And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
(Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV)
The natural human condition is one of hopeless bondage. The unregenerate man is, in scriptural terms, dead. Dead to love. Incapable of unselfish kindness. Intolerant of others. While he may be unaware of any of this, the natural condition of man is complete and utter servitude to evil.
These are hard words. The enemy has done a good job of making us think that deep inside of us there is some kindness, some gentleness of human spirit that longs to overcome evil. Because of this, we cannot understand the cruelty we see around us at times. We judge others as being ‘good people’ or ‘bad people’ based on an understanding of human righteousness we call morality. We categorize behavior as if there were some way in which human beings of themselves can become holy. We mistakenly assume that people are acting of their own free will and choosing to be what they are.
Paul tells us that as unregenerate persons we are sons of disobedience. Outside of walking in the Spirit (resting in our regnerated nature) we will carry out the desires of our bodies and minds; and every one of those desires is evil. We do not act out of free will because there are forces at work in our lives (and our bodies, according to Romans 7) which are beyond our control. There is a reality that lies outside normal human experience which we may only perceive by faith in Jesus Christ. This is not to say that what we see is not reality. What we see – what we are – is all too real. But there is a reality that cannot be seen which is every bit as tangible as the one we can see.
On the surface, this is an incredibly bleak outlook of human nature. It means nothing less than that we are doomed; doomed to live a life of inescapable evil, doomed to the judgment of a righteous God. Incredibly though, in God’s economy it is this very hopelessness that leads to the only hope. It is our acceptance of who we are that allows us to understand that we are untrustworthy to the point that we stop trusting in ourselves. The recognition that free will is an illusion leads us to stop trying to ‘choose’ God’s will in contradiction to the desires of our bodies and minds and begin resting in His grace alone. Christ has set us free to be what we mistakenly believe we already are, if we are willing to accept that we are not free to begin with. Indeed, if we are naturally free why did Christ die to free us?
Nothing we can do will carry us further to God than Christ has carried us already. He has done all the work. He has sacrificed himself for our freedom. We need to rest in that knowledge. The process of bearing fruit is an organic one. A good tree just naturally bears good fruit. Only Christ can make us good trees – no amount of effort on our part can accomplish that. We must let ourselves, as Christians, just be what we are – what God has declared us to be in Christ. Then, and only then, are we truly free.
God Bless
Nothing we can do will carry us further to God than Christ has carried us already. He has done all the work. He has sacrificed himself for our freedom. We need to rest in that knowledge. The process of bearing fruit is an organic one. A good tree just naturally bears good fruit. Only Christ can make us good trees – no amount of effort on our part can accomplish that. We must let ourselves, as Christians, just be what we are – what God has declared us to be in Christ. Then, and only then, are we truly free.
God Bless
No comments:
Post a Comment