What Went Wrong With Us?
It is often retold that The Times – a newspaper based in London – sent out a question to famous authors: “What’s wrong with the world today?” A well known social critic of the time responded simply,
Dear Sir,
I am.
Yours,
G. K. Chesterton
When discussing the Master Story and our Ultimate Truth Source, we raised the question,”Is there anything wrong with our world?” Either 1) there is nothing wrong with the World and things are the way they are supposed to be or 2) there is something wrong.
It is very difficult to look at the way things are, particularly in the way we treat one another as humans, and come to the conclusion that this is just the way things are. Everyone has some sense of right and wrong and even a desire for justice and righteousness. It is easy to see where these things come from if we are trusting the Master Story revealed in the Bible. It has a place for both truth and lie, good and evil, right and wrong. It even explains what has gone wrong with our world.
In our next session, we are going to trace how as the Master Story and Truth of the Bible were rejected and suppressed in Western Culture, no suitable replacement was ever found and created many cultural and societal problems that we are still dealing with today.
Before we go there, it is important to understand that at the root of all that has gone wrong is the human heart and trust and love and are focused on the wrong things.
Tracing The Fall
We know from the Master Story of the Bible that Adam and Eve choose to listen to The Serpent rather that to God. They chose to trust a creature rather than their creator. We know from other Scripture that The Serpent is identified with Satan – the Great Red Dragon, The Devil, the Deceiver of the whole world, the Accuser (see Revelation 12:3, 9, 10). We know that Satan is an angelic being who rebelled against God and as Jesus says, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).
So we know that Satan was a key part of the rebellion and fall of humanity. But that is not what we are going to focus on here. Instead, we want to think about what went wrong with Adam and Eve and also what has gone wrong with us since we have inherited an aspect of our identity (family character) from them.
In Romans Chapters 1-7, the Scriptures give us great insight into “the fall” of humanity. In fact, Paul summarizes the core problem when he says,
“…for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,…”
– Romans 3:23 –
The Lord God designed us to be agents of His glory, to reflect His goodness and beauty in all that we are and do. But, we have all fallen far short of those purposes.
In Romans 5:12-21, Paul makes a contrast between what Adam did that has affected us all and what Jesus has done to reverse the what Adam’s sin did. You should read through this whole passage to see the full scope of Paul’s argument. We will focus on what he says about Adam:
Now, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all people, because all sinned…For by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one,…So then through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all people,… For through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners…
– Romans 5:12-19 –
Paul focuses on Adam in this passage and not Eve because Adam was given the responsibility for watching and protecting. Yet through Adam, Sin, Death, and Condemnation entered the human experience. As our “first father,” Adam passes on this terrible inheritance to all his children: the human race.
The Scriptures spell out more of the consequences and results of all this in other places:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
– Ephesians 2:1–3 –
Analyzing The Fall
In Romans Chapters 1-3, Paul makes a case for why everyone has fallen from the Lord God’s good purposes for us (this is what sin is: to fail to be and do who Father God desires). In 1:18-32 we hear a description of what rejecting The Lord God and His reality looks like. There are some who think Paul has the story of the rebellion and fall of Adam and Eve and the aftermath that is recorded in Genesis 3-11. Let’s take a close look at this passage:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” Romans 1:18
First of all notice that God’s wrath is presently being revealed against all who reject Him. If you trace Paul’s argument in this passage, you will see that His wrath is simply giving people over to their own corrupt desires (see 1:24, 26).
The key truth to focus on for our purposes is people suppress the truth. It is not that the truth cannot be known; it is that the truth about God and reality is known and people don’t like it and so they suppress it – hold it down, cover it over, deny it. Paul makes this clear in the next statement:
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
– Romans 1:19–20 –
God has made His existence plain both in nature – creation – and within people. The phrase “has shown it to them” could also be translated, “has revealed it within them.” When we look at nature, we can perceive The Creator in all things. And our Creator has given us an innate sense of His existence. Because God’s existence is clearly revealed in all creation, people who deny Him are without excuse.
“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
– Romans 1:21 –
When people suppress and reject the knowledge of God that is available to them, they are unable to honor Him or give thanks to Him. Both honoring and giving thanks are aspects of worship as we will see in just a minute.
Notice that in rejecting God and His Truth 1) thinking becomes futile (meaningless), and 2) the foolish heart is darkened. If you think back to our circle illustration, we could represent what happens like this:
Our hearts which should be the source of our life is now darkened. Because of this, nothing else within us works the way it is supposed to. Also, are thoughts – a function of the mind – becomes futile, meaningless. In our next session we will consider how this inner, spiritual failure has been magnified in tradition and culture in the Western World. The last 400 years of Western History could be summed up with Paul’s next statement:
“Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”
– Romans 1:22–23 –
Because humanity rejected God the Creator, He gave us over to our own desires and devices:
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
– Romans 1:24–25 –
Notice first that a terrible exchange has taken place: God’s truth has been rejected and a Lie has been accepted. If we take a close look at Genesis 3 – the Temptation and Rebellion of Adam and Eve – we can make a case that The Serpent convinces the first humans that God is holding out on them and that He cannot be trusted, that He is not, in fact, good.
“…[when Satan] undertook to draw Eve away from God, he did not hit her with a stick, but with an idea. It was the idea that God could not be trusted and that she must act on her own to secure her own well-being.”
– Willard, Renovation of the Heart, 100 –
At the heart of all that has gone wrong with us and our world is rejection of truth – what is really real – and an acceptance of the lie – untruth, unreality, respresenting things that are not in line with the way they actually are. It is my view that all smaller lies ultimate come back to the root lie: God is not to be trusted.
Here is the really big deal: people would rather worship and serve the creation rather than the Creator. As we have already discussed, a worldview is really a way of worship. As we move forward, we are going to continue to make the case that worship is based in who or what we truly love. Worship flows out of a primary attachment to who or what we love.
Paul goes on to make clear the aftermath of rejecting God and his truth:
“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a corrupted mind to do what ought not to be done.”
– Romans 1:28 –
Both who we are and what we do has been affected by the rebellion. Clearly, what we do flows out of who we are. Left on our own, connected with the wrong “in group,” our corrupted minds – minds that are focused on all the wrong things – will continue to move us further away from Truth and Reality.
Paul gives this final conclusion:
“Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”
– Romans 1:32 –
When we reject The Truth we love it when others join in with us! Here Paul tells us that people who practice all the things that the Lord God considers sinful, worthless, useless, evil also give their approval to others who practice the same things. This is an important truth to consider and we will return to it when we discuss the “In Group.” “Bad company corrupts good character” is one of the ways this truth as been stated. “Misery loves company” may be more to the point!!!
Understanding what has happened to us as human beings sets the stage to discuss and understand how this rebellion and fall has worked its way out in history and in our traditions and cultures, especially what has happened in the West in the last 400 years.
That is what we will turn to in our next session.