Did all mankind fall?

Posted on January 2, 2017 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

Question 16 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “Did all mankind fall in Adam’s first disobedience?”

The answer given is, “Since the covenant was made not only for Adam but also for his natural descendants, all mankind sinned in him and fell with him in his first disobedience.”

The fact that we are inherently fallen offends our 21st Century sensibilities. Actually, it offended man’s sensibilities in every age. Along these lines, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote:

“The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.”

Even a superficial reading of the news provides ample evidence that there is something wrong with man. Stories of war, crime, assault, abuse, neglect and selfishness can be found on every page. We see all around us the effects of the fall of man.

And lest we should be hypocritical in our thinking on this, any reflection at all will provide a man with ample evidence that there is something wrong in his own heart. I suggest that the unending production of self-help books reveals our acknowledgement that we are broken.

The problem with self-help books is that they too often provide means of addressing the symptoms rather than addressing the disease.

It is of no ultimate use to me to control myself to appear that I am concerned about my fellow’s well being when in fact, I am not in the lease concerned about him. It is of no ultimate use to suppress my anger and appear peaceful, when I would really rather have lightening come out of the sky and punish the one who made me angry. By addressing the symptoms, I can perhaps go some way toward improving how I am perceived but unless I address the source, I am one slip-up away from major disaster.

Jesus tells us that it is out of the abundance of the heart that a man speaks. Evil stuff comes out of our mouths because there is evil in our hearts. Unless our hearts are changed, very little about us will be improved, despite our best efforts.

The Christian response is to point out our need for regeneration. We need to have our hearts changed by God. In the book of Ezekiel, God tells us:

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:25–26, ESV)

In the New Testament, Paul tells us:

“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. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—” (Ephesians 2:1–5, ESV)

Aside from a work of God in our lives, we have little hope. As we proceed through the remainder of the Catechism questions, additional information on what God has done to provide correction will be revealed. Until then, let me point to the two words highlighted in bold above . . . But God . . .

What is the gospel?

Posted on December 31, 2016 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

Like many organizations, the church has its own jargon. The danger with jargon is that we can use words for which we have a fuzzy understanding. One of the words in common usage in the church is the word gospel.

At its core, the word gospel means “good news.” The English word gospel comes from the Old English and is a compound of god (good) and spel (story or message). It is a direct translation of the Greek word euanggelion which is also a compound of eu (good) and anggelion (message or announcement). This is the word from which we get our English words “evangelism” and evangelical.

But what is the gospel? How should we define it in a Christian context?

As I thought about this, I thought that I should use my Bible software to do a search of the word gospel in the New Testament to see how the gospel is described. Here is a list of things that I learned about the gospel from looking over the list along with a reference to where I found it. The list is not exhaustive; some of these appear in multiple places and I only list the reference to the first mention.

It is the gospel of the kingdom [of God] – Matthew 4:23
It is preached to the poor – Matthew 11:5
It should be preached in the whole world – Matthew 24:14
It is the gospel of Jesus Christ – Mark 1:1
It is the gospel of God – Mark 1:14
It is the gospel of the grace of God – Acts 20:24
It was promised beforehand – Romans 1:2
It is concerning [God’s] son – Romans 1:3
It is the power of God for salvation – Romans 1:16
Paul calls it “my gospel” – Romans 16:25
Paul felt compelled to preach the gospel – 1 Corinthians 9:16
It is free – 1 Corinthians 9:18
It is the gospel of the glory of Christ – 2 Corinthians 4:4
It can be counterfeited – 2 Corinthians 11:4
It can be distorted – Galatians 1:7
It is not according to man – Galatians 1:11
It contains truth – Galatians 2:14
It was preached to Abraham – Galatians 3:8
It is the gospel of your salvation – Ephesians 1:13
We become partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel – Ephesians 3:6
It is the gospel of peace – Ephesians 6:15
It was a mystery (something previously hidden) – Ephesian 6:19
It should be defended – Philippians 1:16
It will change our behavior – Philippians 1:27
It is a message of hope – Colossians 1:5
It comes in power and in the Holy Spirit – 1 Thessalonians 1:5
The gospel is opposed – 1 Thessalonians 2:2
It is entrusted to men – 1 Thessalonians 2:4
It is the gospel of our Lord Jesus – 2 Thessalonians 1:8
God calls us through the gospel – 2 Thessalonians 2:14
It is the gospel of the blessed God – 1 Timothy 1:11
It is something worth suffering for – 2 Timothy 1:8
The gospel brings life and immortality to light – 2 Timothy 1:10
It is about Jesus Christ, risen from the dead and a descendant of David – 2 Timothy 2:8
It caused Paul to be imprisoned – Philemon 13
It is preached by the Holy Spirit – 1 Peter 1:12
It is something that the angels want to understand – 1 Peter 1:12
It demands obedience – 1 Peter 4:17
It is eternal – Revelation 14:6

Perhaps there is no better way to end one year and begin another than by reflecting on the may facets of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What a gift we have been given!

By what sin?

Posted on December 28, 2016 Written by Mark McIntyre 1 Comment

Question 15 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “By what sin did our first parents fall from their original condition?”

The answer given is, “Our first parents’ sin was eating the forbidden fruit.”

In our fallenness, we are likely to respond, “what’s the big deal about eating fruit?” Why would God kick our first parents out of the Garden for this?

We have to find the answer in the nature of God and why he created us in the first place.

Love always demands a choice. God did not create us as automatons who can only perform the tasks we are programmed to do. We are not simply a collection of Pavlovian responses. We are not merely “dancing to our DNA.”

We (as represented by our first parents) were given a choice and we chose badly.

If you look at the story in Genesis 3, you see that Satan asked a question that lead to a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of God’s character. We believed the lie that God does not have our well being in mind. Satan implied, and we believed, that God was withholding a good thing from us for no good reason.

Honesty forces us to admit that we still choose badly much of the time. We want our own way and struggle to see how obedience to God is for our benefit.

But isn’t that so like us? We know that the large dessert will move us farther away from our goal to maintain our optimum weight but we eat it anyway. We know that 20 minutes of exercise before work will go a long way toward keeping us healthy, but it is so much easier to check our social media feeds or grab 20 minutes of extra sleep.

We accept a short term pleasure at the cost of long term health.

Morally, we fare little better. We are serial idolaters, giving our best to things that draw us away from God. We want what we want when we want it and can find any number of excuses as to why it is the right course of action, even when the small voice inside us tells us we are off track.

Thankfully, there is good news. There is the Gospel (which means good news). We rebelled, but God had a plan to fix what was broken, even before we broke it.

Worshipping a God without limits

Posted on December 26, 2016 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

In Romans 4:17, Paul tells us that Abraham believed in God as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.”

As the spiritual heirs of Abraham, do we really believe that this is an accurate description of God?

I am finding that while my head acknowledges many truths about God and about how the Christian life should be lived, my actual practice shows that I do not fully believe. My agitation and hesitation when difficulties present themselves demonstrate my partial unbelief.

Progress in the Christian life is demonstrated by the closing of this gap. While I still get upset about things beyond my control (or try to control them anyway), I do this less often and am increasingly more likely to leave it to God and not stress about it. So progress is being made . . .

But in reality, if we really got our heads around the truth that Paul claims in the verse cited above, our minds should be blown.

God gives life to the dead. Paul would know something about this. As a persecutor of the church, Paul was on his way to inflict further damage on the followers of Jesus when he received a brutal summons to cease and desist. Jesus confronted him on the road to Damascus giving Paul spiritual life that he never had before.

In our church life, we can have a siege mentality thinking that we need to hunker down behind our walls and keep ourselves safe from the unbelieving world outside.

On the other hand, if we believe that God is the one who brings life to the dead, that should influence how we respond to those outside the church. If God can take a murderer and turn him into the apostle that wrote a majority of our New Testament books, he can certainly bring spiritual life to the community around our church.

The second phrase in the verse quoted above tells us that God calls into being that which does not currently exist.

Since the Fall, human existence is full of broken relationships. Estranged spouses, children, parents and friends are part of every person’s experience. We often assume that this is just how it is and nothing can be done about it.

But if this description of God is true and he can call into being that which does not currently exist, then God can restore those broken relationships. Do we trust him to do so?

God can call into being employment that is so desperately needed. God can call into being whatever is necessary for you to complete what he has called you to do.

While we can often only see the limits, we are called to see beyond them. Why? Because we worship and serve a limitless God.

Did all mankind fall?

By what sin?

Worshipping a God without limits

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