Dr MJ du Plessis Reformed Church Bellville Date: 11 July 2004 (evening)

Our help is in the Name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.
Beloved, grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Psalm of praise 33:7

Prayer

Psalm 38:2

Scripture reading: Romans 5:12-21
Scripture text: Romans 5:12-21; Catechism Lord’s Day 3

We attend church services to be comforted. In fact it is entirely logical, because it is senseless to attend church services and worship the Lord if it were to add to our judgement, as it would make our judgement absolutely unbearable.

Let us look at our own history from the following viewpoints:

1. Man was created uniquely for a specific purpose.
2. Man was depraved permanently.

1. Man was created uniquely for a specific purpose.

Currently man’s origin is again the centre of attention and research.

Not rare at all, because man has always been searching for his roots
Our Three Forms of Unity reflect the same. The Heidelberg Catechism deals with our creation in Lord’s Day 3 already. We have to start at the very beginning.

Unbelievers only want to know how we originated and who we are. Their research is usually limited to the natural sciences.

Believers also deal with these, but belief plays an important role.
We realise that something went wrong with man, because we do not only want to know about our physical origin, we also want to know how we became ethically depraved.

Then the first question is: Where do sins come from?

Did God create man wicked and perverse? The Bible says: No! God created man good and after his own image.
This means that God created man in a specific relation to Him. Man was created in a relation of personal fellowship with God.
To be created in personal fellowship with God, is to be able to listen to the voice of God, and to reply when He speaks to us. The Lord created man with the sole purpose to serve and glorify Him.

This is the reason why God visited man in the garden. The Lord even spoke to man. In this way He gave man the opportunity to fulfil the purpose of his creation.

This is why God created animals differently from man. With his fingers God sculpted man with great care. Then God breathed into man the breath of life. Animals were only told to exist.
From this it is quite clear that – since the very beginning – man’s relationship with God has been completely different from that of the animals. Animals also glorify the Lord but in a different way. Their mere existence tells of the omnipotence of God.

Man does it in a different way.

He has to glorify the Lord in his words and actions.
With his words he should confess the glory of God and in his actions reflect the kingship of God.

Everything the Lord made was to prepare the earth thoroughly for man to live on it.

That is why there are plants to provide food and to decorate his home.
And animals over which man had to proclaim God’s kingship. In the Name of God man has to rule as king over the entire creation. In everything he does, man should therefore act precisely according to the will of his God.

This is why our Catechism says that man was created to perfection so that he might rightly know and love his Creator.

Man was therefore also created in such a way that from that moment the Lord could rule over his creation through man.
Man was also created so well that he could forever glorify and praise God.

But this relationship was disturbed. The fall of man occurred. Man ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

We should realise that this is not at all about the kind of fruit they ate. It is about man’s disobedience.
The Lord wanted man to live in fellowship with Him, in other words in obedience to Him. Man should have ruled over this tree by avoiding its fruit in the Name of the Lord.

2. Man was depraved permanently.

The Bible gives a very precise description of what happened around the fall of man to clearly reveal the power of Satan we are confronted with. The devil carefully prepares Eve when he tempted her to disobey God.

The Lord only told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree. But when Eve spoke to the serpent she lied when she said the Lord had also told them to not even touch the tree. And that was not true.
It shows that she was already influenced by the devil – therefore God’s command was twisted so that the temptation could be much easier.

The serpent also told Eve that they would be like God. All they need to do was eat of the tree. It sounded so attractive the way Satan put it.

It meant that these two people would be as mighty as the Lord is and also have his insight. It implied that they no longer need to worship the Lord because they would be his equals.
This false promise led man to break off his wonderful fellowship with God.

From this our nature became so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin. This event removed us so far from God that He announced punishment Himself: Eternal death –death with two dimensions, namely physical death and eternal death.

All these we find in the first two questions and answers of Catechism Lord’s Day 3. The Catechism does not teach these things to deprive us of all possible hope and salvation.

The above-mentioned facts let us worship with so much appreciation, because we realise exactly how much the merit won by Jesus Christ through His crucifixion means to us.
It makes us understand from which miserable condition the Lord Jesus Christ saved us.
This part of our confession takes us back to the origin of our sins and creates in us a stronger desire for true fellowship with the Lord.

In Jesus Christ hope was born.

He bore the wrath and punishment of God on our behalf – the wrath and punishment because we commit treason against the Most Holy.
Therefore we received the death sentence in Paradise, because we denied the purpose of our existence when we listened to the devil.
By doing so we broke off the perfect communion with God and established a relationship of obedience with Satan.

Without Jesus’ death on the cross we would never have been able to escape this death sentence.

But Jesus suffered completely for our sins so that each of us has a settled account with the Lord.
In such a way God punished our sins and evil, but fortunately we did not experience it. We would never have been able to endure it.
Therefore Jesus – as Guarantor – bore the punishment for our sins.

However, the cross on Golgotha was not the end of it. After his ascension to heaven Jesus sent the Holy Spirit of God to us.

The Holy Spirit lets us be born again by virtue of the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We can, however, never understand these great gifts of God if the Holy Spirit does not reveal to us the severity of our miseries. That is why we celebrate our salvation from this miserable condition by the use of the sacraments of the holy baptism and the holy supper.

Most important in Lord’s Day 3 is that it tells us that there is redemption with the Lord:

We learn that God is the God of love.
A forgiving God.
A God of grace who sent his Holy Spirit to guide us through life.

This changes our entire outlook on life. It does not only comprise sins and misery. All on earth is not evil.

The Spirit of God teaches us to use everything – our life, our culture and politics, our art and our science – to honour God.
Guided by the Holy Spirit we can use each of these to serve and glorify God. With Christ we can contribute to the kingdom of God in every facet of this life.

In such a way the correct balance is maintained, because, guided by the Holy Spirit, we will avoid places where we cannot live to the honour of God.
Christ not only redeemed us from our sins and grants us eternal life out of free grace. He also died for our lives.

In Jesus Christ we can again enjoy fellowship with God as it was in Paradise.
In this life, however, not completely, because the redemptive ministry of Jesus Christ will be finally completed at the Second Coming.

It is all about the grace of God. In this life we do not find sins only.

The love of God and the salvation in Christ are with us every moment.
It does not mean that there are no sins and afflictions. They do exist but they change us. They also familiarise us with the grace of God. When we realise that we have been redeemed from our tribulations, we see God’s grace so much clearer.

But this also comprises condemnation.

If you are impatient when tested, or live recklessly, it shows that you are not sanctified in Christ.
If you turn a deaf ear to the voice of God and you cannot listen to the Spirit of the Lord, you do not partake in this salvation.

However, above all, God’s protection lies in the fact that although sins can let the truly faithful err, by virtue of our predestination, it cannot destroy us.

Let us read together Catechism Lord’s Day 3:

6. Q. Did God, then, create man so wicked and perverse?
A. No, on the contrary, God created man good[1] and in His image,[2] that is, in true righteousness and holiness,[3] so that he might rightly know God His Creator,[4] heartily love Him, and live with Him in eternal blessedness to praise and glorify Him.[5]
[1] Gen. 1:31. [2] Gen. 1:26, 27. [3] Eph. 4:24. [4] Col. 3:10. [5] Ps. 8.

7. Q. From where, then, did man's depraved nature come?
A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise,[1] for there our nature became so corrupt[2] that we are all conceived and born in sin.[3]
[1] Gen. 3. [2] Rom. 5:12, 18, 19. [3] Ps. 51:5.

8. Q. But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined to all evil?
A. Yes,[1] unless we are regenerated by the Spirit of God.[2]
[1] Gen. 6:5; 8:21; Job 14:4; Is. 53:6. [2] John 3:3-5.

Amen.

Closing prayer
Closing hymn: Psalm 25:3, 5
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Amen.

Dr MJ du Plessis
Reformed Church Bellville
Date: 11 July 2004 (evening)