Blogging The Institutes Day 41 2.1.5 - 2.1.8

In continuation of the analysis of Adam's Fall we take a step deeper to look at "original sin" and its effects on those following Adam. There have been arguments made that man should not have to suffer for and are not responsible for the fall of one man. I'm sorry but that is just not the case. For Adam held the responsibility of being the perfect human. It was his job to glorify God through righteousness. He failed to do that. And in that failure tainted his original state. "It should be enough for us to know that Adam was made the depository of the endowments which God was pleased to bestow on human nature, and that, therefore, when he lost what he had received, he lost not only for himself but for us all." An example would be "from a corrupt root corrupt branches proceeding, transmit their corruption to the saplings which spring from them."

"Surely there is no ambiguity in David's confession, 'I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me'. His object in the passage is not to throw blame on his parents; but the better to commend the goodness of God toward him, he properly reiterates the confession of impurity from his very birth. Ad it is clear, that there was no peculiarity in David's case, it follows that it is only an instance of the common lot of the whole human race. All of us, therefore descending from an impure seed, come into the world tainted with the contagion of sin. No, before we behold the light of the sun we are in God's sight defiled and polluted. 'Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one,' says the book of Job."

But this knowledge is not meant for defeat, but for growing an attitude of humility toward Jesus. "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 5:19-21)

It is this depth of knowledge that helps foster humility and an understand of true Grace. The Grace that Jesus showed on the Cross. The deeper the understanding of Grace the closer we come to our Father, and the closer we come to our Father, the more we are satisfied and He is ultimately most Glorified.

Amen

Blogging The Institutes: Day 22 1.13.8 -1.13.12

One of the single most important aspects we must acknowledge and understand of Christ is His Divinity. For if He is not Divine, He is not God, therefore He is not the Savior. Calvin presents verse after verse showing Christ's Divine history throughout scripture. Jesus was not a created being. He was the Word and the Word existed from the beginning therefore securing his Divinity and His power to die as Savior. For the Lord says in Isa 43:25 "I, even I, am he that blotteth out they transgressions for mine own sake". As Calvin states, " When, in accordance with this deceleration, the Jews thought that injustice was done to God when Christ forgave sins, he not only asserted, in distinct terms, that this power belonged to him, but also proved it by a miracle. We thus see that he possessed in himslef not the ministry of forgiving sins, but the inherent power which the Lord declares he will not give to another."