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Neo-Calvinism Part 5: Creation,
FALL, Redemption
by Derek Melleby
The Fall
Adam and Eve's sin was two-fold: First, they did not obey God's word and wisdom.
They were told not to eat of a certain tree, and they ate. We can assume that
the command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was in
the best interest of humanity. Second, Adam and Eve desired to be "like God."
Instead of relying on God's wisdom, the first humans decided that they would
rather trust themselves, and as a result, sin enters the world. In his book,
Heaven is Not My Home, Paul Marshall provides a helpful summary:
What was true
then remains true now: God still cares for the creation and
for human life, and humanity still disobeys him.
Sin is
not the story; it is the blight on the story.
Sin distorts everything, perverts everything, corrupts everything. It is not
sin that makes us bear children, but it is sin that makes childbearing
painful. It is not sin that attracts men and women, but it is sin that fills
our relations with control and suspicion. It is not sin that makes music,
but it is sin that fills our songs with vanity and lust. It is not sin that
makes us construct cities and towers, but it is sin that makes those towers
symbols of pride and power. It is not sin that calls human beings to live
and love, to make music and art, to work and create, to plant and harvest,
to play and dance. But it is sin that undercuts and perverts them all.
Sin does not create
things. It has no originality, no creativity, no being in itself. Sin lives
off that which is good. It is a parasite, feeding greedily on the goodness
of what God has made. No relation is of itself sinful, but sin corrupts
every relation. No area of life is in itself out of the will of God, but we
defy God's will in every area of life.
It is not sin that
gives us freedom of choice. But it is sin that makes us take the wrong path.
Hence, what we need is not to be rescued from the world, not to cease being
human, not to stop caring for the world, not to stop shaping human culture.
What we need is the power to do these things according to the will
of God. We, as well as the rest of creation, need to be redeemed.
The redemption of creation comes through the
Messiah, who is making all things new. The "power to do these things according
to the will of God" comes from the Holy Spirit. This morning I came across the
following prayer from the Book of Common Prayer. This prayer functions
as an appropriate segue to discuss redemption:
O
God, you prepared your disciples for the coming of the Spirit through the
teaching of your Son Jesus Christ: Make the hearts and minds of your
servants ready to receive the blessing of the Holy Spirit, that they may be
filled with the strength of his presence; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
© Coalition for Christian Outreach 2005
Part 1: What is in a Name?
Part 2: Introductory Reading
Part 3: The
Holy Bible
Part 4: CREATION, Fall, Redemption
Part 5: Creation, FALL, Redemption
Part 6: Creation, Fall, REDEMPTION
Part 7: Structure and Direction
Part 8: Sphere Sovereignty
Part 9: Final Remarks and
Seerveld's Summary | 
