Anthropology
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
We have not fully pondered the fact that we humans were made in the image and likeness of God until we also give thought to what disobedience and sin have done to our likeness to our Creator. Although Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God resulted in the loss of paradise, it did not obliterate their likeness to God. What it did was mar or distort the divine image. One result is that fellowship with God became a problem. Adam and Eve were turned out of Eden and the way back into the place where they had walked in fellowship with God was barred. Having forfeited their fellowship with God, they also henceforth possessed a nature bent toward sin and disobedience. Bible students throughout the centuries have referred to this spiritual condition as “fallen.”
Sinful nature
All humans thereafter have been born with a fallen nature or an inclination toward sin. Our sinful nature puts us at risk to the influences of the world around us, as well as to that of Satan. Temptation makes its appeal to that fallen nature. King David expressed his own fallen nature in his famous confession of Psalm 51:5: “Behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.” All of us who came after Adam and Eve share the truth of David’s acknowledgment. We come into the world with an inborn tendency toward iniquity and sin.
A phrase that has been widely used to describe our marred image and imperfect likeness is “total depravity.”
This phrase is not to be understood as saying that humans are as totally depraved as it is possible for us to be.
We all know non-Christians who possess admirable qualities, even sometimes outshining professing Christians in kindness, gentleness, patience and so forth. What total depravity expresses is that every area of our humanity has been in some way affected by iniquity and sin. Across the board, we all suffer from imperfection because of the taint of sin. Our total makeup has been victimized by our fallen nature — thoughts (our minds), affections (our hearts) and choices (our wills).
‘Christian conversion’
All of this is the bad news, but the good news is that God had a plan for humans to regain likeness to Him. The beginning point in that plan is a new birth or regeneration that is launched through repentance of sin and faith in Christ Jesus. We term it “Christian conversion.” The ongoing stage in God’s plan calls for progressive or gradual growth and development in spiritual matters — increasing commitment to God’s ways; continual transformation by the renewing of our minds; gradual embodiment of revealed truth; persistence in the practice of prayer; and all the while experiencing a growing conformity to the likeness of Christ who, though becoming fully human in His incarnation, did not inherit a fallen nature. Rather He was in His earthly life in every way “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15).
Christ’s return
The completion phase of God’s restoration plan for fallen humanity awaits Christ’s return, at which time we shall be transformed into His likeness and restored to perfect and unhindered fellowship with God in order that we might bring Him glory through endless ages. Next week Theology 101 will call us to think further about the matter of living unto the glory of God.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Jerry Batson is a retired Alabama Baptist pastor who also has served as associate dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and professor of several schools of religion during his career.
Share with others: