II. THE SEPARATION.
A. We have already seen the Standard of Deity.
B. Sin Debt.
1. Inception of sin.
As we have already demonstrated this took place in the angelic realm.
2. Imputed sin.
Not only did Satan persuade some of the angels to follow him, but he was the one in the Garden who was working behind that serpent to tempt Eve.
a. The Sin – a violation of God’s law (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:6).
Now God Himself becomes a barrier between God and man. Man violated God’s holiness, therefore His justice responded with wrath. God still loved man but He could not compromise His holiness for the sake of His love. Only if there was a just way to deal with man’s sin and satisfy God’s offended holy Character could His love be experienced by man.
b. The Separation.
1. This is related to the fact that God is Holy.
When Adam sinned, a separation from a holy God took place. Thus, there is a wall, a barrier, a hindrance between God and man. That Hindrance is the very Perfection of God.
Man being sinful cannot remove that separation and come into God’s presence (Isa. 64:6/Jer. 17:9).
They used to play a game in California; it was called jumping to Catalina. They had a pier down in Santa Monica where they would play this game. Guys would take a long run and a flying leap into the Pacific Ocean. Some would go farther than others, but they all had one thing in common. None could jump all the way to Catalina, some 26 miles away. Some seemingly can jump farther to God, but none can jump far enough to satisfy God’s righteousness.
Of course, they tried:
• Self-righteousness. One inadequate way we try to deal with our sin is seeking to produce a righteousness based on our own works. We try to make up for what we have done by good deeds, especially religious deeds. But we can do nothing to make up for our sins by what we do. Judas betrayed Jesus, and, in Mt. 27:1-5, felt remorse or guilt. He launched operation self-righteousness. He went back to those and confessed he had betrayed innocent blood. But it was worthless because he was trying to do something to pay for the deed he had done by giving back the money. Adam and Eve also felt a sense of guilt immediately so they tried to hide from God. The progression: first there was sin, which immediately produced a sense of guilt; which produced estrangement from God, which brings a fear of judgment and rightly so. Their making of the fig leaves to cover themselves was an act of self-righteousness which God soundly rejected.
• Self-justification. We begin to say I am not responsible, it was not my fault. We blame society or someone else. Adam blamed Eve, it was that woman YOU gave me! In reality, Adam had no one to blame for his sin but his own choice!
• Today people try to deal with their guilt with Self-deification. They seek to deal with their guilt by saying there is no God, if there is no God then there is no standard to violate. In essence they seek to take the place of God, decreeing that their sin is really no sin at all.
Yet truth remains, there is a God, and a violation of His Person results in just separation from God unto His judgment.
2. This removed the intimacy.
• The Mind. Man’s fallen mind no longer had the capacity or the desire to know God. A radical change took place in man’s mind: It became dark (Rom. 1:21/Eph. 4:17). Dwight Pentecost noted:
By the use of this word "darkened" the apostle is emphasizing the fact that the mind of the natural man, of itself, has no power to receive light. It cannot receive divine revelations. Just as a fish born in the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky without the capacity of sight cannot respond to light-no matter how bright-focused upon it because it has no sensory perception, so the men born into this world cannot, of themselves, respond to light from God because the intellect has been darkened in respect to divine truth.
It became Depraved (Gen. 6:5); Distorted (Rom. 1:22); Denounces God’s law (Rom. 8:6-7); it has no capacity to Discover God’s revelation, nor does it want to (1 Cor. 2:14/Eph. 4:17, “empty” of the things of God); is Degenerate, totally given over to evil (Rom. 1:28); it Delights only in sensual, earthly, natural things (Rom. 8:7/2 Cor. 4:4/Phil. 3:19/Col. 2:18); Dictatorial, it is filled with conceit and pride (Col. 2:18); Defiled (Tit. 1:15/1 Tim. 6:5); is characterized by Death (Rom. 8:6).
A side note: Even as believers we still have such a mind! As one noted:
Since the mind of man is marked and designated as a reprobate, carnal, empty, puffed up, fleshly, defiled, corrupt, earthly, blinded, and dead mind, do you begin to understand, child of God, why it is difficult for you to control your thoughts? Do not be deceived into thinking that your mind has been changed because you have been born into God's family. What we have seen from the Scripture is that which describes the mind you have, which you received by physical birth from Adam.
As believers we can choose to allow that old mind to influence us.
• The emotion. The heart has become Enhardened, it is calloused and insensitive toward God (Rom. 2:5/Eph. 4:18); it is Erring (Heb. 3:10); Evil unbelieving heart (Heb. 3:12); led into Error by self-deception (Jer. 17:9/Jam. 1:26); it is Egocentric, in love with itself (2 Tim. 3:2).
It does not have a love for God, nor does it have a capacity to receive God’s love.
• The will. It is a Slave to sin (Rom. 6:16-20/Eph. 2:2). Fallen man is free in the same way a bird in a cage is free. The bird is free to move within that cage, but his life is bounded by that cage. Likewise fallen man is free to move in the element of sin (Gal. 5:16/Rom. 7:23, if this is true of believers, how much more with unbelievers who have no new nature and no indwelling Holy Spirit). It Stubbornly opposes God’s will. The fallen will cannot obey God and does not want to obey God (Jn. 6:44, 65/Rom. 3:11). As one noted:
A man, in the deadness of his will toward God, may do things that morally or ethically are acceptable and approved by society. But he can never do anything that is pleasing to God because all that he does, he does in response to the commands issued by sin, which is his master. And God cannot and will not accept obedience to sin as acceptable to Himself.
c. The Succession.
Succession means a number of people or things sharing a specified characteristic and following one after the other.
• The Representation of Adam.
Adam was a representation of the human race, and when he sinned, plunged the entire human race into sin (Gen. 3:6/Rom. 5:12/1 Cor. 15:22).
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Genesis 3:6
This is interesting; Eve was deceived, even though what she did was sin, but not Adam, he yielded with his eyes wide open so to speak.
14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. 1 Timothy 2:14
Eve was deceived when she sinned, she is guilty but not as legally responsible for bringing sin into the universe. The one fully responsible for bringing sin into mankind was Adam. Sin starts in the heart, the moment she decided not to believe God she sinned, and then she actually did it. Adam was watching the whole thing – he knew exactly what he was doing. Eve was deceived not Adam.
While both men and woman are born sinners, the sin is passed on from Adam, through the man.
1. The Choice. Rom. 5:12a
12 Therefore, just as through one man – the context is clear that the one man was Adam, in the garden.
2. The Consequences. Rom. 5:12b
sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— [in Adam].
3. The Compelling proof that Adam’s sin was imputed to the entire human race. Rom. 5:13-14
a. The Presence of sin. 13a
13 for until the Law sin was in the world – people were always sinners.
b. The Principle. 13b
but sin is not imputed when there is no law – Rom. 4:15.
c. The Proof. 5:14
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come - The logic is there was only one law given from God until Moses, that was “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree of good”…Yet with no law to break man died anyway. Why? Not because of personal acts of sin but because of being united with Adam.
D. James Kennedy notes:
For Adam and Eve, the condition was very simple: They were to simply obey one command from God— to not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And yet Adam, who was the federal head of the human race, sinned and plunged both himself and all his posterity into guilt and corruption and death… All of Adam’s descendants would be born with a sinful nature, they would grow up and express this sinful nature in all the different kinds of iniquity, they would die, and then finally they would be judged and condemned to hell. This would happen generation after generation.
Lightner notes:
The term “imputation” means putting to someone’s account what may or may not be his. It’s an accounting term…What’s is the relationship between Adam and the race of mankind? Does his sin affect the rest of the human race? The Bible’s answer is “yes.” Adam is viewed by God as the reprentative head as well as the natural head of the human race (Rom. 5:12)…What is being taught is that every member of the human family who has ever been born or will ever be born was related in some way to Adam. When Adam sinned, we sinned. He not only represented us, but we sinned in him. The potential of the entire human family was in him, so that what he did, all did in him and through him (1 Cor. 15:22).
Millard J. Erickson is helpful:
The last clause in verse 12 tells us that we were involved in some way in Adam’s sin; it was in some sense also our sin. But what is meant by this? On the one hand it may be understood in terms of federal headship – Adam acted on behalf of all persons…Our involvement in Adam’s sin might better be understood in terms of natural headship, however…the entirety of our human nature, both physical and spiritual, material and immaterial, has been received from our parents and more distant ancestors by way of descent from the first pair of humans. On this basis we were actually present within Adam so that we all sinned in his act. There is no injustice then to our condemnation and death as a result of original sin.
In other words if we had been in that garden we would have done the same thing – only probably quicker!
A hired hand was out chopping wood and he kept repeating over and over “Oh Adam! Oh Adam!” His boss happened to walk by and asked him why he kept saying that. He said, “Well, because if it hadn’t been for Adam I wouldn’t have to work.” So the boss said, “Tell you what, from now on you do not have to work at all, just come in and do what you want to. You can have the run of the place and you will still draw your pay.”
This went on for a few days and the boss said he wanted to see him. He said, “Only one stipulation. You see this box on my desk. Don’t you ever open it.” He was goofing off but kept thinking about that box, so he went in and picked it up and finally opened it. Inside was a note: “Don’t you curse Adam anymore, if you had been there you would have done the same thing!”
That is the point of Rom. 5:12, Adam was the Federal head of the human race. If we think that is unfair, just remember if we would have been there, we would have done the same thing.
Several years ago Coach Joe Paterno and his Penn State football team were playing for the national championship against Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. They probably would have won, but they had a touchdown called back because there was a twelfth man on the field. One man’s mistake affected the entire team.
Adam’ sin affected the entire human race.
• The Reception of a sin debt. This should not be that hard for us to understand, we have a national debt that is over 18 trillion dollars! It will be even greater debt then that, when we pass it on to our grandchildren. Our overspending and irresponsibility is going to be passed on to the next generation. It is the same with the sin debt. The difference is that it is possible to pay off our national debt but not our sin debt.
Joe Louis was one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time. He was champion from 1937 until he retired in 1949 defending his title twenty five times over a twelve-year span. The sad thing is, he owed the government a lot of money in back taxes, a debt that hung over his head until his death on April 12, 1981.
Few things are more discouraging then having a debt that we cannot possibly pay. And sadly we are all born with a debt, a sin debt which we are incapable of paying for.
Let’s keep it simple, if you drive 65 mph, in a 25 mph zone and a police officer pulls you over you have to pay a fine or what we might call a speed debt.
We have violated God’s law and have incurred a sin debt (Rom. 3:19-20/Col. 2:14). This is a debt that we cannot pay.
14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us…Colossians 2:14
Dwight Pentecost gives this background:
If a man was found guilty as indicted and was put in prison, it was the custom to nail that indictment over his prison cell so that any individual going through the prison could look at that indictment and know exactly why the prisoner was in prison. That indictment was a "handwriting of ordinances."
Hal Lindsey notes:
Man owes God perfect obedience to His holy laws as summarized in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. By his failure to live up to this standard of perfection, man has become offensive to the very character of God, and the eternal court of justice has pronounced the death sentence upon man. A certificate of Debt was prepared against every person who would ever live, listing his failure to live in thought, word, and deed in accordance with the Law of God. This death sentence has become a DEBT OF SIN which has to be paid either by man or if possible, someone qualified to take his place (Col. 2:14).
And we cannot even pay for one small tiny sin!
Irene Phillips opened a package of frozen peas and out came a frog! She said, “It was the most revolting thing I have ever seen. Even one of its legs was missing!” The spokesman for the supermarket responded by saying, “It wasn’t such a big frog.” That is the way many people view their sin – it’s no big deal! But as we have seen it is not sin itself that makes it such a big deal but the one we have sinned again.
When I was a kid we played, “Hurt, don’t it!” I would ask one of my friends if he wanted a hurt donut. He would look puzzled and say, “I guess so.” Then I would wallop him in the arm as hard as I could and say, “It hurt don’t it!”
Now years later, I entered the United States Air Force. I played hurt donut with a few fellow Airmen. But imagine walking up to a four star General and playing that game! Same game, same question, same joke, but very different consequences. Sin is serious because it is against Almighty God.
3. Inherited sin.
The once populous and prosperous fishing village of Houtou Wan was on one of the Shengsi Islands of China’s Yangtze River. Several decades ago, its residents were relocated, leaving all its structures to nature. Well, nature took little time to reclaim the town for its own. Today the town has been swallowed up by vegetation.
The sin nature is like that, it swallows up everything that is good and decent and leaves nothing but an on-growing slime of sin.
So we are all born with a sin nature (Psa. 51:5/Jer. 17:9/Eph. 2:3/1 Jn. 1:8).
We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. When a Frenchman, Daneil Hugon, was convicted of murder he argued that his actions were due to an extra Y Chromosome. Well, we are all born with an S Chromosome, if you will, a sin nature.
We are born with a sin nature but that is no excuse for our sin. But we do have a propensity to sin from birth. There is only one man who ever became a sinner because he sinned and that was Adam.
David Causey notes:
Our fallen, sinful nature is the real source of evil in our society. Though, for millennia, we have sought to identify society’s evil in certain individuals, in different ethnic groups, in institutions, in economics, in the lack of education, or in forms of government – the presence of evil is located in every human heart. Our sinful nature is what sabotages all our efforts to achieve peace in the world. It undermines every marriage. Our sinful nature is like a hook lodged in our soul that always drags us downward and causes us to rebel against our Creator, Lawgiver, and Judge.
That is why we are sinners no matter what we do, everything we do is tainted by sin. There is only one man who ever became a sinner because he sinned and that was Adam.
Spurgeon notes:
“Every sin that he commits helps to fill up the measure of his iniquity and there is nothing that he can do without sin being mixed with it. Solomon says that “the plowing of the wicked is sin” (Prov. 21:4 kjv). That is to say even his common actions, in performing the ordinary avocations of his daily life, bring sin upon him.”
Even when a lost man offers a sacrifice and tries to do good, it is still an abomination to the Lord (Prov. 15:8).
We are born with a sin nature with a propensity to sin from birth.
Hal Lindsey notes:
The Bible teaches that when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, they didn’t just lose their sense of fellowship with God and become unlike Him in their character; they actually had something added to them – a sin nature. Since that awful day of infamy, all men have been born with the same sinful nature, and that is the source of our sins. I know it’s hard to believe that a tiny, innocent cooing sweetly in our arms has in it a sin nature that will soon begin committing sins, but that’s what the Bible teaches from start to finish
Wayne Grudem notes:
A similar idea is affirmed in Psalm 58:3, “The wicked go astray from the womb, they err from their birth, speaking lies.” Therefore, our nature includes a disposition to sin so that Paul can affirm that before we were Christians “we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2: 3). Anyone who has raised children can give experiential testimony to the fact that we are all born with a tendency to sin. Children do not have to be taught how to do wrong; they discover that by themselves.
Our problem is that man does not realize his real problem. Robert McGee notes:
Understanding this, the term sin in these passages refers to a sin nature. The sin nature mechanism is in operation to motivate man to sin. The sin nature is not just some theoretical concept. It exists as surely as your heart exists. Treat it as some vague idea and you will be at a great disadvantage in combating it.
4. Individual sins.
We all know, only too well, what it is like, to commit acts of sin. The truth is there is not a day in our lives when we do not sin in word, thought, or deed (1 Ki. 8:46/Eccles. 7:20/Rom. 3:23/1 Jn. 1:10). I cannot imagine how much I have sinned during my lifetime. This reminded me of an investigation related to an elevator accident. A blond was put on the stand who had a multitude of inconsistencies in her testimony. The insurance company’s lawyer, irritated, said, “I suppose when the elevator began to fall, all of your sins flashed before you?” She said, “Oh no, we only dropped eight stories!” If all of our sins flashed before us, we would probably drop several trillion stories before all of our sins would have time to flash across our minds.
Trans: So our Sin Debt is a problem that separates us from God. There is imputed sin, inherited sin and individual sin.
Con:
1. So we have a debt that we cannot possibly pay. How bad is it, well let’s put it this way, as of this writing our national debt is $20,957,314,831,621! Just imagine if you as an individual had to pay that debt off by the end of this day.
2. That is nothing compared to our sin debt, and if it is not paid off by the end of our lives we will spend eternity in a place called hell.
3. The good news is that the Lord Jesus has paid it off in full as we will see later.
Joseph Hart was described as “a loose backslider, an audacious apostle, and a bold-faced rebel.” Then he came under conviction. At times he was afraid to sleep, fearing he would “awake in hell.” He went from church to church to find peace, but as he said, “Everything served only to condemn me.” Finally, at the age of forty-five, he wandered into a Moravian chapel in London and heard words of hope. On returning home he knelt in prayer. Three years later, he became a minister and began writing hymns to touch the hearts of others who had experienced similar spiritual struggles. One such hymn was “Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy.
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love, and power; He is able, He is able, He is willing; doubt no more.
Now, ye needy, come and welcome; God’s free bounty glorify; True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh; Without money, without money, Come to Jesus Christ and buy.
Let not conscience make you linger, Nor of fitness fondly dream; All the fitness He requireth Is to feel your need of Him: This He gives you, this He gives you; ’ Tis the Spirit’s glimmering beam.
Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Bruised and mangled by the Fall; If you tarry till you’re better, You will never come at all; Not the righteous, not the righteous; Sinners Jesus came to call. JOSEPH HART (1712– 1768)
C. Satanic Dominion.
Back in September 2015, CBS reported the story of a prisoner who was to testify against a suspect in a murder trial. But prison guards mistakenly placed the witness in the same cell as the murder suspect, the man he was supposed to testify against – not the place you want to be. A fight immediately broke out and it took guards several minutes to pry them apart. Both the defendant and the witness for the prosecution were treated for injuries.
The truth is that we are not only in a cage of sin, but the one in there with us is our arch enemy Satan!
1. Power of Attorney.
a. Ownership belongs to God.
Gen. 14:19, 22/Ex. 19:5/Psa. 24:1-2; 50:10-12; 89:11/ 1 Cor. 10:26.
The late Bishop Edwin Hughes once delivered a rousing sermon on "God's Ownership" that put a rich parishioner's nose out-of-joint. The wealthy man took the Bishop off for lunch, and then walked him through his elaborate gardens, woodlands, and farm. "Now are you going to tell me," he demanded when the tour was completed, "that all this land does not belong to me?" Bishop Hughes smiled and suggested, "Ask me that same question a hundred years from now."
God, not man, not Satan, not you nor I, but God the Creator and sustainer, owns this universe!
Tony Evans notes, “Satan may temporarily control a lot of this world’s assets and use them against believers, but he even does that within the limits of God’s permission. Ultimately, it all belongs to God.
We must understand that “there is no authority except from God” (Rom. 13:1). He remains the sovereign Lord of the universe!
b. Lordship over the earth was given by God to man.
26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Genesis 1:26
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Genesis 1:28
See, Psa. 8:6-8; 115:16
We might say that man was given power of attorney over the earth. Webster’s defines power of attorney as “a written authority, authorizing a person to act as the agent of the person granting it.”
J. Vernon McGee notes:
"And have dominion" is God's instruction to man. Adam was not just a gardener to cut the grass. Man was created to rule this earth. I think that Adam could control the weather just as we control the air-conditioning in our homes. He ruled this earth. This is what we see in the Lord Jesus. When He was here on this earth, He had control over nature. He could say to a storm, "Be still." He could feed a multitude with five loaves and two fishes. It is my opinion that Adam could have done all of that until his fall.
You can see this dominion in the way the last Adam exercised dominion:
• Over the fish (Mt. 17:24-27/Lu. 5:1-11/Jn. 21:1-11).
• Over the animals (Mt. 21:4-11).
• Over nature (Mt. 14:26-32/Jn. 2:1-11).
Martin Luther noted, “I am fully convinced that before Adam’s sin his eyes were so sharp and clear that they surpassed those of the eagle. He was stronger than the lions and the bears, whose strength is very great; and he handled them the way we handle puppies.”
2. Persuasive Adversary.
a. The Temptation.
As we have already observed Satan had to tempt them through a serpent which they had total dominion over. Satan was not allowed to overpower them.
b. The Turning over of their dominion to Satan.
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Genesis 3:6
From that moment, they turned dominion over to Satan. Things drastically changed:
• That they turned Dominion over to Satan was never disputed by our Lord (Lu. 4:5-8).
Hal Lindsey noted:
“In capitulating to Satan’s temptation they unwittingly turned over their God-given power and authority to Satan’s control. He became the legal controller of all who would ever be born from Adam’s seed. He also took control of the planet itself…But you may be saying couldn’t He have taken control of the power away from Satan once he’d gotten it from Adam? No, He couldn’t. You see, God is so just in His nature that He couldn’t even be unjust to Satan. A legal transference of property and power had taken place, and a legal means of reversing it would have to be found.”
Dwight Pentecost:
“Adam had to release his hold on the scepter that God had given to him when He said, “Have dominion over the earth.” For Adam could not hold the scepter and the forbidden fruit in his hand at the same time…And [Satan] was there to snatch up the scepter that Adam dropped.”
Henry Morris noted, “apparently Adam lost his God-given dominion over the earth. Satan became the god of this world.”
A most revealing verse related to this Satanic dominion is found in 1 Jn. 5:19:
19 We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 1 John 5:19
Lewis Sperry Chaffer gives us this detailed description:
First: the word "in" is the same as is used everywhere of the believer when he is said to be in Christ, and in the case of the believer it signifies an organic union to Christ - as a branch is in the vine, so the believer is in Christ. Though the word, when used of the unregenerate, probably cannot mean the same degree of organic life-relationship as exists between Christ and the believer, yet it does denote a deep relationship; and Satan is the light, inspiration, and power, of all those whom he energizes.
The second revelation in the passage is found in the word "lieth" - "The whole world lieth in the evil one." It might as well be translated "lieth asleep;" for its condition is not only a fixed position in the evil one, but is also a condition of unconsciousness. The saved ones are said to be in the Father's hand where no created thing can pluck them out (Jn. 10: 29), and underneath are the everlasting arms: so the great mass of unsaved humanity is in the arms of Satan; and by his subtlety they are all unconscious of their position and relation.
The Bible is very clear that Adam turned over his rule to Satan (Jn. 12:31; 14:30; 16:11/2 Cor. 4:4/Eph. 2:2; 6:12/2 Tim. 2:26).
Note: Some in their ignorance try to teach that Christians today can reclaim that dominion over the earth, that if we are super concerned about the environment we can transform this planet, but that is not according to the Word of God! It is interesting that after the flood the phrase “subdue the earth” is not part of the covenant given to Noah (Gen. 9:1). The Curse on the planet is still in effect (Gen. 3:17) and will not be removed until the future millennial kingdom (Rom. 8:20-22/Zech. 14:11). The first Adam’s sin was the cause of God putting a curse on the earth in the first place (Gen. 3:17-19) and it will only be removed during the Millennial Kingdom because of the obedience of the Last Adam (Heb. 2:5-9).
Satan is a cruel master! See Mt. 9:32-33; 12:22; 17:15-18/Mk. 5:4-5; 9:22/Lu. 8:27-29, 37-42/Rev. 9:14-19/etc.
January 2017, a video was published by numerous news agencies of a great white shark that was lured to the bars of a diving cage – to give the diver a “close up view” of the shark. But as the great white lunged after a chunk of tuna being suspended in front of the cage, his head became stuck between the bars. Since sharks cannot swim backward, the great white could only release himself by forcing his way into the cage. For the next 30 terrifying seconds, observers from above watched the cage – now occupied with a diver and a great white shark – bounce about violently.
• Humanity is now in the kingdom of Darkness (Ac. 26:18/Col. 1:13). We are talking about spiritual darkness. It blinds people to the gospel until or unless the Holy Spirit works (2 Cor. 4:3-4). Charles Spurgeon noted:
DARKNESS is used in Scripture to express a great many things. Sometimes it represents sorrow. "A night of weeping" is a common expression among us. We speak, too, of "walking in darkness, and seeing no light." We commonly say to one another, that our minds are in a dark and gloomy state when we are surrounded by the fogs and mists of sorrow… Darkness, too, frequently represents Satan, and the mysterious spiritual influence which he exerts upon the human mind. He is called "the prince of darkness." Darkness seems to be his element… Satan—sin—thick darkness, a darkness which may be felt, the Egyptian darkness in which we are naturally born, and out of which we are not delivered, except by the supernatural power of God… Darkness hides things. No matter how glorious yonder landscape may be as you stand upon the mountain's brow; if the sun has gone down, and if night has spread its wings over the whole, you can see nothing. It may be very well for the guide to tell you that yonder is a silver lake, and there the Black Forest, and that far away are the brows of mountains covered with their eternal snows, but you can see nothing; night has effectually blotted it all out. Now, the power of sin is just like that. It hides from the human mind what that mind ought to see. The man is lost, but he does not know it; he cannot see the rocks that are just ahead. The man has soon to stand before the bar of God and receive his sentence, but he does not know it; I mean his heart does not know it. He trifles on, caring for none of these things.
• Humanity is Described as having a relationship with Satan as a Father and his children (Mt. 13:38/Jn. 8:38, 44/Ac. 13:10/Eph. 2:2-3; 5:6/Col. 3:6).
There is an old story about a scorpion who, being a very poor swimmer, asked a turtle to carry him on its back across the river. The turtle replied, "Are you mad? You'll sting me while I'm swimming and I'll drown."
The scorpion objected, "My dear turtle, if I were to sting you, you would drown and I'd go down with you. Now where is the logic in that?"
Turtle gave it some thought and said, "You're right, hop on." The scorpion climbed aboard and halfway across the river gave the turtle a mighty sting. As they both sank to the bottom, the turtle, sighed as he asked, "Do you mind if I ask you something? You said there is no logic in your stinging me. Why did you do it?"
The scorpion explained, "It has nothing to do with logic, it's just my nature to sting."
Satan’s nature is evil and to hurt, and fallen man is just like that, he has a nature that is evil and causes only harm. It is true like father like son! If you doubt that take a look at the history of mankind.
• Humanity is Doomed to share in Satan and his demons destiny (Mt. 25:41).
So Satanic Dominion is a horrible thing, mankind is born under Satanic Dominion, living in gloomy Darkness, Described as in a family relationship with the devil, Doomed to a destiny of eternal judgment.
In November 2016, a Phoenix, Arizona mom placed her son’s parakeet cage outside for the two birds, Petey and Snowy, “to get some fresh air.” But while the mom was attending other business, a hawk swooped down, wiggled his way into the cage and proceeded to attack the two parakeets. By the time mom returned, nothing was left of Petey but a few feathers. Snowy, however, had somehow managed to evade the hawk – still trapped in the cage with her.
Mankind is trapped in a cage with one who only wants to steal, kill, and destroy (Jn. 10:10)!
D. Spiritual Death.
In medicine there is a condition known as mya-sthe-nia grav-is, in which the muscles of the body cannot respond to the signals being sent to them by the brain. In a normal patient, the brain signals the muscles to contract by sending electrical impulses along the nerves to the muscles where they are received by a special apparatus known as the motor-end-plate. The motor-end-plate receives the signal and passes it along to the muscle. In those afflicted by this disease the end-plates are missing. Consequently, although the brain sends the signal, it is never received by the muscle. Because it is not received, the muscle does not respond and eventually shrivels up.
That is an analogy of what has happened in the human personality because of the death of the spirit. In the human system, the spirit was meant to play the part of the motor-end-plates. It was meant to receive signals sent to it from God. When man sinned, however, the motor-end-plate died. Although the signals are still there, although God is still speaking, the signal is not received and the spiritual life withers.
a. Basic Concept.
(1) Definition of Death is separation.
Ryrie notes, “Death always indicates a separation of some kind, so spiritual death means a separation from the life of God in this present life (Eph. 2:1– 3).”
John Stott calls it "the most dreadful of all sin's consequences," writing, "Man's highest destiny is to know God and to be in personal relationship with God. Man's chief claim to nobility is that he was made in the image of God and is therefore capable of knowing Him. But this God whom we are meant to know and whom we ought to know is a moral Being," and we are sinners. Consequently, "our sins blot out God's face from us as effectively as the clouds of the sun.... We have no communication with God. We are 'dead through trespasses and sins' (Eph. 2:1) which we have committed."
Tony Evans writes, “Probably the hardest thing for unbelievers to grasp is that outside of Jesus Christ, they are dead. Not just a little bit ill or even barely alive, but as dead now as they will be throughout eternity apart from God’s saving grace. This is the true condition of lost people. They are the living dead because death in Scripture is separation, never mere cessation of existence. We will never stop existing, for our souls and spirits are immortal… But the Bible’s overriding concern is with spiritual death, in which the unsaved already exist, and which will become irrevocable when they die and are separated from God forever.
Imagine being created by God and for God but being allergic to God! Where you cannot come into His holy presence.
Johanna Watkins suffers from a rare genetic disease which makes her deathly allergic to just about everything, including her own husband Scott. After three years of marriage Johanna began to have severe allergic reactions to certain foods, then certain smells, and finally certain people. Her allergic disorder, called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), is a rare genetic disorder that causes her body to develop life-threatening anaphylactic reactions to virtually everything. Her face swells, her throat and airways tighten and close, and she gets terrible rashes. Because of this disorder Johanna must live in total isolation from everyone except her brother and sister – the only people her body doesn’t react to. She can only communicate with her husband - who cooks and cares for her – via Skype.
Spiritually dead people are allergic to God! They cannot come into His holy presence without judgment.
Adam went from an intimate love relationship with God to complete separation because of His own willful sin.
(2) Description of death.
(a) Spiritual death.
17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." Genesis 2:17
Spiritual death is the separation of the soul/spirit from God making man incapable of responding to the spiritual realm (Jn. 4:24/1 Cor. 2:14/Eph. 2:1, 5; 4:18-19/Col. 2:13/1 Tim. 5:6/ 1 Jn. 5:12
Erickson notes, “Spiritual death is both connected with physical death and distinguished from it. It is the separation of the entire person from God. God, as a perfectly holy being, cannot look upon sin or tolerate its presence. Thus, sin is a barrier to the relationship between God and humans, bringing them under God’s judgment and condemnation.
Robert McGee notes:
The Westminster Shorter Catechism says, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Man, however, rejected God’s purpose and chose to go his own way. Because of that rebellion, he experienced spiritual death, separation from God. Cut off from God, man had to find a new source of worth, so he turned to his performance and the approval of others.
The truth is we are born dead and spend our life pretending to be alive. I could not help but think of something I read. On April 12, 2013, news agencies reported the story of Zeng Jia, a woman in China who pretended to be dead and staged her own funeral. She wanted to see how people really felt about her. As she lay silent in an open casket, she soaked in all the praise and admiration which mourners lavished upon her. Near the end of the ceremony she “awoke” to the relief of some and the anger and irritation of others.
She pretended to be dead but was physically alive, but in the spiritual realm, it is just the opposite. We pretend to be alive but are in reality spiritually dead. How many religious people, cults, and others claim to know God apart from a personal life-changing encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, but are in fact separated from Him. There is a lot of fake news today but a whole lot more of fake life!
(b) Physical death.
5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. Genesis 5:5
Physical death is the separation of the soul/spirit from the body (Ja. 2:26).
Physical death is actually proof that man is spiritually dead. Adam would not have died physically if he had not died spiritually that day he disobeyed God.
(c) Eternal death.
Grudem notes:
The punishment of death began to be carried out on the day that Adam and Eve sinned, but it was carried out slowly over time, as their bodies grew old and they eventually died. The promise of spiritual death was put into effect immediately, since they were cut off from fellowship with God. The death of eternal condemnation was rightfully theirs, but the hints of redemption in the text (see Gen. 3: 15, 21) suggest that this penalty was ultimately overcome by the redemption that Christ purchased.
Evangelical Dictionary of Theology notes:
The “second death” (Rev. 20: 14; 21: 8), does not mean that the soul or personality lapses into nonbeing, but rather that it is ultimately and finally deprived of that presence of God and fellowship with him, which is the chief end of humankind and the essential condition of worthwhile existence. To be bereft of it is to perish, to be reduced to utter insignificance, to sink into abysmal futility. An automobile is said to be wrecked, ruined, destroyed, not only when its constituent parts have been melted or scattered away, but also when they have been so damaged and distorted that the car has become completely unserviceable.
b. Intrinsic Cause.
(1) As we have seen the Source is Adam.
He died Immediately in his spirit…
He died gradually in his soul…
He died eventually in his body…
(2) The Course.
As we have previously seen his sin effected the entire human race (Rom. 5:12/1 Cor. 15:22/etc.).
Trans: It is both sad and sickening to watch a Fallen, spiritually dead society try to pretend it is alive! It reminds me of California’s drought of 2015 when the state enforced measures to conserve water. Swimming pools remained empty, public fountains were turned off, showering and bathing were curtailed, restaurants would only give water to drink upon request, and lawns were turning brown everywhere. State sponsored commercials attempted to turn popular opinion against green lawns, advising them to “Get down with brown.” But these proved ineffectual. Only dead grass is brown, green is alive.
Under these circumstances an obscure business erupted across Southern California – lawn painting. Landscaping businesses with names like Xtreme Green Grass, Lawn Lift, and Lawn Paint Pros sprung up everywhere to transform the looks of dying lawns from blotchy shades of brown to a lush green. They did it by spray painting dried up lawns with a vegetable-based green dye. Of course, the dye wouldn’t last. Every couple of months the dye had to be reapplied to give the appearance of a living lush lawn.
That’s mankind without Christ, they spray paint with religion and synthetic fun to give the appearance of life – but sooner or later reality sets in. Death is death! Therefore, we have an insurmountable barrier between God and man, the Standard of Deity; the Sin Debt; Satanic Dominion; and Spiritual Death.
Hal Lindsey notes:
“So here we have the complete picture of the universal barrier which separates man from God. Man can’t tear the barrier down and he can’t climb over it by his own efforts. In fact, he can’t even climb over with God’s help. The barriers must come down, and God alone can do that. You will meet people every day who say they have no need for God and don’t feel any of the barriers we’ve looked at…I may visit the doctor, and he could say to me, “Hal, you have a severe illness which proper treatment can completely cure.” “But, Doc, I don’t feel sick!”…God says we have a problem. That problem is called sin.”
Our problem is the Standard of Deity; our Sin Debt; our Satanic Dominion; and our Spiritual Death – producing a barrier that no one but God Himself could ever remove.
Johnny A Palmer Jr.
