Nathan E. Lewis

Sermon #2 = Common Ground: Original Sin
Romans 5:12-17

It is no secret that the Holy Scripture emphasizes and traces through history the special grace of God. The gospel central the whole Bible proclaims freedom from sin and death, and reconciliation between God and man. By faith alone in Christ alone we are saved by grace alone. This gospel at first is a whisper but as the biblical narrative unfolds and every couplet of wisdom poetry and prophecy is delivered the gospel gains clarity and strength until it erupts, or better yet flowers in the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, friend of sinners. “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” This special grace is the main story of the Bible.
While the grace of God culminates in this supreme action we label “special grace,” this redeeming of God’s elect is not the sum total of God’s gracious activity in this world. For example, the eschatological presentations of the gospel include the restoration of the earth. Presently suffering under the common curse, the earth groans awaiting its liberation. Mark records Jesus saying, “Preach the gospel to all creation!”
The Holy Spirit applies the gospel of special grace to the hearts and obedience of the children of God. But God’s manifold grace also includes the Holy Spirit working internally and externally upon the members of the human race far from God and bent on hell. In 1871 Charles Hodge of Princeton became the first Reformed theologian to include in his systematic theology a summation of John Calvin’s ideas about common grace: “The effects produced by common grace, or this influence of the Spirit common to all men, are most important to the individual and to the world. Without the gracious work of the Spirit the external world would be left to the blind operation of physical causes, without the restraining and guiding influence of God’s providential efficiency.” In 1878 Abraham Kuyper delineated the doctrine of common grace in the Netherlands followed by Herman Bavinck in 1894, who thoroughly worked out a treatise on the doctrine of common grace. In the Reformed community, which correctly emphasizes the original sin and total depravity of humanity, Abraham Kuyper distinguished between the exterior and interior operations of the Holy Spirit working common grace in the lives of the unbeliever. The external work of the Holy Spirit upon non-Christians includes achievements and advances in all fields including scientific knowledge and technologies as well as the flourishing of the arts. The internal work of the Holy Spirit upon the non-Christian may supply good motives for exterior deeds done in the restraint of sin and the promotion of good. Kuyper writes of this interior spiritual work producing “civic virtue, a sense of domesticity, natural love, the practice of human virtue, the improvement of the public conscience, integrity, mutual loyalty among people, and a feeling for piety leaven life.” Clearly Kuyper was a student of John Calvin, first a student of the civil law, who expressed his intellectual debt to pagan thinkers, especially Seneca. Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, “There exists a universal apprehension of reason and understanding that is by nature implanted in men, bestowed indiscriminately upon pious and impious….rightly counted among natural gifts.” Calvin insisted that the Bible presents a “peculiar grace of God” upon the unrighteous.
Think about the reality of common grace for a moment: The person who blasphemes God does so with the very breath granted to him by his Creator. His life lived in debauchery is nevertheless sustained for a time by the Sovereign and Provident God “who desires that none should perish but that all should come to a knowledge of God.” Just like the insolent teenager who lives at home never paying for the cost of living and yet rebels against his parents, the ungodly person enjoys the comforts and luxuries God provides him yet going his own way making diabolical choices. But Kuyer also observes that some of these insolent human beings, living in the lap of God’s mercy also produce amazingly good and useful contributions for the good of the whole human race.
In this grace commonly showered upon all humanity, we find common ground for righteous and unrighteous alike. In my first sermon delivered this past Lord’s Day, I suggested that the primary common ground lies in all of humanity made in the image of God. In today’s sermon I suggest that our common ground is also rooted in the original sin of which all of us human beings except for Jesus Christ share. Charles Hodge summarizes our Confession concisely defining original sin: 1) It is the guilt of Adam’s first sin effecting the entire human race; 2) It is the loss of original righteousness for the whole race; 3) It is the corruption of our whole nature.”
Please turn your attention with me to our morning’s text, Romans 5: 12-17. Our first lesson is delivered by the Apostle Paul in (12): Through Adam, our common father, sin came into the world and spread to all of us members of the human race. Those of us who know the writings of Moses in Genesis 3 know that Eve, Adam’s wife, was tempted by the serpent in the garden of Eden and it was she who first broke God’s law by eating the forbidden fruit. After she had so sinned, she gave the fruit to Adam, who was with her, and he also ate, sinning against God’s equitable law. Why does Paul place the blame upon Adam? From the very beginning, the Bible presents a communal/relational aspect to human responsibility. None of us sin or do anything merely as an individual. The whole of the human race is inseparably connected. God made Adam responsible for his wife, Eve, a gift to him, to help him and to enhance his life. The two of them became one flesh, enjoying unity with each other and with God. Adam, who was present with his wife, Eve, as she was deceived by the devil, failed to protect his wife, supporting her life and actions by the very law of God, good for life eternal. Reformed theologians have labeled Adam’s responsibility and role as the “Federal Head” of humanity. He was the representative of the whole. Not only was Eve inseparably connected to Adam, the Federal Head, but so also were her offspring, beginning with Cain continuing to the present, including all of us. The doctrine of common grace is rooted in this commonness of original sin.
Not all Christian traditions acknowledge the original sin put forth in (12) but instead develop the actual sin of the individual.
Some Christian traditions even grant an age of accountability similar to Islam, considering children younger than 12 to being in a state of innocence. Some Reformed Christians have misapplied the doctrine of original sin by assuming that every cry of a baby is sinful and should be accordingly disciplined. In most situations a baby cries because he is hungry or feels the discomfort of the common curse. Nevertheless what David wrote in Psalm 51 is true for all of us: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” At conception and for a good number of weeks, if not for nine months, it would be virtually impossible for a baby to commit actual sin and so we are compelled to acknowledge by the light of Scripture the doctrine of original sin.
Clearly Paul’s intention in presenting original sin within us all resulting from Adam’s first sin is to present the special grace of the second Federal Head of humanity, the Man Christ Jesus. In (15) the second lesson refreshingly comes to us: God freely gives to us salvation from our original sin and actual sins through Jesus Christ. The grace Paul describes in this text is most assuredly special grace. The comparison lies between the failed Federal Head, Adam and the prevailing Federal Head, Jesus Christ. The doctrine of the virgin birth is bedrock in supplying for us a member of the human race free of original sin, free of actual sin, successfully meeting the demands of infinite justice put forth in the eternal law of God. The contrast lies between the universal “many” who are bound in original sin inseparably connected to the failed Federal Head and the “many” who by faith are inseparably connected to the prevailing Federal Head, Jesus Christ. The distinction between the two uses of “many” is made clear in (17): “”those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”
Leave it to the trouble maker, Reconstructionist, Gary North, in his book, Dominion and Common Grace to remind us of the pervasive “us and them” language of the Bible, part of the over-arching theme of God’s covenant. He writes: “There is another kind of grace, and it is misunderstood. Common grace is equally a gift of God to his creatures, but it is distinguished from special grace in a number of crucial ways. The key verse that describes two kinds of grace is I Timothy 4:10: ‘For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe.” This verse unquestionably states that Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men, meaning all people. Yet the Bible does not teach ‘universalism,’ meaning the ethical redemption of all men. There are saved and lost throughout eternity (Revelation 20:14). So what does this verse mean? It means simply that Christ died for all men, giving unmerited gifts to all men in time and on earth. Some people go to eternal destruction, and other are resurrected to live with Christ eternally. But all men have at least the unmerited gifts of life, at least for a time.” Cornelius Van Til concisely and helpfully writes of I Timothy 4:10, “The word ‘Savior’ is by common consent taken to mean Preserver.”
As God preserves the righteous and the unrighteous alike in this present world, common ground emerges. Van Til states the obvious message of Paul’s letter to the Romans: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” He writes, “All men lost the favor of God and became objects of the ‘common’ wrath of God. The doctrine of common grace teaches us to remember the common ground of original sin. The Holy Scripture does not allow us to only apply the prevailing theme of the “us and them” to our relationships with the ungodly. We must also apply the biblical truth of our common “lostness” apart from Christ. As someone has said, “But for the grace of God there go I.”
In subsequent sermons I will interact with the plaguing question concerning the goodness and purposefulness of God showering a common grace upon those destined for hell. What kind of a God would sustain the lives of rebels, even endowing them with natural gifts to achieve great and useful feats for the good of humanity only to consign them in the end to a place of eternal torment? Suffice it to say for now, that this all seems quite unfair if not cruel if we continue to think from the perspective of what is good for the individual human being. But divine revelation moves us to think from the divine perspective concerning what brings glory to God. For many reasons and purpose unknown to us, God is pleased to glorify himself through the lives and contributions of all his creatures including the reprobate. Calvin, Bavinck and Kuiper are helpful in suggesting that the utility lies in the restraint of evil and the promotion of good. Through it all, God accomplishes all his purposes and ends of his creation to his sole honor and glory. “Now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the God only wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”