May 22
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Baptist Catechism 16
Q. 16. Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?
A. Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God. (Gen. 3:6; Eccles. 7:29; Rom. 5:12)
Scripture Reading: Genesis 3
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’? And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’’ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’ He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’ To the woman he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.’ And to Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Genesis 3, ESV)
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Introduction
I would like you to listen again to question 16 of our catechism. “Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?”
The word “estate” is very important. We don’t use that word very often. Instead, we might “state of being” or “condition.”
If you and I were talking about a person – let’s say, Michael – and I were to ask you, what is Michael’s estate?, then I would be asking about his condition. I would not be asking about Michael’s nature. His nature is fixed. Michael is a human. More specifical he is a human who is male. That does not change. No, if I were to ask you about someone’s estate I would be asking about their conditional. Human beings do not change with the passing of time as it pertains to their nature, but we do experience changes as it pertains to our estate. Those who are in a healthy etate might become ill. Those who are in a poor estate might become rich. A rich man and a poor man do not differ as it pertains to their nature. They are both human beings! What differentiates them? Their estate, or their condition.
Listen to the question again. “Did our first parents continue in the estate [condition] wherein they were created?”
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The Question Considered
What is meant by the words, “our first parents”? Who are we talking about here?
Answer: We are talking about Adam and Eve. They are called “our first parents” because from this man and this woman the whole of the human race descended.
You have parents. Your father and mother were joined together and that is how you were brought into the world. And your father and mother had parents. You call them grandparents. `And your grandparents have parents too. Isn’t it incredible to consider that this whole process of procreation can be traced back to one man and one woman, Adam and to Eve?
You know, this is a bit of an aside, but it should be noted that though the world is often divided by nations, race, and class, we share humanity in common. All men and women, no matter the place they live, the color of their skin, or the circumstances of their lives, are all human. We have the same “first parents”, Adam and his wife Eve. And it was God who created these two in his image.
The question is, “Did our first parents continue in the estate [condition] wherein they were created?”
Well, what was the condition of Adam and Eve when God first made them? Notice, I did not ask, what was their nature? We know they were humans made in the image of God. They had bodies and souls. As humans, they possessed the ability to think, to feel, to distinguish between right and wrong, to make choices, and to act. This is what it means to be human. Humans were made in such a way that they could know, obey, worship, and serve God who made them.
We know what Adam and Eve were. They were humans made in God’s image. Here I am asking you, what was their condition? Were they flawed when God made them? Were they ill? Were they lacking in something? No! God made man upright. The Genesis narrative is very clear. When God made man, they were good, indeed very good.
I wonder if you can remember how our catechism describes the estate or condition of Adam and Eve when God first created them? In fact, there are two questions that speak to this. Question 12 asks, “What is the work of creation?” Answer: “The work of creation is God’s making all things of nothing, by the Word of His power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” The words “all very good” tell us about Adam and Eve’s condition. They were in a “good” condition. They were without defect or blemish, in other words. They were free from all corruption and sin.
Question 13 also speaks to the estate of Adam and Eve. It asks, “How did God create man?”
Answer: “God created man male and female, after His own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.” The words, “in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness” speak to the estate or condition of Adam and Eve. To state the matter negatively, Adam and Eve were not created ignorant, unrighteous, or impure. No, in their original condition they possessed true knowledge, they were righteous before God, and they were holy.
Chapter 9 paragraph 2 of our confession of faith refers to this original estate of man as the “state of innocency”. And it rightly says that man, in this state of innocency, “had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well-pleasing to God, but yet was mutable (or changeable) so that he might fall from it.” Clearly, this is what the scriptures describe. Man was good, indeed very good. But when God entered into covenant with man, he set apart two trees in the garden from all the rest – the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These trees represented two paths. To walk on the one path, Adam would have to lovingly obey God and live in submission to his word. To walk on the other path would mean that Adam had rebelled against God in his heart and had decided to listen to the voice of another. This was a time of testing for Adam. When God made man he “endued the will of man with [the] natural liberty and power of acting upon choice…” Adam and Eve were “neither forced, nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil” (2LCF 9.1). They were upright and good in their original condition. But they were unstable because God gave them a choice to make and the ability to act according to the freedom of their will.
Again the question: “Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?” Did they remain innocent? Did they continue to be good? Did they persevere in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness?
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The Answer Considered
Now for the answer: “Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.”
Here is the short version of the answer: No, our first parents did not continue in the condition they were in originally. They fell from that condition. “Our first parents… fell from the estate wherein they were created…”
Notice this: their nature did not change. They did not go from being human to non-human when they fell. They did not go from being image-bearers to non-image bears. While their nature remained the same (they remained body and soul), their condition changed. They went from being upright and innocent to fallen and corrupted. They went from being clean to dirty, if you will.
Chapter 9 paragraph 3 of our confession calls this fallen state the “state of sin” and is right to say that man, by his fall into this state of sin “has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.”
In other words, whereas man originally possessed knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, now that Adam our federal head has fallen into sin, we are born into this world ignorant of God, unrighteous, and unholy.
How did man fall from innocence? By sinning against God.
And what is sin? We will soon learn to rightly say, “sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God” (BC 17). And what was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created? “The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created, was their eating the forbidden fruit” (BC 18).
Lastly, I wish to ask the question, how could it be that Adam, who was perfectly good when God created him – who possessed true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness – would rebel against his Maker? There are mysteries here, of course. But one thing we can say is that Adam and Eve were “left to the freedom of their own will[s].” Do you see that phrase in answer 16? “Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.”
We do believe in free will, brothers and sisters. Without a doubt, God created man in such a way that they are able to make free choices. Adam and Eve had this ability and so do we. We make real choices constantly. We perceive the world around us. We consider our options. We chose to move toward that which we perceive to be good, beautiful, and beneficial, and to avoid that which we perceive to be evil, ugly, or detrimental. Again I say, Adam had that ability to freely choose, and so do all who have ever lived. Men are not irrational beasts, and neither are they robots. Men and women have this ability to make real, free, and genuine choices – choices for which they will have to give an account before God!
But here is the question that so many who believe in free will forget to ask: what is man’s estate, or condition. The nature of man has never changed. Man is still an image-bearer. Man still has the capacity to freely chose. What changed when Adam fell into sin? Man’s estate or condition changes.
When man was in his state of innocence, “he had the freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well-pleasing to God, but yet was mutable so that he might fall from it” (2LCF 9.2).
When man fell into a state of sin, he did not lose the ability to freely chose. No, here is what he lost. He lost “all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto” (2LCF 9.3).
But here is good news, brothers and sisters. When God converts a sinner to bring them to faith in Christ, he “translates him into the state of grace, he frees him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions, he does not perfectly, nor only will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.”
And finally, “this will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only.” Will man have free will in the new heavens and earth? Indeed! But will he be able to sin in the new heavens and earth? By no means! Why? Because of his estate or condition, for then he will be in the state of glory.
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Conclusion
Brothers and sisters, if Adam would have passed the test, he would have entered into glory – he would have been confirmed and established in his uprightness. Adam fell, but Jesus Christ succeeded. Christ has entered into glory, and all who have faith in him will enter into glory with him. Thanks be to God.
