In the past week we were left with a question that was definitely an indicting one. CAN you keep the law of God? We saw we were dead in trespasses and sins and by nature are prone to hate both God and the neighbor. Why is that so? And how come we hat God by nature? This is answered by turning us to our creation and showing us God's purpose in these things as God controls all things in His absolute sovereignty.
Through the fall: We were created image bearers of God and we border on blasphemy asking if God created us so heinous. The image of God takes you from creation to justification where our image is restored to eternity. He created us perfect and at the top of God's creation being alone the image bearers of God as the mouthpiece of God's creation and before the fall of Adam was perfect and walked with God. Sin appeared however when the angels fall and enter the garden and tempts man and we plunge OURSELVES into depravity and separated ourselves from God. Adam falls against Christ. Note that God judges us according to Adams sin and we have the depravity of the nature as we are born and conceived in sin. We need to be restored again and that brings us to regeneration. The fall is according to the council and good pleasure of the Living God! If there is no fall there is no Christ! Why did God have two tress in the garden? Why not just have one good tree? Adam was made so he could fall for the salvation of the church through our Lord Jesus Christ!!! Though we still have the image of God, the spiritual knowledge of God is now gone. The image of God is left for the purpose of God's resotration!
By Grace: God in the way of sin and grace, brings us into the glory of heaven. We become knowledgeable and are able to serve Him and we now know all the secret things of God in that knowledge that God gives us while the world still lives in that darkness. God redeems a people unto Himself in Christ and that's our sanctified life as HIS LIFE lives within us. We now have a God that looks upon us and says "you are righteous! (In Christ!) And the content of the image of God is restored...knowledge, righteousness, and holiness!
Why? And to His glory: Why? Why a heaven and a hell? Why the fall? Why sin? "Let not the clay respond to the potter...." It is the design of the Living Almighty God to glorify Himself and it is His purpose to show His power and His grace against the depths of our corruption. I can ask you :would heaven be the same if we did not know our wretchedness? Would we sing into all eternity if our deliverance was from something mediocre? Life eternal IS KNOWING ourselves IN CHRIST!!
To Him be the glory forever and ever Amen! It makes you want to sing Amazing Grace doesn't it?