November 08, 2010
Graffiti – Part 1
We just spent $3,000 having a new cement driveway poured and two young, middle school girls on their way home from school decided to leave me their autograph. Thankfully my visitor at the time looked out the window and alerted me to what had happened and I caught up with the young ladies half a block away. They were scared when I confronted them and one of the girls not only denied their involvement, but accused some imaginary students across the street of being the culprits. The evidence however was indisputable. Not only was there a witness, but each of the girls had written their own last name. Spiritually speaking, when we sin we often think we can get away with it. The reality is that our name and our fingerprints are all over the sins we commit.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Kids just don't think through their actions sometimes....this was funny. Yes our sins are our own....and we are accountable for them and no one else. This is why I disagree with the 'original sin' concept held by some churches, that I am born a sinner because of Adam and Eve's transgression in the garden. I am responsible for what I do not what my parents do or don't do......but if parents don't teach their children the ways of the Lord then they are held accountable for that too.
Have a blessed week. :)
Lisa;
-----I agree. There is no concept that is either an excuse to sin or an excuse for sin. Every person is responsible for his own right or wrong. I, too, shy away from the concept of original sin. It tends to legitimize these excuses. However, I recognize its effort to explain Romans 5:19, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous,” and I Corinthians 15:48-49, “As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” Because Adam sinned, there is something that places all men into the category of Adam.
-----Could it be something in his genetics? God pronounced Adam and Eve to be very well created, and that had to include their created DNA. Before their disobedience, DNA combination would have operated perfectly, still being part of what was well created. But afterward became different. Although genetics do a remarkable job of constructing offspring after its own kind into reasonably well functioning bodies and minds, it does not do so perfectly. Although God formed the DNA for combination with Mary’s DNA to conceive Jesus, Mary’s DNA yet contained the same genetic flaws passing down from Adam and Eve’s first offspring. Yet Jesus endured His entire life without one sin. I don’t know if the perfection of God’s DNA completely trumped the imperfections of Mary’s, thereby giving Jesus a perfect body, but I doubt it. Scripture intimates that He was no special, physical specimen to behold. I rather believe He had to bear with the same physical nature as all others. I believe our faulty genetics press us to sin by taking any route easier than actually coping with the resulting flaws and praising God anyway. But that is an explanation, not a cause or an excuse. Moreover, Jesus did not pass His genetics along as a cure for the condition Adam occasioned.
-----There is another real difference Adam and Eve’s disobedience made which Jesus’ obedience cured. Before they disobeyed, Adam and Eve had a complete fellowship with God. Everything about their physical existence was good by God’s own proclamation. They agreed with all of God’s ambitions, intentions, and desires. They could participate in Who He was because they were, without reservation, in agreement with Him. Therefore, because of their perfection, God could participate in who they were, also in agreement with them. But when they disobeyed, that one simple flaw became fatal to their mutual participation with God. Their ways had to part. Since their flaw carried to the place God created for them (Rom 8:20) they were left to bare their children into this place of no fellowship with God. Flaw and error has become the way of this place so certainly that whatever is born into it proceeds in its nature, save Jesus.
-----Being the second Adam, Jesus was as much a new creation as He was another man. His total obedience to God while living in this place of flaw and error gave Him ground for fellowship with God. In as much as God subjected the creation to a futility crushing in weight to any perfection born into it, through the second Adam’s resistance to that crushing pressure He recons righteousness to those who approach Him through Jesus’ nature (that is, in His name.) Then God makes the first link of reestablished fellowship by the indwelling of His Spirit. ‘Original sin’ is neither an excuse to sin nor for sin, it is simply a condition of existence. Grace is neither an elimination nor a justification of sin, it is simply a condition of fellowship.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment