Lesson 11 Flashcards
What does Psalm 8 provide in understanding human beings?
- Theocentric anthropology
- humility and dignity before God
What is man? is a question asked by all cultures, religions, and philosophies. Once again, the importance of order in theological method: **theocentric anthropology **
Such a perspective helps us appreciate the wonder of human beings:
* made by God,
* human beings exist in a state of humility and dignity before God Ultimately,
* we can only understand ourselves in light of who God is.
What does it mean that human beings are embodied, living souls?
- The whole man is God’s image in this foundational sense: The subject of the image is primarily the soul, secondarily the Body. In sofar as the actions of the soul express themselves, through the body.
-Souls express themselves through the Body. The body is not bad but not primary. - Breath of life
- Rational and loving souls
- Animated dust
- crowned with glory and honor
How is the Christian to understand the consequences of Adam’s sin?
- While we are created to be in God’s presence, sin has severed our relationship with God.
- We continue to bear HIs image. But the image is distorted.
- We are subject to the rule of the serpent, and we have been exiled from God’s presence.
- Image: They are God’s image in a distorted and erreparable state
- Kingly vocation: subject to vanity and human beings are subject to the rule of the serpent.
- Priestly Vocation: they are exiled from God’s holy presence.
- Destiny: sin merits curse, death, and damnation.
- Forgiveness and Redemption from outside ourselves is required.
What is the purpose of humankind?
- In the beginning, the purpose of mankind was the enter God’s rest and to have enternal life.
- Glorify God & enjoy Him Forever
- Kingly Vocation: dominion (order) & dynasty
- Priestly Vocation: worship, garden as sanctuary.
How does the work of Christ restore human nature?
- Jesus, in fulfilling the Covenant of Works, restores human nature.
- Through His perfect obedience and death, the human vocation is restored, human destiny in realized and perfected.
- By His grace, he restores and perfects human nature that was distored and damned in Adam so we might behold God’s glory and walk in His presence.
- Grace restores & perfects our nature
- Covenant headship: Adam vs. Christ
- Covenant of Works & Covenant of Christ
- Christ fulfills Covenant of Works
- Imputation
What are the various views of the consequences of Adam’s sin.
1. The Pelagian controversy
a. Pelagius admits we need God’s grace for forgiveness of sins, but not for obedience (because the fall did not weaken human nature’s power to obey).
B. Augustine responds by appealing to the Lord’s Prayer
I. His silence here is truly astonishing, considering that the Lord’s Prayer requires that we pray both that we may be forgiven our debts and that we may not be brought into temptation
c. Pelagius disputes the claim that our nature has been weakened through sin, since sin is not a substance
d. Augustine agrees that sin is not a substance
e. While Pelagius believes he is defending the honor of God the creator, by insisting upon the integrity of our created nature even after the fall of Adam, Augustine argues that, in defending the honor of God the creator, Pelagius is actually dishonoring God the savior and physician.
2. Semi-Pelagianism
A. non-fatal wounds (e.g., Medieval RC; Arminianism; John Wesley’s “prevenient grace”; some SBs)
3. Augustinianism
* dead in trespasses and sins . . . by nature children of wrath” (Eph 2:1, 3)
a. Romans 5:12-21
b. Original guilt: Because of Adam’s sin, we are “constituted sinners,” therefore worthy of death (Rom 5:19)
c. Original pollution: Because of Adam’s sin, we are slaves of sin (Rom 8:8; Eph 2:1-3; etc.) rather than free lords of creation under God.
** 4. Augustinian debates: How is it that Adam’s sin results in our being constituted sinners who are worthy of death (original guilt) and slaves of sin (original pollution)?**
a. Realism
i. All human beings were “really” in Adam when he sinned and therefore are “really” liable to punishment
ii. Response: proves too much
b. Federalism or “covenant headship”:
i. 2 Sam 21:1ff; Adam is a “type” of Christ: Rom 5:14 (head/body relation)
ii. According to this view, Adam functions as a “public person,” i.e., as a person who represents others in his actions vis-à-vis the covenant and therefore whose actions bear consequences not only for himself but also for those whom he represents.
iii. Adam’s transgression of the covenant of works resulted in our guilt and death (Rom 5:18-19; Eph 2:3).
4. Adam and Jesus
a. The preceding discussion better equips us to understand how the gospel realizes God’s covenant purpose, how “grace restores and perfects nature.”
b. Covenant headship: The relationship between Adam and his offspring in the covenant of works helps us better understand and appreciate the relationship between Christ and his people in the covenant of grace (Rom 5; 1 Cor 15).
c. The covenant of works and the work of Christ
i. Recall the “elements” of the covenant of works above
ii. Christ fulfills both the precept (Rom 5:18-21; Gal 4:5) and the penalty of the covenant of works on our behalf (Gal 3:10-13).
iii. In so doing, his obedient death removes the consequences of Adam’s sin and ours: Christ’s blood cleanses us of our sin (Heb 9:14), carries away the burden of our sin (John 1:29), and pays the debt of our sin (1 Pet 1:18-19); Christ’s obedient death also secures our release from bondage to the devil and to death (Romans 6; 1 Cor 15; Hebrews 2; Rev 12).
iv. Moreover, having fulfilled the precept and penalty of the covenant of works, Christ wins for us the promise of the covenant of works (= eternal life, rest in God’s presence), which we may receive as a free gift (apart from works) through faith: Romans 5:21; Eph 2:8-10.
v. Thus, in and through Jesus Christ and his obedient death, human nature and vocation is restored (2 Cor 3-4; Heb 10:19-22; Eph 4-5) and human destiny is realized and perfected (1 John 3:1-3; Rev 22:1-5): through his obedient death, the grace of Christ restores and perfects the human nature distorted and damned in Adam, so that we might behold God’s glory and walk in his presence.
