this act or if only that situation would have turned out differently, you are wrong. You were born with an “inherited depravity… which produces in you every sort of sin.”
You are not a victim of circumstances. You are not broken because of what you have done or even what has been done to you. You are broken because you were born a sinner. This, however, does not give you license to play the victim card. You are culpable for the sin you commit even though you were born a sinner. David didn’t pray, “God, surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me, so you really can’t expect anything other than sin.” He prayed, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb… I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight; so You are right in Your verdict and justified when You judge.”
Understanding original sin helps you understand why you are the way that you are, but it doesn’t excuse the way that you are. You were born a sinner and you are culpable for the sins you commit.
You remain in the image of God but there is distortion. Your soul will still exist eternally but, without God’s grace, this eternity will be torment. You still long for the happiness only God can provide without God’s grace you will not find it. You are still made in the image of God and that gives you dignity, but you deserve God’s wrath for what you have done with that image. You still have traces of will power and of rationality but they are quite prejudiced and partial.
By nature, man is both remarkable and remarkably corrupt. Shakespeare is right, “what a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god,” and Isaac Watts is right, “alas, and did my Savior bleed? And did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?”
By nature, man is remarkable and remarkably corrupt. You were created in the image of God and by nature you abuse that image terribly. This is all because “sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.”
The fall of Adam and Eve explains our nature, but do not judge our first parents. You would have done no better. In fact, you would have done much worse. Adam had no corrupt or perverse nature and Satan deceived him. It is only arrogance that allows you to think that you, with your corrupt and perverse nature, would have done any better.
The human situation is hopeless. Our condition is like that of Humpty Dumpty; we can’t put ourselves back together again. Study civilizations and all our attempts to put ourselves back together again. If it were possible, we would have made some progress regarding human nature. Any thought that are progressing was machine gunned down in the 20thcentury’s World Wars, Holocaust, starved populations, to say nothing of our own culture’s sins. The human situation is hopeless.
The only One who can help humanity is the One in whose image humanity is made. The only One who can help humanity is the One whose image humanity is defiling. The only One who can help the guilty party is the judge. If you are at all surprised by the fact that He has chosen to do so, you are rightly surprised by grace. We see this our last point: hope for the hopeless.
Human nature is like a shattered vase. If you have ever shattered a vase, you know how easy it was to do. If you listened as I read Genesis 3, you know how easy it was for Adam and Eve to sin. You know how easy it is to sin. It is the most natural thing in the world for the natural man. As the Catechism puts it, “But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil? Yes, unless we are born again by the Spirit of God.”
Sin is so natural that the unregenerate man can do nothing else. Now you might be thinking about neighbors or family members or a friend from school who has not been born by the Spirit of God and yet does good deeds. He is kind to his wife. She is a devoted mother. They are the best neighbors you have ever had. How can we say that such people are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil?
We can say that man, by nature, is unable to do any good because good is what God requires and no man without the Spirit will do what God requires. Paul was very clear as we saw last week, “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”
God is pleased with a man who loves Him with all his heart, soul, and strength. The unregenerate man does not love God with any of his heart, any of his soul, or any of his strength. There are plenty of unregenerate people who do what humanity might applaud but there are none who do what God will applaud and He is the judge. When they stand before Him on the final day it will become obvious that they have done nothing to submit to Him and nothing for the purpose pleasing Him and that is what He judges to be good.
The fact that man is inclined towards all evil becomes obvious when you recognize that no man comes to God on his own. What Jesus said is true of all of us by nature, “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” We all by nature run from God like Adam and Eve did in the Garden. Nothing in us is inclined towards God.
We are inclined only towards evil. The human will is not, by nature, torn between pleasing God and pleasing the self. The human will is totally devoted to itself. Human nature cannot please God and it has no inclination to please God. That is our hopeless condition.
Now it is harder to make a vase whole than it is to shatter it. For the same reason Paul considered what Jesus did far harder than what Adam did. Adam’s sin shattered the vase. Jesus’ grace restored it. “The gift is not like the trespass,” Paul wrote. “For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many… where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more.”
Adam’s sin changed human nature. Christ’s grace can do that too. The fact that Adam’s sin has changed human nature is obvious if you read any history. The fact that Jesus’ obedience on the cross can change human nature is obvious if you read any church history.
The Catechism speaks of this change as being born again by God. “But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil? Yes, unless we are born again by the Spirit of God.”
Just as what Adam did changed human nature so what Jesus did can change human nature. Paul explained how what Jesus did changed his nature. “I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
If you have recognized that you are unable to do any good and that you are inclined towards all evil, this change is possible for you. If you haven’t come to terms with your corrupt and perverse nature, you are not ready for the new birth because the new birth calls you to die to yourself. To be born again you need to be crucified with Christ. If you still want to live as you are, you aren’t ready for what Paul experienced; you aren’t ready to no longer live but have Christ live in you. Pray that God would show you your need.
If you have been born again, you know that your nature has been changed and is being changed. “Though your outer nature is wasting away your inner nature is being renewed day by day.” You know, however, that you want it completely changed. You want to be unable to sin. You want what the author of the Catechism spoke of in the new creation; “this will be the highest degree, or the perfect liberty of the human will, when we shall obey God fully and forever.”
Jesus of Nazareth is the only human who has ever enjoyed that freedom. The Son of God entered into this mess which we made at the cost of his life to save us from what we did to ourselves. He came to change people who were unable to do any good into those who will do only good. He came to change people who were unable to obey God into those who will only obey God. You know the condition into which you were born. The pertinent question for you this evening is has this condition changed? Amen.