Theology Thoughts: Part 4

I want to come back to a series I left a while ago, Theology thoughts. As I worked my way through teaching Theology in the Foursquare Thailand Bible College, I found seeing Theology through a new perspective brought out great insight. The class was broken in to two segments as we studied what the Bible said about man and second about sin. At first, I thought these topics would be depressing, but I discovered that knowing who we are in God’s eyes and his answer for sin gives us great hope and confidence as Christians.

 

For this part of the series, I want to make some comments on how the class and I processed the material, along with some questions I still have about sin and the fall.

 

Let us pick up the story with God’s perception of creation. God examined all that he had made and “It was very good”.

All that God has made is wonderful, and “very” good. That includes all living things, including all living people.

Erich Sauer, King of the Earth, “A lovely story…a promising future…a brilliant destiny! Man was a clean but unwritten page, gifted with the power to become everything that God planned for him to be.”

1.      So where did it go wrong?

2.      How did such a wondrous creation become such a corrupt and frail being?

3.      How did such a marvelous world become transformed into a place of corruption and natural and ecological disasters?

4.      How did a great and inviting garden also become filled with great deserts, vast icy wastelands, and hostile jungles?

 

These are just a few of the questions that I have about how the world got to the place it is now. I love the quote about man being a clean slate, but now look at all that man has done from genocide to civil war, to slavery and even that guy in Austria imprisoning his daughter for over twenty years in the basement. The heart of man today would be described as dark and deceitful, who could know it. Man has come a long way from God’s intention.

 

The easy answer is sin. The harder explanation is how sin took us so far so fast. It only took one generation for Adam’s son to kill his brother. How could such beauty fall apart so fast?

 

My heart finds hope in Isaiah’s prophecy (61:3) and provide for those who grieve in Zion—

       to bestow on them a crown of beauty

       instead of ashes,

       the oil of gladness

       instead of mourning,

       and a garment of praise

       instead of a spirit of despair.

       They will be called oaks of righteousness,

       a planting of the LORD

       for the display of his splendor.