Adam

Original Sin: Born This Way James and Jonathan tackle a foundational theological topic this week. The doctrine of original sin is integral to our grasp of many other biblical doctrines. How should we define original sin, and how is it different from the sins we commit daily? Guilt, corruption,...
The fall of mankind began with a lie. “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” This was followed by a second lie. “You certainly will not die! For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil...
“Therefore, become imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2). In much Jewish thought the idea of imitating God was anathema. With the initial sin of Adam and Eve in “desiring to...
Tony Arsenal
A Walk of Unbelief: Ephesians 2:1-3 A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step – Laozi Every story has a beginning. In many stories, the protagonist lives an idyllic –albeit plain– existence until some exogenous influence disrupts their life. The central figure of the story must then...
Charles Spurgeon’s famous quip goes something like this, “I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines, that are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are surely and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus.” We might say something similar about justification. We may describe it...
Preaching through Genesis over the past year and a half has encouraged me to re-open quite a number of significant theological subjects--not least of which is the historical character of the foundational portions of God's revelation. Over the past 150 years, biblical scholars have spilled ink ad...
Pierce T. Hibbs
If the dank earth forming marrow and flesh does not entice your wonder, then neither will the Incarnation. This Christmas season, I have been thinking of how integrally related Adam and Christ are in redemptive history, as made plain in Romans 5:12-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:42-49. The Trinitarian God...
ii. Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom, and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God; but yet, mutably, so that he might fall from it. Along with the trivial sense of free will - what today we term free agency - Adam also possessed free will in the important...
Jeffrey Jue
i. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin, God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory. ii. By this sin, they fell from their original...
Rick Phillips
ii. After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image; having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it; and yet under a possibility of...