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Hearts Homeward Bound #1: The Nature of Man
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: LeCenter Seventh-day Adventist Church, MN, USA
Delivery: 2011-03-19
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2011-03-28 22:36Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kirl-hhb1.php
Our Jesus died on Calvary. We have no evidence to suggest that His cross was any taller, on a higher hill, unusual or distinct in any way from any other cross. Evidence of one who had been crucified on a cross about the time of Christ was found near Jerusalem (thousands were crucified during the first century). Nails had been driven through the foot bones. The wood fragments found were from the olive—a very short tree. Probably, those killed were crucified about eye level. The only distinction about Jesus’ cross was the sign placed above His head that Pilate added for political reasons. Other than that, His was mostly a killing very much like others who were crucified. Vanilla.
How sharply this contrasts with Hollywood depictions of Jesus’ death, some of which show Him hanging more than two stories above the crowd. Such depictions also seem to go out of their way to make His humanity as different from ours as possible. The more different Jesus is from us, the less clear it is that His life offers an example for us. And yet, His murder had everything to do with atonement made for man.
One of the phrases Jesus used for Himswelf most persistently was “Son of Man” (81 times in the four gospels). If Jesus is “Immanuel,” “God with us,” then a starting place for us is to understand the nature of the humanity God gave to man.
When we consider the disagreements that the church has seen about the nature of Christ, we realize that there is an issue preceding that one. Namely, What is the nature of sin? But there is actually a question which comes before that. The ultimate question (after we have established the nature of inspiration and revelation), is, “What is the nature of man”? That is, What did God build into man from the beginning? And then, what remains from this after the entrance of sin? What endowment do we receive? What tools do you and I have to work with?
The Image of God
Genesis 1:26, 27 and 5:1, 3 help us. These texts say that man was made by God in the “image” of God. The literal meaning is “likeness.” But 5:3 says that the Seth, the son of Adam, was made in Adam’s “likeness.” Adam, after he had sinned; after he had been removed from the tree of life, fathered children. Every child ever fathered then, came after the Fall. Every child ever born received from his ancestors a weakened humanity, a humanity unlike the humanity Adam had originally received.
Every person ever born has been born into just such humanity—every person. The worst of men and the best of men, Judas and even Jesus. Romans 5:6 says that men were weakened at the Fall. Ecclesiastes 9:3 says that “madness is in their heart while they live.”
Man’s nature was dramatically disordered. He is born with weaknesses and tendencies to evil. There is now in the fallen human organism little inclination to cause him to seek God or His righteousness. Ecclesiastes 7:29 says that God created humans upright, but that they have sought out many devices. They have gone astray.
Our goal in this presentation is to discover from inspiration how far astray. What is possible for fallen man? Let’s outline the problem more pointedly.
Those who teach such ideas as original sin and total depravity point to additional texts such as Genesis 6:5 which says that every intention of the thoughts of the heart of man is only evil continually. But they conveniently fail to ponder—right next to 6:5—Genesis 6:9:
“Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.”
The statement in 6:5 cannot be absolute, for an exception is found: Noah. The story pivots on this exception, for had not Noah been faithful, there would have been no ark, no delivered humanity.
Another text is Jeremiah 17:9, which says that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” But just five verses further on, the weeping prophet rejoices: “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.” Man is not alone. God will heal him. But God respects his choice for healing or for sickness.
Yet another text often given is Isaiah 64:6, which says, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” But the verse immediately before that says that God meets and rejoices in the man who works righteousness. In the strength of God, man can work righteousness.
Other verses are also used, but our point here is to make clear that man is not totally evil, he is not completely depraved or completely degenerated so that he is beyond the reach of God. Just as those who offer mistaken teachings so often sidestep or ignore nearby texts that contradict their assertions, there are other texts that they—and we—ignore at our own peril.
In Luke 11:13 Jesus says that even the evil desire to give good gifts to their children. That is, even the unregenerate, even those who do not have new life inside themselves from God, are not entirely bent on sin. They are not so brutish that they torture their own children to death. When their children ask for food they do not give poison to them. They want to give good gifts—that which will benefit their children in a way they see to be positive.
In Romans 2:4 we are told that the goodness of God leads men to repentance. But if men are wholly bad, the goodness of God would hardly so lead them; rather, it would wholly repel them. There is in man a residual goodness that is attracted to good, so attracted, that it can lead to a change of life direction. This residual goodness, however, is not enough, however, to save him.
Then there is John 1:9, making clear that Jesus is, “the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Consider two facts here: (1) there is a true Light (Jesus), and (2) Jesus lights every person. Not some people, but every person. You get it, I get it, Billy Graham gets it, Pope Benedict gets it, Adolph Hitler had it, Ghengis Khan did, Barack Obama gets it, and Osama Bin Laden gets it, too. Or, to apply what Jesus said, God shone this light upon Billy Graham, Pope Benedict, Adolph Hitler, Ghengis Khan, Barack Obama, and Osama Bin Laden, all of them desired good gifts for their children, all of them are or were drawn by the goodness of God toward repentance.
Am I saying that these all had or have a natural goodness in themselves? Let’s flee to some statements that you may find very interesting. Consider these from the pen of Mrs. Ellen G. White:
Christ is the ‘Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.’ John 1:9. As through Christ every human being has life, so also through Him every soul receives some ray of divine light. Not only intellectual but spiritual power, a perception of right, a desire for goodness, exists in every heart. But against these principles there is struggling an antagonistic power. The result of the eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is manifest in every man’s experience. There is in his nature a bent to evil, a force which, unaided, he cannot resist. To withstand this force, to attain that ideal which in his inmost soul he accepts as alone worthy, he can find help in but one power. That power is Christ. Co-operation with that power is man’s greatest need (Education, p. 29).
Remember, our focus is on the question of the humanity of fallen man. White’s remarkable statement says that in every heart there is both an intellectual and a spiritual power. It is inherent in every soul, it exists in every heart. It includes perception of right and a desire for goodness. This is part of the human baseline, a portion of our common humanity. We all receive the bent toward sin, but we ought to admit also that we all receive—through Jesus—the light that lights every person.
Every man has in his human organism a bentness, an impactedness, a readiness or even inclination-to-indulgence. What he has within himself makes him his own worst enemy. He has followed feelings that led him astray, he has chosen to indulge doing that which is easy rather than that which is right. In consequence, he has built up in himself a briar patch of bad character choices. He has become a disaster as a human. Satan led and he has followed in the same slime-trail. He finds himself, in every case, in a sorry state. But this is only part of the story.
Not only does man incline himself to do evil, but God from the beginning has promised that He would intervene. He would send light into the darkness. The Bible says that there is something left within man that is reachable. The Father promises to draw us by the sacrifice of His Son. Everyone has been granted opportunity to cooperate with God’s desire to renovate him internally.
Where there is darkness Jesus brings light. Every spark of interest in the spiritual, every love for goodness, every admission of the justice of God, every affirmation of one’s own guilt, is a demonstration that Jesus lights every man. He shows every person what is right and what is wrong. More than this, He draws every man to what is right. You thought you made your own choice to come to Jesus? Think again. Your own choice, yes, but the reason you were able to make such a choice was because God’s goodness drew you, Jesus’ influence lighted you.
Man enters this world and soon finds himself in a nearly complete darkness. All the ideas a devil can think of are thought of and placed in his path. Man does battle, not only against his own inclinations but against every philosophical trick and provocation to self-justification the demons can suggest. The Christian is granted repentance by Christ. Jesus finds a way to every heart and gives the option. But then we choose. He will not choose for us. He lights us; we choose whether or not to walk out of the darkness.
And here is a similar idea agian, this time in Christ’s Object Lessons:
In the depths of heathenism, men who have had no knowledge of the written law of God, who have never even heard the name of Christ, have been kind to His servants, protecting them at the risk of their own lives. Their acts show the working of a divine power. The Holy Spirit has implanted the grace of Christ in the heart of the savage, quickening his sympathies contrary to his nature, contrary to his education. The ‘Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world’ (John 1:9), is shining in his soul; and this light, if heeded, will guide his feet to the kingdom of God (Christ's Object Lessons, p. 385).
Here, we are told that the grace of God has been “implanted” “in the heart” of the savage, and that Jesus as Light “is shining in his soul.” But while the light is implanted, presently shining, it remains thechoice of the individual whether to heed the light and be guided by it, or to take a different path.
In spite of our nature we are called to participate in an extraordinary journey. God takes us beyond the conventional views. He says to us “more than this!” The last generation, the people traveling to closure in the great controversy war, are those who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes (Revelation 14:4). These are the people who don’t stop at conventionality and settle for less. When God says “more than this,” they say “Yes! More than this! Change my heart.” All this in a fallen nature? Yes! GCO
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