Hebrews Lesson 91 June 28, 2007
NKJ Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with
wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not
faint.
Sunday night – this Sunday
night - don’t forget 6 to7:30 Ike will be teaching on how to study the Bible. I
think I heard a few rumors about people. I heard something like –
Homework! Homework! What? What do you mean?
It is so funny. There is a college
that I won’t mention that offers a free course on how to study the Bible. It is
a great idea for recruiting people.
You come to college and we will give you a free course on how to study
the Bible. Everybody wants to
study the Bible. They show up. They’ll have a class the first night – maybe
sixty, seventy people show up. Then they get a homework assignment and they
have to go home and open their Bibles and think and study and learn how to
eventually use Bible dictionaries or encyclopedias.
About the time they get to the
second or third class when their assignments are turned back and they have 1’s
and 2’s on them out of 10, they begin to realize that studying the Bible isn’t
a matter of closing your eyes in prayer and saying, “Jesus teach me what it
says” – and then write down whatever comes to the front of their
mind.
It is amazing how many people think
that. It is amazing how many people think that if you have the gift of
pastor-teacher that you just automatically know Greek and Hebrew. Somehow
people get this idea. I know a guy who was – I mean this guy is very
smart and had a successful business career. He went to Dallas Seminary thinking
he had the gift – and he may have had the gift of pastor-teacher –
but he had such a tough time with first year Greek and he just assumed if you
had the gift of pastor-teacher you would automatically be able to learn Greek
that he just bailed out after that first semester. Just because you have a
spiritual gift of pastor- teacher (remember that’s a communication gift, it is
not a study gift) - some people don’t realize that. They think if you have the
gift of pastor-teacher they’ll automatically like to study. Well, that’s not
necessarily true. There are a lot of people who have the gift of pastor-teacher
who know that. You have to learn how to study. Anybody can learn how to study
because the gift of studying isn’t a communication gift. So anyone can learn
how to study the Bible and it will improve your own Bible study and help you
because the principles for Bible study are basically the principles of learning
how to read intelligently and understand more fully and completely that which
you read. The principles in Bible study are the same as reading anything
– learning how to use dictionaries, encyclopedias, learning how to do
research, learning how to think through the vocabulary verbiage of everything
that you read. So that’s a great thing that Ike is doing on Sunday night and
you don’t want to miss that. It will be a challenge as technology is a
challenge.
I remember (I think Ike told the
same kind of story the other night) after years and years of sitting in a
congregation being taught the Word of God word-by-word, line-upon-line,
precept-upon-precept, isagogically, categorically, exegetically, (the whole
bit) and then sitting in an inductive Bible study class my first two weeks at
Dallas Seminary. I thought I was going to flunk out. That was the hardest thing
I had ever had to do because you had to – as you know because I have
shown you once or twice what real exegesis this is like - y’all never really
been exposed to what lies behind the Bible study which is that anybody who
studies the text has to learn how to just read and study and do inductive work.
It is not a matter of top down – just because I know systematic theology
that I can automatically understand the Scripture. It is the other way around. It
is the Scripture first, then your theology - not theology and then
understanding of Scripture. So it’s always kind of a rude awakening and many of
the people I knew who had a similar background to me had a tough time those
first two or three weeks. Gradually we beat our heads against the walls long
enough to where it began to make sense. Then we could figure out how to read the
Scripture and understand it. It is not just a matter of some sort of mystical
heebie-jeebie, liver quiver, wait and the Holy Spirit is going to open up
flashing lights on the text and I am automatically going to see everything and
understand everything. It takes time; it takes work; it takes thought. But it’s
fun. As one person entitled their book on Bible study methods – It Is the Joy of Discovery.
Before we get started in our study
this evening, let’s bow our heads together, open in prayer and have a few
moments of silent prayer to give you a shot at using I John 1:9 if you need to
and then I will open in prayer.
Let us pray.
Open your Bibles to Hebrews –
Hebrews briefly - Hebrews 7:9-10.
We won’t be there very long. It has been – I don’t know. What’s
it been? 3 weeks - 4 weeks since
we were last in Hebrews. Last time was right before I went to Israel and was
gone a couple of weeks in Israel and last week we had a special on the
Temple. So it has been almost a
month since we were in Hebrews.
As we have come to this last section
and as a communicator sometimes I wrestle with this because I am teaching
Hebrews. But, within Hebrews, within any book you run into particular verses or
topics or allusions to doctrines that are very important to just understanding
the flow of the author’s thought. You can come to a passage where the writer
throws out a word like justification or propitiation or sin or any number of
things and you know that it is integral to understanding that verse, that
paragraph, or that promise; but that it’s not necessarily a concept that people
really understand. So you have to stop and pause and almost lose the flow of
thought in your study of the book just to focus in on this topic or this
doctrine or this one particular thing.
We landed on two verses in Hebrews
7:9-10 that are at the heart of the discussion on two very important topics or
doctrines. One of those had to do with the origin and transmission of the soul.
The other one that is always paired with it, always connected to it, has to do
with the origin and transmission of the sin nature, Adam's original sin. So,
both of these flow out of a certain understanding of these two verses.
NKJ Hebrews 7:9 Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through
Abraham, so to speak,
I have corrected the translation
here based on the Greek because even though most of the translations indicate
the fact that you have a manner of speaking or any figure of speech something
like that they throw it at the end of verse 9 so it kind of hides itself
between verse 9 and verse 10. But, in the Greek this phrase is at the
beginning.
That is one of those things for
those who are working on observations on Sunday night. That is what an
observation is – is that this word is at the beginning of the sentence so
it is in the emphatic position. That is an observation to make.
So at the very beginning of the
sentence the writer says, “In a manner of speaking,” or “or in a figure of
speech.”
So right away we know he is not
talking literally. He is using an analogy. He says,
“Even Levi, who receives tithes.”
He can’t be talking about the
person, the individual of Levi because Levi as a person, one of the 12 sons of
Jacob, never received tithes from anybody. He was the progenitor of the
Levitical tribe, but it wasn’t until several generations later that the
priesthood was established at Mt. Sinai, Aaron was established as the high
priest, and the Levitical tribe was established as the priestly tribe. So right
away he is using Levi as a figure of speech. It is indicated. It is either a
synecdoche (I think) or rather a metronome where one noun is placed for
another. The progenitor is placed for his descendents. So, even the use of the
word Levi is a figure of speech.
“Even Levi, who receives tithes.”
That is the Levitical descendents
were the ones who collected the three different tithes in Israel.
receives
tithes, paid tithes through Abraham,
Now none of them were there. Abraham
was the head of the new Jewish race that God had called out - the new Jewish
people. It was Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob and Levi. So Levi is the third
generation. Levi was not present. He was born a couple of hundred years after
the events described in Genesis 14 when Abraham took his servants, defeated the
armies of the four kings of the east and then brought the plunder back to Jerusalem,
met with Melchizedek the high priest, and gave 10% (a tithe) of that to
Melchizedek. But he is making a point. The point in the flow of the argument
here as I have stated numerous times now is simply that if Abraham was
subordinate to Melchizedek, then any of Abraham’s descendents would also have
been subordinate to Melchizedek.
However since the early Middle Ages
and sometimes I wish we were free of all theological influence from the early
Middle Ages but not all of it was bad.
There was a lot that was bad based upon the allegorical hermeneutic that
was used and various other problems. There was a theological development that
occurred from a man that some considered being one of the greatest theologians
of all time. The Protestants call
him Augustine (pronounced with a “teen”).
The Roman Catholics call him Augustine (pronounced with a “tin”). He was
the Bishop of Hippo which was located in North Africa. I would say he was great
in the sense that he was probably the most influential – for good and for
ill - theologian of the Middle Ages.
In fact, when Luther who was an
Augustinian monk… They later developed an order of monastics called the
Augustinian order. Now Augustine did not found that order. I go back and forth
because I did my master’s work at the University of St. Thomas here in
philosophy. So they taught me say Augustine (tin). It was a tough thing to do. Then
I went back to Dallas Seminary and majored in church history and it was back to
Augustine(teen). So I am schizophrenic in my pronunciation. So one minute it is
one and the other it is another. I don’t know what I am talking about. So
Augustine came along and he follows the allegorical interpretation of origin. He
never established a monastic order. But later a monastic order was founded in
his name.
Luther was an Augustinian monk. Initially what Luther is simply trying
to do in the Reformation is to get the Roman Catholic Church to go back to
Augustinian theology which he thought was the benchmark of orthodoxy. But as he studies the Scripture more as
you move through 1516 towards 1517 and Luther begins to write a commentary on
Romans and he is studying Galatians and he comes to understand the doctrine of
justification by faith alone, that it is not based on works at all. Initially it is this influence of
Augustine.
So much of his theology even though
– let’s say (start over here) here is biblical truth. During the period from about 500 up
through 1500 the – let’s use a vertical display. Let’s say here is biblical truth. There
is the departure from biblical truth and apostasy (falling away from the truth)
during the Middle Ages where it gets extremely distorted and perverted. By the
14th and 15th centuries you are down here. Luther makes
major changes and he gets up to here.
Where he makes his big shift is at the most important area, which is in
the soteriological doctrines. But in ecclesiology he is still not very far away
from Rome. In his understanding of communion he holds to something called
consubstantiation which a lot of people really don’t know how to distinguish
between transubstantiation which is the Roman Catholic view that the elements,
the substance which is an Aristotelian concept of the bread and the wine
actually changed (trans) the substance into the body and the blood of Christ. Luther’s
view was that the body and the blood of Christ are still with the physical
element. That is why he uses the term “con” meaning with - consubstantiation. But
that is not a memorial view which is what we hold. So he’s still really close
in his views on total depravity as total inability, his views on some other
aspects. He is very, very Augustinian. Augustinian theology deeply affected
John Calvin. They are still a-millennial. They are not literally interpreting
the later stages - eschatology in terms of pre-millennialism.
So it’s only as the decades go by as
you go through the 16th century - 1520, 1530, get down to about
1560. Then other men come along, the second generation of reformers, and they
begin to more consistently apply this concept of literal interpretation and
sola Scriptura to various theological areas so that by the time you have the
shift to the next century in the early 1600’s, you begin to have men going back
to a literal view of prophecy and becoming pre-millenialists. That is what you
study in the history of doctrine. The history of theology is how these
movements change and are affected.
So when Augustine came along and
read this as he was trying to deal with the transmission of the sin nature, he
developed a view that became known as seminalism – that the entire human
race was physically and actually within Adam when Adam sinned so that with
Adam’s sin the whole human race is also sinning. It is not representational. It
is not federal. That is a term that comes along later on. It is based on
Hebrews 7:9-10. This also affects the view of the origin and transmission of
the soul, the view we studied as traducianism. So this verse becomes a key
verse for both of those. Both of
those aspects, both of those understandings of the origin and transmission of
the soul and the origin and transmission of the sin nature, are connected to
one another. So that is why I am taking the time in a number of different
lessons to go through these things and try to explain them a little more
clearly. The idea that the totality of man including the soul originates
through physical means, it transmitted physically all of man, immaterial,
material, is called traducianism. That was originated by an early church father
in the 3rd century by the name of Tertullian. What most people don’t
point out is that Tertullian was a thorough materialist. He believed that there
was no immaterial part of man. It was all material.
Then we studied the theology of
creationism that came along. That is the idea that the physical body is
transmitted mediately through procreation, but that the soul was independently
created and imparted by God at birth. That became known as creationism. Creationism
is usually associated with a federal view of the transmission of the sin
nature. We will get into that a little later. And seminalism and traducianism
go together. I pointed out in the last lesson that often in theology you find
people polarized.
You will hear one theologian and
he’ll say. “This is the way it is.”
He will outline various verses to
support his position.
Somebody else comes along and says,
“Here is the other position and here are 3 or 4 verses to support it.”
Sometimes they are both emphasizing
things and there is a way to pull them together. There are different aspects
that are true about one; other aspects that are true about the other. So the
idea that the sin nature is transmitted physically and that not merely is the
sin nature transmitted physically but the corruption and the guilt of Adam's
original sin is transmitted physically is known as seminalism. This is the view
that in Romans 5:12 we have the statement:
NKJ Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the
world,
How does sin enter the world?
and death
through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned –
How does death, the condemnation of
Adam’s sin, how does that spread to all men? Is this done physically? Was the
human race seminally present or was Adam the representative head?
One of the proponents of seminalism
was the 19th century Calvinist reformed theologian by the name of
William G T Shedd who is quoted quite frequently as are many others in Lewis Sperry Chafer’s Systematic Theology. I took the time to
go through some of Shedd’s today. Shedd explains Romans 5:12 by saying:
In this case Adam and his posterity existed together and sinned together
as a unity. The posterity (that would be us) would not vicariously be
represented in the first sin because representation implies the absence of the
party represented. But they sinned the first sin being seminally existent and
present and this first sin is deservedly imputed to them because in this
generic matter it was committed by them.
That is his explanation of
seminalism.
I have defined seminalism as “that
the entire human race, body and soul, was genetically present in Adam”. Then I
go on to add that “it is usually connected to the Traducianist view of the
soul”.
Now Shedd who is a seminalist
describes federalism the following way.
He says:
In this case Adam as an individual distinct from Eve and distinct from
his posterity whom in respect to the soul, he did not seminally include sinned
representatively and vicariously (that is as a substitute) for his non-existent
and absent posterity as their vicar and representative. He disobeyed the Eden
statute and their room and place precisely as Christ obeyed the moral law in
respect to both precept and penalty as the vicar and representative of His
people. The sin of Adam consequently is imputed to his posterity in the very
same way that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer.
This is where I think he makes his
logical flaw.
Undeservedly
or gratuitously
In other words that the rest of the
human race in his view (because he doesn’t agree with federalism) he says, “All
you are doing is undeservedly imputing Adams sin to the rest of the human race.
They didn’t make that decision; Adam did.”
Now the solution that I am going to
teach and develop is that there are elements of both that are true. Christ is physically and genetically
related to the entire human race and the entire human race is viewed as an
integral whole in that sense. That is why the Second Person of the Trinity had
to become a human being and an angel couldn’t die for us even though an angel
would be righteous; but, a human being had to die for us because there is this
genetic thing that ties the whole human race together. Whereas you don’t have
salvation of that type among the angels because among the angels there is no
genetic unity. Each angel is
created individually. They don’t marry and produce baby angels. You didn’t
start off with two angels and then they got married and procreated and made
other angels so that there is a genetic unity among the angels. They are all
different. So you couldn’t come up with an angel that was genetically related
to all the angels that could die for the other angels. God’s plan for man was
that there would be this genetic unity so that one human being could die for
the rest. So there is clearly a seminal or genetic connection that is
important.
But Jesus dies as our substitute. The
term there is vicarious substitute. That is usually where we see the term
vicarious and because of the priestly idea in the Roman Catholic Church that
sort of bled over into the Anglican Church in England. Remember the Anglican
Church (the British reformation) did not start because they had leaders in the
Anglican Church who came to biblical truth and then reformed the church from
the bottom up. There were numerous pastors and theologians in the Roman
Catholic Church in England in the late 1510’s and 1520’s who were reading
Luther and later Calvin who were coming to reformation convictions, but that is
not what caused the split in England. What caused the split in England was the desire
to produce a male heir. Henry couldn’t get a male heir produced so he wanted a
divorce from Catherine.
The pope wouldn’t give him a divorce
so he said, “Well, I will start my own church.”
Remember Henry VIII is the one who earlier
had written a rebuttal. He was brilliant. He wrote a rebuttal of Luther to
Luther’s position on justification by faith alone for which the pope gave the
king, the monarch of England, the title Defender of the Faith. To this day
Elizabeth II is known as the Defender of the Faith. Where did she get that
title? She got it by inheritance from Henry VIII who got it because before he
split from the Roman Catholic Church. He wrote a paper, a theological treatise
against Martin Luther. See you didn’t know that. That’s free of charge - an
extra bit of historical insight for the night.
So Henry decides he wants to get a
divorce. So because he wanted a divorce, you have a top down reformation in
England.
But when you take western
civilization taught by a secular atheist who doesn’t know anything about church
history and hates Christianity what they will tell you is that it didn’t have
anything to do - he will completely ignore the dimension of theology and
theological shift that was already occurring from the bottom up in England. It
was happening everywhere. It just hadn’t percolated to the top yet. So in
England you have this slightly different shift that takes place with the
Anglican Church.
Now I got off on the Anglican Church
and forgot why I ran down that anacoluthon…Oh, I know why – because they
called their pastors vicars. They got that from a holdover from the Catholic
Church. Why? Because this view of the priest as a substitute. You will see that in reference to
Anglican pastors. They call them the vicars. In the Roman Catholic Church the
pope is called the Vicar of Christ. It is the idea of a representative or
substitute. So when I read the quote from Shedd twice he used the term
“vicarious”. I recognize that it is not a term that most people use in their
everyday vocabulary. I won’t embarrass anybody and say, “How many people have
used that word in the last year?” but I bet no hands would go up, except for
maybe one or two of you. I got a couple of dirty looks when I said that so I
knew somebody had used that word.
So Shedd says that his basic thing
is that Adam can’t be simply a vicar, a representative of the rest of human
race. So he rejects out of hand the whole idea of federal theology. Now there
is another kinky little twist that comes into this theologically. And that is
that federal headship by some people seems to be linked inextricably to
covenant theology. However people in the reformed position are either seminalists
or federalists and they are all covenant theologians. So I don’t know why I
have seen this within the last 50 or 60 years that the federal representative
idea seems to be always linked.
It seems like somebody comes up with
an idea and then they teach it and they are a known name.
The next thing you know everybody
else is teaching that and nobody goes back and says, “Wait a minute. What is
the basis for that?”
So we have federalism which is the
view that Adam stood as the head and the representative of the human race. Adam’s
decisions were on behalf of all humanity. He is the designated
representative.
I think both are true – that
he is physically related to everyone and so there is a physical dimension to
the transmission of sin in terms of the sin nature and there is a federal
representative concept that his sin is the basis for the imputation of Adam’s
original sin to the physically transmitted corruption or what we also call the
sin nature. So that is how they link together. There are elements of both that
are true.
The issue is on Adam's original sin
which is a technical term for the first act of willful disobedience to God
committed by the first man (meaning male human, Adam) in the Garden of Eden. It
wasn’t Eve’s disobedience that caused it. The only thing that affected was her.
But, Adam’s sin affected him and all of his progeny.
Let’s look at this chart. I broke
this out. I got this out of a Moody
Handbook of Theology. I thought
it was a nice helpful little chart -
Moody Handbook of Theology
edited by Paul Enns.
It gives you these views. There are
actually four views. I have only talked about the two views of seminalism and
federalism, but there are actually four.
Depravity has to do with the fact that man is not holy or righteous, but
he is depraved. He has been affected by sin and corrupted. The word total means
that depravity extends to every aspect of his being and his person. It doesn’t
mean that he is as depraved as he could be, but that every aspect of his being
is equally depraved. Of course people are not as bad as they could be. People
can do good. Jesus told his disciples:
NKJ Matthew 7:11 "If you then, being evil,
Because they are fallen creatures
know how to give good gifts to your children…
Even though you have a fallen nature, you are evil, you are corrupt; you
can do relative good. But it is not a good that can merit God’s approval. So the Arminian view is that depravity
is not total. They are sick; they are not dead. People received a corrupt
nature from Adam, but they don’t receive his guilt or culpability. Modern
adherents to this view are Methodists, Wesleyans, Pentecostals, Holiness
groups, charismatics, Nazarene Church.
Those are all parts of the holiness groups. They have inherently an
Armenian view of the imputation of sin.
The key verse, the key passage that
has to be exegeted in relationship to this that is always referred to in
conjunction with the passage in Hebrews 7 is Romans 5:12-21. So we are going to
take a few weeks to work our way through this very, very important passage.
Romans 5:12 begins with the
statement
NKJ Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the
world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all
sinned --
Now let me make a couple of
observations for those of you who are trying to learn how to study the Bible
under Ike because I know that some of you are trying to figure out what an
observation is. An observation is saying – this is a conclusion. It has a
therefore at the beginning. Whenever you see a therefore you see what it is
there for. Therefore means it is a conclusion of something.
Then the next word is “just as.” That
tells you there is a comparison that is being made, or a contrast. Ike will
talk about groupings in comparison contrast things like that.
just as through
one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus
What is thus? Thus indicates another inference or
conclusion.
and thus death
spread to all men,
Why? Because. Now you have a causal
statement. So you have a number of little terms in there that are very
important to spot.
Dr. Johnson who was the head of the
Greek Department at Dallas for many years and a great theologian even though he
is a 5-point supralapsarian hyper-Calvinist, he did a good job teaching Greek. He
always made the point that you had better pay attention to your little bitty words
because the little bitty words are often more important to understand the flow
of thought and the meaning than your verbs and nouns. Watch the therefore’s,
the wherefore’s, and so’s and as’s and all those little connectives that we
refer to.
So this passage starts off with a
therefore, but it is not your normally expected particle of inference which is oun. It is the phrase dia touto in the Greek which literally
means for this reason or through this reason, on this ground. It describes the
ground, the motive or the cause of something. So what is the something that
this is the ground of? Is this
concluding what he has been saying in Romans 5 or is this concluding what he is
saying in the broader section of Romans 1:18 -5:11?
That is another thing that those of
you who are taking the Bible study methods have to deal with when you deal with
context. How does this fit in a broader context? This comes (Romans 5:12-21) at
the end of a lengthy section – the first major section in the book of
Romans which begins in 1:18 - 1:1 – 17 is your introduction. 1:18-5:21 is your first section. And so the “therefore” in Romans 5:12
isn’t concluding what was said in 5:1-11. It is not concluding 4 and 5. It is drawing a conclusion from the
entire first section of Romans which built one major argument and it is going
to end Paul’s discussion of the doctrines of what we would call salvation,
soteriology, justification and reconciliation. Romans 6 is going to begin his
discussion of the spiritual life. He has built to this grand climax and now he
says:
Therefore,
just as through one man sin entered the world,
He is excited. He builds this
comparison. He is so excited. As he gets into it he realizes, “Wait a minute. I
need to expand on this a little bit.”
So he takes verses 13 and 14 to go
down a rabbit trail called an anacoluthon. He kind of sidesteps to explain
himself a little more fully. Then he decides he didn’t do a good enough job. He
is so excited that he comes back in 15, 16, and 17 and he does it again. So twice he explains himself to get
across the first part of this comparison. You never get the second part of the
comparison until you get down to verse 18. Then he has to start all over again.
In 5:18 he says:
NKJ Romans 5:18 Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men,
See the “as through”? That’s parallel to what he says here.
even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting
in justification of life.
That’s the other side of the
comparison. He is going to draw this contrast and comparison between the way
sin enters the world through Adam and the way sin is paid for by the Second
Adam, Jesus Christ. But in between he has to make sure people really understand
what he is talking about.
This is a tough little passage to deal
with because he is excited. He jumps around. He stops and starts up somewhere
else which is called an aposiopesis.
(Don’t you just love these fun words? You never heard them in any
literature class you took, but in Bible study methods you get to learn all
these great things.) He stops abruptly because he is so pent up with so much to
say and then he jumps to something else to fully explain it. There is a loss of
transition there that is represented in the translation by that double hyphen
that’s there. The translators recognize that verses 13 and 14 are really an
expansion and development of what he has been trying to say.
So he starts off saying, “Because of
everything I have said up to this point...”
So this section is going to amplify
or expand on the entire previous section and it gives a conclusion for the
first section of the epistle.
Then the next phrase indicates that
he is building on a comparison. He says hosper
in the Greek – just as. He is going to compare two things. When you see
that you expect to have two different parts to this comparison contrast, but
you only have one in 5:12. This introduces a comparison and contrast between
the first Adam and the Second Adam. So it is important to understand this
parallel between what Adam does with his sin – how that is imputed and
transmitted to the human race and what Jesus Christ does on the cross - how
that is imputed and transmitted to the human race.
It says and he uses the word anthropos rather that Adam here. He later
identifies in verse 14. We know it is Adam for sure. But here he uses the
generic anthropos which speaks of the
human being.
through one man
sin entered the world
Here we have the Greek word hamartia. You have the noun twice. You
have the verb hamartano once. But
they all have the idea of missing the mark. The mark is the righteous standard
of God. That is what sin is. Sin
is not a violation of your parent’s rules. It is not a violation of your
friend’s rules. It is not a violation of school rules or company policy. Sin is
a violation of God’s character. That’s why in Psalm 51 when David confesses his
sin of adultery with Bathsheba, the murder of Uriah the Hittite, he certainly hurt
a lot of people. His sin had enormous consequences for numerous people.
But he says to God, “Against thee
and thee only have I sinned.”
Why? Because sin by definition is a
violation of God’s character, not anybody else’s. So sin isn’t defined by its
impact on human relations or human standards, but divine standards. So it is
through one man that sin enters the world. Now we will have to come back and
talk about that a little bit because in the singular here it’s not talking
about personal sin which would be a plural as much as it is talking about the
principle of sin, i.e. the sin nature – this constitutional corruption
and guilt that not only changed Adam but changes all of his progeny so that not
only does Adam become spiritually dead; but all of his progeny are born
spiritually dead but physically alive. Now this is one of several words that
are used in the Bible for sin.
I just have time to run through two
or three of them tonight. I am going to come back with a complete list of
Hebrews terms for sin as well as Greek words for sin. These four that I am
giving you tonight hamartia being the
first give you an idea. All are used in this passage, Romans 5:12-21.
So these are four words, four
synonyms for sin that are all used in Romans 5.
Now let’s just have about 5 or 6
points before we finish up just in terms of the introduction of this
concept.
I was going to spend a little more
time on that tonight. I am not now. We are out of time. It is sad. We live in
an era when theologians have come up with a lot of reasons why (I don’t think
they hold water at all.) Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 don’t refer to the fall of
Satan. This has theological implications that are very discomforting, but also
exegetical problems and some other things. It is sort of a pop thing to
do.
What probably happened is two or
three professors who didn’t know each other went off and they studied in Oxford
or Cambridge or at Aberdeen or Edinburgh or Basil or some place over in Europe
and some liberal theologian said, “Ah. I just can’t believe that.”
And they were somewhat impressed
with his argument and they came back. So they wrote a commentary on Isaiah and
said, “That this doesn’t refer to Satan at all. It refers to some mythological being.”
Somebody picked that up and said, “Oh
that sounds so scholarly. I am so
impressed.”
Then they put it into a study Bible.
Ryrie Study Bible and Scofield Study Bible are about the only ones I know that
are left (the Hayse Study Bible) that still hold to Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 as referring
to the fall of Satan. So if you have got the NIV or you’ve got
the Thomas Nelson Study Bible or you have the NEP Bible or any
of these others they will probably have in their study notes that this really
doesn’t refer to the fall of Satan, although some believe that. It is like we
are just a bunch of ante-deluvian Neanderthals who still believe in stuff like
that.
A number of years ago I read a
fabulous PhD dissertation written by an individual who did a very good job of
utilizing all of the Semitic languages and researching every known myth of the
ancient Near East – Canaanite myths, Acadian myths, - and he came back
and said, “There is no myth that even bears a resemblance to this.”
Not only that, but the eternal
exegetical evidence of Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 clearly indicates that this is
a supernatural being. No human being could ever fit this. This can’t be
dismissed as metaphor or hyperbole or any of the other things that people try
to come up with simply because the evidence for that isn’t there. So the first sin in the universe is
Satan.
NKJ Genesis 2:17 "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not
eat, for in the day that you eat of it
Not 900 years later, but in the day you eat it.
you shall surely die."
This is not physical death is substantiated in Ephesians 2:1-2 where in
Ephesians 2:1 Paul says:
NKJ Ephesians 2:1 And you He made alive, who
were dead in trespasses and sins,
So this death is a spiritual death (not a physical death) because he is
talking to the Ephesians who at one time were physically alive but were dead. They had to be made alive. That is why
you have to be regenerated. It is because you were previously spiritually dead.
That is not just a theological term or nomenclature. It refers to the fact that
something was lost when Adam sinned, something that is gained and acquired at
regeneration and something that enables us to have eternal life and be
justified.
So that is a little more
introduction on seminalism and federalism. We have begun our study of Romans
5:12 and following. We will continue that next week.
With our heads bowed and our eyes
closed…