Evangelical Movement of Wales (EMW) Statement of Faith
- The Infallible Word Of God (1)
- The Holy Trinity (2)
- God And Father Of Our Lord Jesus Christ (3)
- The Lord Jesus Christ (4)
- The Holy Spirit (5)
- Rescued From Sin (6)
- Jesus Did It All (7)
We believe…
That as a result of the fall all men are sinful by nature. Sin pollutes and controls them, infects every part of their being, renders them guilty in the sight of a holy God and subject to the penalty which, in his wrath and condemnation, he has decreed against it.
You will likely have heard people ask why the world is in such a mess. You may have asked the question yourself. The Bible gives a perfectly adequate answer to that question. It is an answer that many think is an offence to reason, but it makes total sense of the human condition. It is an answer without which we cannot understand ourselves.
The Fall
The Bible begins with the creation story which culminates with humanity as the crown of creation, blessed and provided for in every conceivable way, with material and spiritual resources to live life fulfilling God’s gracious purpose and destiny for us. In dependence upon God, men and women were to reflect the image of God and his moral glory. However, God’s dependent creature became God’s defiant creature, and the result of that defiance was so catastrophic and all-pervasive that we sum up that entire event in the term, ‘the fall’. A fall that was from a greater height and far harder than most appreciate. The apostle Paul tells us that the fall has left all mankind under the guilt and power of sin, the reign of death, and the inescapable wrath of God (Rom. 1:18-3:20).
How is it that all mankind is caught up in Adam’s fall from God and godliness? Paul explains that God has ordained to deal with the human race federally. Don’t let that word put you off! It simply means that Adam stood as the representative of all his descendants, and everyone he represented is caught up in the outcome of his actions. Let me illustrate it like this: if the Prime Minister, by the exercise of the Royal Prerogative, were to declare war on another country, how many British subjects would be at war? The answer is all of them. In the same way, Adam stood for the whole of mankind, so when Adam fell, the whole human race fell in him. We will come back to this issue.
As the story of the fall unfolds in Genesis 3, we learn that God placed Adam under a period of probation. Adam was not perfect, but he was sinless, and he lived in a state of happiness that would continue if he remained faithful to God in obeying the single command laid upon him to not eat from ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (Gen. 2:16-17). The issue was whether Adam would let God dictate what is good and what is evil, or if he would decide that issue for himself.
Genesis 3 also tells of the activity of the ‘serpent’ – a term that can be understood as a description or a title. Either the devil appeared in the form of a serpent, or the term was already being used, as we find later in the Scriptures, as a title for the devil. Adam, led by Eve, who had been deceived by the devil, defied God by taking the forbidden fruit; arrogantly asserting his determination to act independently of God and to decide for himself what is good or evil.
Horrors instantly followed. Immediately, Adam lost communion with God. Until that moment, Adam had enjoyed God, but now he is afraid. Adam had loved God to that moment, but now he is hiding. Sin had become part of him and the moral nature he passed to his descendants, and Adam, the crown of creation, was overwhelmed by a sense of guilt and pollution that rendered him naked and afraid, hiding from the sound of God’s voice. The voice that had previously filled Adam with joy now utters a dreadful curse. The tempter is cursed. The ground is cursed. But Adam is not cursed; he is expelled from the garden with expectations of pain and death.
A rescue plan
Yet, God was not finished with mankind. Determined to redeem them, and in order to secure them for himself and drive a wedge between them and the evil one, God injected enmity between the serpent’s seed and the seed of the woman, instigating a holy war to win back the affections of creatures who had rebelled against him. Does this hint at a way in which you might pray for friends whose allegiance to Christ is challenged by other people or interests? Could you pray that the Lord would inject hostility into that situation to disturb and disrupt those connections and peel them away from that allegiance to seek Christ?
Adam was ejected from Eden with the promise that the seed of the woman would one day crush the serpent’s head. We are not told at this point who that will be. We are not told that he will be born of a virgin of the tribe of Judah, and so on; that information comes later. But the promise is that the day will come when the serpent will suffer a decisive and definitive defeat. Right at the beginning, before history unfolds with all its blood, horror and tedium, the assured victory of God’s kingdom is announced. Yet, that victory would not be without cost. In the process of crushing the head of the serpent, the seed of the woman will be wounded. The serpent is told, ‘You shall bruise his heel’ (Gen. 3:15), which is a foretelling of, ‘You were bought with a price’ (1 Cor. 6:20).
How can the sufferings of another pay the price for my sins? It is because God has ordained to deal with the human race federally. As Adam stands as the representative of all his descendants who are each caught up in the outcome of his actions, so the Lord Jesus Christ stands as the representative of all united to him by faith, who are each caught up in the outcome of his actions (Rom. 5:19). God who imputes Adam’s sin to his descendants, imputes the righteousness of Christ to his redeemed people. Adam’s sin dragged us all down, and sin ruined us all. Christ’s perfect obedience rescues all united to him by faith.
Now, if you were once a slave under the dominion of darkness and of the evil one, and you have been rescued and wrenched out of that awful bondage, you know that a price had to be paid for that. You know that there was only one good enough to pay that price, and he is worthy of the endless thanks and praise of all his redeemed people.
