The Feature-Flaw of Man

“For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did” (Rom 8:3)

I want to spend a few moments thinking about a fever. A fever is usually a symptom of an underlying disease or infection. Without that malady, there would be no fever. As wise Solomon said, “With no wood the fire goes out”, so we ought to just treat the cause of the fever and our body temperature will come back down. Yet we often find ourselves having to battle a fever directly.

While a fever is “merely” a symptom, it can easily become a greater immediate threat to its victim than its cause. Many a patient has arrived at an emergency room with such a dangerously high fever that the symptom must be urgently dealt with, with its cause pushed to the side.

I mention this because I want to discuss something similar: Sin and corruptibility. Sins and sinning are awful. They are destructive to both their victims and their perpetrators. Worse, they are an offense to our holy God. Even worse, they led to the suffering and death of His innocent Son. But sinning arises from somewhere, it happens for a reason.

Obviously, sins are committed by sinners. Theologians like to say we aren’t sinners because we sin, rather we sin because we are sinners. They mean to say we were born sinners. We are afflicted from conception with “original sin”, inherited from our forefather Adam.

Adam’s rebellious disobedience in the garden, and God’s subsequent judgment, impacted him to his core. Every cell in his body was touched – ruined - including his seed. And, since the calamity unfolded before any of Adam’s children were born, all of them were impacted by it, because all of them arose from tainted seed. In other words, original sin is a congenital disease children inherit from their fathers through their seed, with the contamination reaching all the way back to that first felon, Adam.

It is interesting to note that scripture tells us Adam was created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26), yet it says Seth was made in the image and likeness of Adam (Gen 5:3). Well, if Adam is like God, then Seth ought to be like God, too. But Adam’s “image and likeness” included the taint of sin when he fathered Seth. Adam inherited no such blight from God! (And neither did Jesus.)

So, we are born sinners. But I say sin is like the fever I opened with - it is a symptom of an underlying issue. That underlying issue is the corruptibility of Man. Humans are corruptible – able to be corrupted – by nature. Prior to sinning, while still in happy communion with God, Adam and Eve were corruptible. Therefore, they were subject to temptation, the avenue of corruption. This flaw has always been present in man.

Now, to say man is corruptible by nature is to say we are corruptible by design. God made man corruptible. Since I trust God and His judgment, our “flaw” of corruptibility must really be a feature. Obviously, God never intended for man to sin. Rather, God made man dependent on Him. Just as we need food, water, and air, we need God. For “man does not live on bread alone, but on every word the proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mat 4:4).

God brought the feature-flaw into sharp focus, by uttering a commandment: “You shall not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” (Gen 2:17). The commandment provided the enemy an opening, something with which to tempt man. But it also provided man an opportunity to choose to obey. That is another way of saying it gave man an opportunity to glorify God and be in communion with Him.

Now, God could have said, “Do NOT touch that rock over there!” Or “Never do a handstand!” In a sense, any commandment would’ve activated our feature-flaw. Any requirement would have given us an opportunity to choose between obedience and disobedience. But God isn’t arbitrary. He is wise and loving. I say the command God gave to Adam implied the following: “Choose to stay intimately connected to Me and I will be your perfect source of the knowledge of good and evil. I don’t want you to become an independent agent, with your own store of knowledge.”

In support of this, hear the lament of God through Jeremiah: “My people have done two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer 2:13). And again, “They have turned their back to Me and not their face. Though I taught them, rising up early and teaching, they would not listen and receive discipline” (Jer 32:33).

Now, corruption, if and when it occurs, comes by temptation. Notice, the enemy didn’t use a frontal assault when he approached Eve. He didn’t tell her disobeying God was desirable. Instead, he beguiled Eve by presenting the fruit as alluring. He obscured his slander and contradiction of God by drawing Eve’s attention to the fruit. Even the fact that God had denied them the fruit was made part of its appeal: it must be wonderful if God won’t let you have it! Corruptible man then corrupted themselves by falling for the temptation and the damage was done.

Man should have viewed their inner inclination to rebel against God with horror. They ought to have abhorred that part of their nature. They needed to embrace in the garden the truth that Jesus declared thousands of years later: "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate... even his own life, he cannot be My disciple" (Lk 14:26). The bible tells us God called out to Adam in the garden. But it should’ve been the other way around: “Whoever calls upon the Name of the Lord will be saved.” “God, I need you!” might have precluded “Adam where are you?”.

We Christians called out to Him when we were born again, when we saw our sins and the damage they caused. But how many of us still cry out, not only when we sin, but because of our inclination toward sin?

Sin in our flesh from birth is a horrible blight. But I’m talking about our flesh, apart from sin. Water is wet and flesh is corruptible – all of it… even the flesh of that One who knew no sin – neither by inheritance nor personal experience. And what did Jesus do? “He, in the days of His flesh, offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence” (Heb 5:7).

During His earthly ministry, the man Christ Jesus had two distinct advantages: First, He was free of “original sin”. God Almighty is the Father of Jesus Christ, not Joseph. Therefore, Adam wasn’t His forefather.  Second, He had the Holy Spirit poured out upon Him without measure. His public ministry started after the Spirit lighted on Him. He was then led into the desert by the Spirit, where He “put to death the deeds of the body” during his forty-day fast. He started His public ministry upon His return – by entering a synagogue, opening the scroll to Isaiah, and reading aloud, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me…”

With those two powerful advantages, Jesus victoriously overcame the flaw of human flesh – its corruptibility. He revealed it as the feature it was meant to be. He passed the tests provided by it, resisting the temptations of the enemy and submitting to the wisdom of God.

Yet, it was arduous work, even for Jesus Christ! He studiously and continuously preserved His integrity hour after day after week after year after decade. He was in personal contact with the corruptibility of flesh for over three decades. “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things like we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15).

Praise God, Jesus Christ has triumphed over sin and the devil, but also over the corruptibility of the flesh. He is now at the right hand of the Majesty On High in a glorious, incorruptible body. Like The Father, The Son of Man is free of temptation. How I look forward to that glorious instant when our flesh is also transformed into an incorruptible form “when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (1 Cor 15:54).

Yet, the feature-flaw of corruptibility will remain our close companion until resurrection, so we must face this dilemma head on. I believe a two-pronged approach is vital. Like Jesus, we must “love righteousness and hate lawlessness”. We demonstrate this through two embraces: First, we must embrace the Holy Spirit and then, through the Spirit, we must embrace the cross: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom 8:13).

Jesus declared, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Lk 9:23). But we didn’t merely need good advice; we didn’t merely lack an effective plan. If the Sermon on The Mount was sufficient then there was no need for Him to die on “Skull Hill” (“Golgotha” and “Cavalry” both refer to the same place – a barren, ominous hill that resembled a skull). Therefore, He sent His Spirit to enable us to do it.

We now benefit powerfully from His victory over sin, the flesh, and the devil. He has divided the spoils with us (Is 53:12). First, we are now born again of sinless seed (1 Pet 1:23). This is huge! No one seems to ever mention what the Lord said regarding this through the prophet Jeremiah. In the same passage where He declared the new covenant, the Lord made this statement: “In those days they will not say again, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children's teeth are set on edge.' But everyone will die for his own iniquity; each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge” (Jer 31:29-30). In this context, the fruit eaten by Adam and Eve was sour grapes. But their malicious meal no longer needs to set our teeth on edge. The New Covenant includes being set free from original sin!

Besides, Adam is no longer our forefather, Jesus Christ is. He is the “Everlasting Father” and the “Last Adam”. Hear Him proclaim through Isaiah, “Here am I, and the children Yahweh has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from Yahweh Of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion” (Is 8:18). But signs only follow those that believe. Therefore, we must believe we are no longer descended from Adam, but from Jesus Christ! Be it done unto us according to Your word, O Lord!

We also now have Christ’s second advantage (well, some of us) – we have been baptized in His Essential Spirit. Therefore, we can now do what He did and overcome our flesh’s rebellion fetish. “For as many as are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Rom 8:14). More accurately, we can now let Him do in us what He did in flesh two thousand years ago.

We can see a present application to what the Apostle John declared: “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory” (Jn 1:14). The Word is now resident in our flesh, therefore, God can once again be glorified. Paul confirms this connection of the life of Christ in us: "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal 2:20).

Untethered from the dead weight of Adam and buoyed by the thermal of the Holy Spirit, we are now gloriously enabled to maintain our new position in the heavenlies. From now on, what the enemy means for harm God works for good. Satan will tempt us to try to ruin us, but God transforms them into tests that prove us and into opportunities for us to glorify Him.

In this way, all things work together for good for us. In this way, rebellious angels are broken to saddle. We can now confidently answer the question asked about angels at the end of Hebrews chapter one: “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” Yes, they are… even (especially!) those that don’t want to be.