WE LOST ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS IN ADAM

 

"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."                     -- Romans 5:12

 

 


            By the sin and fall of our father Adam, we all suffered a threefold loss of righteousness. And until righteousness is recovered and restored to us, we can never be accepted in the presence of the holy God.

 

Natural Righteousness

 

When Adam sinned in the garden, man lost his righteous nature. Man before the fall was much more than an innocent creature. He was holy, righteous, good and well-pleasing to God (Gen. 1:31). But after the fall man was guilty, sinful, corrupt, repulsive to and condemned by God. And that which was true of fallen Adam is true of all the fallen sons of Adam. Every faculty of man's being is corrupted, defiled, twisted, and deformed as the result of the fall. We lost all natural, moral, spiritual goodness in the fall. Fallen man has a perverted heart, corrupt will and vile nature. There is no righteousness, goodness, or possibility of goodness in any of us by nature. In our flesh "dwelleth no good thing.”

 

Legal Righteousness

 

In the moment Adam sinned we also lost all righteousness in God's sight (Rom. 5:19). Because Adam sinned, he was put out of the garden, separated from God. And we, being made sin, are by nature separated from God (Isa. 59:2). Man is so far separated from God by sin that he cannot, of his own will and by his own works, return to him (1 Tim. 6:15-16). Unless God himself intervenes to bridge the gulf between himself and fallen man, we must be eternally separated from him in hell. Having broken the law by sin, we have no legal righteousness, no legal grounds of acceptance with God.

 

Righteous Knowledge

 

Fallen man has also lost all understanding of righteousness (Rom. 10:1-3; Isa. 64:6). No of us, by nature, even knows what righteousness is. When man had righteousness before God he understood that he had it only by the gift of God in creation. And he never gloried in his righteousness. But ever since he lost righteousness, man has thought he has righteousness, pretended to have it, and boasted of it as a grounds of acceptance with God. He even attempts to cover his nakedness in sin by the fig leaf apron of his own works, and expects God to approve of his deeds. (Gen. 3:7; Luke 18:11-12). What no man knows, until God teaches him, is the righteousness can be had only in Christ, by the gift of God’s grace, through blood atonement.

 

 

Grace Baptist Church of Danville - Grace For Today Radio Message #772

2734 Old Stanford Road - Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438

Donald S. Fortner, Pastor -Telephone 606-236-8235 - Email grace@mis.net