Man’s Problem
As we start this new week, we move into the theology of salvation also known as soteriology. So for those of you confused as to how the trinity and creation are applicable to your daily life, there should be no confusion this week.
Being around church our whole lives can give us a strange vocabulary. Imagine if your friend came running out of the woods screaming about how someone had saved them. A good friend would have three questions, “Saved you from what?” and “who saved you and how?” and “are you okay now?” These are essentially the questions that we seek to answer as we look at the theology of salvation. We will be spreading these questions out over this week and also looking at some of the strange “church” words that we use when talking about salvation.
Our Need for Salvation
When we think about salvation, the first question we have to ask is, “what are we saved from.” In other words, “what is humanity’s problem?” Is this only a problem for some people or for all people? The answers become clear when we look at ourself not in comparison to others, but in comparison to God. The sad truth is that we underestimate our need for a savior because we underestimate who God is.
1: God is Holy
The nature of God cannot and will not allow what is evil to continue. Look at the verses below and count the number of times that “holy” is used.
- Isaiah 57:15
- Psalm 99:9
As you might remember from our study on the attributes of God, holiness means to be set apart, separate, and different. God is not like us. He is a God of perfection, and we are people who struggle daily with our imperfections and sins.
God is certainly aware of all the evil in the world, but Habakkuk 1:13 says that God cannot tolerate evil in his presence. God is repulsed by our sin, it is utterly offensive to all that he is. When we tolerate our sins and the sins of others, we are showing the worst kind of intolerance, we are being intolerant of the heart and the desires of God.
The Bible often speaks of God as being offended by sin.
- Matthew 13:41-42
- Deuteronomy 4:25
- Proverbs 6:16-19
When we talk about something offending us we think about it hurting our feelings. This is not what it means for God. It doesn’t mean that he will get over his bad mood if you leave him alone for a while. It means God is justifiably angry because of our sin. Why? Because of his nature, because of who he is.
2: God is Righteous and Just
Because God is holy, he always deals with us with righteousness and justice.
Righteousness simply means that what God does is always right; he never makes a mistake. He never judges me wrongly and he sees me for who I really am every time.
God’s justice is always fair and without vindictiveness. God’s justice grows out of the holiness of his character. It is not like the so-called justice we see in many books, movies, and tv shows which is motivated by anger and personal revenge. God’s justice is not like that, it is pure justice.
God can’t fudge on how he applies fairness. The perfection of his character will not allow it. God said from the beginning that the penalty for sin would be death and separation from him. The justice of God should be sobering to us because of the way we have treated God.
3: We Are Sinful By Nature and Choice
God created us to be holy, but at the moment of mankind’s fall in the Garden of Eden, everything changed. They unleashed the onslaught of evil and decay that permeates our world today. Because of their decision to disobey, all mankind is now born with a sinful nature. But we can’t just blame Adam and Eve for our troubles.
Romans 3:10-18 tells us that no one is righteous, not one. On top of the sin nature we inherited from Adam, we all choose on our own to disobey God. No one had to teach us how to sin. It is part of our nature and given the opportunity, we choose to sin more and more.
It’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking that our situation isn’t all that bad. We look at others and think, “I’m doing at least as good as everyone around me.” But the problem is that we are all headed towards destruction and we are in desperate need of rescue.
Look at the verses below and share your thoughts in the comments on some of the consequences of our sin and lostness.
- John 3:18
- Romans 6:23
- Ephesians 2:12
- Romans 6:6
- 2 Corinthians 4:3-4
- Romans 3:11
- Matthew 12:30
- Ephesians 2:3
- John 8:44
- Luke 13:3
I learned today that God is Holy and that man has made things unholy with our evil and sinful nature
Good summary Ato.
I learned that because God is holy he will deal with us with righteousness and justice. Also no one taught us how to sin. We’re born with the natural nature to sin and only God can save us from that, not any worldly thing.
God is a God of mercy, but He is also a God of justice. He cannot simply ignore the fact that we sinned. It is also not just Eve’s fault that we are sinners. we choose to sin each and every day.
I hear people talk about Eve’s sin, but that is missing the fact that Adam ate too, and he shirked on his duty to protect his wife.
I was often led to believe i should blame Adam and Eve and God for my sin because Adam and Eve `sinned big time the first time therefor causing all people after them to have sin programmed into them and God just let them do it. well, that not true. we don’t have Adam and Eve on our shoulders telling to sin instead of do the right thing. we choose sin for ourselves every time. It’s our choice, everytime.
We may have been born into sin because of Adam and Eve, but that doesn’t mean our sin is their fault. we still make conscience decisions to sin on our own
We are set apart from God because he is holy and we are not.
Josh says, “I learned that because God is holy, His judgement is righteous toward us, because we are the un-holy-ness to His perfection”.
I like how it says God gives us pure justic e, and how it is different from justice in tv and in movies. I also learned that God is perfect and doesn’t makes mistakes. He will judge is for who we really are. He w I’ll remove all evil and will make it perish!!!
Adam and Eve (not only eve), messed up a lot! We definitely can blame them for the sins we commit! We but, god is a god god grace. He does not give us a thought in our mind to sin. We do it by choice. We do it by our sinful nature, our flaws. Which we have received from Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit.
“God created us to be holy, but at the moment of mankind’s fall in the Garden of Eden, everything changed.” And now we have to endure the struggles and hardships of this world to get to heaven.
I learned that god takes sin as an offense
I learned that eve and Adam sinned. A lot of the time we blame sin on Adam and eve but everyone sins if anyone else was there they would have sinned too. Because that’s the way God made it he knew Adam and eve were going to sin those were just the people he chose.
We need God because we are sinners
God created us in his image, but he knew we would sin. It is our fault we brought evil into this world. I believe it is not fair to God that he created this entire universe for us to stay in. And then we break the one rule that was commanded not to break. This is mans fault.
God is holy and does not sin. That is what sepperates man from God.
i learned that god is holy