Latest / Reformed Thinking / Created in God’s Image: Human Nature Before the Fall | John Calvin

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Created in God’s Image: Human Nature Before the Fall | John Calvin · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. You know, usually when you walk
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through like a modern city and you pass a construction site,
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there is this very clear expectation of order.
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You look at the steel beams going up, the concrete being
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poured, and you just know there is a master schematic somewhere.
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There is this pristine blueprint sitting in some trailer office
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that dictates precisely where every single bolt is supposed to
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go. And that expectation of order
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comes from knowing that a mine actually designed the structure
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before the materials were ever even gathered.
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Yeah. I mean, the architect determined
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the purpose of the building long before the 1st shovel.
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Yeah. Hit the dirt.
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But imagine a radically different scenario.
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Just imagine you are walking through really dense, uncharted
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forest, and you stumble upon the scattered, overgrown ruins of
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this massive stone building. The roof is completely caved in,
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the grand pillars are shattered into all these fragments, and
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there's just thick Ivy pulling down whatever remains of the
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walls. If you try to guess what that
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building was originally designed for just by looking at the
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rubble, your conclusions are going to be, well, wildly
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inaccurate. Oh yeah, you might see a
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collapsed retaining wall and just think it was meant to be a
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grand staircase, right? Or you could find a broken piece
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of the foundation and assume it was the top of a tower, looking
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at devastation and mistaking it for the original design.
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It just guarantees a completely flawed understanding of the
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architect's intent. And that ruined building is It's
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the perfect analogy for our target.
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Today we are taking a deep dive into selections from a really
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towering text in Christian history.
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Yes, John Calvin's Institute to the Christian Religion.
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Spot on. We are zeroing in on human
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nature today. We really want to understand
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human nature as it was originally created, the
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mechanical workings of the soul, the true meaning of the image of
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God, and, well, the original state of human free will for the
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Fall. And the stakes here are
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incredibly high for you, the listener, whether you are
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picking up this 16th century text for the first time or like
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the 100th time. Calvin establishes this
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brilliant, inescapable premise right at the beginning of this
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section, which is you cannot have a clear and complete
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knowledge of God without a corresponding knowledge of
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yourself. Those two fields of knowledge
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are permanently tied together. Right, which means we have to
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find that original blueprint. I mean, trying to comprehend the
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human condition right now, with all our modern flaws, our
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internal contradictions, our baseline anxieties, without
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knowing our original created state is literally staring at
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those ruined stones in the forest.
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Yeah, totally. You cannot grasp the sheer scale
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of the current devastation until you comprehend the breathtaking
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architecture of the Unfallen design.
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And Calvin argues it would yield very little benefit to study our
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creation unless we also recognized our current sad ruin.
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But there is a massive theological hazard here.
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To vindicate God from any accusation of creating evil, we
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have to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that humanity
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proceeded spotless from the Creator's hand.
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We have to look at the unfallen Adam before the structural
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collapse. So let's look at the literal
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materials used for this original construction project, Because to
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grasp our original state, we first have to look at the dirt.
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Like the literal mud, this brings up an immediate, striking
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contrast between human humility and divine grace.
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It really does. Calvin directs our attention
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straight to Genesis. He points out that Adam was
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taken from earth and clay and this was not like a random
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choice of building material. Right, God could have made us
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out of anything. Well, yes, profusely, God could
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have spoken humanity into existence out of pure light or
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fire. But Calvin argues this specific
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lowly origin, this dirt, was engineered by God to bridal
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human pride. It functions as the ultimate
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reality check. I mean, Calvin highlights the
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supreme irony. We are creatures who live in
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houses of clay. As the Book of Job describes it.
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We are physically composed of the dust we literally walk on.
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So we have absolutely no business boasting about our own
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inherent excellence. No business at all.
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And the theological defense Calvin mounts using this lowly
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material is just brilliant. Because humanity was formed by
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God out of dust, and because that original man proceeded
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perfectly spotless from God's hand, humanity cannot shift the
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blame for sin onto the Creator. I hear this excuse constantly
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though. People blame their bad behavior,
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their anger issues, their selfishness on their nature.
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Say, well, I'm only human, this is just how I am wired.
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I can't help it. We treat our moral failings as a
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sort of biological inevitability.
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And Kelvin spots that lie instantly.
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He says that blaming our moral defects on nature is a disguise,
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cowardly insult to God. Wow.
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Yeah, if a defect inherited in our original nature, they would
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bring reproach upon the Creator. It would mean God built a flawed
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product. But the defect is entirely ours.
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It was introduced by the fall. God made an earthen vessel out
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of mud, but he dignified that mud by making it the abode of an
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immortal spirit. And that brings us to the dual
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nature of humanity. We have the dirt, you know, the
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physical body, but we also have the immortal essence, body and
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soul. Right.
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Calvin defines the soul as an immortal yet created essence.
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He clearly designates it as the nobler part of humanity.
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Sometimes scripture calls it the spirit, but whether you use the
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word soul or spirit, the text refers to this essential non
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physical reality that survives the death of the physical body.
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OK, I have to stop you right there because modern secular
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thought, neuroscience, biology, they would tear this to shreds
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today. Oh, they certainly try.
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I mean, we can literally map feelings of guilt, joy, or dread
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to electrical impulses in the prefrontal cortex or the
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amygdala. Yes, the physical hardware.
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Right, and we can alter a person's entire personality by
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just changing their brain chemistry with medication.
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So if an MRI can show us where guilt lives in the physical
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brain, how does Calvin's 500 year old argument for an
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invisible, independent soul hold any water today?
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It holds water because Calvin is pointing out a massive category
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error. In that materialistic line of
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thinking, measuring the physical correlate of an experience like
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the chemical reaction is not the same as measuring the meeting of
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the experience itself. OK, unpack that a bit.
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Well, Calvin doesn't just quote scripture to defend the soul.
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He offers 3 distinct observable proofs for the immortal
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independent soul, and the first proof is the human conscience.
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The internal dread of judgement. Yes, Calvin asks this piercing
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question. How could a mere physical
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motion, just a temporary energy or a chemical reaction,
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penetrate to the judgement seat of God and inflict itself with
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dread at its own guilt? That is a fascinating way to
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frame it. Right.
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I mean, brute animals have a physical fear of physical
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punishment. If you hit a dog, it cowers in
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the stick. But humans possess a spiritual
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fear, a dread of divine judgment that the physical body cannot
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actually perceive. That invisible guilt, that
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internal court of law operating within the human mind, proves
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the existence of a spiritual essence.
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Let me make sure I am following this.
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A physical brain cell, which is at the end of the day just a
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collection of atoms, cannot feel moral guilt before an invisible
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holy God. Spot on.
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Like, the physical brain can register a sudden drop in
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serotonin, but a drop in serotonin doesn't inherently
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mean I have violated the eternal moral law of the universe.
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That hits the mark perfectly. The physical brain is the
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hardware, but the conscience is operating on a spiritual
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frequency that physical hardware cannot generate on its own.
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OK, So what is Calvin's second proof?
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The nimbleness of the human mind.
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Calvin points out our capacity to mentally search heaven and
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earth to study the hidden secrets of nature.
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We can compass all ages by our understanding and memory, we can
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arrange things in order, and we can infer future events from
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past events. Right, because our bodies are
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physically stuck in the present moment, glued to the ground by
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gravity. We are totally localized.
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But our minds can travel back to ancient Rome, yes?
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Or we can project 50 years into the future to imagine a city
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that hasn't even been built yet, or conceive of completely
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invisible entities like angels and God himself.
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And we also grasp abstract non material concepts like just
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rightness and honor. Think about it, the bodily
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senses like touch, sight, smell that cannot interact with
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justice. No, you cannot smell justice.
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Right, that you cannot touch rightness because the physical
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body cannot interact with these concepts, Calvin concludes the
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Spirit must be the seat of this vast non material intelligence.
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The third proof Calvin offers is honestly so surprising, yet
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incredibly relatable. The mystery of sleep.
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It catches most readers off guard for sure.
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Wait, he uses sleep the one time during the the day when we are
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essentially paralyzed and useless?
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How does the state of unconsciousness prove we have an
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immortal soul? Well, Calvin argues that sleep,
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which basically been numbs the physical body and mimics death,
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actually demonstrates our immortality.
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Because while the body is completely dormant, the eyes are
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shut, the limbs are heavy, the soul is hyperactive, it produces
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thoughts of things that never happened, it generates vivid
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realities in the form of dreams. Sometimes it even produces
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presentiments of the future. It shows the soul, operating
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with stunning clarity and agility, were completely
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detached from the physical senses.
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That is wild to think about. When I am asleep.
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My physical eyes are closed in a pitch black room, yet I am
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seeing vibrant colors, holding conversations, and experiencing
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complex emotions in a dream. Yes, the physical machinery is
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totally powered down, but the pilot is still flying the plane
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and. Kelvin anchors all of this in
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biblical citations. He mentions Peter calling Christ
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the Shepherd and Bishop of Souls.
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If we were just biological machines, Peter would be
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speaking nonsense or Paul talking about leaving the
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Tabernacle of the flesh to be present with the Lord.
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You cannot leave a Tabernacle if you are just the tent canvas.
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There is an occupant inside the tent.
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And that occupant is the soul. OK, so we have established that
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the soul is distinct from the body and that it is immortal.
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I guess the natural next logical step is to figure out where God
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placed his image within this dualistic human frame.
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We are searching for the Imago day.
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Calvin is very deliberate in his placement here.
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He acknowledges that some sparks of God's glory shine in the
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outer man, you know, in the physical body, but he insists
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that the proper and primary seat of the image of God is in the
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soul. Though he does make one minor,
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almost humorous concession about the physical body, he mentions
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that our physical posture distinguishes us from animals.
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Right, the upright posture. Yeah, while animals are bent
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over looking at the dirt, humans have an uplifted face, naturally
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positioned to gaze heavenward at the stars.
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It is a really poetic observation.
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He allows for it provided we maintain the settled absolute
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principle that the true image of God is spiritual, and he has to
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defend this spiritual definition definition aggressively because
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of a theologian named Oceander. Oceander Calvin calls his theory
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a feudal invention and says the man was perversely ingenious.
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He does not hold back. Those are heavy theological
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punches. Why did Oceander trigger such a
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fierce reaction? What was he actually claiming?
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Well, Oceander claimed that the image of God in Adam was
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actually based on the future physical body of Christ.
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He argued that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit place their
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image in man based on the corporeal physical figure that
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Christ was destined to take on thousands of years later in
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history. Let me get this straight.
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So Oceandra is arguing that Adam's physical body looks like
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God because God always planned for the sun to have a physical
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human body. That is the claim.
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Yeah, that almost sounds plausible on a surface level.
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I mean, I can see why people might buy into that.
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It sounds plausible right up until you stress test the logic.
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Calvin completely dismantles this with a devastating
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theological question. He asks, if Adam's physical body
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is the image of the entire Trinity, how is Christ's
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physical body the image of the Holy Spirit?
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Oh wow. Right.
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Does the Holy Spirit have physical marks?
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Does the Holy Spirit have facial features or a certain height?
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No, of course not. The spirit is entirely spirit.
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There are no physical dimensions at all.
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Which means Ozander's theory just collapses to claim the
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physical body is the image of the triune God overthrows the
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eternal distinction between the sun and the Spirit.
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Furthermore, it implies that the eternal word, the sun, is an
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image of the Spirit which completely scrambles the order
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of the Trinity. Calvin says it is repugnant to
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all reason. The pattern for Adam was not
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Christ's future human flesh. The pattern was God's spiritual
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nature. Well, while we are clearing up
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these historical misconceptions, there is a linguistic hurdle
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Calvin tackles that still trips people up today.
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I have heard countless folks split hairs trying to find a
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massive theological difference between the word image and the
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word likeness in Genesis. Oh yes, you know when God says
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let us make man in our image after our likeness?
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It is a really common trap in biblical people try to assign
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image to the actual substance of the soul and likeness to its
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outward qualities. They build entire theological
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frameworks on trying to separate those two words.
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But Calvin brushes all of that aside is just an unnecessary
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complication. He points out that the Hebrew
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language frequently uses repetition to express one single
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concept twice for rhetorical emphasis.
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Likeness is simply added as an explanation of the word image.
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Yes, there is no hidden double meaning waiting to be decoded.
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Humans are called God's image simply because they are like
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God. It is a wonderfully clarifying
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linguistic resolution. God new image might be a
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slightly obscure term, so he added likeness as an explanatory
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parallel. Think about it like the phrase
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safe and sound. When I say my family arrived
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home safe and sound, I am not defining 2 completely separate
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physical states right. I am not saying they are safe
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from robbers and also emitting a sound.
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I'm using a common linguistic rhythm to state one definitive
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fact. They are perfectly OK.
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Image and likeness operate the exact same way.
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They reinforce the single truth. That is a highly effective way
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to frame it. Yeah, but having located the
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image primarily in the soul, we run into a pretty big historical
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problem. Because of the fall of Adam,
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that original image was severely corrupted.
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Calvin refers to the remnants of the image and fallen man as a
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frightful deformity. Which means means we are back to
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staring at the ruined stones in the forest.
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Since the building is ruined, we cannot just look at the rubble
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to figure out the original blueprint.
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So where do we look? We look at the restoration
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project. We look at how the image is
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fixed in order to understand how it was originally built.
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Calvin defines the original unfallen image of Adam by
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looking at the New Testament concept of regeneration through
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Christ. Because Christ is the second
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Adam. Precisely the entire goal of
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spiritual regeneration for the believer is to reform humanity
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back into God's image. So if we want to know what the
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pristine image was, we just look at what the Holy Spirit is
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currently producing in a restored human.
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Spot on. Calvin looks at the Apostle
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Paul's letters, specifically Colossians and Ephesians, where
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Paul talks about putting on the new man, which is renewed
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according to the image of his Creator.
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What are the specific components of this renewed image though?
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Like if we are looking at the schematic, what are the load
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bearing pillars? True knowledge, knowledge, pure
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righteousness and holiness. Those are the three pillars,
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Calvin says. The original image was visible
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in the light of the mind, in the uprightness of the heart, and in
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the soundness of all the parts. See, this changes the entire
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conversation. It proves the Imago Dei is an
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inner good of the soul. It is moral and intellectual
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perfection. It is not just having dominion
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over the animals, which is how a lot of people interpret Genesis.
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No, Dominion over the earth is a result of possessing the image,
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but dominion is not the image itself.
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This also refutes Augustine's famous speculation, doesn't it?
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It does because Augustine thought the soul was a
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structural reflection of the Trinity.
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That because the human soul has understanding, will, and memory.
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Those three parts basically mirror the Father, Son, and Holy
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Spirit. Kalzan has immense respect for
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Augustine, but he calls that specific speculation by no means
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sound. The image is about moral
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character and spiritual light, true piety, righteousness,
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purity and intelligence. It is not about structural
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geometry mimicking the Trinity. That makes a lot of sense.
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Because if the image was just having a memory and a will, then
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even the most wicked people on earth would fully possess the
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image of God, because they also have memories and wills.
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But anytime we start talking about the soul having this
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incredible divine light, this pure righteousness, we step onto
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dangerous ground. It is very easy to accidentally
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elevate the soul way too high. And that brings us to a massive
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theological hazard. Calvin calls it the Manichaean
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trap, the danger of divine and flowing.
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Calvin saw this enormous error happening in his own day,
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promoted by a theologian named Cervidisus, right?
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And he had to drop a hammer to clarify the exact nature of the
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soul's origin. He really did.
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The error of the Manichaeas which Cervidis revived was
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teaching that the human soul was an emanation or a literal
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derivation of God's actual substance.
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Wait, like a physical piece of God?
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Yeah. Because Genesis says God
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breathed the breath of life into Adam, they thought God literally
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broke off a piece of his own immeasurable divinity and poured
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it into man. Wow, it is incredibly seductive
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to think you have a literal spark of God physically inside
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you. I mean it makes you feel
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inherently divine. New age spirituality does this
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constantly today. You know, you hear people say
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the universe is experiencing itself through you, or you are a
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piece of the divine source. It is seductive, but it is a
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theological catastrophe. Calvin unpacks the massive
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problem this creates. If the human soul is made of
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God's actual literal essence, then we have an unsolvable
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issue. Because humans are flawed.
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Highly flawed humans change their minds constantly.
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Humans act in sheer ignorance. Humans give in to wicked desires
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and yield to the slightest temptations.
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Calvin bluntly states that the human mind can be a sink and
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lurking place for every sort of filth.
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So if my soul is literally made of God's stuff and my soul sins.
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Then God's nature is subject to change, ignorance, and sin.
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You were attributing vice, weakness, and outright
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wickedness directly to the eternal essence of the Creator,
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Kelvin says. Who would not shudder at this
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monstrous thing? It is a devilish error because
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it drags God down into the muck of human depravity.
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OK, but I have to play the skeptic here.
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What about the Apostle Paul? Speaking to the philosophers in
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Athens in Acts 17, Paul quotes the Greek poet Aratus saying we
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are indeed his offspring. Doesn't the word offspring
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heavily imply we come from God's actual substance?
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I mean, a human child comes from the physical substance of its
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parents. Calvin anticipates that exact
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objection. He clarifies the crucial
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distinction here. We are God's offspring in
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quality, not in essence. God endowed us with divine gifts
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like reason, morality, and judgement, but He did not give
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us His literal substance. Let me try out an analogy here.
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Think about a brilliant composer writing a masterwork Symphony.
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OK, The music perfectly reflects the composer's genius.
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It shows his mind, his emotional depth, his structural
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brilliance. The Symphony is his offspring in
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a creative sense. But the sheet music, the ink on
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the page and the sound waves vibrating in the concert hall,
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they do not literally contain the physical cells, the blood or
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the DNA of the composer. That is a fantastic
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illustration. The soul is a created thing.
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It was made out of nothing, the Hilo.
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It is not a severed piece of the divine.
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When Paul talks about us being renewed in Christ's image by the
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Spirit, he means we are conformed to God by the grace
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and capability of the Spirit, not by God.
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In flowing His literal substance into our veins, we never become
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consubstantial with God. Calvin is making sure we realize
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we are not consubstantial, which is just a fancy theologian way
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of saying we don't share the same cosmic DNA.
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Right, exactly. We remain creatures.
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Highly elevated, beautifully designed creatures, but
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creatures nonetheless. So if we aren't literally made
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of God's substance, but we are designed in his image, how does
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the machinery inside us actually run?
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If you pop the hood on Calvin's version of the human soul, what
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are the engine components that drive our choices?
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Here, Calvin issues a major warning about getting bogged
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down in secular philosophy. He calls it a maze.
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Historical philosophers, especially the Scholastics, love
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to divide the soul into endless intricate subcategory.
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They love the good subcategory. Oh, they.
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Couldn't get enough. They split it into sensitive and
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rational parts and then divided the cognitive faculties into
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common sense, fantasy, reason and understanding.
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Then they divided the appetitive faculties into will, anger, and
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inordinate desire. It sounds exhausting just
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listing them. It sounds like they were trying
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to map a machine with 1000 different lovers.
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And Calvin admits their observations are sometimes true
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and even enjoyable to learn. But he argues they involve us in
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obscurity. They don't help build practical
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godliness for the Christian. Calvin prefers a simple,
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universally accessible definition that gets straight to
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the point of how we operate before God.
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He strips away the philosophical clutter and presents a very
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clean two-part structure, the two pillars of the soul,
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understanding and will. Let's breakdown the specific
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functions. The understanding is the leader,
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the governor. Its job is to distinguish
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between objects. It evaluates a situation, a
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thought or desire, and judges whether it is good and worthy of
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approval or evil and worthy of disapproval.
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It is the light of reason guiding the ship.
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And the second pillar is the will.
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The will is the follower. Its job is to choose and follow
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what the understanding pronounces as good, and to flee
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from what the understanding rejects as evil.
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The chain of command is absolutely vital here.
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The will does not operate in a vacuum.
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It does not just randomly fire off desires without input.
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It always awaits the judgement of the understanding.
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Shunning or seeking out in the will corresponds directly to
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affirming or denying in the mind.
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Think of the understanding as the CEO who looks at the data
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and says eating this entire cake is a bad idea, but the will is
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the rebellious execution team in modern fallen humans.
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The execution team mutinies and says I don't care what the data
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says, I want the sugar. Yeah, the chain of command is
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broken. But in Calvin's framework, in an
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unfallen human, that system works perfectly.
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The understanding has perfect clarity, sees God as the
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ultimate good, and the will joyfully obeys and pursues God
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without any friction. That lack of friction is key.
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The understanding points the finger and says that is good and
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the will runs toward it. The understanding says that is
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bad and the will recoils. The understanding sits firmly in
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the captain's chair. OK, this raises the most
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difficult tension filled question of our entire
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discussion today. I think I know where you're
22:46
going with this. If the understanding governs the
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will, and Adam possessed perfect limber understanding, how on
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earth did he choose to sin? Calvin applies all the
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groundwork we have laid down to define Adam's original free
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will. In his original integrity.
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Adam's reason, understanding, prudence, and judgement were
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absolutely sufficient to lead him to God and eternal bliss.
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He was not created with a defect.
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His faculties were pristine. Pristine.
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His will was completely amenable to the guidance of his reason.
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In this specific original state. Adam had true free will.
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He had the capability, if he so willed, to attain eternal life.
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He had the highest rectitude in his mind.
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Hold on, hold on. You were telling me Adam had
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perfect faculties. His understanding clearly knew
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God was good and his will. Florida State followed his
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understanding, so why did he fall?
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This feels like a massive contradiction.
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It does, but Calvin introduces a razor sharp distinction here to
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solve that apparent contradiction.
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He makes a firm distinction between ability and constancy.
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Ability and constancy. Right.
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Adam's will was capable of being bent to either side.
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God gave him the ability to stand, provided he exercised the
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will to do so. But God did not give him the
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constancy to persevere. Let me try to visualize this.
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It's like giving a weightlifter the physical muscle to hold £500
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above his head. That is the ability, yes, but
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you don't guarantee that his muscles won't cramp after 5
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seconds. That is the lack of constancy.
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God gave Adam the muscle, but left the choice to hold the
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weight entirely up to him. That analogy perfectly
24:17
illustrates Calvin's point. Calvin says God gave Adam a
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mediocre and even transitory will.
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Adam could have stood if you wished, seeing that he fell
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solely by his own will. His choice of good and evil was
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truly free, but because his will was not logged into perpetual
24:34
constancy, he was capable of falling.
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And he did. I have to push back hard on this
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on behalf of anyone listening because this feels incredibly
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unfair. It's a tough pill to swallow.
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People will say why didn't God just make Adam bulletproof?
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Why didn't God give him that constancy so he couldn't sin at
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all? It would have saved humanity
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thousands of years of misery, war and disease.
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You are telling me God gave him a sports car but intentionally
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didn't put brakes on it and then blamed him for crashing?
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It is the natural human reaction to feel defensive about this,
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but Calvin's stance is unflinching.
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Quarreling with God over this is sinful.
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God was under no necessity whatsoever to make a man who
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could not sin. So he didn't owe Adam
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invincibility. He owed him nothing.
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It was God's choice to give whatever he pleased.
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Calvin acknowledges that a nature incapable of sinning
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would indeed have been more excellent.
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But God is the sovereign Creator.
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The reason God withheld the virtue of perseverance from Adam
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lies entirely hidden in God's secret plan.
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And Calvin says sobriety is for us the part of wisdom meaning we
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shouldn't try to pry into the secret, hidden motives of God's
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mind. We have to accept the limits of
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our own understanding. We must accept those limits.
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But Calvin does tell us the result of that hidden plan.
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From man's fall, God gathers occasion for his own glory.
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Through the redemption of the fallen world, God displays a
25:56
depth of mercy, justice, and grace that would never have been
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seen if Adam had remained perfectly constant.
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But the blame remains squarely on Adam.
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He wasn't forced to sin. Entirely on Adam.
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His status should have availed to remove any excuse he receives
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so much. He was endowed with such
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pristine faculties that he voluntarily brought about his
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own destruction. He possessed the ability, but he
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didn't have the will to use his ability.
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This brings us to a crucial take away regarding secular
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philosophy today. Calvin says philosophers mix up
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heaven and earth because they look at modern corrupted
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humanity and they try to find the free choice that only
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belonged to Adam in his unfallen state.
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This is a monumental error in secular thinking and even some
26:38
religious circles. Philosophers seek in a ruin for
26:41
a building. They look at a human race that
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is lost and sunk down into spiritual destruction, and they
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still try to argue that we have the same perfectly balanced,
26:48
unbiased free will that Adam had in the Guard.
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They assume the building is still standing.
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They don't realize the CEO, the understanding is now darkened by
26:56
sin and the execution team, the will, is now enslaved to
27:00
corrupted desires. We do not have Adam's original
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free choice. We contract from him a
27:06
hereditary taint. We are far different at our
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birth from what Adam was at his creation.
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To apply the blueprint of Adam's unfallen free will to our
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current devastated state is to misdiagnose the entire human
27:18
condition. It leads to terrible theology
27:21
and terrible philosophy. Wow, this has been an intensely
27:24
illuminating session. Let's briefly summarize the path
27:26
we have taken through Calvin's text today.
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We started in the literal dirt, realizing that our composition
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from clay should entirely bridle our pride from and there we
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examine the immortal essence of the soul, proven by the
27:38
spiritual dread of our conscience, the nimble
27:41
capability of our minds to transcend time, and even the
27:44
mystery of our dreams while we sleep.
27:46
We then located the Imago Dei, the image of God.
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We saw how it is seated in the spiritual soul, not the physical
27:53
body, dismantling O Sanders bizarre theory about the future
27:56
physical frame of Christ. And we clarified that image and
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likeness are simply 2 words pointing to the exact same
28:03
reality. Right.
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And since that image was ruined by the fall, we looked at the
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second Adam, Jesus Christ, to see what the restoration looks
28:11
like. True knowledge, pure
28:12
righteousness and holiness. We also carefully avoided the
28:16
mannequin trap, ensuring we understand the soul is a created
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thing out of nothing, not a literal piece of God's
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substance. If we were made of God's
28:24
substance, that would dangerously make God the author
28:26
of our shifting sins. Finally, we looked at the
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mechanics of the soul, the understanding leading the will,
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and tackled the profound weight, the massive mystery of Adam's
28:36
original free choice. He had the ability to stand but
28:39
lack the constancy to persevere, falling voluntarily by his own
28:43
choice, leaving us in the ruined state we find ourselves in
28:46
today. As we close, I want to leave
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you, the listener, with a final consideration built upon this
28:52
source material. It is something to chew on
28:54
regarding your own life. OK, lay it on us.
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If our ancestor Adam fell when his internal faculties, his
29:00
understanding, and his will were perfectly aligned, pristine, and
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completely uncorrupted by any previous sin, how should that
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reality dictate the amount of caution and skepticism we apply
29:11
to our own daily decision making today?
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Knowing that our internal faculties are now fractured.
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Yes, if the pristine building collapsed under pressure, how
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much more careful should we be when making choices while living
29:23
in the ruins? We should be incredibly slow to
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trust our own unfiltered desires and entirely reliant on the
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grace that restores the image. That is a piercing thought to
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end on. It brings us right back to those
29:34
stones in the forest. You cannot just trust the
29:36
rubble. You have to look for the
29:38
architect who is able to rebuild the ruins.
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Thank you for joining the session of Reformed Thinking.
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We hope this deep dive has given you a clearer schematic of both
29:46
your original design and your current need for grace.
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Until next time.