Life On the Lowest Plane
The Rule of Sin Over Man
Sin is a despot and the Bible shows very clearly that man came under the despotic rule of sin. Sin not only "entered" and "abounded", but it also "reigned" in man (Romans 5:12, 20, 21). He lives under a threefold bondage, from which it is impossible for him to extricate himself.
He is In Bondage to Sin
John 8:34, "Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bond-servant of sin."
He is in Bondage to Self
"2 Corinthians 5:15, "And that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."
He is in Bondage to Satan
"2 Timothy 2:26, "And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will".
The natural man is in helpless captivity to sin, self and satan.
The Ruin Wrought by Sin in the Human Personality
Not only were all men drawn into the whirlpool of sin but all of man was ruined by its pollution. Man's personality was corrupted at the very center and the dry rot of sin contaminated his whole being from center to circumference. Death breathed upon spirit, soul and body its destructive fumes. Sin stalked over the human being, that beautiful thing created in the image of God, and left its deadly trail everywhere, marring it until scarcely a trace of Godlikeness could be found. Sin caused civil war within the human personality.
Sin Made the Human Spirit a Death Chamber
The blasting breath of death first touched the human spirit. Sin closed the windows of the spirit Godward and made it a death chamber. Sin severed the human spirit's relationship with the divine Spirit.
Ephesians 4:18, "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart."
Sin also dethroned the human spirit as sovereign over the human personality and made it a captive, nay, even a slave. Both soul and body were permeated with sin and were brought under sin's control. Each claimed and sought an equal right to the rule of man. The immediate effect of sin was the complete inversion of the relationship between the spiritual and the physical in human nature. The fall of man from the plane of the spiritual to the plane of the natural took place.
"In the fall the soul refused the rule of the spirit and became the slave of the body with its appetites. Man became flesh; the spirit lost its destined place of rule, and became little more than a dormant power; it was no longer the ruling principle but a struggling captive. And the spirit now stands in opposition to the flesh, the name for the life of soul and body together in their subjection to sin."
So the natural man, "who is born of the flesh" is flesh. He is of the earth, earthy, and dominated by the flesh rather than by the spirit. The human spirit is darkened, deadened and dethroned.
Sin Made the Human Soul a Ruin
Sin invaded the realm of the soul and laid hold upon the intellectual, emotional, and volitional life.
1. The mind of man was blinded.
2 Corinthians 4:3, 4 "But if our gospel be hid, to them that are lost:
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."
Titus 1:15, "Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled."
Colossians 1:21, "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled."
God's first man was made with the capacity for knowing God and one cannot help but believe that had Adam continued to live his life entirely within the circle of God's will that capacity would have been enlarged and enriched. But he sought knowledge God had willed he should not have. By that one act of self-will he placed his intellect outside the circle of God's will. He had the knowledge of evil but he had neither the wisdom nor the power to resist it. As a result sin wrought such ruin in the mind of man that God was compelled to say "that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5). He even calls evil, good and good, evil.
Separated from God man's mind became so darkened that his thinking is materialistic. "God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." God is eternal and spiritual and can never be apprehended by what is merely temporal and natural. Apart from living union and communion with God the operation of the human intellect is entirely withing the realm of material things.
Separated from God man's mind became so darkened that his thinking is sensual. The soul, unaided by the spirit, in its struggle with sin is open to continuous and terrible temptation through the body.
Separated from God man's mind became so darkened that his thinking is rationalistic. Being outside of God's will his thinking is inevitably outside of God's thought. His wisdom is not God's wisdom: in fact God draws a clean-cut line between His wisdom and that of the natural man.
1 Corinthians 1:20, 21 "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 18)
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