Anthropology: Part 7

By Lewis Sperry Chafer

[Author’s Note: This article, continuing the general theme of Anthropology, concludes the study respecting man. Following this will be an extended series on Soteriology, or Salvation Truth.]

IV. The Fall

The fall, or lapse, of the first man must be contemplated in the light of that which preceded it—innocence, tempter, temptation—, and that which followed it—spiritual death and depravity of those who sinned, spiritual death and depravity of the race, and physical death. These factors which preceded the fall have been attended in recent pages: the things which followed should be pursued briefly at least at this present juncture.

The extended doctrine concerning death is at once in evidence. God had warned the two parents that in the day they ate of the forbidden fruit, dying they should die. The penalty thus proposed was executed and death in its three forms was imposed upon them. (1) Spiritual death, which is separation of soul and spirit from God, fell upon them the moment they sinned, (2) physical death began at once its unavoidable process of disintegration and eventual separation of soul and spirit from the body, and (3) they became subject to the second death which is the lake of fire—the eternal separation of soul and spirit from God. Of the lake of fire, it is written that it is prepared for the devil and his angels. It was not prepared for human beings and they enter it only on the ground that they repudiate God and cast in their lot with Satan and his angels. Dr. Lindsay Alexander in his System of Biblical Theology, Volume I, has written a general account of the fall of man which is here incorporated: “Let us now turn to glance for a little at the immediate effect of the temptation. And here it is interesting also to observe the process by which evil consummated its triumph over Eve. The narrative of Moses, brief as it is, may be viewed as an articulate illustration of the analysis of the Apostle John in his theory of evil as consisting of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride of life. The woman, we are told, when she looked saw that the tree was good for food: there was the lust of the flesh, the craving of irregular appetite and lawless desire; and that it was pleasant to the eyes: there was the lust of the eyes, the inordinate love and desire of what is merely beautiful and attractive with the craving after the possession of what merely enriches and magnifies; and that it was a tree to be desired to make one wise: there was the pride of life, the unholy love of pre-eminence, the restless curiosity that would pry into what God has concealed, the ambition to grasp power above our due, and the impious assumption, if not of equality with God, yet of a right over ourselves independent of God. These three affections are the main sources and occasions of the evil which now predominate in the world; and we see they had all a share in bringing about the first sin that was committed on its surface. They saw the origin of evil in our race; and as they sat at its cradle, they have ever since nourished and fed it; nor shall it utterly perish until they have been entirely subdued, and man’s whole nature has been restored to its pristine purity. There is another statement of the New Testament which receives an interesting illustration from the process by which Eve advanced along the path into which the tempter had drawn her. ‘Lust, says the Apostle James, ‘when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin.’ This is the genealogy of transgression; first there is the evil desire, and then by natural consequence from that the evil act. So was it with our first mother; she began with lust and ended with sin. She allowed a forbidden desire to be nourished in her heart, and this quickly developed itself into a forbidden deed. A deceived heart led her aside; a mind betrayed by Satan betrayed her in turn. And as lust leads to sin, so sin naturally tends to propagate itself. Hence no sooner had Eve herself sinned than she sought to draw her husband into the same snare. Adam, however, was not deceived as she had been. He followed her example, but it was with his eyes open. Whether it was mere thoughtless indifference, or a too yielding affection for his wife, or a sort of chivalrous feeling that he would share with her in the risks she had incurred, that moved him, we cannot tell; but certain it is that what he did he did fully aware of the evil of it and the consequence of it. In any case his sin was great. He preferred a brief indulgence to the claims of duty and of gratitude. Forgetful of God and His authority and His law, he looked only at the beautiful and smiling image, and listened only to the horrid words of the fair but fallen partner of his life. Thus was he drawn to follow her example and to partake of her sin. Then was man’s first disobedience complete. Then was the ruin of our race accomplished. Then was the covenant broken and the curse incurred. Then was the image of God in man blotted and defaced. Then was discord produced between earth and heaven. Then did the bowers of Paradise, a moment before the abodes of stainless innocence, become the sorrowful scenes of guilt and passion and shame.”[1]

In Book ix of Paradise Lost, Milton describes the reaction of nature to the sin of man—not unlike the reaction of nature when God’s remedy for sin was wrought out at the cross—:

“Earth trembled from her entrails, as again
In pangs, and nature gave a second groan;
Sky lour’d, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completing of the mortal sin.”

The great issues which eventuated with the first sin of the first man demand separate and attentive consideration.

1. Spiritual Death and Depravity.

Close investigation will demonstrate that both spiritual death and physical death, though so different in character and in the manner in which they reach Adam’s posterity, originate alike in the first sin of the first man. Spiritually dead persons may be physically alive. The Apostle asserts that the Ephesian believers were, before their salvation, “dead in trespasses and sins,” and that at that time of spiritual death they were “walking according to the course of this [cosmos] world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in [energizeth] the children of disobedience” (Eph 2:1, 2). Likewise, he also states, “She that liveth in pleasure [σπαταλῶσα, self-gratification] is dead while she liveth” (ζῶσα, 1 Tim 5:6).

When Adam sinned his first sin he experienced a conversion downwards. He became degenerate and depraved. He developed within himself a fallen nature which is contrary to God and is ever prone to evil. His constitution was altered fundamentally and he thus became a wholly different being from the one God had created. A similar fall into degeneracy had been experienced before by the highest of all angels and by the angels who joined his rebellion:against God. No other human being than Adam has ever become a sinner by sinning. All others were born sinners. Distinction is made at this point between sin as an evil act and sin as an evil nature. By a sinful act Adam acquired a sinful nature, whereas all members of his family are born with that nature. By his sin Adam came under the domination of Satan. He literally surrendered to the evil one. The extent of this authority is not revealed and probably could not be since it involves spheres and relationships which are beyond the range of human observation. Attention is called again to four New Testament passages—2 Corinthians 4:3, 4 in which it is said that those that are lost are under Satan’s power to the extent that their minds are blinded concerning the gospel of their salvation; Ephesians 2:1, 2, where it is asserted that the unsaved are energized by Satan; Colossians 1:13, where it is declared that, when saved, the believer is translated out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love; and 1 John 5:19, where it is revealed that the whole cosmos world “lieth in” the wicked one, and this relationship is vital and organic comparable only to the truth that the Christian is in Christ as a new creation. These passages set forth the present relationship between unregenerate humanity and Satan; but they as certainly disclose the fact that it was into such a relationship that Adam was drawn at the moment he sinned. It could not be shown that the human family came into this relation to Satan at any subsequent time in human history.

Little, indeed, is recorded of Adam’s history following his sin. The implication is that he lived the normal life of a fallen man of his time. Memory, however, served him faithfully and no doubt exercised a great influence in his life and his testimony to his posterity was equally effective.

The immediate change in Adam and Eve which their sin wrought is revealed in the record that they were ashamed, having discovered that they were unclothed. This incident in the narrative, like the protevangelium of Genesis 3:15, reaches into deeper realities which were foreshadowed in this initial experience of mankind. In its Scripture use, clothing is the symbol of righteousness. The shame which these two experienced was not between themselves but rather between themselves and God. They did not hide from each other, but they did hide from God. They had experienced a change in their very constitution which separated them from God. If they were at once to be expelled from the garden, it was because of the fact that they had first voluntarily broken their relation with God by hiding from His presence. Whatever may have been their own consciousness at that time, the faithful record of God’s Word offers the indisputable evidence that they deemed themselves no longer worthy to meet God face to face. Much truth, likewise, lies hidden in the facts that they attempted to clothe themselves, which clothing was of no value; and that God clothed them with skins, which meant the shedding of blood. Thus another great doctrine of the Bible is enacted in type at least. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb 9:22), and “being justified [declared righteous] freely [without a cause] by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24).

The Bible further teaches with complete unanimity that the race is depraved—apart from the saving grace of God—, and it is equally evident that no time can be indicated when this came to pass other than the fall of man in the garden of Eden. The claim that the unregenerate are totally depraved is resented by many and for want of a right understanding as to its meaning. If, as viewed by men, it is asserted that there is nothing good in man, the statement is untrue; for, as man is quick to declare, there is no human being so degraded that there is not some good in him. If on the other hand, as viewed by God, it is claimed that man is without merit in His sight, the case is far different. Depravity as a doctrine does not stand or fall on the ground of man’s estimation of himself; it rather reflects God’s estimation of man. What the Bible avers on the fallen and depraved estate of man would not be written by man. He would have no sufficient perspective by which to form a worthy conclusion, nor would he thus abase himself.

Dr. Shedd’s concluding remarks on depravity are to the point: “The depravity or corruption of nature is total. Man is ‘wholly inclined to evil, and that continually.’ Westminster L. C., 25. Gen 6:5, ‘God saw that every imagination of the thoughts of man was only evil continually.’ There can be but a single dominant inclination in the will at one and the same time; though with it there may be remnants of a previously dominant inclination. Adam began a new sinful inclination. This expelled the prior holy inclination. He was therefore totally depraved, because there were no remainders of original righteousness left after apostasy, as there are remainders of original sin left after regeneration.

This is proved by the fact that there is no struggle between sin and holiness, in the natural man, like that in the spiritual man. In the regenerate, ‘the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,’ Gal 5:17. Holiness and sin are in a conflict that causes the regenerate to ‘groan within themselves,’ Rom 8:23. But there is no such conflict of the human will, with no remnants of original righteousness. Regeneration is the recovery of the human will, with some remnants of original sin. Total depravity means the entire absence of holiness, not the highest intensity of sin. A totally depraved man is not as bad as he can be, but he has no holiness, that is, no supreme love of God. He worships and loves the creature rather than the creator, Rom 1:25.”[2]

Following the record of the fall of man, the text of the Bible is not pursued far until the evidence of universal death is discovered (cf. Gen 5:6–31), and the solemn declaration: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5). How in contrast this statement stands over against the original estimation of Jehovah, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31)! Writing by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, holy men have declared: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one” (Job 14:4); “What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?” (Job 15:14); “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51:5); “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not... Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Eccl 7:20, 29); “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters; they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment” (Isa 1:4–6); “There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man... And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7:15, 20–23); “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom 3:9–18); “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:19–21); “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (Jas 1:13–15).

From such a testimony, which might be greatly enlarged, the doctrine of depravity is drawn; nor can these Scriptures be explained otherwise. To this conception every line of the Bible is harmonious. It was this that called forth the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus. No more misleading or injurious word can be given the unsaved than to imply to them that they are lost only on the ground of their personal sins. If this be true, they are lost only to the degree to which they have thus sinned. Men are lost by nature—“by nature the children of wrath” (Eph 2:3), and there is deep significance—reaching far beyond the realms of personal wrong-doing—in the words of Christ, “Ye are of your father the devil” (John 8:44). Only the grace of God, proffered to the meritless, through the cross of Christ can avail, and that salvation contemplates not only the forgiveness of sins committed, but the impartation of a new divine nature.

The experience of man is a confirming testimony to his sinful nature. Men expect little good from themselves or their fellow men; they avoid every relationship to God and even blaspheme His holy name; a child goes naturally in the ways of evil, but must be disciplined in the direction of good.

Writing of the depravity of human nature, Dr. Dwight states: “In truth, no doctrine of the Scriptures is expressed in more numerous or more various forms, or in terms more direct or less capable of misapprehension.”[3] So also Dr. Chalmers, “If it be through the blood of Christ, the blood of expiation, that all who get to heaven are saved, then does it follow universally of them who get to heaven as of them who are kept out of heaven,—inclusive of the whole human race,—that one and all of them have sinned.”[4] Likewise, Dr. Pye Smith: “The Scriptures represent holiness of character in any of mankind as the exception, and as owing to grace which makes men ‘new creatures’ and ‘all things new;’ whereas the wickedness of extremely depraved men is put as affording fair specimens of human nature, because it is the spontaneous unchecked growth of our nature.”[5] Observe, also, Dr. Alexander’s brief word: “The gospel is a call to the race as such to repent and return unto God. ‘God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent’ (Acts xvii.30). But what need of universal repentance, except on the supposition of universal sinfulness? The whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; the Lord came to call sinners, not righteous persons, to repentance; and when consequently, we hear Him addressing this call to ‘all men everywhere,’ we cannot doubt that in the view of heaven all men are sinners, and further, that unless this be admitted and realized, there is no just apprehension of the true nature and design of Christianity obtained.”[6] The word of Aristotle is equally as impressive: “There appears another something besides the reason natural to us which fights and struggles against the reason; and just as the limbs of the body when under paralysis are when they would move to the right carried away to the left, so is it in the soul.”[7] So also Plutarch declaims: “Some portion of evil is mingled in all who are born; for the seeds of our being are mortal, and hence they share in causing this, whence depravity of soul, disease, and cares creep upon us.”[8] The assertion of Kant is equally clear and forceful: “That the world lieth in wickedness, is a lament as old as history, nay, as old as the oldest poetry. The world began, it is allowed, with good, with a golden age, with life in Paradise, or with one still happier in communion with heavenly being. But this felicity, it is admitted, has vanished like a dream; and now man’s course is even with accelerated speed from bad (morally bad, with which the physically bad ever advances pari passu) to worse.... A few moderns have advanced the opposite opinion, which, however, has found favour only with philosophers, and in our day chiefly among pedagogues, that the world is progressively tending from bad to better, or, at least, that the basis of this lies in human nature. But this opinion assuredly is not derived from experience, if it is of moral goodness and badness, not civilisation, they speak; for the history of all times speaks decisively against it.”[9] Referring to this opinion of Kant’s, Hahn says: “Profound observers of the human nature in great numbers since Kant have acknowledged the truth of the Biblical doctrine, that the root of man’s nature is corrupt, so that each feels himself by nature morally sick and unfree, and no one is able of his own strength to fulfil the divine law, though he acknowledges it to be good and inviolable.”[10]

2. Physical Death.

The separation of soul and spirit from the body, which experience is termed physical death, is in no way comparable to spiritual death, though they both originate in the first sin of the first man. Not a few have been confused with regard to these widely different aspects of truth. Suffice to dicate that, though they originate at the same point or place, their experience is, obviously, altogether diverse. Those that in this life are spiritually dead are alive physically, while those that have died physically are alive spiritually, in the sense that they cannot cease to exist. In the end, spiritual death of this life—if not healed by redeeming grace—merges into unending second death; while physical death will yet be rebuked for all—saved and unsaved. “There shall be no more death” (Rev 21:4), and “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26).

Conclusion.

In tracing the vast field which the Anthropology of the Bible presents, consideration has been given to the origin by creation, the constitution and capacities of man, his temptation and his fall as well as the results of that fall upon himself and the race. This, with the doctrine of sin, becomes the background for the all-engaging theme of Soteriology, next to be attended.

Dallas, Texas

* * * * *

“It is a fact too notorious to need proof, that the same assumption pervades the Bible which, as we have shown, pervades all our common systems of Theology, that man is the image of God in his fundamental constitution as an intelligent, voluntary, affectionate and moral person. Throughout, God is described in language taken from the human mind. Nor is there in the Bible any intimation that in the use of such language there is a necessity or even a danger of delusion. It nowhere stigmatizes it as anthropomorphism or anthropopathy. Nor does it even call in question the accuracy of the fundamental and necessary conceptions of the human mind concerning time and space and justice, honor, and rectitude. It always uses the common language of men concerning time and space with reference to God and to man, and never intimates that as God views things they are illusive.... The basis therefore of the whole Bible is the great principle that man in his fundamental mental constitution is the image of God, and that his fundamental conceptions as to time, space and moral rectitude agree with the reality of things as seen by God, and that on these grounds alone is a knowledge of God or communion with Him possible. No book on earth is so entirely free from the taint of a spurious and delusive philosophy as the Bible. None tends so powerfully to retain the mind in the domains of a sound and healthy common sense, and to establish it in that abiding assurance of a real knowledge and heartfelt love of God which is the essential element of eternal lifo.”—Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1850.

Notes

1. Pp. 195,196.
2. Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, p. 257.
3. Theology, Serm. 29.
4. Institutes of Theology, i. p. 385.
5. First Lines of Theology, p. 383.
6. System of Biblical Theology, Vol. I, p. 205.
7. Eth. Nicom., i. 11.
8. De Consol. ad Apoll.
9. Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, p. 1.
10. Lehrbuch, p. 364.