Sunday, The Reversal of the Fall

THERE IS A SENSE IN WHICH WE MAY see the application of salvation to an individual's life as the reversal of what occurred by the fall. If you recall, Eve's basic failure was that she assumed her independence from God by refusing to readily submit herself to His Word. Eve rejected the Creator-creature distinction by thinking herself able to know truth by her own insight apart from God.

The exact opposite is evident in the life of one who trusts Christ. Paul makes this plain by saying,

" For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe." (1Cor.1:21).

Using human wisdom as the criterion for truth, as Eve had done in the garden, leads away from God and into falsehood. So it is that the cross as the way of salvation causes us to to turn away from the independence of human and sinful thought in order to know God. Eve thought herself independent and saw herself as ultimate judge. When we truly believe in Christ, we recognize our dependence on the Word of God as uncontestable wisdom and truth. This acceptance of God's Word is the very beginning of redemption in Christ.

"So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." (Romans10:17)

The reversal of the fall does not stop with initial conversion. It covers the entirety of the redeeming process. The one who trusts in the message of the gospel is convinced with Paul,

"Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar....(Romans 3:4).

Though the tendency of man in sin is to forsake true knowledge and to falsely assert his independence from God, the believer holds that God's Word can always be trusted for He is true.

God's word is trustworthy and the believer in Christ confesses his total reliance on it.

--EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE, A Study Manual for the Defense of Christian Truth
Richard L. Pratt