Teach me O LORD, the
way of Your statutes,
And I shall keep it
to the end.
Give me
understanding, and I shall keep You law;
Indeed, I shall
observe it with my whole heart.
Make me walk in the
path of your commandments,
For I delight in it.
Incline my ear to Your testimonies,
And not to
covetousness. Turn away my eyes from
Looking at worthless
things, and revive me in Your ways.
Psalm 110:33–37
King David
cried out to the LORD for he knew that he was a sinner and had sinned
grievously against God and cried to God for help so that he would not be turned
away from Him again. Is this your cry? Is this your acknowledgment as to your
sinfulness? “Before I was afflicted I went astray. But now I keep Your word”
(Psalm 119:67). Is God the highest priority of your life who has the
highest of devotion and worship? Or, are you still seeing your own goodness and
rely on your wisdom, in your own powers, and extolling your own excellence even
if done is some form of humility? Is self–knowledge having the highest place in
your life and a desire to find and have such good qualities that God will
accept you? The general truth revealed to man in Scripture does concur with a
person having self–knowledge: it is a good thing if used properly. Yet, there
is a difference in this wisdom between having a form of self–knowledge and the
knowledge of self as God sees you. The difference between the two forms is in
the way by which this knowledge is acquired. A man as to his flesh sees
self–knowledge complete when he as acquired an overwhelming confidence in his
won intelligence and integrity as this will aid him to acquire courage, and
does spur him on to do virtuous deeds, a form of philanthropy. Men even fight,
against vice, and makes laws which have a foundation in morality. But, when man
tries himself by the standard of Divine Justice and this pattern of Justice is
revealed to man in God’s word, he finds in himself nothing that would inspire
him to such confidence and with more self–examination he often falls deep into
despondency. If a man abandons his own confidence a feeling of being incapable
of regulating his conduct. God’s will is not such as that man should forget his
primeval dignity, that which was given to the first pair, Adam and Eve as this
dignity does inspire a man to pursue goodness and justice. When a person things
upon the first pair, Adam and Eve, they are drawn to the aspect of immortality
as this was the end for which man was created in the first place, a man, and a
woman, who would meditate upon God, give God the first of all they have, to
give God their worship, and by this means our spirits are raised and our doubts
are cast down: we become humble. This was the original. Yet this is what man
has fallen from, sin entered into man through the first pair and by such sin we
have inherited sin and our souls became corrupted so that our souls do not
desire Godly things. What should be the end for man because of the fall? Man
has strayed far from the original purpose for creation and have become a
miserable lot, and groans for dignity: or we who are in this tent groan,
being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that
mortality may be swallowed up by life” (2Corinthians 5:4). What is being
said is this: when man cannot see a way to raise himself up, his spirits, and
does often devise a way outside of Scripture to attempt to do so, it is meant
that man does not have anything that he can proudly aspire to himself.
Therefore for us to examine this subject of original sin and to get
understanding on this mater let us divide this subject into two elements: 1)
let us consider the end for which man was created, the qualities, not
contemptible qualities, those qualities that he was first imbued which would
urge man to meditate on Divine things, to give worship to God, and the desire
for future life; immortality. 2) We must consider man’s faculties or lack of faculties, which when perceived will
annihilate all confidence in himself and will cover man with confusion. Scary
to think that this should happen when all this world attempts to promote among
man is his own self–confidence and does not consider original sin. We must then
by the first account to teach man what his duty is and for the second account
to make man aware how far is from being able to perform it.
Allow the
words of Jesus to spur you on in this discussion on original sin and our
distance form Him due much to our antinomy, and desire to be autonomous and
believe that our self–confidence is the most extolled way for man to live, to
live by their own power: this is not the way of Jesus for he leaves us with
this example:
Jesus answered, “If I honor Myself,
My honor is
nothing. It is
My Father who honors Me, of
Whom you
say that
He is not your God.”
John 8:54
Read God’s word daily
Richard L. Crumb
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