LBCF 1689 Reflections (part 54)

Reflections on the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. 23 Aug 14 began a perhaps unbroken, orderly, and personal journey through my favorite written confession of faith. This will be my personal reflections on this beloved written codification of the Christian Faith which is according to a Baptist flavor.

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Chapter 4, paragraph 2b: “…rendering them fit unto that life to God for which they were created; being made after the image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness…”

When God set up the world at the start it was very different than it is today. Very different. Mankind was sinless. There was no evil in him. His heart was pure. Her love for her husband was pure, and his for his wife. What once was is literally impossible to even imagine! The Bible tells us that it all started different and will end even more different than it began. This truth actually makes today’s world an abnormality. We’re a punctuation in it all as we exist today. I yearn for the day when this world, as it is, is no more. This isn’t escapism; I know mankind cannot fix it. Our history is covered with evil, and our future looks even more dreary.

Underestimating the effects of the Fall of mankind into sin are huge. The Fall affects everything and even every organ we have. Our very eyes were affected. God is a glorious being. Once sin entered the picture we were no longer able to even look upon him. Part of that refulgent glory shown through him on the Mount of Transfiguration and the three disciples there were terrified, Matthew 17:1-8. Angels cover their faces in his presence, Isaiah 6:2. Moses saw part of God in what theologians call God’s “manifest presence” and was afraid to look, Exodus 3:6. When Peter saw just a small part of his miraculous power he was afraid, Luke 5:8. God said to Moses, “No man shall see my face and live” in Exodus 33:20. This means no living man since Adam’s fall have ever seen the triune fullness of God…if even Adam saw it. The fact that no man can now truly look upon the face of God and live was not true until mankind died in sin.

Our bodies today are fit for our current environment. They grow old and die.

Adam and Eve were first made able to live in God’s immediate presence. Being driven from the garden was being driven from God’s immediate presence. What God promises his children in the next life is something even greater. What he promises is an uninterrupted and incorruptible existence in his presence. What Adam lost in sin, Christ regained on the cross for all of God’s elect. His work in us will culminate and again render us fit for that life whereunto we’ve been called- eternal life. This is called glorification and salvation.

One other reality is that even the unrighteous will be resurrected and be made fit for an eternal hell.

You have two Adams to see yourself alongside, the first and the last. Jesus is the “Last Adam”. Man was created in the image of God. We lost what that really was, but God promises to restore it in even greater measure. I do hope you know it.