The nature of man
Now that we have established the authority and validity of the Bible as the word of God, and its ability to stand up to scrutiny over the centuries, let’s take a look at what the Bible teaches about the nature of Humanity.
How did the world get like this?
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
God created the universe and all that it contains including humans. We also see in Genesis that: “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)
Initially, everything was good and perfect, including the man and woman that God had made, Adam and Eve. God, however, had one command for Adam and Eve.
“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ ” (Genesis 2:17)
Well, if you are familiar with the account Eve was deceived by the devil to eat from this tree, and as a result, sin entered the world and brought separation between people and God because God is holy and just and can not be in the presence of sin.
It affected all those descended from Adam and Eve including you and me. Before the fall of Man, we had a close relationship with God built on trust and His faithfulness, there was no death, disease, fear, worry, or sickness. but sin corrupted all Humanity.
Imagine a police officer that is in love with a bank robber, the police officer has sworn to defend and uphold the law, but the bank robber is guilty of breaking the law, even though the police officer loves the bank robber and wants to be with them they have sworn to uphold the law. If the police officer were to look the other way they would be corrupted and would not be good and just. In order for them to be together the legal debt must be satisfied. This is how it is with a Holy God and sinful people. In order for God to have a relationship with us our sin debt must be settled.
Since Adam was the father of the human race, his sin was passed on to the rest of humanity. Like those on a football team, when one member of the team commits a penalty, the entire team is penalized. So, it was with Mankind when Adam sinned all of Mankind became under the law of sin and death. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned (Romans 5:12).” Ever since then the devil has been deceiving people into all manner of evil and sin, even confusing what is good and what is evil. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter (Isaiah 5:20)!” That’s why we see so many lost and confused people fighting over what is right and wrong. We’ve lost sight of what is good and what is evil.
So, because of this, all of us are guilty in the eyes of God. “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God (Romans 3:11).” and “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
The Bible also says, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” (Colossians 1:21)
We were in a hopeless situation that we could not remedy on our own, sinful to the core. “but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21)
“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”
Mankind has been moving increasingly further and further from the truths of God and the wisdom of his ways. But God, like any loving father, would not settle for His beloved children to remain in the hands of Evil.
So, like the police officer, He had to find a way to be just and still settle our sin debt, because of His love for people and his desire to have a relationship with us, the sinful people He loves.
Let’s look more into who God is and see what He did to solve our sin problem.