LIFE ON THE HIGHEST PLANE

A Study of the Spiritual Nature and Needs of Man

BY RUTH PAXSON

VOL. 1. THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST - only Volume 1 is provided in this file

VOL. 11. THE RELATION BETWEEN CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN

VOL. 111. THE BELIEVER'S RESPONSE TO THE HOLY SPIRIT'S INWORKING

MOODY PRESS - CHICAGO - 1928. As the book is now unavailable it is assumed the copyright period has expired. Any advice to the contrary is welcome.

INTRODUCTION

EVERY Christian has inherited untold riches. As a child of the King and a joint heir with Christ he is a spiritual multimillionaire. But comparatively few Christians bear the marks of spiritual affluence. Their conversation, character and conduct give the impression rather of spiritual impoverishment. Throughout the Church of Christ there is a universal complaint of dearth and deadness.

Many Christians do not seem to be conscious of their lack or their need. They are indifferent and self-satisfied. But, on the other hand, there are many whose lives are characterized by a humiliating consciousness of defeat and failure, by a growing unrest, and by a perpetual striving for something never attained. Their hearts cry out insistently, " Lord, is there nothing better than this for me in the Christian life? "

The purpose of these studies is to teach what are the Christian's possessions in Christ and how they may be appropriated, enjoyed and used.

These Bible studies were first given in embryo to pastors, evangelists, teachers and other Christian leaders in Conferences held in China. Later they grew into full size as they were taught in weekly Bible classes stretching over a period of six months.

In response to many requests from both Chinese and missionary friends that this message might be made available for their use, it has been prepared for publication.

God is building a spiritual house for His own glory and use. This house is composed of a foundation, a superstructure and furnishings.

These studies attempt to furnish the plan of such an habitation and to show step by step the process of its building. Each chapter is, as it were, a story complete in itself yet connected both with the story underneath it and the one above it. The work is divided into three volumes as here indicated:

Vol. I - Christ Jesus.

THE FOUNDATION - Eternal, Incarnate, Crucified, Risen, Ascended, Exalted.

Vol. II - The Believer in Christ and Christ in the Believer

THE SUPERSTRUCTURE

Vol. III - The Holy Spirit

THE FURNISHINGS - Indwelling, Infilling, cleansing, Controlling, Guiding, Anointing.

INTRODUCTION

It is the hope of the author that these Studies may be used by groups, as well as individuals.

The author wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness to Mrs. Mary McDonough for the use of Charts II, III and IV which are in her book God's Plan of Redemption; to the many authors whose books have been consulted for inspiration and confirmation and to the many friends who have had a large share in the sending forth of this message in print through their faithful and believing intercession.

This book is now given back to God with the prayer that He will use it to lift many to Life on the Highest Plane.

RUTH PAXSON.

CONTENTS, VOLUME I

I. HUMAN LIFE ON THREE PLANES

II. GOD'S FIRST MAN - THE FIRST ADAM

III. LIFE ON THE LOWEST PLANE - THE ENTRANCE OF SIN INTO MAN

IV. LIFE ON THE LOWEST PLANE. THE RULE OF SIN OVER MAN

V. GOD AND SATAN IN CONFLICT

VI. FALSE AND FUTILE ATTEMPTS FOR SALVATION

V.. THE CHASM BRIDGED

VIII. GOD'S SECOND MAN THE LAST ADAM

IX. FOUR SPANS IN THE BRIDGE OF SALVATION - INCARNATION

X. FOUR SPANS IN THE BRIDGE OF SALVATION - CRUCIFIXION

XI. FOUR SPANS IN THE BRIDGE OF SALVATION - RESURRECTION.

X11 FOUR SPANS IN THE BRIDGE OF SALVATION - ASCENSION AND EXALTATION

XIII. THE CROWNINC WORK OF JESUS CHRIST IN SALVATION

HUMAN LIFE ON THREE PLANES

THE Bible is a mirror in which man may see himself just as he is. Any person who wishes a true picture of himself will find it there.

The Bible is God's studio in which will be found the picture of each of His created beings. Your photograph is there. It has been taken by the Divine Photographer, therefore it is flawlessly accurate. Do you wish to see your photograph?

The Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul has divided the human race into three clearly distinguished groups and every member of the human family, irrespective of racial or natural inheritance, belongs to one of these groups. God's description of each is so accurate and so true that every person may know with certitude in which class he is.

This classification presents a study of human life on three planes, the lowest, the highest, and a middle plane: or the natural man, the spiritual man, and the carnal man. We will start with the study of life on the lowest plane, that of

THE NATURAL MAN

I COR. 2: 14, " But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Rom. 8: 9, " But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

I COR. 12: 3 R. V., " No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit."

JOHN 14: 6, " Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

Is the natural man a Christian? No one can be called a Christian who is not rightly related to God. Is the natural man then rightly related to God? To get our answer let us begin with John 14:6 and work backward to 1 Cor. 2: 4.

Jesus says that no one can get into right relationship with God the Father except through Himself. The Bible shows us with unmistakable clearness that this necessitates receiving Jesus Christ into the life as Saviour and as Lord. Paul tells us that no one can truly call Jesus Lord, except " in the Holy Spirit," and that if the Holy Spirit does not dwell in one he cannot belong to God as one of His own. It is the Holy Spirit alone who knows the things of God which He desires to give us freely in Christ. But 1 Cor. 2:14 tells us that the natural man refuses to receive the things of the Spirit, they appear mere foolishness unto him. More than that, he cannot know them because it takes a spiritual mind to discern spiritual truth and he is without the Holy Spirit. So it is very clear that the natural man is not in the right relationship to God. Consequently from God's viewpoint, no matter how exemplary a life he may live on the plane of the natural, he is not a Christian.

The Attitude of the Natural Man to God.

Let us study what Scripture says of the attitude of the natural man to God:

Gal 4:8 He does not know God.

Rom 1:21 He has no gratitude to God.

Rom 3:11 He has no desire for God.

1 John 4:10 He has no love for God.

John 3:18 He has no faith in God.

Rom 3:15 He has no fear of God.

Rom 1:21,25 He does not worship God.

2 Tim 3:8 He resists the truth.

1 Cor 2:14 He receives not the things of God. He rejects God's truth.

2 Thess 1:8 He disobeys God's Gospel.

Rom 5:10 He is an enemy of God.

The Relationship of the Natural Man to God.

The attitude of the natural man to God determines his relationship to God. Rom. 5: 10 and Col. 1: 21 make it quite clear that the natural man is an open and avowed enemy of God. This attitude on his part determines what God's relationship to him must be.

Eph 2:17 He is far from God.

Rom 3:19 He is guilty before God.

John 3:18 He is condemned by God.

John 3:37 He is under God's wrath.

Eph 4:18 He is alienated from the life of God.

Eph 2:12 He is without God in this life.

2 Thess 1:9 He is without God in the life to come.

The Condition of the Natural Man.

The natural man is without the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour, therefore he lives wholly and only unto himself. " The old man " is the centre of his life and has undivided control over his whole being. Self dominates his thoughts, affections, speech, will and actions. His nature is sinful, therefore his conduct is sinful.

The natural man is dead to God but alive to sin, self and Satan. He is under the dominion of " the prince of the power of the air," and is the bondservant of sin. He is a lost man, helpless and hopeless. The tragic part of it is that " the god of this age " has so blinded his mind that he does not comprehend the seriousness of his condition and consequently he has no power within himself to know God, to love God, to receive God, nor even to seek God. Surely this brief sketch of the natural man reveals life lived on the lowest plane. Let us next study life on the highest plane, that of

THE SPIRITUAL MAN

1 Cor 12:I5, But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man."

GAL. 6: I, " Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."

The spiritual man is the exact antithesis of the natural man.

The Relationship of the Spiritual Man to God.

The spiritual man is rightly related to God through faith in Jesus Christ. This relationship has been brought about by the Holy Spirit who has convicted him of the sin of unbelief in God's way of salvation and of the necessity of a righteousness not his own, if he would ever have fellowship with a holy, righteous God. He has revealed Jesus Christ to him as a Saviour from sin and as the Saviour he needs. The Holy Spirit has so wrought upon the mind, heart and will of the natural man that he has been convinced of the truth of the Gospel, convicted of the sin of his own heart, and has been led to put his faith in the Crucified One as his Saviour, and so has been " born of the Spirit " into the Kingdom of God.

The spiritual man has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, filling him, leading him, teaching him, empowering him.

Through the new birth God's own life, eternal and uncreated, has been imparted to him and now Jesus Christ is his very life.

The spiritual man has a threefold relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ which is manifested in his character, in his conversation, and in his conduct. The spiritual man has accepted Christ as his Saviour. The spiritual man has yielded to Christ as his Lord. The spiritual man has appropriated Christ as his Life. Jesus Christ and he are one as the vine and the branch are one. Christ is the supreme need of his life and has the supreme place in his affections. Christ is all and in all to him.

The Condition of the Spiritual Man.

The spiritual man having taken the crucified, risen, glorified Christ as Saviour, Lord and Life, lives his life wholly unto God. The Lord Jesus is the centre of his life and has undivided control over his whole being.

Jesus Christ dominates his thoughts, affections, speech, will and actions. He has become a partaker of the nature of God so that there are two natures in the spiritual man but the divine nature is sovereign.

The spiritual man is habitually alive to God and dead to sin and self. He is a bondservant to God and gladly, joyously, acknowledges and submits to the sovereign Lordship of Jesus.

Jesus Christ is intensely real and precious to the spiritual man, and he considers, loves, serves, adores and worships Him. This condition is not due to anything in himself but is true because of his yielding himself unreservedly to the influence and operation of the Holy Spirit, through whom he has been enabled to seek, to receive, to love and to know Christ Jesus as his Saviour and through whom he is filled with His life. Surely this brief sketch of the spiritual man reveals life lived on the highest plane. Let us lastly study life on the middle plane, that of

THE CARNAL MAN

COR. 3 : 1 - 4, " And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? "

The carnal man is an hyphenated man, belonging to two spheres.

The Relationship of the Carnal Man to God.

The carnal man is a Christian because he has obtained sonship through faith in Jesus Christ as his Saviour. Therefore he is rightly related to God. But he has entered into neither the possessions nor the privileges of a son and his practices are not those becoming his position in the family of God.

The carnal man has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him but He is constantly being grieved and quenched so that He has restricted power in and dominion over the life.

The carnal man has been renewed through the new birth but he is still a " babe in Christ." He sits at the table of the Lord to partake of His bounties but he has no appetite nor capacity for " strong meat." He subsists on " milk." He is not a full grown man. He actually has been united to the Lord Jesus but he is an " adulterer " loving the world and caring far more for its people and pleasures than for Jesus Christ (James 4: 4).

The carnal man has accepted Christ as his Saviour but he has little or no apprehension of a life of complete surrender to, and of full appropriation of, Jesus Christ as his Lord and his Life. He feels a need of Christ and desires some relationship with Him but he is not satisfied in Him. Christ has a place in his heart but not the place of supremacy and preeminence.

The Condition of the Carnal Man.

The carnal man lives his life partly unto God and partly unto himself.

The Lord Jesus is really at the centre of his life but " the old man " is usually on the throne. There is a divided control over his life. Sometimes Christ dominates his thoughts, affections, speech, will and action but more often they are under the dominion of self. Two natures are side by side in the carnal man, the divine and the fleshly, and he is under the sway of each in turn according as he yields to one or to the other. He is alive to God spasmodically but he is equally alive to sin, self and Satan. He attempts to live in two spheres, the heavenly and the earthly and he fails in both.

The carnal man is in a miserable condition and his life is always one of defeat and discouragement, often one of despair. This condition is due to ignorance of the deep things of God, unwillingness to yield himself unreservedly to the Lord Jesus Christ, and unbelief in appropriating Christ with all His graces and gifts. Surely this brief sketch of the carnal man reveals life lived on a middle plane.

We have looked into God's mirror. Have you seen yourself? We have been in God's studio. Have you seen your photograph? We have seen human life on three planes. On which plane are you living?

Chapter 2.

GOD'S FIRST MAN THE FIRST ADAM

AS we daily observe the lives of men and women we see a vast difference in the quality of those lives.

We readily admit that people are living on totally different planes with a consequent vast divergence in character and conduct. We must seek the cause of such disparity. What or who is to blame?

If we acknowledge God to be the Creator of all things in His universe, then we are compelled to place the responsibility for such inequality either upon Him or upon man. It must be the result either of God's fiat or of man's choice. To say that it is due to the difference in the heredity, circumstances, environment or opportunities of people, is to beg the question altogether. Countless ones have come up out of the depths of poverty ,illiteracy, superstition, affliction and persecution to heights of nobility in character and conduct. Many have fallen from heights of wealth, education, ease, opportunity and privilege to the lowest depths of sin and shame. Upon whom then should the blame rest for such inequality in human life? Is God responsible for it? The only fair way to answer this question is to turn to His own record of creation and to read what He says of His first man, and to determine upon what plane He intended him to live.

GEN. 1: 26, 27, ( And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and overall the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." GEN. 1: 31, ( And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

If language has any power whatever to express thought, these words clearly teach us five things regarding God's first man,

(1) That he was created by Someone who already existed.

(2) That his creation was the result of God's de-liberate, direct, creative will.

(3) That he was created in the image of God.

(4) That he was pronounced " very good."

(5) That he was given dominion over all the earth and made the head of the entire terrestrial creation.

God Created Man in His own Image.

God's first man was made just as God wanted all men to be. He was made after a pattern. God's first man came direct from God's own hand and bore a definite resemblance to his Creator. " The root idea of the Hebrew word translated ' image ' is that of a shadow." God's first man, then, was God's shadow. He was like God. But in what respect?

To answer this question we are forced to ask another. " What was God like? " " GOD created man." The statement is made without any previous explanation of God Himself; He appears upon the first pages of revelation as a Being acting independently in the creation of a universe and of man with no explanation of Himself and with no reference whatever to His origin." Who, then, created God? " How many mothers have had to answer that query It is, likewise, the first and greatest issue that confronts the philosopher as he studies into the secrets of the universe. In answering this question correctly one takes his first step in knowing who God is.

Scripture gives to men and women of faith an absolutely satisfying and final answer in the simple but sublime words, " In the beginning GOD." God never became for He always was. God is the great " I AM." " And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." God had no begin-ning and will have no end. From everlasting to ever-lasting He is God. " For with thee is the fountain of life." " For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." God is the Uncreated: the Always-Existent. He is the Eternal, Infinite One.

He is the Beginning of all beginnings.

This, then, is what God is. But if this is what God is in what respect could God's first man ever be said to resemble Him? Let us press on in our search for an understanding of this great truth. While God never explains Himself in Scripture He does reveal Himself. He wants men to know who and what He is, for if we did not have this knowledge we could never know God's original intention for man who was made in His image.

Let us turn to the first twenty-five verses of the opening chapter of God's Word and see if we find any revelation of Himself that throws light upon the kind of resemblance God's first man bore to God. We read:

" God said . . ." " God made . . ."

" God saw . . ." " God set . . ."

" God divided . . ." " God created . . ."

" God called . . ." " God blessed

These phrases each record something which God did. Outward action is the expression of inward being. What one does reveals what one is.

" God said," therefore God must have thought.

" God blessed," therefore God must have loved.

" God created," therefore God must have willed.

Genesis 1: 1-25 reveals personality. God is a Person. He is a Person who thinks, loves, and wills.

We have now found out two things about God. We have learned that God is the Uncreated, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Fountainhead of all life. And we have learned that He is a Person who thinks, loves and wills. The deduction which we may make from this twofold revelation is that God is a Person who thinks, loves and wills on the plane of uncreated, unlimited, eternal, divine Life.

Are we ready now to answer the question, " In what respect was God's first man like God? " Perhaps we might clarify our thinking on one very fundamental point by first saying in what respect God's first man was not like Him.

GEN. 2: 7, " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." I COR. 15: 47, " The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven." God was man's Creator. Man became a living soul. Alan was formed from the dust of the ground. He is of the earth, earthy. It will be clearly seen from these verses that God and God's first man Adam were not in the same order of beings nor did they live on the same plane of life.

God is uncreated, man is created. God is infinite, man is finite. God is heavenly, man is earthy. God is divine, man is human. Between what God is in His uncreated, essential, divine being and what man is in his created, finite, human being there is an absolutely impassable gulf, an immeasurable distance.

God is not superman, man is not inferior God. In what respect then did God's first man resemble God? Wherein was man God's shadow? It was in the wondrous gift of personality. Man is a person as God is a person. Let us trace this likeness in the opening chapters of Genesis.

As a person God thought and expressed His thought in words thus revealing the truth that intelligence is inherent in personality. God made Adam in His image.

GEN. 2: 19, 20, " And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field."

Adam was created with the power to think and to express thought in words. Adam had intelligence. As a person God loved and expressed His love in blessing thus revealing the truth that emotion is inherent in personality. God made Adam in His image.

GEN. 2: 18, And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; and I will make him an help meet for him."God gave Eve to Adam to be his wife and God said, " Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" (Gen. 2: 24).

Adam was created with the power to love and to express that love in fidelity. Adam had emotion. As a person God willed and expressed His will in action thus revealing the truth that will is inherent in personality. God made Adam in His image.

GEN. 3: 6, " And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."

Adam was created with the power to will and to express that will in choice. Adam had volition. God's first man was made in God's image in the sense of having a personality patterned after God's in its power to think, to love and to will; but with this difference, that God thought, loved and willed on the plane of uncreated, unlimited, eternal, divine life, while Adam thought, loved and willed on the plane of created, limited, finite, human life. The intellectual, emotional and volitional life of God's first man was perfect within a limited sphere. Above and beyond this was the perfection of God's personality within an unlimited sphere.

The resemblance which God's first man bore to God through likeness in personality made communion and cooperation between them possible; while the difference of plane on which each lived determined the basis of their relationship. God was the Creator, Adam was the created. God was the Sovereign, Adam was the subject.

It also set the boundaries of Adam's intellectual, emotional and volitional life; all must lie within the realm of divine sovereignty. The sovereignty of God expressed in His divine will was to be the circumference of Adam's human life. Unlimited liberty in thinking, loving and willing was given him. But one condition had to be met. He must think, love and will within the circle of God's will. Such a limitation was not for the purpose of making God a glorified despot: a Sovereign who ruled arbitrarily with no thought for the well being of His subject.

On the contrary the limitation was wholly beneficent. It was purely for the purpose of keeping man in the only sphere in which he could remain perfect, in which he could come into the fullest and most complete realization of the possibility of his being, in which, in fact, he could remain in communion and cooperation with God.

That God intended man to become even more than we see him to be in the unfallen first man of Eden the whole trend of the Bible shows. Adam was made in the image of God plus the capacity for sonship. "

Man as originally created, was not only in the im-age of God he was also made to live in union with God, so that all his limitation might find its complement in the unlimited life of the Eternal. It is a great mistake to think of man as made, and then as put into some position where he might rise or fall, according to the capacity of his own personality. It is rather to be remembered that he was created in the image of God, and then put into a probationary position through which he was to pass unharmed to some larger form of existence, if his life were lived in union with the God who had created him. If however he chose a separate existence, and cut himself off from union, in that act he would fall."

What would God's first man do? Would he accept the limitation and live his life in union with God, con-tent to let it be kept wholly within the circle of God's will, or would he exercise his will in a choice contrary to the will of God and so cut himself off from the life of God? There would be but one way to know the way of a test. God gave the test.

GEN. 2: 8, 9, " And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

GEN. 2: 16, 17, " And the Lord God commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

" Of every tree thou mayest freely eat " unlimited freedom of choice within the will of God. " But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it" - limitation of choice bounded by the will of God.

" The Lord God commanded the man saying, Thou shalt not " Here was the Great Divide. This was the watershed between the sovereignty of the Creator and the subjection of the created. All on one side was within the circle of God's will: all on the other side was without the circle of God's will. All on one side meant union with God: all on the other side meant separation from God. All on one side spelled life: all on the other side spelled death. God gave the test. Adam was to make the choice. God gave the command. Adam could obey or disobey.

Just here we must pause to penetrate a bit deeper into the study of Adam's personality to see if there was anything within him to hinder or to help him in the making of his choice. Did God make Adam so that he could will to live wholly within the circle of God's will and have every other part of his being in active sympathy with such a decision? In the very constitution of Adam's being did God place anything that would favour and foster such complete and continuous obedience?

Scripture does not say a great deal about the three-fold nature of man but what it does say is very illuminating and indubitable. It does tell us how man came to be what man now is.

GEN. 2: 7, " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Scripture names for us the component parts of man as thus created by God.

I THESS. 5: 23, " And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

In Gen. 2: 7 God gives us the divine order in the creation of the component parts of man.

The Formation of the Human Body.

"And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground." " The first man is of the earth, earthy." The earth was to be man's dwelling place. In order that it might have communication with the external world in which it dwelt, the body of man was formed of earth, and then equipped with five senses, sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. Because of its connection with the earthly, the body is the lowest part of man. Yet it has the exalted privilege of being the home of the spirit and of being its only outlet to the world of sense. The body is the port city of the human personality.

The Emanation of the Human Spirit. " And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." The divine Potter formed the human frame and then breathed into it the breath of life.

This life principle which came as a direct emanation from God became the human spirit. Some one has aptly said, " Man is dust in breathed by Deity."

God Himself defines the human spirit in these words, " The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the innermost parts."

The spirit is the crowning part of man's being. It is God's masterpiece in human creation. It is the part of man which has relationship to the unseen, spiritual world, which has fellowship with God. Through the spirit man apprehends, loves and worships God. Dr. A. T. Pierson says, "The spirit receives impressions of outward and material things through the soul and the body, but it belongs itself to a higher level and realm, and is capable of a direct knowledge of God by relation to its own higher senses and faculties. In an unfallen state it was like a lofty observatory with an outlook upon a celestial firmament." * The spirit is the capital city of the human personality.

The Creation of the Human Soul. " And man be-came a living soul." Above the body and beneath the spirit stands the soul, the medium between the two. It has been said that in its relationship to the body and bodily senses it might be likened to the photographer's dark room. The impressions regarding the external world received through the senses are gathered up and conveyed to this dark room where they are developed into distinct expressions of thought, emotion or will.

In its relationship to the spirit and the spiritual world the soul might be likened to the judge's bench. The evidence regarding God and spiritual realities which the spirit finds in its research in the spiritual realm is brought to the bar of the soul and there either accepted or rejected.

Man, then, is a trinity; spirit, soul, and body are the integral parts of his triune being. In the constitution of God's first man two independent elements were used; the corporeal and the spiritual; the material and the immaterial. Each was essential because man was to be related to two worlds; the seen and the unseen; the material and the spiritual. He was made primarily for God and in order to have intercourse with God he must have a spirit capable of communion and fellow-ship with the Divine Spirit. But man was to be placed in God's material universe that he might have tangible relationship with the external world of people and things.

So he must have a body capable of such con-tact and communication. Man was to be in close, continuous touch with both heaven and earth; with the external and the temporal; with the spiritual and the material.

When God placed the spirit within the body its home on earth, the union of these two produced a third part and man became a living soul. The soul uniting spirit and body gave man individuality, it was the cause of his existence as a distinct being. The soul, consisting of intellect, emotion and will became the central part the seat, as it were, of man's being.

The soul acted as the middleman between the spirit and the body; it was the bond which united them and the channel through which they acted upon each other. The soul stood thus midway between two worlds: through the body it was linked to the visible, material and earthly; through the spirit it was linked with the unseen, spiritual and heavenly. To it was given the power to determine which world should dominate man. The very great importance of this theme in its relationship to succeeding lessons and the intense desire that each reader may have a clear understanding of it leads me to quote at length from Andrew Murray's book, The Spirit of Christ:

" The Spirit quickening the body made man a living soul, a living person with the consciousness of himself. The soul was the meeting place, the point of union between body and spirit. Through the body, man, the living soul, stood related to the external world of sense; could influence it, or be influenced by it. Through the spirit he stood related to the spiritual world and the Spirit of God, whence he had his origin; could be the recipient and the minister of its life and power. Standing thus midway between two worlds, belonging to both, the soul had the power of determining itself, of choosing or refusing the objects by which it was sur-rounded, and to which it stood related.

" In the constitution of these three parts of man's nature the spirit, as linking him with the Divine, was the highest; the body, connecting him with the sensible and the animal, the lowest; intermediate stood the soul, partaker of the nature of the others, the bond that united them, and through which they could act on each other. Its work as the central power was to main-tain them in due relation; to keep the body, as the lowest, in subjection to the spirit; itself to receive through the spirit, as the higher, from the Divine Spirit what was waiting for its perfection; and so pass down even to the body, that by which it might be the par-taker of the Spirit's perfection, and become a spiritual body.

" The wondrous gifts with which the soul was endowed, specially those of consciousness and self-determination, or mind and will, were but the mould or vessel into which the life of the Spirit, the real substance and truth of the Divine life, was to be received and assimilated. They were a God-given capacity for making the knowledge and will of God its own.

In doing this the personal life of the soul would have become filled and possessed with the life of the Spirit, the whole man would have become spiritual.

" To gather up what has been said, the spirit is the seat of our God- consciousness; the soul of our self-consciousness; the body of our world- consciousness. In the spirit God dwells: in the soul self, in the body sense."

It is clear from all this that God's original intention was that the human spirit through which alone man can be related to the Spirit of God and to the spiritual world should be the dominant element in the human personality. The spirit was to be sovereign and as long as it remained so the whole being would be kept spiritual.

But while the human spirit was to be sovereign in the realm of the human personality with both soul and body yielded to its dominance, yet it was to be subject in turn to a higher power. Dr. A. T. Pierson says, " One obvious lesson in this Biblical psychology is that God evidently designed that the human spirit, indwelt and ruled by the Holy Spirit, should keep man in constant touch with Himself, and maintain in everything its proper preeminence, ruling soul and body."

Thus we see that the human spirit was to be a sovereign under a Sovereign. It was also to be the middleman between the eternal and the temporal; the unseen and the seen; the divine and the human; the heavenly and the earthly. The spirit had its windows opened heavenward and Godward and through spiritual perception, insight and vision it was constantly receiving spiritual impressions which were to be sent oui-ward by way of the soul to the body. The spirit through unbroken fellowship with the Holy Spirit was to be the channel through which the whole being of God's first man would be linked to the life of God and so made and kept spiritual.

This brief study of the threefold nature of God's first man, Adam, shows us that his human personality was so constituted that he could always think, love and will within the circle of God's will. He could choose to live under the authority of his divine Sovereign. There was nothing within himself to hinder perfect obedience to the will of God.

One other question remains to be answered. Was there anything without his life to hinder? Was Adam's environment conducive to complete and continuous obedience to God's will?

God placed His perfect man in a perfect environment. The picture given in Genesis of the garden of Eden is that of a place in which there was satisfaction and sufficiency for every need of man's spirit, soul and body. The Creator had made Himself responsible for meeting bountifully every need of His creature. Even the brief account given of the life of Adam in Eden reveals perfect adjustment to his environment. Righteousness ruled; therefore, peace resulted. There was nothing within his environment to hinder perfect obedience to the will of God. God not only placed this perfect man in a perfect environment but His own relationship with Adam was perfect. It was a relationship both of communion and cooperation.

Adam had communion with God. Man was made for God. There is ample Scriptural authority for this statement in such verses as Isa. 43:7, 21; Col. 1: 16; Rev. 4: 11. The fact that man was made in the image of God in his intellectual, moral and volitional life shows that God desired fellowship with him and made him with the capacity for such fellowship which was not given to any other of His creatures. The beautiful words in Gen. 3: 8, " And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day," reveal God even taking the initiative in seeking communion and comradeship with Adam and Eve.

So God's first man walked and talked with God as friend with friend; he was able to know and to enjoy God as a kindred nature; he was in inner, spiritual harmony with God.

God's first man also had cooperation with God in His governmental activities. Adam was God's vice-regent, as it were, over all His works: he was the executive instrument by divine appointment to carry out the divine purpose. God made Adam His representative as the visible monarch of all living things. " He had dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Within his own sphere he was made a sovereign, subordinate only to God.

One thing more remains to be said concerning God's first man. Adam was not only an individual but he was the federal head of the human race. God made His first man the head and representative of man. Bishop H. C. G. Moule in his Outlines of Christian Doctrine, says: " Adam was a true individual, as truly as Abel. But, unlike his son, he was, what only one other Being has ever been, the moral, intelligent Head of a moral, intelligent race; not only the first specimen of a newly created Nature, but in such a sense the Spring of that nature to his after-kind that in him not only the individual but the race could, in some all important respects, be dealt with." * Adam by God's appointment was the source of human life of all mankind: the head of the human family. He was God's first representative man. Through him in creation God established a union with the whole human race. Then He commanded Adam to be fruitful and multiply.

God's first man, then, was perfect; he was put in a perfect environment and he had perfect fellowship with God.

Harmony reigned within himself, within all his relationships both with the inferior creatures beneath him and with the sovereign Creator above him. There was everything within and without his life to foster complete submission to the sovereignty of God and perfect obedience to His will. Would he be content to remain a sovereign under a Sovereign ? Would he choose continuously to live within the circle of God's will? Would his whole personality be kept under the control of the Divine Spirit and so maintain its life on the spiritual plane? If so, then through this first man, made in His own image and controlled by His divine Spirit, God would people the earth with beings who would also bear His likeness, yield to His sovereignty, serve Him with fruitfulness, and live together in righteousness and peace.

G. Campbell Morgan in The Crises of the Christ states Adam's position before God in the following para-graph, " Finite will is to be tested, and it will stand or fall as it submits to or rebels against the Infinite Will of the Infinite God. Thus unfallen man was a being created in the image of God, living in union with God, cooperating in activity with God, having the points of limitation of his being marked by simple and definite commands laid upon him, gracious promises luring him to that which was highest on the hand, and a solemn sentence warning him from that which was lowest on the other. He was a sovereign under a Sovereignty, independent, but dependent. He had the right of will, but this could only be exercised in perpetual submission to the higher will of God."

GEN. 2: 16-17, " And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, . . . of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. Here is God's will expressed in concrete form. Through this command God puts the test to His first man. Adam had the right to will and he had the power to will Godward.

Chapter 3

LIFE ON THE LOWEST PLANE

THE ENTRANCE OF SIN INTO MAN

IT must be evident to every thoughtful person that life on the spiritual plane is God's intention for man. In God's first man the divine Spirit had direct relationship with the human spirit and through it as a channel could so control the whole being as to make and keep it spiritual. That which was God's intention for his first man was also His purpose for all mankind.

But candidness compels us to admit that the over-whelming majority of the human race to-day is living on the lowest plane of life that of the natural man. In all parts of the world we see man out of adjustment with God, with his fellow men and with himself. Hatred, war, discontent, restlessness, crime, lawlessness, anarchy, prevail.

What then is the reason for such a terrible and tragic fall? Was God's human creation a colossal failure? Did He initiate something which He could not execute? Or must we find a reason for the present condition of humanity in something outside of God? Does the Bible tell us how that which God created without sin and pronounced " very good " became sinful and was denounced by Him as " no good " ?

Scriptural study of the history of the natural man gives a clear and full explanation.

The Condition of the Natural Man.

EPH 2: I2, " That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."

The Apostle Paul is writing to those in the church at Ephesus who were then living on the spiritual plane but who previously had lived on the plane of the natural. Paul says, " At that time " when you were living on the lowest plane " ye were without God, without Christ, and without hope."

I JOHN 5: 11, 12, " And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life."

Eternal life is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But Eph. 2: 12 says that the natural man is "without Christ," therefore he must be without eternal life. God offers unto every man the gift of eternal life which he has power to accept or to refuse. To accept it opens the way for him to the highest plane of life, that of the spiritual man; to refuse it leaves him on the lowest plane of life, that of the natural man.

EPH. 2: I, " And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." The natural man refuses the gift of eternal life, therefore he is " dead." Every person who has not accepted from the Father the gift of eternal life be-stowed upon him in Christ Jesus, the Son, is described by God as " dead."

Perhaps the reader will think instantly of some unsaved relative or friend who seems to have abounding life and he will challenge, nay, even resent this statement regarding his condition.

This person may be a perfect specimen of physical strength and energy. He may be an intellectual giant, perchance a fine classical scholar, abounding in worldly wisdom and knowledge. He may be a model of morality, living his personal, family and civic life on a high plane. He may even be religious, occasionally attending divine service and contributing toward the maintenance of church or temple. Surely God's description of the natural man does not fit him for he is abounding in life! How can such a man be described as " dead " ? There seems to be abounding life in his whole being.

But let a test be made in the realm of his spirit. We have seen that the human spirit is the seat of God-consciousness and that in God's first man there was a direct and vital relationship between the divine Spirit of God and the human spirit of Adam. God's first man responded to God in communion and cooperation. A spiritual man delights to respond to every outreaching of God's grace and love toward him. Does your un-saved friend respond to God?

Talk with him about God and spiritual things and your very language is foreign and unintelligible to him, to say nothing of the truth you are attempting to convey. Invite him to go to God's house and he frankly tells you he prefers the club, the cinema or the guild. Give him a Bible to read and it seems insufferably dull and insipid to him and in no measure compares in interest with the newspaper or the latest novel.

Invite him to spend an evening in your home in company with God's people and he is fearfully bored and out of place, not knowing how to act or what to say, and longing for the time to depart. Speak to him of his personal spiritual need, explain to him his condition and danger, urge him to accept Christ as his personal Saviour and to ally himself openly with God's people, and he either ridicules the idea or resents it.

Something somewhere seems wrong with the man. Something is wrong with him in the realm of his spirit for there is no response whatsoever to God. There is apparently no God-consciousness. There is no sense of need of God; no desire for God. Something in the man seems dead. Something in the man is dead. Death reigns in his spirit.

Adam, the Channel of Sin's Entrance into the Human Race. God is the Author of all life and after his creation of living things " He saw everything that he had made, and, behold it was very good." But to-day death reigns everywhere. No living thing is exempt from its touch or its toll. It has wrought ruin everywhere.

Surely God is not the author of death. From whence then did it come? God does not leave us in darkness on this question but in language simple enough for a child to understand He tells how death came into the world of living things.

Rom. 5: 12, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." This clearly teaches that death is a result; that sin is the cause. Death came because of sin. But how did sin come into the world? Sin entered by one man. The blame then for the entrance of sin and death into his beautiful world cannot be placed upon God, for in his own Word He absolutely clears Himself from such a charge.

But who could the man be through whom such terrible havoc, such awful disaster to the whole human race, was wrought? God never leaves an honest, truly seeking soul without an answer that satisfies. In Romans 5: 12 God plainly says that all mankind was involved in the disaster caused by one man's sin so he must have been a representative man, one in whom the human race was latent.

The context, Romans 5: 13-23, sets in sharp contrast sin and death, salvation and life, and traces each to its source in the only two representative men of all history: Adam and Christ. A study of this passage clearly reveals Adam, God's first man, to have been the one through whom sin and death came, and Christ, God's second Man, to have been the One through whom came salvation and life.

But if one has any question in his mind regarding this passage God states the case boldly and unmistakably in I COR.15: 22, For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

Adam is the man through whom sin entered into the human race. The consequence of sin was death. But we have seen in our previous study that Adam was created without sin and that he was put into an environment and enjoyed a fellowship with God both of which were conducive to a continuance in such a state of innocence and fellowship.

So the question forces itself upon one, " How could sin enter into such a man with its blighting curse? How was the tragedy of death ever enacted in that beautiful garden? " The story is told in the second and third chapters of Genesis. This portion of God's Word spiritually apprehended and humbly accepted gives an answer which satisfies every true and sincere believer.

To answer the question we need to define sin. What could Adam do that could be called sin? The answer is simple. The only sin that Adam could commit was to transgress God's divine law, to will to disobey the clearly revealed will of God. As long as Adam continued to will to live his whole life within the circle of God's revealed will he could not sin. Adam had the right to will but he could remain without sin only as he exercised his will in perpetual submission to the higher will of God.

Sin, then, is known disobedience to the clearly revealed will of God. Sin is the wilful, deliberate, resistance of a subject to the rightful authority of a Sovereign. " Sin, in the Biblical view, consists in the revolt of the creature will from its rightful allegiance to the sovereign will of God, and the setting up a false independence, the substitution of a life-for-self for life-for-God." * Sin as God Him-self defines it is " transgression of the law " (1 John 3: 4). God called Adam's sin " transgression."

Let us see from God's own record how sin entered into Adam with its curse of death.

GEN. 2: 16-17, " And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

GEN. 3: 6, " And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."

God gave Adam well-nigh unlimited liberty. But one commandment was imposed. But one transgression was possible. Of every other tree he could freely eat. Of only one tree was he forbidden to eat and even for this prohibition God had a beneficent reason. Adam was on trial. He ate of the forbidden fruit. He willed to have something which God for a loving and beneficent reason had willed that he should not have. By that one act he sinned for sin is the transgression of the law. By his own volition Adam deliberately transgressed a divinely marked boundary; he overstepped a clearly revealed divine limitation.

Satan, the Originator of Sin in God's Universe.

But some one may ask, " When Adam was a perfect man with a sinless nature, living in a perfect environment and having perfect fellowship with God how could he be tempted to disobey? " With all in his own personality and all in his environment favouring his complete and continuous obedience to the will of God, from what source could temptation to disobedience and self-will come? It is a legitimate question and demands an answer which God gives.

GEN 3: I, " NOW the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? "

" Now the serpent was more subtle . . . and he said . . ." Here we have words used which can be used only in characteristics, attitudes and acts which belong to personality, either natural or supernatural. But was there any other person in the garden besides the Lord God and his two created beings, Adam and Eve? There evidently was. But it was some one who apparently desired to conceal his identity, so he came under the deceiving cover of impersonation. Who then was this other one?

The conversation between the serpent and Eve recorded in Genesis three reveals the twofold fact that this person is an enemy of God and that he is there in the garden for an evil purpose. Does Scripture give us any clue by which this cunning, wicked impersonator may be identified? It does. his name identifies him.

REV. 12: 9, " And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: and he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

Holy Scripture is a unity and Scripture interprets Scripture. " The serpent " of Genesis 3: 1 is none other than " that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan " of Revelation 12:9 and 20: 2.

In Revelation 12: 9 he is revealed as a deceiver. his nature identifies him. The Bible tells us clearly that is the part he was playing in the garden of Eden in his first dealings with humanity. The finger prints of the arch deceiver are clearly discerned in Genesis three.

I TIM. 2: 14, " And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."

2 COR. Ir: 3, " But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

There is evidence then that before the creation of Adam and Eve there was in God's universe a being who was both a sinner and a traitor. Does God's Word give us any light upon who he is and how he came into such a condition?

Ezekiel 28: 11-19 and Isaiah 14: 12-20 seem to give this clue. A careful study and comparison of these two passages with other Scriptures seem to indicate very clearly that the one referred to is none other than Satan.

The passage in Ezekiel reveals the truth regarding the person and position of Satan originally. It states that Satan was a created being and that he was created perfect. He was " full of wisdom," " perfect in beauty," " perfect in thy ways," " the sum of perfection was found in him."

Not only was he perfect as regards his person but he held a very exalted position in the service of God. He was " the anointed cherub that covereth " and served " in the holy mountain of God." Perhaps no other created being held so exalted a position or was so intimately connected with God.

That he also had some relationship to and power over God's created universe given to him by God Him-self is seen in the two titles, " the prince of this world " (John 14: 30) and " the prince of the power of the air"(Eph.2:2).

That he had been given a high position of trust to which he had been a traitor is very certain. He was a prince over a kingdom for three times the Lord Jesus called him " the prince of this world," and when he took the Lord into a high mountain and offered Him all the kingdoms of the world with their glory Jesus did not dispute his claim to their disposal.

But with all Satan's perfection and power, he was still a created being and, as such, he must be sub-servient to his Creator and remain dependent and obedient. Scripture, however, from beginning to end reveals Satan as God's arch-enemy. He is an open and avowed rebel. He is not a subject of the kingdom of light but is a sovereign over the kingdom of darkness.

When and how did this rebellion toward God take place? " The anointed cherub " who was " in the holy mountain " sinned.

EZE. 28: 15-16, " Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. Thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God."

The sin that led to Satan's downfall is intimated in the words, "Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness " (Eze. 28:17). Pride led to self- exaltation which expressed itself in self-will.

Let us now examine Isaiah 14: 12-20 and see to what lengths self- exaltation carried Satan in rebellion against his Creator and Sovereign.

ISA. 14: 12-14, " How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

For thou hast said in thine heart,

I will ascend into heaven,

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:

I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation . . .. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I WILL BE LIKE THE MOST HIGH."

Self-exaltation led to self-will, self-will led to rebellion against God, and Lucifer, son of the morning, became Satan, father of the night. The moment " the anointed cherub " said in his heart " I will " as opposed to God's will sin began. The moment the subject sought to dethrone the Sovereign by saying " I will be like the Most High " sin's work in the universe commenced. But it did not end there. The sin that began in the holy mountain of God was carried into the garden of Eden.

Satan, the Deceiver and the Tempter, in Eden.

Satan, God's avowed enemy, is there. This apostate spirit is the fourth person in the garden of Eden. And what is his mission?

He is there with the definite, deliberate, diabolical purpose of tempting Adam and Eve to do just what he himself had done through an act of self-will to step outside the circle of God's will, to dethrone God by enthroning self. He is there to gain recruits for his rebel ranks; to win subjects for his kingdom of darkness and death.

It is instructive to follow the cunning machinations of this diabolical strategist as he succeeds in tempting Adam and Eve into doubt, disobedience and disloyalty. God grant that it may throw needed illumination upon the path of temptation some reader may be treading.

Let us ask and answer three questions:

What was Satan's aim in tempting Adam and Eve?

What was Satan's method of approach to them?

How did he achieve his success?

Satan's aim, let us remember, was to exalt himself to God's place of sovereignty and authority and to secure for himself the worship from God's created beings which belonged to God alone. So he was in Eden to draw Adam and Eve away from God, to persuade them into disobedience and disloyalty, which would automatically cast them out of God's kingdom into his own. To accomplish this he did not need to incite them to gross sin or vice; one act of disobedience would carry out his purpose. He needed only to destroy confidence in God and to lead them to disbelieve and disobey Him.

Satan's method of approach was very cunning and subtle. It was not the method of open warfare against God but that of undermining faith in God by malicious propaganda. Satan did not come out into the open and contest God's sovereignty over his created beings but he sought to discredit God in their sight by creating within them discontent with their circumstances and by holding before them a false Utopia, thus hoping to instigate a revolt against God.

His method has not changed from that day to this. He is attempting the same thing and using the same method now that he did 4,000 years ago. The seed germ of discontent and disorder sown in the garden of Eden has borne fruit and is reaping a terrible harvest in all parts of the world to-day. Churches and chapels are being demolished; Bibles are being torn to pieces; anti-Christian demonstrations are being staged; threats are being made of dethroning God in his own universe. Back of all this subtle, efficient, destructive propaganda is the master mind of the first spiritual Bolshevik who began his world revolution in the garden of Eden.

To accomplish his purpose there he put before Eve the lure of a far better condition of life than they enjoyed under God's beneficent, loving rule, and urged securing it by illegitimate, revolutionary means. Satan must reach the spirit of Adam and Eve and in some way break the connection between the divine and the human. He did this by the proffer of a knowledge even such as " the gods " possessed. Through the human spirit illumined by the divine Spirit they did know God, which knowledge was the " summum bonum " of benefit and blessing. But Satan intimated that there was more to be known which God was willfully and wrongfully withholding from them. They were not having their due.

To reach the spirit to which Satan had no means of access he must get at the soul. The emotions must be stimulated to desire this tree of the knowledge of good and evil which could make one wise. Their eyes must be opened to see how pleasant was this tree that they might covet its fruit.

So an indirect appeal was made to the soul through the senses. Satan gained his entrance to the inner-most being of Eve through the body. The tree was good for food so he tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. Every part of the human personality had been undermined by this Satanic propaganda. Satan had ap-pealed to the whole man, spirit, soul and body but his method of approach had been from circumference to centre; from body through soul to spirit.

Let us examine God's Word to see how Satan achieved his success.

GEN. 3: I, " And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden "

A subtle insinuation is couched in these words which was intended by the tempter to arouse suspicion of God's goodness. " Did God really tell you that you couldn't eat of every tree in this garden? Wasn't the garden made for you? Are you not labouring to dress it? Then haven't you a right to its fruit? " The devil did not come to Eve at once with a glaring accusation of God's unkindness but merely with a subtle insinuation. He knew that harmony reigned in the garden of Eden and that Adam and Eve were perfectly adjusted to each other, to their environment and to God. Satan laid hold upon the only thing he could in their external environment and used it to cause disruption in their relationship with God. Satan's aim was to create doubt first and thus gain a foothold by disturbing the inner harmony of Eve's moral being.

The reply of Eve showed that the devil's insinuating question had had the desired effect. She acknowledged God's goodness in granting them the liberty to eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden and admitted the one and only restriction.

But in so doing she omitted from God's gracious promise the words " every " and " freely" and added to the prohibition the words " neither shall ye touch it," thus revealing a secret acquiescence in the serpent's insinuation against God's goodness. Doubt of God's goodness was at work in her heart so the devil grew bolder.

Eve not only stated the restriction made upon their liberty but also God's explicit warning of the penalty of death in case of disobedience, varying it however by changing God's Word " thou shalt surely die " to " lest ye die." Then Satan made a bold, shocking assertion, an out-and-out denial of God's Word, " Ye shall not surely die." This was immediately followed by his final and fatal appeal.

GEN 3: 5, " For God doth know that in the day ye eateth thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as ,gods, knowing good and evil."

The bold blasphemy, the cunning deception, the seductive allurement of his sugar-coated lie, were worthy of the source from which they came. Satan implied in this diabolical statement that God was maliciously robbing man of knowledge which he not only had a right to possess but which would raise him to an exalted position hitherto undreamed.

" Your eyes shall be opened and ye shall know." Was not the desire to know a lawful one? Was not the ambition for self- improvement through the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge a legitimate one? Eve had been daily coming into a larger and fuller knowledge of God and his universe no doubt and now, if by merely eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil she could at once obtain a knowledge as limitless as God's own and be assured God's penalty of death would not be enacted why should she not eat of it?

Satan had reached the acme of evil when he had said, " I will be like the Most High," and now in some modified form suited to the innocence of the sinless pair he tempted them to a similar aspiration, " Ye shall be as gods." He held out to them the luring possibility of advancement in knowledge even to the plane of the divine and unseen.

In the appeal of Genesis 3: 5 the tempter assailed the whole personality of the woman; intellect, emotion, and will. " Do not be such fools as to believe God's word when it is so evidently against all right and reason; do not be such dupes as to be cheated out of something you rightfully should have; do not be such cowards that you fear to assert your own will in this matter."

" Thus it is seen that at the back sf the method of the devil is an aspersion cast upon the character of God. Man was made to question the goodness of law. Appealing to the intelligence of man, the enemy created an aspersion, which was calculated to change the attitude of his emotion, and so capture the final citadel, that namely of his will. He declared that man's intellectual nature was prevented from development by this limitation. By this declaration he created in the mind of man a question as to the goodness of the God who had made the law, and thus imperilled the revelation of the will to God, as he called it into a place of activity outside, and contrary to the will of God." *

The Sin of Adam and Eve and its Effect upon Themselves.

Some response had to be made to such an appeal. The will must function in acceptance or rejection of such an accusation against God. There was no neutral ground. Eve must take sides either with or against God. " God said " and " the serpent said," and they said totally contradictory things. Eve listened to Satan's voice rather than to God's.

She believed the devil's lie rather than God's truth. " The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety " (2 Cor. ll: 3), and she ate of the forbidden fruit. Adam listened to Eve's voice rather than to God's. Eve enticed her husband through his affections and he ate of the forbidden fruit. He was the one to whom God had given the command. To eat of the fruit was a deliberate transgression of the divine law.

GEN. 3: 6, " And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."

GEN. 3: 17, "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life."

Adam and Eve had the God-given right to will and the power to will God-ward. They exercised the right to will and they chose to will Satan-ward. The moment they so chose they stepped outside the circle of God's will and into the realm of self-will. They dethroned God and enthroned self. That one act, that one choice, that one decision, was sin. Satan triumphed, sin entered, ruin ensued. Sin penetrated to the innermost part of Adam's being, the spirit, the meeting place of God and man. And with what result? The very result which God had predicted DEATH. To apprehend the magnitude of sin, one must know the meaning of death.

And what is death? Mrs. McDonough in God's Plan of Redemption gives a clear and helpful answer. " The scientific definition of death helps us to perceive his meaning. It is as follows, ' Death is the falling out of correspondence with environment.'

The following illustration will help to better understand the subject. Here is an eye of a human being, apparently able to see any object placed before it; the objects of nature, bathed- in the bright sunshine surround it, but there is no response from the eye. It does not see; for the optic nerve is severed. It is dead to the beauty before it.

" Here is a person whose ears are completely deafened. Birds are singing, bells are ringing, voices speaking, but those ears do not respond to the sound waves that are carrying melody to other ears which are open to receive the same. They are dead to sounds.

" Upon the very day of Adam and Eve's disobedience sin severed the delicate intuitive knowledge of God in like spirit of Adam and Eve. They failed to respond to Him who was their

Environing Presence.

They were dead to God . . . the death process established in the spirit of our first parents was quickly manifested throughout the whole of the inner man and after a time the possibility of dissolution of the body, which had been held in abeyance while man remained obedient and dependent before the Fall, became an actuality." *

Death in its twofold aspect, spiritual, the separation of the human spirit of man from the divine Spirit of God, and physical, the separation of the spirit and the body of man, came by sin. A grain of truth was mixed with the lie of the serpent.

GEN. 3: 7, " And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."

GEN. 3: 8, " And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden."

Their eyes had indeed been opened but to behold what? Their own nakedness. They both acquired knowledge but of what? Their own sin and shame. They had come into a new self-consciousness but in that one act of sin they had lost God-consciousness. Their newly acquired knowledge served only to produce such a sense of shame that they counted themselves unfit for God's presence and were afraid to meet Him. The twilight hour of communion with God was robbed of all its sweetness and satisfaction by the sense of shame and sin. Eager response to God was changed into seeking refuge from God. Sin separated man from God and separation from God, who is Life, is death.

Physical death was the certain, even though more remote, result of sin. The judgment upon Adam included the curse of physical death. GEN. 3: 19, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

From the day Adam sinned the seed of physical death was in his body and finally reaped its harvest in full.

GEN. 5: 5, "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died."

Thus we see God's sentence of death, both spiritual and physical, meted out as a result of sin.

The Effect of Adam's Sin upon the Human Race.

We have seen the disastrous effect of Adam and Eve's sin upon themselves. The question naturally arises, " Did it affect any one else? Can we trace the sin in the human family back to the first sin in the first man, its federal head? " Let us reason backward.

Sin is a fact. Man is a sinner. One needs only to be closeted with himself for a single day to have sufficient proof of this statement. But if he should be loath to admit the evidence given in his own thoughts, feelings, desires, words and acts, let him listen to the gossip of a small town, or read in the daily paper of doings in town or city. Man is a sinner. To deny the reality of sin is not only to disbelieve God's Word and to make Him a liar but it is to discredit one's own experience and observation I JOHN I :8, IO, " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

Sin is a universal fact. Every man is a sinner. There are no exceptions to this rule except the Man, Christ Jesus. God's Word says, " There is no man that sinneth not."

ROM 3: IO, " As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one."

ROM. 3: 12, " They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Every truly honest man knows and admits that he is a sinner. At one time self-righteous Scribes and Pharisees brought to the Lord Jesus a woman taken in the act of adultery.

To tempt Him that they might accuse Him, they asked if they should fulfil the law of Moses by stoning her. In reply the Lord Jesus said, " He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." And " being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one." Who among the readers of this book is " without sin "? Men differ in the degree of sin in the life but not in the fact of sin. Many men are naturally kind, generous, genial and loving but " there is none righteous."

Every man is a sinner before he sins. Sin is far more than an act; it is a state, a nature, a disposition, a tendency. Sin is an inner reality before it is an outer manifestation. Sin is a desire before it is a deed.

JAMES 1:15 R. V., " Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin; and the sin when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death."

Who has not seen a baby give vent to temper, self-will, stubbornness and anger before it could talk or walk. Men were born in sin. We are all of us " by nature the children of wrath."

Humanity inherited a sinful nature.

By God's appointment Adam was the federal head of the human family. He owns the seed of the race, and all the coming generations were in him. Adam was not only man but he was the womb of mankind. As forerunner of the human race, he was also its representative.

Therefore Adam's sin was not his sin alone. All mankind was vitally affected by it. Adam's sin put the poison of sin in the human germ; the result was the moral and spiritual ruin of the race, collectively and individually.

Adam was created without sin. By an act of his own will he became a sinner. " What man thus became, men are."

" Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? " (Job 14: 4). " That which is born of the flesh is flesh " (John 3: 6). Adam fell and by that fall received a corrupt nature. Then he begat sons in his own like-ness (Gen. 5: 3) . They inherited his sinful nature and so the poison of sin went on down through the human race until all men are involved.

ROM. 5: 12, " Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

ROM. 5: 19, " For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

By Adam's disobedience all men were made sinners and the death sentence rested upon all.

Spiritual deterioration and death began immediately upon Adam's fall and the depths into which the human race soon sank are revealed in the following words.

GEN. 6: 3, R. V., " And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for in this going astray they are flesh "GEN. 6: 5, 6, " And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

Physical deterioration began immediately upon Adam's fall and death and decay were the final outcome. Adam lived and died. The sad record of Genesis five shows that the seed of death implanted in Adam was transmitted to his posterity until each human being has to pay the death toll.

The Effect of Adam's Sin upon the Social Order.

In the garden of Eden before the tempter entered it we see the social order as God intended it to be. Adam and Eve were perfect and were living in perfect adjustment with God; therefore there was perfect adjustment between themselves. Godliness and holiness were followed by righteousness and peace.

But sin entered the human spirit and severed its relationship with the divine Spirit. Immediately man was thrown out of adjustment with God and ungodliness was the result.Sin entered the human personality and reigned over every part of it. Man's whole being was thrown into confusion and conflict. Man was thrown out of adjustment with himself and unholiness was the result.

Sin entered the human relationship God had established between his first man and woman and produced friction. They were thrown out of adjustment with each other and unrighteousness was the result. Each had sinned in eating of the forbidden fruit but each was unwilling to bear the blame for it. Eve had tempted Adam but Adam had of his own free will hearkened unto the voice of his wife and disobeyed God's command. When brought face to face with his sin Adam played the part of a churlish coward blaming both God and Eve for his own misdoing

GEN. 3: 12, " And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."

The sin that had introduced disorder into man's relations with God and into his own personality now introduced it into the relationship of fellow beings.

Friction between man and man began in God's social order. " The break upward brought the break cross-wise. That is the tragic Eden crisis. It touches us all most intimately to-day. The gloom and blight of the Eden crisis has cast its inky shadow over all the race, and over all life, ever since." *

Its inky shadow cast gloom over that first home. The sin of the first parents was visited upon the first children. The eldest son Cain killed his brother Abel. Friction between parents bore fruit in murder between brothers. The maladjustment in God's social order begun in Eden has continued and grown apace into personal, family, civic, national and international frictions until the whole world to-day is one seething, struggling mass of discontent, envy, greed, suspicion, jealousy, hatred and revenge.

The Effect of Adam's Sin upon the Material Universe

The blighting, withering effect of sin was felt in the material universe for even the earth was cursed because of the sin of Adam.

GEN. 3: 17-19, " And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."

The soil should henceforth be comparatively barren, man would no longer be blessed by its spontaneous, prodigal abundance but would have to coax from it by the sweat of his face and much suffering the necessities of life.

The Effect of Adam's Sin upon God.

While the sin of Adam brought incalculable suffering and sorrow to himself and to his posterity yet the One most wounded and wronged by sin was God. The defeat of his purpose in the human race and the dethronement of Himself in his own universe was the twofold aim of Satan in Eden's tragedy. Behind the temptation was the tempter. " The fall began in heaven. Sin entered into God's house before it invaded man's. Christ felt its sting before man felt its stab."

The sin enacted in Eden immediately created two very vital issues and brought God into a new relationship both to the tempted and the tempter, to the sinner and to Satan.

The issue at stake between God and God's first man was God's union with the human race. Through Adam in creation God had become united with humanity. But now through sin that union had of necessity been broken. God, who is absolute holiness, could never countenance nor condone sin, much less dwell in its presence. Sin must be punished and the sinner banished. Adam and Eve, through yielding to temptation, had become sinners. God who had been their beneficent Creator, their bountiful Provider, their intimate Companion, in the light of their transgression of his holy law must assume a different relationship to them and the race latent in them from that which He had before.

God could never remain holy and just unless sin were punished according to its deserts and in such a way as to satisfy fully his holiness. When He gave his command regarding the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil He had clearly stated the penalty if the command were disobeyed.

To be true to Himself He must now exact that penalty for their sin. He must become their Judge and pronounce upon them the curse which sin merited.

But He had made the human race for Himself and his own glory. He could not willingly stand by and condemn it either to destruction or to eternal separation from Himself for He loved it with an everlasting love. God's holiness compelled Him to become a Judge but his love compelled Him to become a Redeemer. If his union with the human race had been broken through the first man's disobedience, He would send another Man to reestablish it through his obedience. If the race had been ruined through the first man's sin it should be redeemed through the second Man's Saviour-hood.

Thus God assumes a twofold relationship to Adam and Eve in their sin: that of a Judge and that of a Redeemer. The promise of a Saviour and the pronouncement of a doom were made. Both promise and pronouncement must be fulfilled.

So we see God in Eden seeking the sinner who, be-cause of his sense of guilt and shame with its resultant fear, was hiding from Him.

GEN. 3: 9, " And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? "

What a marvellous unveiling of the infinite, abounding grace of God! A wounded, wronged God seeking a guilty, ungodly sinner ! The Lord God taking the initiative to bring Adam and Eve back home to Himself And this is but the opening scene in the continuous unfolding of God's infinitely gracious dealings with fallen humanity from that hour to this.

God then brought Adam and Eve face to face with the fact and guilt of their sin and gave them a fair, full opportunity to confess it. But instead of a con-trite, brokenhearted confession there came a cowardly, halfhearted one mixed with much of palliation and shifting of responsibility.

Again the exceeding riches of God's grace shone forth in his giving the promise of a Saviour. " It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel " fore-told to those guilty sinners who were soon to be banished from God's presence that He would open for them and for the race a way of access to Himself through the suffering of another.

Having now given vent to his infinite mercy and love in the gracious promise of a Saviour, God does full justice to his holy nature and his holy law in pronouncing a curse upon their sin. The God of all grace becomes the sinner's Judge. Sweat, suffering and sorrow are the awful consequences of sin. Then comes the sentence of death, for " the wages of sin is death," and the banishment from God's presence.

GEN 3: 19, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shelt thou."

GEN. 3: 23, 24, " Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man."

Having dealt with the sinner in grace God now deals with Satan in wrath. There could be no mercy manifested here. The issue between God and Satan was a far more serious one. In the Eden temptation Satan had contested God's right to the ownership of and the dominion over his own creation. Through their yielding to sin God had lost the sovereignty over the world and the race. Such insult and treachery must be dealt with according to their deserts.

The Prophecy of a Conflict and the Pronouncement of a Doom.

God Himself declares a war against this arch rebel that He will fight to the finish and in which He will show no mercy. God prophesies an age-long conflict and pronounces an eternal doom.

GEN. 3: 15 "And I will put enmity between thee and the women, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

From this sentence of eternal enmity there could be no reprieve.

Chapter 4

LIFE ON THE LOWEST PLANE - THE RULE OF SIN OVER MAN

SIN is a despot and the Bible shows very clearly that man came under the despotic rule of sin. Sin not only " entered " and " abounded," but it also "reigned" in man (Rom. 5: 12, 20, 21). He lives under a threefold bondage, from which it is im-possible for him to extricate himself.

He is in bondage to sin.

JOHN 8: 34, R. V., " Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bond-servant of sin."

He is in bondage to self.

2 COR. 5: 15, " And that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."

He is in bondage to Satan.

2 TIM. 2: 26, " And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him et his will."

The natural man is in helpless captivity to sin, self and Satan.

The Ruin wrought by Sin in the Human Personality.

Not only were all men drawn into the whirlpool of sin but all of man was ruined by its pollution. Man's personality was corrupted at the very centre and the dry rot of sin contaminated his whole being from center to circumference. Death breathed upon spirit, soul and body its destructive fumes. Sin stalked over the human being, that beautiful thing created in the image of God, and left its deadly trail everywhere, marring it until scarcely a trace of Godlikeness could be found. Sin caused civil war within the human personality.

Sin made the human spirit a death chamber. The blasting breath of death first touched the human spirit. Sin closed the windows of the spirit Godward and made it a death chamber. Sin severed the human spirit's relationship with the divine Spirit.

EPH. 4: 18, " Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart."

Sin also dethroned the human spirit as sovereign over the human personality and made it a captive, nay, even a slave. Both soul and body were permeated with sin and were brought under sin's control. Each claimed and sought an equal right to the rule of man. The immediate effect of sin was the complete inversion of the relationship between the spiritual and the physical in human nature. The fall of man from the plane of the spiritual to the plane of the natural took place.

" In the fall the soul refused the rule of the spirit and became the slave of the body with its appetites.

Man became flesh; the spirit lost its destined place of rule, and became little more than a dormant power; it was no longer the ruling principle but a struggling captive. And the spirit now stands in opposition to the flesh, the name for the life of soul and body together in their subjection to sin."

So the natural man " who is born of the flesh " is flesh. He is of the earth, earthy, and dominated by the flesh rather than by the spirit. The human spirit is darkened, deadened and dethroned. Sin made the human soul a ruin. Sin invaded the realm of the soul and laid hold upon the intellectual, emotional, and volitional life.

(1) The mind of man was blinded.

2 COR. 4: 3, 4, " But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

TITUS I: 15, " Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled."

COL. I: 2I, "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled."

God's first man was made with the capacity for knowing God and one cannot help but believe that had Adam continued to live his life entirely within the circle of God's will that capacity would have been enlarged and enriched. But he sought knowledge God had willed he should not have. By that one act of self-will he placed his intellect outside the circle of God's will.

He had the knowledge of evil but he had neither the wisdom nor the power to resist it. As a result sin wrought such ruin in the mind of God was compelled to say " that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually "(Gen. 6: 5).

He even calls evil, good and good, evil.

Separated from God man's mind became so darkened that his thinking is materialistic. " God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." God is eternal and spiritual and can never apprehended by what is merely temporal and natural. Apart from living union and communion with God the operation of the human intellect is entirely within the realm of material things.

Separated from God man's mind became so darkened that his thinking is sensual. The soul, unaided by the spirit, in its struggle with sin is open to continuous and terrible temptation through the body. Separated from God man's mind became so darkened that his thinking is rationalistic. Being outside of God's will his thinking is inevitably outside of God's thought. His wisdom is not God's wisdom: in fact God draws a clean-cut line between His wisdom and that of the natural man.

1 COR. I: 20, 2I, " Where is the wise? where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."

The wisdom of the natural man has its source in himself. He rejects anything and everything which cannot be apprehended and explained by his own un-aided reason.

I COR. 2: 14, " But the naturel man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Sin has so twisted and perverted the intellect of the natural man and Satan has so blinded his mind that he often thinks he knows more than God. Pride leads him to exalt his own mentality to such an extent that, if God says anything which his tiny intellect and puny reason cannot comprehend, then he declares God's saying " foolishness." He boldly proclaims God's sacred truth to be fable; God's eternal Word to be an earth-born myth.

His endeavour to fathom God's ocean of truth with his little teacup of a mind is pa-thetic, and his arrogant method of casting aside God's supernatural revelation when it goes contrary to his sin- saturated reason is pitiful indeed.

(2) The heart of man was defiled.

JER. I7: 9, " The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."

MARK 7: 2I-23, " For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man."

What a picture of the human heart Yet it is a true one because it was taken by the divine Photographer " who knows what was in man." Who can look upon this awful picture and others given on the same divine authority, such as Rom. 1: 29-32, Gal. 5: 17-21, Ps. 14: 1-3, and not call man's case absolutely hopeless except somehow a miracle be wrought?

Man was made to love God with all his mind, heart, strength and soul. His heart was created with the capacity to respond to the love of God with love. Man was made to love his fellowmen. God wishes man to love his neighbour as himself.

But what is the condition in the world to-day both as regards man's relationship to God and to his neighbour? It is an awful but a tragically true prediction which God made in His Word of the present world condition.

2 TIM. 3: I-4, " This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God."

When did man fall into such an evil state as is here described? The moment God's first man stepped outside of God's will by his own voluntary choice and carried the human race with him, that moment he dethroned God and enthroned self in his own affections. From that moment man left to himself has been inherently and incurably selfish.

(3) The will of man was perverted.

To will to do God's will is man's highest privilege, his most godlike prerogative. To live wholly within the will of God is to have righteousness, peace and harmony reign everywhere. This was God's intention in His universe. All angelic beings, as well as man, were made to be obedient subjects of God the Creator. But in Satan pride led to self-will; self-will to rebellion; rebellion to refusal of authority; and the refusal of authority to lawlessness. Satan, having stepped outside the will of God and become a rebel, tempted Adam and Eve to do the same. They yielded to his temptation and ever since the will of mankind has been off the main track.

But if man has not been willing to submit to the will of God which is always kind, beneficent and loving, surely he will not submit to the will of his fellow-man which is often selfish, tyrannical and despotic. So the world of politics, commerce, industry, education and even religion, is intersected with side lines built by the ingenuity of masterful minds who wish to satisfy their unquenchable thirst for power over other men's lives or their insatiable thirst for other men's possessions.

A heaven-inspired description of the perversion sin made in man's will and of the lengths of lawlessness into which it led him, is given in these verses:

JUDGES I7: 6, " In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

Rom. 8: 7, " Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of the Christ, sums up the ruin wrought in the human soul by Adam's fall as follows: " Thus in the spiritual part of his nature, man by the fall has become unlike God, in that his intelligence operates wholly within the material realm, whereas the divine wisdom is spiritual, and therefore explanatory of all material facts; his emotion acts from wrong principles of self-love, whereas the divine love ever operates upon the principle of love for others; and his will asserts itself upon the basis of passion for mastery, whereas the divine will insists upon obedience, through determination to serve the highest interests of others."

Sin made the human body a battlefield. Sin not only invaded the realm of the spirit and the soul but also that of the body and made that which was intended to be the spirit's congenial home its prison house. That which should have been spiritual tends to become sensual. That which God purposed to be the channel through which the spirit within man could touch the external world and bring blessing to it was turned into the instrument through which Satan reached the spirit with his defilement. The body became Satan's broadcasting station.

ROM. 7: 23, " But I see another law in my members, warring, against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."

In Paul's exhortation to those who had accepted Christ as Saviour, " Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof," he implied that the body of the natural man had been sin's territory. The members of the body became Satan's tools and instruments of sin.

ROM. 6: 13, " Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God."

ROM. 7: 5, R. V., " For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were through the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death."

The human body defiled by sin is corrupt, dishonoured and weak and it awaits deliverance from a bondage under which it groans (Rom. 8: 23).

2 COR. 5: 4, " We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life."

The Manifestation of Sin in the Natural Man.

Sin began to do its deadly work at the core of Adam's being. This core, his human nature, became sinful. Sin became its native atmosphere. Sin became its governing, impelling principle. The fountainhead of his thoughts, emotions, attitudes, instincts and purposes, was vitiated by sin.

The word we commonly use today to express this sinful root is self. The core of the natural man is self. Scripture gives us another name. That corrupt human nature, that inborn tendency to evil in all men received by inheritance from our first parents, is called " the old man."

COL. 3: 9, " Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds." (Cf. Rom. 6: 6, Eph.4: 22.)

But man is not a silent, inactive creature. His thoughts are expressed in words; his instincts are translated into actions; so if the fountain is corrupt, then that which flows out from it will be correspondingly corrupt. This inner nature manifests itself in outward acts. The hidden desires of " the old man " come to the surface in deeds. Covetousness grows into theft; deceit becomes falsehood; impurity of thought and desire manifest themselves in sins of the flesh; unforgiveness and hatred crystallize into revenge and murder; fear becomes fretting; unbelief shades off into worry; dislike degenerates into backbiting; impatience becomes nagging; dissatisfaction and discontent clothe themselves with murmuring and complaining; self-righteousness slips into censoriousness; pride takes on the colour of boastfulness; envy becomes slander; ambition arms itself for war; selfishness grows into oppression; and jealousy attempts to end its torment in suicide or homicide.

This truth is made very plain in the Bible in the clear cut distinction between sin and sins.

I JOHN I: 8-9, " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Leon Tucker in his Studies in Romans states the difference as follows:

" Sin is character; sins are conduct. Sin is the centre; sins are the circumference. Sin is the root; sins are the fruit. Sin is the producer; sins are the product. Sin is the sire; sins are his offspring. Sin is the fountain; sins are its flow. Sin is what we are; sins are what we do."

Sin then is the old nature itself; sins are the manifestations of the old nature.

This picture of the ravages of sin in the life of the natural man is an exceedingly dark one but a thorough, prayerful study of God's Word on this subject together with an honest observation of human life as it is must convince an open-minded, humble man that it is a true picture. It does not mean that each person has committed every one of these sins. There is a difference in the degree of sin manifested in the natural man but not in the fact of inherent sin. God who knows what is in man says, " There is none righteous; no, not one." It does mean that every man is a sinner in the sight of God and that the whole world is guilty before Him (Rom. 3: 19). It does mean that man who was made in the image of God has become flesh.

The Destiny of the Natural Man.

God and sin cannot dwell together; they cannot stay in the same place at the same time for they are mutually exclusive. They are exact opposites. Perhaps you are now sitting in a room full of light; a few hours will pass by and it will be filled with darkness. Where has the light gone? It has been displaced by darkness. Again a few hours pass by and the room is filled with light. Where has the darkness gone? It has been displaced by light. Light and darkness cannot dwell together; they are exact opposites; they are mutually exclusive.

I JOHN I: 5-6, '{Cod is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." EPH. 5: 8, " For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk as children of light."

God is light, sin is darkness; therefore God must displace sin or sin displaces God. God and sin cannot stay in the same place at the same time for they are mutually exclusive.

Sin separated Adam from God; it made him want to hide from God's presence. Sin separated God from Adam and compelled Him to pronounce the sentence of death and to send him forth from the garden of Eden.

If God cannot dwell with sin in the sinner on earth neither could He dwell with sin in the sinner in Heaven So if the natural man persists in his sin and rejects the way of salvation which God provides in Christ Jesus, by that very choice he debars himself from the presence of God throughout eternity. His own unrighteousness will then shut him out of the Kingdom of God.

I COR. 6: 9, " Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? "

REV. 2I: 27, " And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."

Let us now sum up the truth we have studied thus far. God's first man, Adam, was without sin; he was created in God's image on the plane of human life. He was made with the capacity for life on the highest plane, the spiritual, and with the power to choose such a life. God made man with his face turning God-ward. God's will was both the centre and the circumference of his life: consequently he lived in righteousness and peace because in perfect adjustment with God, with himself, and with all created beings.

But Adam chose to disobey God's command. He used his power to choice Satanward, and placed his life voluntarily under Satan's sovereignty. He stepped outside of God's sphere of righteousness, light and life into Satan's sphere of sin, darkness and death. He dethroned God and enthroned self. He ceased to be spiritual and became flesh. Sin made him a sinner with his face turning Satanward and his course tending downward.

Self-will became both the centre and the circumference of his life; consequently he lives in ungodliness, unrighteousness and discord because there was maladjustment with God, with himself, and with all created beings.

Adam himself was the father of children. He was not merely an individual creation of God but he was the appointed federal head of the human race. All the evil consequences of sin in him were transmitted to all men so that by nature all men are guilty and defiled. The most awful consequence of sin, however, was not the moral and spiritual ruin of the human race but the denial of the Godhood of God in His own universe.

This view of the origin and the consequences of sin, even though it is so clearly taught in God's Word, is not accepted by all. Sin even in many pulpits to-day is treated very lightly if not passed over altogether. Nevertheless every one knows that humanity is saturated with sin and that sin is really at the bottom of all the world's trouble. But many people are unwilling to admit the real nature of sin. They treat it like a superficial skin disease rather than like a malignant cancer.

Men are unwilling to acknowledge the truth of God's estimate of the natural man, that left to himself he is hopelessly, incurably bad. They place the blame of his misconduct onto his environment or limited circumstances and by seeking to improve these external conditions and to afford him larger opportunities through education and civilization they believe he can be evolved into what God intended him to be.

Such thinking is due to a fundamental misconception of what sin is. The essence of the first sin in Eden is clearly defined in God's Word and it is the essence of all sin from that day to this.

I JOHN 3: 4, R. V., " Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness."

The exceeding sinfulness of Adam's sin lay in the fact that it was high treason of the created against the Creator; of the subject against the Sovereign. Such at heart is all sin. The natural man is a spiritual Bolshevist.

Man is not only guilty and defiled but he is rebellious and lawless. He is not only separated from God by sin but he is unreconciled by enmity. In God's sight he is a sinner, an enemy, an outlaw.*

Chapter 5

SATAN AND GOD IN CONFLICT

THAT evil exists in this world no one could deny. Evil forces are at work in countless ways and through manifold channels. An evil power operates everywhere working intelligently for the degeneration of mankind and for the defeat of God. There is in the world an aggressive opposition to God and to God's purpose.

Power is the product of personality, therefore the acknowledgment of the presence of power necessitates the recognition of the presence of a personality originating and directing it.

Nowhere in the Bible is evil treated as a mere abstraction. A lie is the spoken language of a liar.

ACTS 5: 3, " But Peter said, Ananias, Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land."

A murder is the actualized desire of a murderer.

I John 3: I2, " Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother."

Ananias was the mouthpiece and Cain was the tool of another. Behind the human personality was a supernatural personality. Their evil was the revealed power of a concealed person.

The Bible tells us that such an evil one exists. Christ is the authority for the statement that there is an evil one and that he is the devil.

MATT. 13: 19 R. V., " When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the evil one, and snatcheth away that which hath been sown in his heart."

MATT. 13: 39, " The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels."

Good forces are at work also. A good power operates everywhere intelligently for the regeneration of man-kind and for the exaltation of God. There is in the world an aggressive opposition to Satan and to Satan's purpose.

Nowhere in the Bible is good spoken of as a mere abstraction. It is invariably the product of personality. Christ is the authority for the statement that there is a good one and that He is God.

MATT. 13: 24, "Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field."

MATT. 13: 37, " He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man."

LUKE 18: 19, " Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, t