“Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”
(Ephesians 2:3)
In its most elemental form, sin is the transgression of God’s Law. Of course, the first evidence of such transgression was the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden. At that moment God’s covenant with Adam was breached and original sin was born, resulting in the state of contrariety of the whole nature of man to the Law of God. Adam’s descendants therefore, by nature, are since averse from all good and inclined to all evil (Eccl. 8:11; Gen. 6:5; Rom. 6:20) and are described here in Paul’s words as “the children of wrath.”
This original sin is not only our ancestral inheritance; it is the stage on which a life of continual disobedience to the Law of God plays out (aka actual sin). Original sin is the root; actual sin is the fruit. This reality explains why man is not inclined to any spiritual good (Isa. 1:11, 65:2-3; James 1:14-15).
As Thomas Shepard remarks, “Because we were in him [Adam] as members in the head, as children in his loins, as debtors in their surety, as branches in their roots, it [follows] that as if he standing, all had stood by imputation of his righteousness, so he falling, all should fall by the imputation of his sin.”[1]
But the Almighty God is author and orchestrator of all evil as well as all good. And in his divine will and plan, he uses evil to accomplish his purposes and demonstrate his glory and power over the forces of darkness. One Old Testament example is found in Habakkuk 1:5-11, a passage which relays how God raised up Babylon and caused this pagan empire to come to power. And then, through them he accomplished his purposes of executing judgment on his people Israel for their blatant and continued disobedience and rejection of his statutes. And of course, the most epic of all examples is that God allowed his own Son to be brutally murdered by evil, wicked men (Acts 2:23) so that he could crush Satan’s head and demonstrate his glorious victory over death and hell.
We should therefore not despair of the sin that abounds in the world, knowing that God controls and manipulates evil to display his own glory, for the whole of evil cannot hold in the light of God’s infinite goodness and unfailing love. And though he cannot abide with the least transgression in the best of his creatures (Rom. 2:3), no depths of wickedness are so great that his infinite grace, mercy, and love are not sufficient pardon to pave the way for those who seek him to enter the court of his favor once again (Rom. 5:8; Eph. 2:12-13).
Contemplations:
- Lord, death was the promised consequence for Adam’s breach of the Law which I inherited as his offspring. And yet Christ, having paid the price for my sin in his bitter sufferings, both of body and soul, abolished sin and has become my redemption from sin and victory over death.
- Christ is God’s only begotten Son. On the other hand, believers who by nature are the children of wrath can become sons of God only by adoption and grace (John 1:14; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 2:3).
- Lord, we were all guilty of the same breach of Covenant with Adam, being all in him as our head. Our souls with his were deprived of that holiness, innocence, and righteousness in which they were first created. From the point of conception, we are all marred and defiled by sin, being subject to the curse of the Fall.
- It is needful for us to know these two truths. First, that we are all by nature, in and of ourselves, vile and wretched creatures, deserving nothing but death and damnation. Second, we also must know that there is no way to be saved apart from Christ, and so we receive him, because we cannot be redeemed from sin and death apart from him.
Further references for Eph. 2:3:
Rom. 5:12; Gal. 5:16; Psalm 51:5; Gen. 5:3.
[1] Thomas Shepard, The First Principles of the Oracles of God (London: Printed for John Rothwel, 1655), 9.
