Introduction
Believers today are being
challenged and exhorted to develop a better self-image, and to exercise more self-love.
It is our intent to present both the unscriptural, and the scriptural aspects
of this important facet of the Christian life.
If I have anything prominently
before me except the Lord Jesus, that thing, however good it is, becomes a
screen for something of myself, and where there is any self- consideration,
the region of spirituality is lost. It may be an amiable thing, but
because it is of man and not of God, it is not spirituality. --J. B. Stoney
Fall Of The Fall
There is a growing number of
Christians for whom the fall has fallen. To the degree that the believer
weakens his concept of the fall, he weakens his Christian life and
service. Error concerning the fall results in error concerning the two
Adams; and error concerning the two Adams results in error concerning one’s
spiritual growth and outreach.
Totality Of The
Fall
Scripture leaves no doubt as to
the totality of the fall. It was utter, and irrevocable. God made
it very clear to Adam that if and when he should sin, he would surely
die. And the day that Adam disobeyed God’s single stipulation, he died
spiritually--he died unto God. And all the race of mankind died unto God
in Adam that day.
"For as in Adam all
die" (1 Cor. 15:22). As a result, "it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment." "Therefore, as by
the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation" (Heb.
9:27; Rom. 5:18). "As it is written, There is none righteous, no,
not one." "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of
God" (Rom. 3:10, 23).
Without question Adam was
originally created in the image of God. "And God said, Let us
create man in our image, after our likeness...."So God created man in his
own image, in the image of God created he him" (Gen. 1:26, 27).
But when Adam died to God, his
God-like image perished with him. "And the Lord said, My Spirit
shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh" (Gen.
6:3). "That which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John
3:6). "Among whom also we all had our manner of life in times past
in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the
mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Eph.
2:3). "For to be carnally (fleshly) minded is death....Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither, indeed, can be. So, then, they that are in the flesh cannot
please God" (Rom. 8:6–8).
The extent of the apprehension
of the depth and utter ruin of the first Adam nature caused by the fall,
determines the extent to which the new life in Christ can be brought to full
growth in the believer; for just so far as man clings to one supposed
"good thing" in him, so for the power of the Cross is nullified in
his life, and so far the growth of the new life is constricted in him.
Freedom from the dominion of
sin is the message of the Cross, but it can only be realized in experience
up to the extent of the believer’s recognition of the fall, and a
consequent offcasting of the fallen life of the first Adam at the place
called Calvary.
Anomaly
Those who slight the fall refer
consistently to the image of fallen Adam as "marred," or
"blurred," or "in need of restoration." They dare
not consider Adam’s image a total ruin because they are seeking its
restoration, its reformation. For them it is back to the unfallen Adam,
via Christ!
There is a strange anomaly at the
core of the Reformation realm. On the one hand they go to the extreme of
teaching that the fall was not beyond recovery of the original; while on the
other hand they go so far as to insist that man is so dead in sin that it is
impossible for him to believe--"total depravity."
These Calvinists insist that the
Spirit must first regenerate the dead-unto-God individual, thereby giving him
life in order that he may believe unto life. This the Covenant
theologians refer to as "monergistic regeneration: the faith which
receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God,
bestowed by spiritual regeneration in the act of effectual calling."
--J.I. Packer
"Faith
Cometh By Hearing"
The Scriptures present the
reverse of this theory. "To him give all the prophets witness, that
through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of
sins" (Acts 10:43). First believe, then receive. John writes,
"He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath
everlasting life" (5:24). First hear, then believe, then
receive. "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear
the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live" (John
5:25). As a result of hearing, the dead are given life.
James, Peter, and John all
clearly testify to the fact that life is entered into by believing, by
faith. James: "Of his own will begot he us with the word of truth
(1:18). Peter, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible, by the word of God" (1 Pet. 1:23). John: "But
these are written, that ye might have life through his name" (20:31).
God commanded Israel to choose
life. "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I
have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose
life, that both thou and thy seed may live" (Deut. 30:19).
Concerning this plea to choose life, Dr. L.S. Chafer wrote:
God having designed that man as
creature shall be possessed of an independent will [volition], no step can
be taken in the accomplishment of His sovereign purpose which will even tend
to coerce the human volition.
God does awaken the mind of man
to spiritual sanity and brings before him the desirability of salvation
through the Lord Jesus Christ. If by His power, God creates conviction
of the reality of sin and of the blessedness of the Lord Jesus as Saviour
and under this enlightenment men choose to be saved, their wills are not
coerced nor are they deprived of action of any part of their own beings.
(Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, p. 284.)
[Webcurator's Note: A more in
depth discussion of the above is found in the MJS Position Paper entitled Sovereignty
and Responsibility.]
Sin—issue; Sins—Symptoms
In his book True
Spirituality, Dr. Francis Schaeffer wrote:
When I accepted Christ as my
Savior, when my guilt was gone, I returned to the place I was originally
made. When I accept Christ as my Savior, the guilt that has separated
me from God, and from the fulfillment of my purpose, is removed. I
then stand in the place in which man was made to stand at his creation (pp.
75, 76).
Consider the fact that he is
referring to guilt, not the guilty; he is dealing with the subject of sins,
not sin; the symptoms, not the source. Dr. Schaeffer believes that once
the guilt of his sins is removed he is then free to be restored to what he
considers to be his original standing-- that of unfallen, innocent Adam.
There are thousands who profess
to believe in the atoning virtue of the death of the Lord Jesus, but who do
not see therein beyond the forgiveness of sins. They do not yet see
the crucifixion, death, and burial of the sinner-- the entire displacement
of the old system of things belonging to their first-Adam condition-- in a
word, their perfect identification with their dead and risen Lord. --C.A.C.
Wrong Adam
Ranald Macaulay is secretary of
Dr. Schaeffer’s L'Abri Fellowship. Jerram Barrs is also on the L'Abri
office staff. In their IVF Press book, Being Human: The Nature of
Spiritual Experience, they write: "The
reflection of God’s character has been marred by sin" (p. 60).
"The Bible’s view of spiritual experience is an affirmation of life,
that is, as a recovery of the human experience lost at the fall" (p.
117).
It is plain to see just which
Adam these Reformation people focus upon. Or is it? They say the
right thing to begin with, but actually mean the wrong thing, i.e., the wrong
man:
Christ, not Adam, is our
model. The focus is to be on Christ. But we must be clear in
what sense Christ is our model. Here is the connection with Adam: the
model of the Christian life is the recovery of ordinary human
experience--"ordinary" not in the sense of sinfulness, but as
opposed to suprehuman; "ordinary" in terms of God’s original
creation and Jesus’ perfect
example. (Emphasis mine. )
The natural, the human, the
categories of experience which come down to us from Adam, are all good and
are to be received with thanksgiving. Although our natural experiences
since the fall are also the vehicles of sin, the Bible identifies sin as the
evil, not the experiences themselves. Just as impurities in water must
be filtered out leaving the water itself good, so sin is to be removed
leaving the human faculties themselves good (p. 26).
How aghast these Calvinists would
be if they but realized that this is Wesleyan "holiness"
teaching--the amelioration of the first Adam! (See Tri-S-IV). They go on
to say:
The natural (Adamic) need not
be crushed, nor superseded. It needs to be restored so that it
resembles its new Creator, Christ; who in turn resembles Adam before the
fall (p. 27).
How does that statement set with
you, and with your Bible? These men are not alone in their error.
J.B. Stoney states just how general it is:
In the Reformation there was,
through grace, a great deliverance. The groundwork of Christianity was
recovered; namely, justification by faith. But though this was
recovered, it was not maintained that the old man Adam was crucified on the
Cross. Retention of the old man is the weakness of the Reformation.
(Ministry, Vol. IX, p. 117.)
Wrong way - wrong man! They
are expecting "the last Adam...a life-giving spirit" to take them
back to "the first man, Adam...made a living soul" (1 Cor.
15:45). They look for "the second man...the Lord from heaven"
to restore them to "the first man...of the earth, earthy" (1 Cor.
15:47). In essence, their expectation is in the shadow, rather than in
the reality; in "Adam...who is the figure (type) of him that is to
come" (Rom. 5:14). C. Crain gives us the Biblical rectification:
We know that, when he shall
appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (I John
3:2). We are to be conformed to the Lord Jesus as He is, not as
He was. We are to be like Him as He is--in manhood indeed, but
in the form of humanity in which He now is. To be changed into
His image means to have bodies fashioned after the body He now has.
Not to have unfallen, sinless humanity, but in the risen, glorified
condition in which our Lord now is. (The Serious Christian, Vol.
VIII, p. 94. )
The co-authors of Being
Human, Macaulay and Barrs, disciples of the Schaeffers, dedicated
their book on Christian humanness, "To
Francis and Edith Schaeffer who have shown us so much about serving God and
being human, both in their lives and by their teaching."
Mis-Placed
Identity
Some years ago Edith Schaeffer
wrote a book entitled Christianity Is Jewish, published by
Tyndale House. The problem is compounded by her new work, just produced
by Crossway Books. The title is telling: Lifelines--The Ten
Commandments for Today. The ad information is as follows:
Who am I? What will
fulfill me? Many have searched the world for answers. Yet the
answer is right at hand.
The loving God who made us in
His image has given us His perfect pattern for living--the Ten
Commandments. In a time when the Commandments are often ridiculed or
ignored, Edith Schaeffer shows that they are vitally relevant today, the
only sufficient basis for a rich and fulfilling Christian life.
Upon encountering this ad a
fairly new believer asked, "Is this woman Jewish?" One might
also ask, "Is this man Jewish?" Dr. Schaeffer concurs
completely with his wife:
Our desire must be for a deeper
life. And when I think of this, the Bible presents to me the whole of
the Ten Commandments and the whole of the Law of Love.
(True Spirituality, p. 17)
It should not require mention,
but the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, Dr. L. S. Chafer, wrote
concerning the Law:
The Ten Commandments require no
life of prayer, no Christian service, no evangelism, no missionary outreach,
no Gospel preaching, no life and walk in the Spirit, no union with the risen
Lord Jesus Christ, no fellowship of saints, no hope of salvation. and no
hope of heaven. (Systematic
Theology, Vol. IV, p. 211)
Long ago J. B. Stoney put his
finger on the main Reformation weakness:
There is a grievous leaven in
Christendom. The Lord Jesus’ death is presented to the soul after
the manner of the sacrifices under the law, where the pious Jew found relief
from his immediate sins, but he still retained the flesh with its enmity
against God--he knew no freedom from its dominion upon which to reckon.
Weaken the fall and you weaken
all! Dr. Schaeffer also touches tellingly on the above question,
"Who am I?" It is sadly evident that he really does not
know. It is true that he thinks he does--but we all have to be careful
concerning much that we are "sure" of. On page 48 of his Genesis
in Space and Time, he writes:
For twentieth century man, this
phrase, the image of God, is as important as anything in Scripture, because
men today can no longer answer that crucial question, "Who am
I?" In contrast, I stand in the flow of history. I know my
origin. As I look at myself in the flow of space-time reality, I see
my origin in Adam and in God’s creating man in His own image.
Lack Of
Differentiation
One refrains from being too hard
on this outstanding brother, especially since his Reformation theology made
him say it. Those who cannot recognize the full fall, cannot repudiate
Adam. They will even see the Last Adam as but a means of their getting
back to the first Adam. Again Stoney probes this error to the quick:
I do not see the Cross truly if
I only see it as opening a way of escape for me, and yet allowing that in me
to escape which has incurred the judgment.
(Ministry, Vol. IX, p. 99)
The believer's origin stems from
Calvary, not from Eden. Actually, in the Father’s mind, his origin is
in Christ "before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4).
There is a severe drawback involved for those Christians who erroneously see
their origin in Adam. Oriented to an earthly Adam, they become
law-governed, kingdom centered, legal, and earthbound. Unable to
"rightly divide the word of truth," they tend to be
anti-dispensational, and amillennial.
What we have touched on thus far
is but to prepare you for the worst. Before going on, however, we will
share a further thought from Dr. Schaeffer’s book on growth--True
Spirituality--in order to leave no question as to his true Adam
centeredness.
The only difference between our
relationship with God now (as Christians), and that which man’s would have
been if he had not sinned, is that now it is under the covenant of grace,
and not under the covenant of works. That is the only difference
(p. 89).
What Dr. Schaeffer is saying is
that there is but one difference between being in the unfallen first Adam, and
being in the risen, glorified Last Adam. In the first, he says, one
would be under law; in the Last, one is under grace. Otherwise, no
difference.
No difference? No
difference between being in a created, earthly, innocent, figure-of-the-true,
susceptible- to-death, man; and being in the man Christ Jesus, the Lord from
heaven, Creator, the life-giving spirit, God the Son, the resurrection and the
life? No difference? "As we have borne the image of the
earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (I Cor. 15:49).
Viva la différence infinite!
New Kingdom
Covenant
The weakness and inadequacy of
all this is summed up by J.N. Darby:
Covenant theology, at the
utmost, is forgiveness of sins and divine favor enjoyed; and all that
concerns their new position in the Lord Jesus is ignored, or alas! guarded
against as dangerous.
Men are placed under the New
Covenant which does not go beyond remission of sins and the law written in
the heart. But being in the Lord Jesus Christ, and knowing it by the
Holy Spirit, and what it involves now, has all but dropped out of their
creed. (The Bible
Treasury, Vol. XIV, p. 263)
The Covenant theologians are not
the only ones who seek to bring members of the Body of Christ under the
restrictions of the New Covenant--it is but the general teaching of the
day. Two more of the early Plymouth Brethren leaders can help us
here. First, William Kelly:
Scripture carefully avoids the
error of assuming that the New Covenant in Hebrews Ten expresses the
standing of the believer. The Blood of it is shed; the spiritual
blessedness of it is ours who believe, that is true. But its strict
and full import awaits the House of Israel and the House of Judah at a
future day, as we see in Hebrews Eight. Then all its terms will
be verified. (The Bible
Treasury, Vol. XIX, p. 344.
On the same subject, H. H. Snell
wrote:
We are come "to Jesus, the
mediator of the new covenant" (Heb. 12:24). We are not come to
the New Covenant, but to Jesus the Mediator of it. We are associated
with Him Who is the Mediator; that is a much higher thing than if merely
come to the Covenant. He will make this New Covenant with Israel on
earth. (The Bible
Treasury, Vol. XIX, p. 367)
What an indignity religion puts
to every person of the Godhead alike, on the grace and truth which came by
Jesus Christ, when it drags souls back to the dread distance of
Judaism. (The
Bible Treasury, Vol. XIX, p. 344)
God In The Image
Of Man
Another Reformed theologian, Dr.
Stephen Board, as executive editor of Eternity magazine, ended his
April 1982 editorial as follows:
Since we are made in God’s
image, the original is with him, not us. And since the great Original
has told us with his mouth how we are like him, we can know what he is like.
Once again, wrong man. Adam
was the only man made in God’s image. When he fell, that image was
obliterated in sin and death. As the fallen head of the human race, Adam
consequently brought forth sons and daughters [mankind] "in his own
likeness, after his (fallen) image" (Gen. 5:3).
Even as believers we cannot tell
what God is like by looking at ourselves, or any other Christian. We are
being conformed to the Lord Jesus’ image. "Beloved, now
are we the children of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but
we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him
as he is" (1 John 3:2).
If anyone would know what the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is like, he must look away from Adamic
man, away from Christian man, away from the Law, beyond the heavens that
declare the glory of God, and by means of the Word of God simply look
"unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith" (Heb. 12:2).
"God...hath in these last
days spoken to us by his Son...who, being the brightness of his glory, and the
express image of his person..." (Heb. 1:1–3). "He that hath
seen me (Jesus) hath seen the Father." "Neither knoweth any
man the Father, except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal
him" (John 14:9; Matt. 11:27). William Kelly knew where to
look:
Certainly the child of God has
eternal life. But where shall I look at it? I see a beautiful
trait of the divine life in this saint; I see something sweet, and at the
same time humbling to my soul, in another--perhaps where least expected.
But in all this is weakness and
even positive failure. Who would not confess it? Who does not
feel it? This, then, is but an unworthy expression of what divine life
is, because it is shaded too often and modified by the effect of the world,
by the allowance of nature, by a thousand thoughts, feelings, ways, habits
which do not savor of the Lord Jesus Christ.
All these things break in upon
and mar the perfect outshining of that new life that is communicated to all
the children of God. "We have this treasure in earthen
vessels" (2 Cor. 4:7). There is but one adequate and worthy
object of the Holy Spirit, and that is the ascended and glorified Lord Jesus
Christ! How could it be otherwise?
(First John, p. 297.)
Imag-ination
This self-image question is
extremely crucial, and it affects every Christian today. We are being
exhorted and taught by the professionals, Christian and otherwise, that we are
to love ourselves more. We are advised to improve our self-concept, to
become self-fulfilled and self actualized, because a poor self-image is the
source of all our problems. Further, it is insisted that we must love
ourselves before we can really love God and others.
In the current effort to get the
Christian to build up his self-image, we have religious leaders talking and
writing like this: "There must be something truly wonderful about us
if God can love and accept us so readily. " --Cecil Osborne (The
Art of Learning to Love Yourself)
Readily? In the face of
Calvary?
Sorry, but there is nothing
wonderful about us that God can love and accept. Rather the
contrary. We were born dead in trespasses and sins, at enmity against
God, and the Lord Jesus saved us as such. "But God commendeth his
love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"
(Rom. 5:8). The Father did not save us on the basis of our personal
worth--there was "no good thing." We were "condemned
already" in the fallen and rejected Adam.
The Lord Jesus saved us for the
glory of His Father. "I have glorified thee on the earth; I have
finished the work which thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4). The
Father called us as a gift to His beloved Son. "Thine they were,
and thou gavest them to me" (John 17:6).
Before time began the Father
called us by making us the subjects of his gracious thought and counsel, and
His purpose and object in thus taking possession of us was that He might
give us to His Son. We shall be forever the expression to the Son of
the Father’s love to him. --C. A.
C. (Spiritual Blessings, p. 92. )
"You’re
Someone Special"
The further we progress into this
problem, the more painful it becomes. Dr. Bruce Narramore, nephew of Dr.
Clyde Narramore, is Professor of Psychology at the Rosemead Graduate School of
Professional Psychology. Bruce has written a book entitled, You’re
Someone Special. At the outset we had better see where Dr. Bruce
is coming from.
The infant in the crib is a
product of God’s handiwork. Although marred by sin, the design
passed down through his genetic structure is straight from the hand of
God. Made in God’s image, according to His design, the infant has
wonderful, complex potential for physical, intellectual, spiritual, and
social development (p. 129).
God built into Adam and Eve an
inherent goodness. We know that God was pleased with His creation
because the Book of Genesis states that He "saw all that he had made,
and behold, it was very good"
(Gen. 1:31).
But what about sin? Weren’t
we ruined and didn’t we become worthless when Adam and Eve plunged our
race into rebellion? Definitely not! Sin greatly corrupts our
lives and mars the image of God, but it does not wipe it out. We are
still divine creations, with intellectual abilities, a knowledge of right
and wrong, the capability to make choices, and the powers of communication
and creativity. While these likenesses have been damaged, they
continue to exist and will be totally restored in eternity. No matter
what our state in life, God sees us in His image (p. 23).
Hear him reflect the thoughts of
others in this reversed-image realm:
When I discuss self-love, I am
talking about how we can learn to accept God’s total evaluation of
us. This is exceedingly important, since our attitude toward ourselves
influences the quality of our relationships with God and others. In
fact, our attitude toward ourselves is a major factor in determining the
type of attitude we have toward God
(p. 177).
Still the wrong man! When
we come to know the Lord Jesus Christ for what He did for us, and for what He
did with us, and for what He is to the Father, we will thereby have the right
attitude toward our Father, and we will grow in Christlikeness toward
others. "To the praise of the glory of his grace, through which he
hath made us accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6).
Backtrack
As to his direction in life, Dr.
Narramore is on the same backtrack as those in the Reformation realm.
When we begin our life in
eternity, we will be totally restored to our original condition. In
the meantime, we are moving in that direction. We must base our
principles of self-esteem on this most basic aspect of our nature.
Only in the fact that we are God’s creations do we have a solid base for
self-acceptance and self-love.
Back to Eden, instead of on to
Glory! To bolster his basis for restoration, Dr. Bruce quotes
Philippians 1:6--"Being confident of this, that he who hath begun a good
work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus
Christ." But as believers our Father did not begin His good work in
us in Adam in Eden. He began it in the Last Adam, at Calvary.
"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Cor.
5:17).
This wrong-image influence has a
devastating effect upon the conviction of sin, the all-important basis for
true evangelism. Dr. Narramore is typical:
Focusing
on man’s sinfulness in order to demonstrate his need for redemption, the
church has overlooked the fact that God has created man in His image.
Many churches, for example. emphasize man’s sinfulness to such an extent
that they overlook our great value and significance to God. In sermon
after sermon we are told that we are sinful, wrong, bad. These
messages tend to undermine our self-acceptance, especially if we are already
prone to feelings of self-rejection
(p. 117).
William Kelly would remind us of
the lost chord of true evangelism--repentance.
Consider the case of God’s
dealing with my soul when He is converting me. Is faith the only thing
produced by the Holy Spirit? What is the first effect of His breaking
in upon the lost sinner? It is making nothing of him. Is not
this love? Yes; but it is God’s love that deals with me in the truth
of what He is, and of what the sinner’s awful condition is. So the
effect produced on the heart of him that is renewed is not merely faith in
the Saviour, but repentance toward God. "Repentance toward God,
and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:27),
(The Bible Treasury , Vol. V, p. 10)
Anti-Keswick
From the evangelistic field Dr.
Narramore moves on to the so-called deeper life area. Now this unfallen
fall theory really begins to reveal itself for just what it is.
Followers of the Keswick
Movement believe that we really don’t possess any dignity or worth and
that we should not like ourselves. "Since we are sinful and
worthless," they argue, "we should give up all our efforts to
develop and think positively about ourselves. In fact, we should find
a way of bringing our life to an end so that Christ’s life can live
through us" (p. 703).
This is simply too much for those
who would seek to renew the Adamic image.
This view is degrading to God
because it pronounces His creation to be a total waste and implies that
nothing can be done to renew our fallen lives. They are so worthless
that they can only be replaced
(p. 703).
Those who thus hold themselves
dear, must look upon the Cross with fear.
Those who hold this Keswick
view take a few Scripture verses out of context, mix them with the truth of
man’s sinfulness, and come to the conclusion that it is somehow possible
to bring an end to life and substitute Christ’s life in its place.
By acknowledging that they are absolutely worthless, they can become the
recipient of something great--"Christ’s life."
I appreciate their sincere
goal. They want to overcome their sinfulness. But replacing
their lives with God is not the way to do it. God does not hate us and
He does not yearn to put us to the cross of Christ. Christ has already
gone to the cross for our sins (p. 105).
Alas! A Lack
Did you hear him?
"Christ has already gone to the cross for our sins."
True, but what about the Adamic sinner? God forgave the believing sinner’s
sins, but He did not forgive sin--He did not forgive the sinner.
Both sin and the sinner were condemned on the Cross. As for sin:
"God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8:3). As for the believing sinner:
"I have been crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20).
Even in Romans Six, these
Adam-bound teachers see only the forgiveness of sins. They are unable to
face up to the fact that God dealt with sin in toto: Adamic nature, image,
life and all, in the crucifixion of the death-dealing Cross. The death
of the first-Adam life on the Cross released the resurrection and new-creation
life of the Last Adam, and He came forth from the tomb as the Head and the
ascended life of every newly-born, newly-created believer.
The Lord Jesus did not merely
die to put away my sins, but to give me the infinite privilege of being
placed before the Father in all His acceptance and loveliness.
(For this the first Adam would never do, however pristine.)
I could not be in heaven if it
were not so--if it were only that sins were put away. God cannot have
anything in heaven merely negative. Mere absence of evil is not
enough. (Hence the inadequacy
of pre-fall innocence.)
If we are to be in heaven at
all, God must have us there, lovely in all the loveliness of His beloved
Son; and that, as far as the new man is concerned, He communicates to us
here and now. "But now in Christ Jesus ye who once were far off
are made near by the blood of Christ" (Eph. 2:13). --J. N. Darby
(The "old man" is Adamic, put off forever at Calvary!)
Finally, Dr. Narramore summarizes
his case for self-love, concerning which we make no further comment.
Self-love is not a
narcissistic or self-centered goal. It is a central part of seeing
ourselves as God sees us. We should learn to value ourselves, both
because God values us and because we will then be able to love God and
others more.
We must make a commitment to
seeing ourselves as God sees us. We must acknowledge to ourselves,
"God, You have made me in your image and made me to live eternally with
You. Like Adam and Eve and all the other members of the human race, I
have sinned and marred that image. But Christ has paid the penalty for
my sins. I know that You want me to recognize the facts. I know
that You want me to lovingly respect myself and every other member of the
human race" (p. 127).
Symptomatic Level
It is quite evident that these
men have not yet learned to say, "I always knew there was plenty of bad
in me, but it took a long time for me to know and acknowledge that there is no
good! "
The level upon which these
leaders are thinking should be obvious to all. They are dealing with
mere symptoms. To them, all that is required is the removal of guilt,
and the payment for sins. And, to get back to Adam’s innocence, that
is all it would take.
The problem is that once
innocence is lost it can never be regained. Plus the wonderful fact that
God is not returning us to pre-fall conditions, but rather He has re-created
and positioned us in His righteous and holy Last Adam. J. B. Stoney
gives us another good evaluation:
If I have lost anything by sin
which was a glory to man, that is not restored to me in grace. Grace
gives me something altogether new and infinitely better, not to suit the man
that was, but to suit me as recreated by God.
The grace of God does not
reinstate me in the paradise lost by sin, but sets me in a much greater
one. I am forgiven, like the prodigal, for all I have done, but
nothing that I squandered is restored to me. I get something entirely
new; and I am made, as he was in figure, quite new, and fitted for the
immense exaltation to which I am raised by grace.
The prodigal was not restored to the land,
as a Jew would have expected, but he was received into the father’s house
with a favor and distinction never accorded to any one before; and this was
all simply of grace. (Ministry,
Vol. XI, p. 383.)
Falling Short
We have seen how Dr. Schaeffer
levels off at the symptom of "guilt." "When I accepted
Christ as my Savior, when my guilt was gone..." (True
Spirituality, p. 75.) Dr. Narramore goes no further than the
symptom of "sins," and their "penalty." "Christ
has already gone to the cross for my sins. " "I have sinned
and marred the image. But Christ has paid the penalty for my
sins." (You’re Someone Special, p. 212.)
Macaulay and Barrs insist that "the
whole purpose of the Christian life is the recovery of the original image of
God." Then they present to us the road to that "recovery."
Only as we strive to put to
death the desires of our sinful natures do we become truly conscious of how
great our gratitude for Christ’s work should be and how dependent we are
on the power of the Holy Spirit. In our weakness, wearied by the
battle against sin, we learn to cry out, "Wretched man that I am!
Who shall deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through
Jesus Christ our Lord! " (Rom. 7:24, 25).
Some read Paul here as if he
were suggesting passivity. For from saying "Give up
trying," Paul is making the point that our very striving against
sin causes us to be aware of the riches of Christ’s work for us and our
need for the Spirit’s help. Only as we actively obey God’s
commands to put away sin and do right do we learn to appreciate truly the
love of Christ and grow in our dependence on His Spirit. (On Being
Human, pp. 16,96)
In the face of this attempt to
correlate the two Adams, F.W. Grant simply and scripturally shows the absolute
differentiation between them:
The Lord Jesus’ work is
different in its character and results, Godward, from anything that could be
of Adam. It was such as the "Only-begotten Son which is in the
bosom of the Father" alone could accomplish.
Peerless in His person and
work, the place which He has taken as the result of it with the Father is
one suited not to the first man, "of the earth, earthy," but to
"the second man...the Lord from heaven" (1 Cor. 15:47).
Taking His seat at the right
hand of the Father, He is become Head of the "new creation, " not
Restorer of the "old." He is not the first Adam set up
again, but the Last Adam, and He is "the beginning of the creation of
God" (Rev. 3:14).
All things are restored by
Him and in Him, but not in the primitive condition before the fall.
They are all "made new." The old condition of things is done
away. "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become
new" (2 Cor. 5:17). (Leaves From the Book, p. 274. )
Step Down!
Although we may not go to the
depths of this sad self-image theme, we must yet delve deeper before we rise
to the level of Scripture. In the February 1979 issue of Eternity
magazine, Raymond Foster wrote:
Because I love me, I seek to
expose myself to pleasant things. Because I love me, I avoid feelings
that are disagreeable. I hate burnt toast and sour milk.
Because I love me, I often
wonder why other people hurt me so easily. I wonder how they can pass
me by without showing compassion--without helping me. I wonder how
they can ignore me when I am reaching out to them.
Yes, I love me very much!
I'll admit it. It is true! Should I deny it? And what is
so bad about that? I show my love for me every moment, in every
action. And while I am counting the ways in which I love me, I am
overwhelmed by Jesus’ command, "Love your neighbor in the same way
you love yourself."
Granted that under the Old
Testament commandment God’s standard for Adamic man, man in the flesh, was
to love others as he loved himself. And the ultimate purpose of God’s
holy and just Law was to reveal to Adamic man what he could not
accomplish.
David loved God’s Law (Ps.
119:97). David loved himself--and he remained home from the
battlefield. David loved his neighbor...and raped her. David loved
himself, and had her faithful husband murdered so that he could have her for
himself. In all this David loved himself, and as a result God said to
him through Nathan, "Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from
thine house..." (2 Sam. 12:10). So much for self-love via the
Law.
Dr. L.S. Chafer certainly knew
the difference between the two Adams:
The New Commandment for
believers in the Last Adam is love for others "as I have loved
you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friends." "By this we perceive the love of God,
because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for
the brethren" (1 John 3:16).
Under the Mosaic (first
Adam) system, love for others was to be the degree in which one loved
himself; under grace it is to be the degree in which the Lord Jesus has
loved the believer and given his life for him. (Systematic Theology,
Vol. IV, p. 187. )
That’s All!
One more step down--the final
step to which all of the foregoing inevitably leads. In the February
1979 issue of Eternity magazine Dr. Robert Schuller said:
If I violate the self-respect,
the self-dignity, the personhood, the self-worth of any person, no matter
what my goal might be, if I have to insult them to try to convert them, that
is a sinful strategy of evangelism.
In his October 1981 issue of Cathedral
Chronicle, he wrote:
I want to rewrite the classical
historical theology and synchronize psychological truths in such a way that
the gospel is proclaimed positively and in purity--purged of the destructive
negativity which often accompanies its interpretation which would demean a
human being. The gospel of Jesus Christ is unhealthy and unfaithful to
its Lord, if when it is communicated, it has to put a person down in an
effort to try to lift him up.
Thus we have the outcome spawned
from the false image:
Dear Dr. Schuller: My husband
and I listen to your program and messages on positive thinking. We
always feel joyous afterward. Before this we were both non-believers,
but now we have faith in ourselves and others.
The Ultimate
We share here a picture of the
overall effects of wrong-Adamism, drawn by J.B. Stoney a century ago:
There has been on atonement in
the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of the man who has
failed; and as the sacrifice has been provided by God, it testified of the
entire inability of man to do anything for himself or God; and as it is in
God’s hand only, He does not restore that which had ever proved
itself unworthy and incompetent; but He introduces, in the Last Adam risen
from the dead, an entirely new man.
If man, since the Cross, is
still under trial, one consequence or another must ensue. The trial
must either succeed--and if man answered to the trial, then he is
sinless--or if unsuccessful, then there must be another sacrifice; for if
man is under trial again and fails, there must be another atonement, or he
is lost.
Now to escape this dilemma,
there are the present two systems of theology. One, the Romish [Roman
Catholic], maintains that the sacrifice or mass is a continual one; and
hence there is no room for seeing that there is an end of the Adamic man
judicially in the Cross, or that the new man has come in and is before God
in His Last Adam, risen from the dead. The first Adam is looked at as
still the one under trial.
The other - Calvinistic
Protestantism, set on foot by the Reformers--admits that the sacrifice is
one and sufficient, but with no consistency; for practically they neither
own that the trial of the first Adam is over on the Cross, nor the Last Adam’s
rejection from the earth.
Hence the law is their rule of
life, and the believer seeks a position on earth as if the Last Adam were
reigning here. They call the sacrifice of Christ a full and sufficient
atonement, but they do not see it as brought in by God in His love, when the
first Adam was proved utterly worthless and rejected in crucifixion; or that
the believer is risen with the Last Adam, in whom and from whom he received
new-creation life.
Nothing is more evident than
that, the atonement being provided by God for that which has been proved
thoroughly worthless and unfit for Himself. He does not restore it; He
judged it in death on the Cross of His Son, and, in Him risen, receives
every returning prodigal in a new and risen life. The Last Adam is a
life-giving spirit, and therefore everything for the saint is now determined
by the position of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory as the Second Man. (Ministry,
Vol. IX, pp. 169,170)