futility and restoration

Man cannot control his behavior. Though we as humans have been created in the image of God, we are unable to feel, think, or act like God apart from His help. Many have said that God’s kingdom will be a restoration of Man to the state of Adam, before the fall in the garden of Eden. In this state, Adam had perfect communion with God and was without sin. Adam and Eve walked in the cool of the night with God, unhindered. As far as we know, their lives were fulfilling and had purpose. A yearning wells up in us to return to that same close walk with our Creator and Father.

Adam and Eve had perfect communion with God until they disobeyed Him. Disobedience comes from willing to do wrong, or not willing to do right. It does not seem apparent to us that we will disobey until God tests our wills. The choices we make during our time of testing set in motion either our obedience, or our disobedience. Because the will of the first man resulted in disobedience, all creation has been subjected to futility from that point on. The fulfillment of our lives and the purposes for which we live are now hid in Christ in God, and we cannot find them without His help. God saw it necessary to subject us, and all creation to futility until a time when we would be glorified as His sons. The necessity of this futility was to make apparent to Man that he was the created, and not the Creator. It is God who is in control, and it is He who creates and sets changes into motion.

After Adam, men did not have an awareness that they made mistakes, and in fact, each man thought that what he did was good. To open men’s eyes to their nature, God gave Man the law, and apart from the law, the concept of sin was unknown. The law brought knowledge o f sin (Rm 3:20 & 7:7-8). By teaching men right from wrong a standard was set, and as a man’s conscience developed, guilt became a governor over his actions. Guilt was the warning sign that the standard had been violated by a person’s will.

Because of knowledge of sin, Man learned early on that his nature needed to be under control. And yet, the law did not enable him to perfectly control his nature, and he did not permanently change by keeping the law. So men, being in the image of God, came to know they were less than God. No matter how powerful men were, they could not change or recreate their selves to restore their relationship to what Adam had with God. This represents the futility Man, and all creation, was and is subjected to (Rm 8:18-21).

The power to re-create man’s nature came with the victory of Christ. God sent His Spirit into us who believed so that we could know His desires (Rm 8:5). Instead of feeling dead inside or guilty because of the knowledge of our shortcomings, we feel the Life of Christ inside. Our spirits literally touche the Holy Spirit inside of us, and we become acquainted with His righteousness. In fact, Paul wrote that he did not want to have a righteousness of his own by keeping the law, but one founded in faith in God (Phil 3:9).

When we receive the Holy Spirit, He then gives us new and better things to think about, thereby taking our focus off the desire to sin. Our communication with God is restored. If we prefer our new Life with God, we will neglect and eventually clean up the disobedience to righteousness that we call our fleshly nature, or our “flesh”. (Rm 8:11). This new Life living in us gives us the power to change, from our will being in agreement with God’s heart. But we will change only if we choose the new Life over our old ways of death (see also Eph 4:20-24).

What happens if a man partakes of the Life in the Spirit and then changes his mind, preferring the old ways of his flesh instead? He will eventually become mastered by his sins. In other words, it is worse than losing the new Life of the Spirit inside; he will also lose his sense of right and wrong. He will not feel guilty when he sins. To forsake God and enter back into sin and the flesh, a man must harden his heart against the Holy Spirit and sear his conscience.

When a Christian returns to his former way of living, without a governor over his thoughts to tell him right from wrong, justification will rise up. In the absence of guilt, or because of the abhorrence of guilt, a man will justify wrong and neglect doing right, and so his heart will become hardened to the counsel of God and his conscience.

Men who forsake the truth they have known may also establish their own set of religious thoughts that enable them to do as they please. Though they once heard what pleased the Holy Spirit, they have rebelled against serving Him and now want to be served. He who fools himself into believing that he is like God will create his own truth. Yet the man that allows his will to fall under subjection to the desires of the Holy Spirit will hear God’s truth and walk with Him.

Love of the truth will keep a man from creating an erroneous religious thought-life (2 Thess 2:10). And love of God’s righteousness will keep a man from returning to sin. Today let us walk in the Spirit and in love of the truth. Amen.