Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

at verse 9 and read to verse 23. Romans 3:9-23. Please stand for the reading of God’s command word. Romans 3 beginning at verse 9.

What then? Are we better than they? No. And no wise. For we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, know not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way.

They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what thingsoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, that all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Right? For by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe. For there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Let us pray. Lord God, we acknowledge that this word is unlike all other words that are apart from the illumination of your spirit, we cannot read it or write. We pray then, Lord God, that you would give us indeed the quickening of the Holy Spirit, that our ears may be opened, that you would pull out those plugs that we seem to perpetually paste over our ears through our sinfulness and our sloth, our lack of diligence in serving and worshiping you.

Pull out those plugs, Lord God. Clean our ears by your Holy Spirit that we may hear what your scriptures have to say. And so hearing may reform our lives. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

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Who are you? That’s our subject today really. We have been working our way through the Canons of Dort and we began as the Canons begin with the unconditional election of a certain particular group of people. We spoke for several weeks on divine election and reprobation and we learn from that many things.

We learned that God has sovereignly for his good pleasure before time before we were created known us and loved us and on the basis of that called a particular group of people to himself. We talked about the doctrine of election. We started with the sovereignty of God then and we move now to really more of a consideration of the depravity of man. But we begin we began as the Canons began with the assertion of God’s sovereignty that places the proper context for a discussion of man and his depravity.

Now we talked about election and we talked about some practical results of election as well. Because the doctrine of election includes with it in the Canons of Dort and in scripture the doctrine of reprobation. Election itself has much to commend itself to us. It helps us to realize who we are and who we aren’t. Helps us to remember that ultimately wasn’t our decision that affected our salvation. It was the call and the foreknowledge of God and him electing us and predestinating us to be conformed to the image of his son.

So it helps to humble us before the mighty God knowing that it wasn’t us, our good works, our faith, nothing that we did that brought us to salvation simply. God’s grace. Now, it also is a tremendous doctrine of assurance to the saints. It’s not a doctrine predestination for contention or for argumentation. It is primarily a doctrine according to the scriptures for comfort to the elect and assurance of our salvation.

After all, if it wasn’t us who decided to get into this relationship with God ultimately, we would rebelled against it kicking and screaming. And if God sovereignly did that, he’ll also perfect that which he began. He’ll bring us to completion. There’s a tremendous sense of assurance and peace and rest that the doctrine of election brings. And anyone who tries to move away from election rips out that comfort and assurance to the saints.

The Arminians did not just assert the free will of man in choosing God and affecting their salvation. They also said that faith had to be accompanied by a perseverance in faith and a continuing of deeds done to the end of life. No assurance in that system ultimately. Now the doctrine of election also as we said is put in the context of the Canons in terms of reprobation, but it also talks about the comfort to infants parents who infants die in infancy.

And so the doctrine of election is related, we said, to the doctrine of baptism. And we won’t dwell on that now, but that’s another very important practical application of this theological truth. Practical application is the humility of us, our assurance, the covenantal nature of baptism is asserted. And then reprobation is tied in there too. The doctrine of reprobation. This is really important for us. because it helps us to understand the world.

This last week, those of you who get email from me, know that there was this Senate bill that was introduced, maybe some of you heard about it on the news in which my senator, actually, Republican, Senator Hamby, introduced a bill that says that if you want to have an income tax deduction from now on for your children who are ages one or two, you have to take parenting classes provided essentially by family services or the CSD sort of people.

A terrible bill. Why do these things happen? Well, we know why they happen. Because we know that God has in the doctrine of reprobation, he has reprobated a particular people. He has turned them over to judgment. He has decided not to elect them to salvation and instead they manifest their twisted nature in an increasing fashion. One of the things we’re going to talk about today is the original creation of man and that man is given created in the context of dominion.

It says that God says he’s going to make man in his image and he’s going to man is going to exercise dominion over the earth. Dominion is basic to the calling of man. But in fallen man, it isn’t completely removed. It’s simply twisted. So fallen man, reprobate man always works out his twisted sense of dominion in various ways of domination over other people. Orwell, George Orwell said that the future is a human foot stomping on a face forever.

A boot, the jack boots. Well, in the case of fallen man, that’s correct. And so we have the state legislature and its infinite wisdom now people signing off and saying, “Well, you need to have parenting classes. We need to control you.” I mentioned before I was at a hearing two years ago and one of the representatives up in the up on the committee that was meeting made an off comment and he said, “Well, you know, we’re all control freaks anyway. That’s why we’re here in Salem.”

Well, that’s true. They’re working out in the case of those men who are evil and doing evil legislation. They’re working out the effects of the reprobation. You see, there’s two sorts of people in the world. We’re not all the common people. We’re not all together. We’re not all in this together. There are two humanities and the Psalms say that repeatedly over and over and over.

There’s the humanity that is redeemed in Christ known to the father elect by him and then there’s the humanity that is reprobate according to God. Now the reprobates serve the function of the elect and God’s providence. They’re not to be seen as somehow equal balance and fighting for control of the world. No, when Salem does that is to chasten God’s people to remind them to be more faithful to God in what they do.

So anyway, we see a practical application worked out in this last week of the effects of reprobation in the world round about us. Then we went on to talk about atonement and we said some very practical things as well about the doctrine of atonement that if you reject the doctrine of atonement you reject or deny culpability or responsibility for your sin then you try to put that culpability responsibility on some other person some other group the state legislature whatever it is that’s what human beings in their twisted state do they deny and they deflect they don’t accept personal responsibility.

Rejection of Christ’s atonement doesn’t mean again that people reject atonement. They go to a different kind of atonement with false imputation of their sin and others and then making other people pay for their particular difficulties that they find around about them in their world. The perversion of biblical teaching on atonement by the Arminians again also produces a twisted and perverted view of the reality of our world because it denies God’s law and it denies the ultimate believe that God has provided all things for our salvation in the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It says no, he just made Jesus didn’t come to save people as the gospel of John asserts. He came to make salvation possible for people. We don’t know if people are going to accept it or not. They say well that’s a perversion of atonement and it’s a denial of God’s truth and it results in a rejection of justice, a rejection of the law of God. Again, it removes us away from personal culpability.

Well, today we’re going to talk about the corruption of man, his conversion in the manner thereof and this is the third and fourth head of doctrine.

Now you know in tulip is the acronym total depravity unconditional election limited atonement irresistible grace perseverance of the saints. And we said if you want to do it according to the Canons of Dort it’s ALIP it starts with unconditional election then limited atonement then total depravity then irresistible grace and then perseverance of the saints. ALIP instead of TULIP and T and I are put together in the Canons of Dort.

It’s the third and fourth head of doctrine lumped together. Okay, so those two total depravity and irresistible grace don’t have separate lists of statements in favor and rejection of errors of each of those separately. They’re combined together. There’s 17 assertions by the Canons of those two truths put together. Now, why do they do that? See, well, there’s two of them because that’s the way the Remonstrants wrote it.

They wrote them separately. But the fathers, the church fathers at Dort said, “No, we’re going to put them together cuz they belong together.” You want to talk about man’s depravity, his corruption, but you also want to talk about that because it’s very closely linked to his conversion and the manner of his conversion. And we’ll see as we begin today to look at that a little bit, you’ll see the importance of seeing those two things together.

What you believe about man’s depravity and what happened in his original creation and fall really dictates what he is after he’s saved. Yeah. I mean, if we’re recalled to that calling. That’s a different thing if you understand what the calling is. If you differ back here at the creation, you’re going to have different views of how men are recovered and what we’re converted back to. So, they link them together.

The depravity of man and his rather his corruption is the way they put it and the conversion of man and the manner thereof. Now, they say corruption, not corruptness, corruption of man. It implies that there was a time when man wasn’t corrupt. And we’re going to talk about that today. Today we’re going to talk about man’s not being corrupt at a particular point in time but then becoming corrupt. And in the first article of this particular part of the Canons, that’s what they talk about man’s creation and man’s fall in one section which we’ll read in a little bit here.

That’s what we’re going to talk about today. and we will see just as we saw with atonement and election that there are some very important practical results of this doctrine. Now we know that theoretically, right? We know that the word of God doesn’t assert things that are important to us. But we’ll see very markedly how a rejection of an understanding of man’s original creation by the radical Arminians resulted in the sort of world we have today.

And Arminianism, whether you call it, you know, whether people know who he was or not, really that viewpoint, which really brings up the heresies of a guy way back in church history called Pelagius. That is what our world was in the context of. We’ll see that as we get to man’s creation and the perversion of it that was rejected by the Canons of Dort. But we’ll see some very practical applications. So here’s where we’re going.

First, we’re going to talk about a man’s original state or calling. Okay, so that’s the first you’re keeping an outline. First point would be we’re going to talk about man’s original estate before the fall. And then secondly, we’re going to talk about his fall. The fall forfeite is what you might want to call it. He forfeits all in the fall. Okay? And that’s the second point we’ll talk about. And then the third thing we’re going to talk about is the perversion of those two truths by the Arminians.

Okay? And the implications of that for our world. And then finally we’ll conclude. So we’re going to first talk about man’s original estate. Then we’re going to talk about what happened in the fall a little bit. Just beginning to touch on it this week. Going to be more in the next couple of weeks. And then we’re going to talk about the perversion of the Arminians and the implications for that. Now when we do this remember that the Canons of Dort they have a series of positive statements.

Then they have rejection of errors. So today, if you want to look at it this way, we’re going to deal with the first three statements, the first three positive statements on the on man’s corruption, his conversion to God, and the means thereof that the fathers produced. And we’re look at the first four rejection of errors. They kind of go together. That’s what we’ll do as we get into this now. Okay. So, first we’ll start with man’s original creation.

And now here we’re going to look first at Psalm 8 and then we’ll turn to read the first statement from the Canons of Dort a little bit of it and then we’ll look at a couple of other scriptures in terms of man’s original creation. But first we’re going to deal with Psalm 8. So please turn in your scriptures to Psalm 8 if you’re not there yet. You know many years ago in fact it was really after my being called to a consecration to God about I don’t know 25 years ago or so.

I don’t know if I was became regenerate then or if I if God had saved me earlier in life. My parents were convinced I was a Christian earlier in life but I’m not sure if they would know. But there was a marks of desire for God in my early childhood and then a complete falling away. It’s a prodigal son sort of thing in my teen years. So I don’t know God knows but after I accepted the Lord in I don’t know 25 years ago or so.

I then spent a winter in Minnesota and I remember walking down the streets of Minnesota, very cold winter, one like now in Minnesota, southwestern Minnesota. And I remember walking down the street and hating my humanity. I remember just hating the fact that I was a person that it seemed like the world was perfect apart from all the people in it. And you hear a lot of that today, don’t you? There’s a lot of self-hatred of humanity that goes on in the context of the world whether stated explicitly or not.

you can see that for instance in the call to go back to nature in a lot of different ways and you know healthy stuff is what’s natural and what’s good is natural. You know that really isn’t a good perspective. You know that’s a false view of what the fall is all about. R.J. Rushdoony and talking about man’s creation and then his fall and how man becomes aware of his nakedness after the fall and how the awareness and shame really is directed at the organs of propagation at his organs of generation.

You see, he becomes intensely aware that he is unable to produce holy children. That’s what it’s all about. This whole sex thing, that’s what it is. And anyway, he talks about how some people want to say the reason the way we want salvation is to go back and be nudist. And there were Adamites, I guess, in the in the medieval period with the same thing. And he says it’s kind of funny because in a way they ascribe man’s fall to clothing described man’s fault to clothing because they want to get back to nature, back to whatever is natural.

And I kind of felt like that a little bit, I guess, after I really had begun being serious. It doesn’t sound like it, I suppose, but after I had really been grabbed a hold of by God, yet I had an intense loathing of my humanity. I remember Christmas day protesting against the Vietnam War in front of a church. Now, I know that, you know, 6 months before this, the Lord God had definitely grabbed a hold of me.

I didn’t have much knowledge. I was still acting out the adamic nature for the most part. you know, and there are people in the context of the church. I want to apologize for the last song we’re going to sing a little bit. We don’t know the tune. You’ll like it though. It’s a real nice tune. It’s Psalm 8. But I had to choose it because I couldn’t find a psalm that we knew or very many psalms at all actually of Psalm 8 put to meter.

You got these complete psalters and they’ll have four or five versions of some Psalms. Psalm 8, one version Psalm 8 is not a popular psalm apparently with our with those who we would share the theological perspective of. Psalm 8 asserts the glory and dignity of man and as such it’s kind of offensive to everybody in a way. It’s offensive to those who hate their humanity like I did but it’s also can be somewhat offensive and people regard it as dangerous who are puritanistic or who are Calvinistic in their perception of man.

Well, we don’t want to tell people what a great thing man is because man’s problem is pride and that would just feed his pride. It’s kind of like beer. You know, we don’t want to drink beer because man will abuse the beer. So, we don’t want to do it. Well, in a way, it seems like there’s kind of an aversion to Psalm 8 the same way. I maybe I’m it’s just my own personal studies, the only hymn books I have, but it’s hard to find a lot of hymns about the dignity and worth of man. but that’s what Psalm 8 says.

Let’s read it. Psalm 8 to the chief musician upon Gittith. I don’t know what that means. There are a couple of different views on that. It could mean when David was at Gath. There are three psalms upon Gath and they’re all psalms of rejoicing and great joy. So I know that much. so anyway, oh Lord our Lord. Notice that David identifies the Lord, the covenant God of Israel as his Lord. So it’s a this psalm is written by a man in covenant relationship.

Seems like a small point. It’s an important one to point out that God is our God. He’s made himself our God. How excellent is thy name in all the earth. Who has set thy glory above the heavens. There are some who believe that set thy glory really means chanted. That the glory of you is chanted in the heavens. I don’t know. Again, it’s a Hebrew question that I’m not able to discern. Some people think it is.

And if so, verse 2 is very ironic then because out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. And Psalm 2 is a or verse 2 rather is an ironic statement anyway because it talks about okay God is great and majestic above the heavens and maybe it’s a reference to Isaiah 6:3 not a direct reference because later Isaiah is but maybe it’s the scene Isaiah 6:3 with the with the Sanctus you know holy holy Lord God Almighty is being sung by the cherubim perpetually maybe that’s being referred I don’t know God is majestic above all things and then it talks about out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, the smallest of people, out of the nursery, you know, out of the smallest little crib, thou hast ordained strength because of thine enemies.

The singing of children and praise to God. John the Baptist leaping in the mother’s womb, for instance, we could look at here is the strength of God manifested through weak things. And you’ve ordained strength because of your enemies that thou might is still the enemy and the avenger. We can talk about this in terms of worship and the forward conquest of the world and the preaching of the gospel of Christ being accompanied by the worship of God’s people and the worship the inclusion of worship of the children.

The children sing forth praises and there’s an effect it says upon the enemies. It’s how God conquers people. So there’s a summary statement in verses 1 and 2 already that assert the importance of humanity and the smallest of humanity sucklings and babes at that. Then we go on to verse 3. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained? What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man?

that thou visitest him. Okay, he begins this progression here by talking about the heavens, the work of the fingers, the moon and the stars. Then he says, what’s man that thou art mindful? Mindful means to be mindful of in terms of moving toward. It doesn’t mean just kind of thinking about it. It means God always thinks about something with a movement toward helping them. In this case, you’re mindful of man.

You visit man. You care to man. You attend to man. God is involved in our lives. is involved in your life. God is mindful of you personally and he’s mindful of his people corporately. He thinks about you and in his providence works in relationship to you to mature you and to bring you to perfection in Christ. That’s what he’s doing. He’s ever mindful of you and he visits you. He cares for and he attends to you.

Now, some people think that there’s a contrast here as well. You got the heavens way up there and what is man this crummy little creature, you know, me walking 25 years ago down the street of Minnesota. What am I? You know, other people say, “Now, wait a minute. God told Abram that his children are going to be as the stars of the sky, right? For number.” So God relates man to those heavens. The heavens are pictured also, for instance, as ruling pictures of rule, rulers and authorities.

When when secular power when powers would get brought down in the Old Testament, the prophets would talk about stars falling from the sky. Men are like stars and we talked before about you know the constellations and really the tribes of Israel are sort of a pictured in the heavens in a way. but the point here is simply I’m trying to make is that it could it may not be a contrast of man’s finitude compared to the greatness of creation.

It could be that but it also seems to be proper to imply that the scriptures say we are compared to the heavens stars and moon sun We’re compared that way, too. Look at what God has done with mankind. Look at the estate to which he’s been called. Look at the glory and honor and dignity. Derek Kidner in his commentary on this psalm captions it crown of creation. Crown of creation. There was an old Jefferson Airplane song, you are the crown of creation.

You now they’re they were into that naturalist stuff. I guess they were it was a twisted perspective. But the point is we ought to understand that the scriptures do talk about man as the crown of creation. He comes at the culmination of the creation weak. Yes, he is the crown of creation. He’s made in the image of God. Tremendous honor and dignity demonstrated to man in the context of the scriptures and this psalm particularly.

Verse 5, thou has made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou has put all things under his feet. now very important here verse 5. You have made him a little lower than the angels. In the Hebrew this word is Elohim. Elohim can refer to God. Elohim. It’s a plural word. So it can refer to the trinity and God.

One God, three persons. It can also refer to rulers. Another psalm. I’ve said you are gods. Elohim. It doesn’t mean you’re divinity, but it means that men are put in ruling positions representing God the mighty one. Elohim is really the name of God indicating his strength. Yahweh is his covenant relationship. My son is Eli Jah. Elohim or Eli God. Jah Yahweh. The covenant God of Israel is my strong one. Is my governor is my protector and guardian.

The one in whom I have strength. Okay, that’s what the Elijah the prophet that’s what those names mean. Okay, so here it says you have made man a little lower than the angels. Well, we could say judges, definitely not angels. Shouldn’t be translated angels. It could be translated rulers, but then it doesn’t make much sense because it’s talking about rulers who are men. Or it could be and probably is J. Alexander, one of the best Old Testament Hebrew exegetes that I read and others think that this is really talking about God.

It’s talking about divinity here. It’s really God here. You made him a little bit lower than divinity, than deity, than God. We’re just a little lower than God. Now, of course, in terms of our nature, we’re creatures. We’re the crown of creation. We’re still creations, right? We’re creatures. There’s a vast distinction between the creator and the creature. But in terms of what he’s talking about here, which is rule over the earth, God calls us to an incredibly high estate, and he crowns us with glory and honor.

That’s who people are. That’s who man is. The scriptures say, Man is the crown of creation. Man is real important. Man isn’t some dismal little creature scurrying about on an earth that is beautiful apart from his insertion and he’s so ugly. No. No. No. That is not biblical thinking. Biblical thinking says man is important. We twist it. No. And it goes on to say before I go on one other thing here. Little lower than the angels.

In Hebrews 2, this passage is quoted and when it’s quoted in Hebrews 2, it does use the word angels. The Septuagint well anyway, but by the time it gets to Hebrews, they’re quoting from a version of the Bible that has been translated from the Hebrew. They’re not going to the Hebrew. The writer to Hebrews isn’t they’re not going to the Hebrew Old Testament. They’re going to the Septuagint. And what they end up is they quote this verse by saying, “You have made it a little lower than the angels.” And it does say angels there.

Now, the other thing that’s interesting in both the Greek and the Hebrew that when it says a little lower. It does not have to be in terms of a position. It can be in reference to time. Okay? So, it is proper to read this verse and certainly the verse in Hebrews for a little while you have made him lower than the angels. Now, Hebrews goes on to say that you know that all things now it’s probably ultimately about the Lord Jesus Christ.

This pictures the humanity of Christ ultimately but also all people in relationship to that. Now, the interesting thing about that is that in the Old Testament Man created as the crown of creation to exercise dominion over all the earth by the end of his first day has fallen from that is kicked out of the garden and who guards the way so that he doesn’t come back in angels. Angels are described in the Old Testament as being very active in the governing of the universe.

And in the New Testament there is a sense in which man now replaced angels guarding for instance access to the sacraments etc. access to the garden well that was pictured in the Old Testament in the Old Testament worship system but it’s brought to fruition in the Lord Jesus Christ. So this time reference to man governing for a little while lower than the angels could is also appropriate to see in the context of this.

But either way what I’m trying to get you to see is that Psalm 8 has a tremendous appreciation for the creation of man. And it goes on specifically to say why thou made him have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou has put all things under his feet. All things. All sheep and oxmen, yay, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, begins and ends with an assertion of God’s excellency of his name. And that excellency of his name is pictured in Psalm 8 in this crescendo going up to the crown of creation, man, that God puts in control over all things. things. Now, we’ll see a quote from this in 1 Corinthians 15 at the end of the sermon. But all I’m trying to get you to realize here is the immense dignity and worth of mankind.

Man, we should never think, oh, if God just would have made me a dog or something, it would have been so much better and people are so terrible. No, you’re not. The original creation of man is a wondrous, amazing thing.

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Now, turning to the Canons themselves. Let me I’ll read this now. Article one, the effect of the fallen human nature. Man was originally created. This is the from the Canons of Dort in the image of God and was furnished in his mind with a true and salutary knowledge of the creator and things spiritual in his will and heart with righteousness and in all his emotions with purity.

Indeed, the whole man was holy. That’s how it starts. And it goes more. Article one goes on and talk about his fall, but I want to stop there for a moment and assert that these Canons are correct. They talk about man’s estate first in his creation. Now, they don’t reference wording from Psalm 8. What they’re really referencing are a couple of other passages. Ephesians 4:22 and 23 says this. Ephesians 4:22 and 23.

Ephesians 4:22 and 23 is an important verse to memorize or at least to have the reference memorized in your head to talk about this subject we’re talking about today. Okay, this is the put off put on of Ephesians 4. You put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the according to deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that ye put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Now he’s talking about the recreation of man in Christ. He’s talking about our salvation. You know the first estate is creation innocence. then the fall and then salvation. State of grace, right? He’s talking about the state of grace. He’s saying that you Christian, you’ve been called by God and regenerate. You have been created in the image of God after God in righteousness and true holiness. But if this is a recreation of man’s original estate, which it says it is, then we can infer that in the original creation, man also in the image of God here after God was created in righteousness and true holiness.

The image of God includes the righteousness and holiness of man in all of his being. Righteousness, justice, conformity to his standard, his actions, his deeds. holiness speaks of purity, consecration. You want to do the right thing. You want to be pious in a proper sense. Okay. Now, the other scripture they’re referencing is Colossians 3:9. Lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds.

Parallel passage. You put off the old man and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Again, it speaks to the image of God. And Colossians 3 adds to the righteousness and holiness of Ephesians 4 knowledge. Okay? Man is created in righteousness, holiness, knowledge. And we would add in then from Genesis 1 that the image of God is to exercise that authority or rule that Psalm 8 speaks of and that God speaks of directly in Genesis 1:26-27.

Let us make man in our image after our likeness. Let him have dominion over the fish etc. So man is created in righteousness, holiness, knowledge and dominion. And the texts are Ephesians 4, Colossians 3, Genesis 1. That’s man’s original estate. And see that you can put that parallel to then up in a nice picture in Psalm 8.

Beautiful picture of God’s excellency to the creation of man. This wonderful vicar gerent. This wonderful ruler of all things under only God ultimately not even the angels ultimately under God himself and only lower than God. So the Canons correctly assert then that man is created in the image of God in his original creation with righteousness, holiness, knowledge and dominion. And so they say this, they say, let me read a different this could be a little better translated, but I won’t bother with the with the better translation.

I’ll we’ll just we’ll just accept the translation as it is. But going back now to the Canons, then they say that man was originally created in the image of God and it and original language that was written in it. It draws out the image of God directly related to this that he was furnished in his mind with a true and salutary knowledge of the creator and things spiritual knowledge. What does it mean that we were created in knowledge?

What does it mean that we’re created recreated now in Christ in knowledge? It means knowledge of God. See, it doesn’t mean intellectual attainment of data about God, although we have some of that. It means an intimate covenantal knowledge of God. Adam didn’t just know about God. Adam knew God, walked with him. See, covenantally one with him. Okay? And we’re recreated in that same knowledge. They go on to say that in his will and heart with righteousness.

Okay? Knowledge. Now, righteousness, in his will and his heart, righteousness, uprightness in his will and his heart. in the totality of his being, Adam. And you know, by the way, it doesn’t say Adam. It says man here. See, that’s important because it wasn’t just Adam. All of man covenantally legally in Adam was in this state of innocence. And in the state of innocence and uprightness, they had knowledge. We had knowledge of God.

And we had a heart and will of righteousness or justice conformity to God’s standards. Okay. And then the third thing it says we have that in his emotions with purity. Holiness. In other words, purity. Holiness. True holiness. According to Ephesians chapter 4, we didn’t just have a relationship with God, a knowledge of him. We also had an uprightness of will and heart that we wanted to do what was right. And we had a we also had an emotions, passions that desired purity or holiness in all things.

See, Indeed, the whole man was holy. Now, if you think about that a little bit, I’ve thought about it this week. You haven’t thought about it more than a couple minutes since I’ve said it here, but you go home today and start thinking about Adam and you think about your week this last week and you think about during your times of difficulty, during your times of real awareness. Actually, the thing you want most is to know God.

Is to have that knowledge of him. That isn’t just abstract data and intellectual truth or agreement to this propositional revelation. It’s a knowledge of his person in your in your life. And you do know him. You don’t know him in full yet. You know him in part. But imagine what it was like for Adam to have that knowledge, intimate knowledge of God, who is himself all purity and love and righteousness and mercy, etc.

That’s what we want. We don’t want to be alone. We try to fill our lives with friends and stuff and that’s good. it does say that man was created in the image of God. Male and female he created them. We could add to holiness, righteousness, knowledge, and dominion. That in the original state, man is in community. Created male and female created he them. He’s in perfect community as well. So, it’s good. But why do we like community?

Because we’re have community with other images of God. It’s ultimately fellowship with God that we’re doing there in community. Yeah. So, we want that real badly, don’t we? Don’t we want our relationships with our wives and our children and our friends to not have this junk that we pour into them all the time of distrust for one another and actual hatred for one another and our adamic nature and we use each other all the time, manipulate each other.

saw an ad in the in a magazine this last week had this bunny and it said bunny was like one of these flexible bunnies that can be manipulated and positioned I think or something. Well, that’s what we are. We’re easily manipulated. We like to manipulate other people as well. And we hate ourselves for doing it. If you’re Christians, if you are aware of your sin, you want that kind of community. And you want righteousness in your life. Yeah. You want to obey the ten commandments. You want to obey the case applications. You want to do the right thing every time it comes to a moral decision.

And you want personal holiness. You don’t want to just do the right thing in obedience. You in your heart desire holiness and purity, a sense of piety before God. If you think about this much, if you think about what Adam had in the garden. Not just intellectually, I know, but to think about what you want in your deepest heart’s longing, relationship to God. Godly relationship with your peers and friends, with your superiors and inferiors as well, and purity in your heart.

You don’t want those wicked thoughts to come in. You don’t want those deceitful lusts to entice you. You don’t want to see them anymore. You want purity, and you want justice in your dealings, and you want to be treated with justice with other people. That’s what Adam had. That’s the way Adam exercised dominion in the context of the world. People don’t like the term dominion because they know about people like to name Senator Hamby who’s going to try to dominate you the teachings of the civil state and they know about their friends who try to manipulate them.

Dominion scares people and it should because dominion with wicked man turns into domination. But if you’ve got people who are in relationship to God, knowledge of intimate knowledge of God, just pious dedicated to Christian community, there’s no problem with dominion then, right? There really isn’t for the Christian. Well, that’s that’s Adam’s call. That’s his tremendous position he was created in. And that is not just Adam.

The Canons say, “Man, that’s you and I.” Isn’t that great? Isn’t that an amazing thing? Isn’t it? Don’t you want to cry out with the psalmist, “What is he that you’ve done this? This is tremendous. It’s an amazing fact that God has produced this image bearer who desires these things and can manifest them.” Well, that’s all fine and good and that is wonderful stuff. And I think it’s very important for us to keep in mind that’s who we are in our original creation.

But it’s also important to keep in mind that is exactly what we lost in our fall. The Canons go on to say, However, however, rebelling against God at the devil’s instigation and his own free will. Oh, you don’t want to leave him there just at the devil’s instigation. People are going to say, “Well, yeah, it was his fault, not my fault. Devil maybe do by his own free will, he deprived himself of those outstanding gifts.”

Not just that. Listen to this. Rather, in their place, he brought upon himself blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and distortion of judgment in his mind. perversity, defiance, and hardness in his heart and will. And finally, impurity in all his emotions. Not only did we lose all of that, and as Christians, we have a sense of what that is. We have a sense of it. We know it in part. We lost all of that. Not only that, we became positively given over to doing evil and wicked things.

Not only did we reject, to the degree we could reject, the image of God in these things, we accepted the image of the devil, the accuser, the slanderer, the liar. And we do those things. Fallen man, that’s all he can do is serve the devil. Got to serve somebody. So fall forfeiture is the first article of the Canons when they talk about the corruption of men, his conversion, and the manner thereof. And it is a it’s an astonishing thing to contemplate the depth to which man fell.

And Romans 3 says it all. This is what we became then. All are under sin. None righteous, know not one, none that understands, none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way. Not only do they not seek after God, he is the same progression here. They are altogether become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, know not one. And in fact, their throat is an open sepulcher. Death fumes come out of their mouth.

Their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. How they just not do good. They positively do evil. Everyone know not one is different than this. In the fallen state of man, our tongues kill each other. We use them to wound and to tear whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, shaking the fist of God. I got a email from an old friend this last week. played in a band that I managed and he’s a Christian.

And he said that when man cried out to God in anger instead of in need, cursing was begun. That’s a nice little way to put it. And our mouths are full of cursing in our fallen state. Cursing and bitterness against God, hating him. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. And the ways of peace and order have they not known. They reject the righteousness of God. They seek perverse ways.

They reject holiness. They reject piety. They go after perverse ways of being. They reject community with God and instead hate God. And they then pervert community on the social level as well. And so they don’t have peace and order. They have disorder. That’s man in his fallen estate. That’s what man has become as a result of the fall. We’ll talk about this more in the next couple of weeks, but it’s important to see the depth to which we fell.

Article two goes on to say, “Man brings forth children of the same nature as himself after the fall.” That is to say, being corrupt, he brought forth corrupt children. The corruption spread by God’s just judgment from Adam to all his descendants except for Christ alone, not by way of imitation, as in former times the Pelagians would have it, but by way of the propagation of his perverted nature.

So what the Canons assert is what Romans 5 asserts. that Adam was the covenantal legal representative of all men and in Adam’s fall we sin all just according to God’s standards to have a representative who then determines what happens to his race that’s what Adam was for us and by God’s just judgment then all men since then are their nature is propagated that’s what they say here the nature of man is passed on and that nature is twisted and perverted okay spread of corruption by one man sin and death entered the world.

That’s what Romans 5 says and it’s the truth and the Canons assert that. So in article one we have the greatness of man and then the depth of his fall. Article two says the only kind of children we’re going to have in that fallen estate are wicked children perverse not just by imitation. We don’t raise children they’re not born as blank slates. They are in the words of Dylan, he says, “I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined, stone cold dead as I stepped out of the womb.”

Then he goes on to say, “By his grace, I have been healed.” But that’s the correct picture. Dylan knew his Old Testament. He knew total depravity in the context of what he was studying at least. Whether it was a heart knowledge, I don’t know. But he correctly got what Romans 3 and what the Old Testament says about the fall of man. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Man in his very nature is perverted against God. So he doesn’t come into the world neutral and then sees Adam sees his parents sitting and then starts to sin.

Now it is true that children imitate, you know, bad company corrupts good morals and kids do imitate the sins of others. We’re not denying that’s true. But to say that’s the only kind of sin we have is wrong. If you’re left on a desert island by yourself, you’re sinning. You’re a human being because you’ve inherited this corrupt nature from our Adamic father. Spread of corruption is talked about in article two.

And then three, therefore, all people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath, which Ephesians says we were children of wrath, unfit for any saving good, inclined to evil, dead in their sins, and slaves to sins without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit. They are neither willing nor able to return to God, to reform their distorted nature, or even to dispose themselves to such reform.

Now, remember, they’re refuting that are many position that through the free will of man, man can affect can choose for God. They’re saying a dead man can’t choose for God. And he’s not just dead. That’s one picture illustration of the fallen man. He’s positively alive to sin. He’s dead to God, but he is totally alive to rebellion against God. Romans 1 says that man suppressed the truth of God and unrighteousness perpetually.