Devotional 33: Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof: Imagine a house at dawn

The Confession Read

By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.

— Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 6, Section 2

Introduction

Imagine a house at dawn. Every window catches the first light; every room is ordered and beautiful; and from within, the sound of quiet conversation — the owner walking with his friend in the cool of the morning. That house, dear listener, was man in his original estate. Adam was not a rough sketch that needed refining, nor a neutral creature awaiting moral development. He was upright — his mind luminous with the knowledge of God, his will bent joyfully toward obedience, his affections drawn upward by a holy gravity that needed no external force. And more than upright: he was in communion with his Maker. The Lord walked with him. They spoke. There was no barrier, no shame, no hiding among the trees. Now consider that same house after a great earthquake. The foundation has cracked. The windows are shattered. The rooms that once caught the morning light now lie in cold shadow. Dust and debris cover what was once beautiful. And the owner — the Friend who walked there — has withdrawn. Silence where there was conversation. Absence where there was presence. This is what our confession declares: that by one sin, our first parents fell from original righteousness and communion with God, and became dead in sin, wholly defiled in every faculty. We studied in our last episode the outer edges of the fall — the temptation, the subtlety of the serpent, the permissive decree of God. But today we descend into the crater itself. What did the fall actually do to human nature? Section 2 answers with terrifying precision: it did not merely bruise us; it killed us. It did not weaken our faculties; it defiled them entirely. The communion that was the very atmosphere of paradise was severed with a violence we still feel in every prayer that seems to strike a silent heaven. This is not a doctrine for the lecture hall alone. It is the only diagnosis deep enough to explain why you struggle to pray, why your mind wanders in worship, why you love what you should hate and hate what you should love. Until we understand what we lost, we cannot understand what Christ restores. Until we grasp how total the ruin is, we will never grasp how glorious the redemption must be.

Scripture Foundation

The divines did not invent this doctrine from speculation. They drew it from the whole testimony of Scripture, which speaks with one voice about the condition of man after the fall. Let us trace the biblical warrant for each clause of our confession. There is none righteous, no, not one. The apostle Paul, in the third chapter of Romans, assembles a devastating catalogue of Old Testament witnesses to human corruption. He begins with the sweeping declaration: "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). Then he unfolds the indictment organ by organ: "Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes" (Romans 3:13-18). Notice the anatomy of depravity Paul traces: throat, tongue, lips, mouth, feet, eyes. Every outward member is corrupted because the inward spring — the heart — is poisoned. And notice the universal scope: "none righteous, no, not one." Paul is not describing a particularly wicked subset of humanity. He is describing humanity as such — Jew and Gentile alike, "that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God" (Romans 3:19). This is the biblical foundation for what the confession calls being "wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body." Dead in trespasses and sins. But the confession goes further than describing corruption; it describes death. "And so became dead in sin." The apostle Paul states this with unforgettable clarity in his letter to the Ephesians: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Ephesians 2:1-3). The Greek word for "dead" here is nekros, from which we derive our English word "necrotic." It does not mean slightly ill, or merely weakened, or in need of a little assistance. A corpse cannot respond to a voice. A corpse cannot reach out for medicine. A corpse cannot cooperate with the physician. It can only lie there until a power outside itself acts upon it. That, Paul says, is our natural condition toward God. We "walked" — we were active enough in the world — but our walking was according to the course of this world and the prince of darkness, "fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind." Spiritual death is not inactivity; it is activity in the wrong direction, toward the wrong master, with the wrong loves. And then that devastating phrase: "by nature the children of wrath." Not by practice only, not by bad habits picked up from a corrupt environment — by nature. The corruption is native to us. It inheres in what we are from the moment we draw our first breath. Conceived in sin. David knew this. In his great penitential psalm, he traces his actual sin back to its root: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5). David is not making an excuse for his adultery and murder by blaming his mother. He is confessing that his particular sins flow from a fountain that was poisoned long before he committed any act. The corruption is not something he acquired; it is something he inherited. Before he could speak a word or think a thought, he was "shapen in iniquity." This is what the confession means by losing original righteousness. Adam was created with a righteousness that was original — it belonged to his nature as God made it. But that righteousness was lost in the fall, and what Adam could no longer possess, he could no longer transmit to his posterity. A diseased tree produces diseased fruit. A broken fountain sends forth polluted streams. And we are those streams, dear listener — every one of us, without exception. The heart is deceitful above all things. The prophet Jeremiah, peering into the depths of human motivation, pronounces a diagnosis that cuts through all our pretense: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). The Hebrew rendered "desperately wicked" is anush, a term used elsewhere for incurable wounds and terminal illness. The heart is not merely misguided; it is desperately, incurably sick. And it is "deceitful" — it lies to us about its own condition, persuading us that we are well when we are dying. This explains why the confession insists on "all the parts and faculties." The mind is darkened — it cannot discern spiritual truth. The will is enslaved — it cannot choose God. The affections are disordered — they love the creature more than the Creator. Even the body is subject to corruption and death. No faculty escapes. No chamber of the soul is left untouched by the contagion. The carnal mind is enmity against God. Paul sharpens the point further in Romans: "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:7-8). The word sarx — flesh — here does not mean the physical body as opposed to the soul. It means human nature in its fallen condition, the whole person considered apart from the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit. And Paul says this sarx-dominated mind is not merely indifferent to God, not merely forgetful of God — it is enmity. Active hostility. It "is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." This is not a lack of information that education can remedy. It is a constitutional inability — a moral incapacity that no amount of effort can overcome. In my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Even the regenerate man, the apostle Paul himself, confesses: "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not" (Romans 7:18). If Paul could say this of himself as a believer, how much more is it true of the unregenerate? The confession's phrase "wholly defiled" does not mean that every man is as evil as he could possibly be — common grace restrains sin, and the image of God, though defaced, is not entirely erased. But it does mean that every part of every man is tainted. There is no island of purity within the soul. There is no faculty that escaped the wreck. The understanding, the will, the conscience, the memory, the imagination, the affections — all bear the marks of the fall. Together these texts present a unified testimony. Man is not sick; he is dead. He is not wounded; he is wholly defiled. He is not merely disadvantaged; he is by nature a child of wrath. And this condition is not something he grows into through bad choices — it is something he is born into through his union with the first Adam.

What the Divines Meant

When the Westminster Assembly gathered in the Jerusalem Chamber in the 1640s, they were not writing in a vacuum. Every phrase of Section 2 was forged in the fire of controversy. To understand what they meant, we must understand what they were opposing. The confession declares four things about the consequences of Adam's first sin. First, our first parents "fell from their original righteousness." Second, they fell from "communion with God." Third, they "became dead in sin." Fourth, they were "wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body." Let us take each in turn and see what errors the divines were answering. Original righteousness. What was this righteousness that Adam lost? It was not merely a forensic standing — though Adam stood accepted before God. It was a real, intrinsic, habitual conformity of his whole nature to the law of God. His mind knew God truly. His will loved God freely. His affections delighted in God purely. His body served his soul without rebellion. This righteousness was "original" because it belonged to his origin — it was part of the nature God gave him at creation. The divines were answering the Socinians, who taught that Adam was created morally neutral — neither righteous nor sinful — and that righteousness was something he had to acquire through obedience. On that view, the fall merely set Adam back to neutral; it did not corrupt his nature. But Genesis and the whole of Scripture testify otherwise. God made man upright (Ecclesiastes 7:29). Adam did not have to climb up to righteousness; he fell from it. The divines were also answering the Roman Catholic doctrine of the donum superadditum — the "superadded gift" — which held that original righteousness was not natural to man but an extra gift added to his nature, and that its loss left human nature wounded but not fundamentally corrupt. The Reformers insisted that original righteousness was natural to man as God created him; its loss was not the removal of an optional accessory but the ruin of the thing itself. A man who loses a coat is inconvenienced; a man who loses his lungs is dead. Communion with God. Before the fall, Adam enjoyed unbroken fellowship with his Creator. The Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of the day. There was no estrangement, no hiding, no fear. But after the sin, "Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden" (Genesis 3:8). The rupture was immediate and total. This loss of communion is the deepest wound of the fall — deeper even than the corruption of our faculties. We were made for God. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. To lose communion with God is to lose the very purpose of our existence. Every human misery — every loneliness, every alienation, every restless searching — is an echo of this primordial severance. We were made to walk with God, and now we walk alone. The divines understood that sin is not fundamentally about breaking rules; it is about breaking fellowship. The rules are the shape of the fellowship. When Adam sinned, he did not merely violate a command; he betrayed a relationship. And the consequence was not merely a penalty; it was a separation. He was driven from the garden. The way to the tree of life was barred by cherubim and a flaming sword. And every son of Adam since has been born outside the gate. Dead in sin. The divines chose the word "dead" with precision. They rejected the Pelagian notion that Adam's sin harmed only himself and that his descendants are born in the same condition as Adam before the fall — innocent and capable of either sinning or not sinning. They rejected the Arminian mitigation that the fall merely weakened the will, leaving it wounded but still capable of choosing God if aided by sufficient grace. No, said the divines: Adam's posterity is dead in sin. What does spiritual death mean? It does not mean that fallen man is incapable of any good whatsoever. Unregenerate men can be kind to their children, honest in business, brilliant in art and science. The Reformers always acknowledged what they called "civil virtue." But spiritual death means that fallen man is incapable of any act that is spiritually good — any act done from true faith, for the glory of God, in love to God. As our Lord said, "Without me ye can do nothing" (John 15:5). Spiritual death means that man, left to himself, cannot repent, cannot believe, cannot love God, cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:14). He is not merely ill and in need of medicine; he is dead and in need of resurrection. And resurrection, as every Bible reader knows, is a work that only God can perform. Wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties. This is the doctrine of total depravity — perhaps the most misunderstood of all Reformed teachings. "Wholly defiled" does not mean that every man is as wicked as he could possibly be. It does not mean that the image of God has been entirely erased. It does not mean that the unregenerate never do anything outwardly commendable. It means that the corruption of sin extends to every part of human nature. The understanding is darkened — "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:14). The will is enslaved — "no man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him" (John 6:44). The affections are disordered — men are "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God" (2 Timothy 3:4). The conscience is defiled — "unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled" (Titus 1:15). The body is subject to corruption and death — "the body is dead because of sin" (Romans 8:10). The divines were careful to say "all the parts and faculties of soul and body." No aspect of human nature escaped the contagion. The fall was not a surface wound; it was a systemic infection. And this total corruption is not something we grow into gradually; it is our condition from the moment of conception. As David confessed, he was "shapen in iniquity."

Theological Depth

Let us now descend deeper into this doctrine with the help of those teachers whom God has given to his church through the centuries. We do not treat their words as authoritative in themselves, but as faithful expositions of the one authority — holy Scripture. The fountainhead of the Western church's reflection on original sin is Augustine of Hippo. In his controversy with Pelagius in the early fifth century, Augustine articulated what would become the settled doctrine of the church for more than a thousand years. Pelagius taught that Adam's sin affected Adam alone, that infants are born in the same innocent state as Adam before the fall, and that grace consists primarily in the good example of Christ and the teaching of the law. Against this, Augustine insisted that all humanity was seminally present in Adam — we sinned "in him" — and that his guilt and corruption are transmitted to all his natural descendants. Augustine's argument rested squarely on Romans 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." The Latin translation available to Augustine rendered the final phrase in quo omnes peccaverunt — "in whom all sinned." Modern translations more accurately render the Greek eph' hō pantes hēmarton as "because all sinned" or "upon which all sinned." But whether the connection is federal or participatory, the doctrine stands: Adam's transgression brought death to all, and death — physical and spiritual — is the wages of sin. Infants who die do so because they are sinners from conception. Augustine also taught that original righteousness was lost and that its loss left human nature not merely wounded but corrupted in its entirety. The freedom that Adam possessed — the ability not to sin (posse non peccare) — was lost in the fall. Fallen man retains free will in the sense that he chooses according to his strongest inclination, but his inclination is now bent entirely away from God. He has freedom but only to sin. He needs not merely assistance but a new nature. Turning to the Puritan era, we find no theologian who probed the inner workings of original sin more deeply than John Owen. In his treatise The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of Indwelling Sin, Owen describes original sin not as a static condition but as an active, aggressive principle. "It is a law," he writes, "a law of sin, that wars against the law of grace, and will not be quiet until it has ruined the soul." Owen insists that original sin is not merely the absence of righteousness but a positive principle of corruption — a "body of death" that clings to us, weighs us down, and resists every motion of grace. Owen is particularly helpful in explaining what the confession means by "all the parts and faculties." The mind, he says, is darkened — but not only darkened. It is also "filled with enmity against God" and "dislikes the things of God." The will is not merely weak; it is "stubborn, rebellious, and obstinate." The affections are not merely cool toward God; they are "set upon other objects with delight and satisfaction." Total depravity is not just an absence; it is a presence — a malignant presence that actively opposes everything holy. Owen also makes a crucial pastoral observation: even the regenerate must contend with indwelling sin. The confession's description of fallen humanity describes not only the state of the unconverted but the residue that remains in believers. Original sin is dethroned in regeneration but not destroyed. The believer is no longer "dead in sin" — he has been quickened — but he is still "wholly defiled" in the sense that corruption remains in every faculty, making the Christian life a continual warfare. This is why Paul cried out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:24). The discovery of indwelling sin is not the discovery that one is unconverted; it is the discovery that conversion has begun but is not yet complete. Jonathan Edwards, the theologian of the First Great Awakening, spent his final years composing what many consider the most thorough Reformed defense of original sin ever written. In his treatise The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended, Edwards answers the Enlightenment critic John Taylor, who argued that human nature is fundamentally sound and that sin arises from bad examples and circumstances. Edwards marshals a comprehensive case from Scripture, history, and universal human experience. Edwards's central argument is straightforward: the universal and certain fact of human sinfulness proves a universal and certain cause. Every human being who reaches moral accountability sins — not occasionally, not accidentally, but universally and necessarily. "The evidence is such," Edwards writes, "as to be a moral demonstration of the doctrine." If every acorn that falls from a particular oak produces an oak and never an elm, we conclude that the nature of the tree is in the acorn. If every human being sins, we must conclude that the nature of sin is in humanity from its origin. This is not a deduction from a single text but an induction from the whole testimony of Scripture and experience. Edwards also responds to the objection that total depravity is incompatible with the universal presence of conscience and natural affection. He acknowledges that fallen man retains a kind of moral sense — an awareness of right and wrong — and natural affections such as parental love. But these remnants, he argues, do not constitute true virtue. True virtue is love to God, and fallen man has none of that. The conscience that remains is corrupted; it accuses where it should excuse and excuses where it should accuse. Natural affection is self-referential; it loves children because they are one's own, not because they bear God's image. The remnants of the divine image in man serve not to mitigate the doctrine of total depravity but to illustrate it — showing what man was and what he has lost. For a final perspective, let us turn to Thomas Boston, whose Human Nature in Its Fourfold State has nourished generations of Reformed believers. Boston maps the four states of man: primitive integrity, entire depravity, begun recovery, and consummate happiness or misery. Our confession's second section describes the transition from the first state to the second. Boston is particularly vivid in describing the state of nature. "The soul is dead in sin," he writes, "and the body is mortal, the forerunner of eternal death." He speaks of the understanding as "a ruinous palace" where darkness dwells, the will as "a rebellious subject" that will not submit to its rightful king, the affections as "disordered passions" that run wild after forbidden objects, and the conscience as "a drowsy judge" that sleeps when it should cry out. Every chamber of the soul is described with the precision of a spiritual anatomist. But Boston does not leave us in the state of nature. The very darkness of the description serves the brightness of the gospel. "The state of grace," he writes, "is a state of light." What Christ restores is precisely what Adam lost — righteousness, communion with God, spiritual life. Indeed, what Christ gives is greater than what Adam possessed, for Adam could fall from his righteousness, but the redeemed can never fall from theirs. The second Adam secures what the first Adam forfeited.

Puritan Application

Beloved, we do not study the fall merely to accumulate theological information. We study it to know ourselves, to know our need, and to know our Redeemer. Let me press this doctrine upon your heart in several ways. First, this doctrine explains the mystery of your own heart. Have you ever wondered why you find prayer difficult, why your mind wanders in worship, why sinful desires rise unbidden, why you love what you know to be worthless and find your affections cold toward what you know to be precious? The doctrine of original sin names the enemy. It is not merely bad habits. It is not merely the influence of a corrupt culture. It is a principle of corruption woven into the very fabric of your nature — what Paul called "the law of sin which is in my members" (Romans 7:23). Until you know this, you will treat sin as an external problem to be managed rather than an internal enemy to be mortified. The first step in sanctification is honest diagnosis. And the diagnosis, dear soul, is that sin has touched everything. There is no faculty so elevated, no affection so refined, no thought so pure that it has entirely escaped the contagion. This is a humbling truth, but it is also a liberating one. It frees you from the exhausting pretense that you are basically good, and it drives you to the only physician who can heal what is fundamentally broken. Second, this doctrine destroys all boasting before God. If you are wholly defiled in every part, what have you to offer the Almighty? Your best works, springing from a corrupt fountain, are tainted at the source. Your sincerest prayers are mixed with wandering thoughts and divided affections. Your most earnest resolutions are undermined by a will that is bent away from God. As Isaiah confessed, "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). The doctrine of total depravity is the great equalizer. It puts the Pharisee and the publican on the same ground, crying the same prayer: "God be merciful to me a sinner." There is no room for comparison with others when the standard is original righteousness and communion with God. A man drowning in ten feet of water is no better off than a man drowning in a hundred feet. Both are drowning. Both need rescue. And so do you, dear listener. So do I. So does every son and daughter of Adam. Third, this doctrine reveals the absolute necessity of the new birth. If man is dead in sin, he needs more than improvement — he needs resurrection. No amount of moral reformation, religious observance, or sincere effort can raise the dead. Our Lord was not being hyperbolic when he told Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again" (John 3:7). The word he used for "again" — anōthen — can also be translated "from above." The new birth is not something we accomplish; it is something that comes down from heaven. It is a sovereign, supernatural, regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, by which he imparts a new principle of spiritual life, renewing the understanding, liberating the will, and reordering the affections toward God. This is why Reformed Christians have always insisted that salvation is of the Lord from first to last. If the first step toward God depended on fallen man, no man would ever take it. The dead do not reach for life; life must reach for the dead. "You hath he quickened," Paul wrote to the Ephesians, "who were dead in trespasses and sins" — he quickened, not they. The initiative is entirely divine. And this should fill you with gratitude, dear believer. Your salvation did not begin with a good decision you made; it began with a sovereign act of God, raising you from spiritual death when you could contribute nothing but resistance. Fourth, this doctrine deepens our appreciation of what Christ accomplished as the second Adam. The parallel between the two Adams — the one who ruined us and the one who redeems us — runs through all of Scripture. "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). What Adam lost, Christ restores — and more. Adam enjoyed original righteousness; Christ imparts an imputed righteousness that can never be lost. Adam walked with God in a garden; Christ brings us into an eternal kingdom where we shall see God face to face. Adam was capable of dying; those in Christ shall never die. Consider the symmetry. Adam's one act of disobedience brought condemnation to all who are in him. Christ's one act of obedience — his whole life of righteousness culminating in his death on the cross — brings justification to all who are in him. Adam's sin made us sinners. Christ's righteousness makes us righteous. The fall was total; the redemption is total. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Romans 5:20). The contemplation of our ruin should not end in despair but in doxology. The disease is terrible precisely so that the cure may be recognized as glorious. Fifth and finally, this doctrine teaches us to live in daily dependence on the Holy Spirit. If every faculty is defiled, we cannot trust our own judgment, our own affections, our own will. We need the Spirit to illuminate the mind that is darkened, to purify the affections that are disordered, to strengthen the will that is weak. The Christian life is not a one-time decision followed by self-sustaining virtue. It is a moment-by-moment reliance on the indwelling Spirit, who alone can enable us to will and to do of God's good pleasure. This is why we pray without ceasing. This is why we feed on the Word. This is why we gather with the saints. We are not self-sufficient creatures who occasionally need a little help; we are branches that wither the moment we are severed from the vine. Let this comfort those who feel the weight of indwelling sin most acutely. Your distress at your corruption is itself evidence of grace. The dead do not mourn their death; the blind do not lament their blindness unless light has begun to dawn. If you grieve over sin that remains in your heart, it is because the Spirit has given you a heart that loves holiness. The warfare Paul described in Romans 7 is not a sign that you are unconverted; it is a sign that conversion has begun. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. Be encouraged: this war will not last forever. The day is coming when indwelling sin shall be no more, when every faculty shall be perfectly conformed to the image of Christ, when what was lost in the first Adam shall be restored and surpassed in the last. Until that day, walk humbly, dependently, hopefully. For he who began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Prayer

O most holy and righteous God, we bow before thee in the knowledge of what we are by nature. We confess that we fell in Adam from our original righteousness and communion with thee, and that we are by nature dead in sin and wholly defiled in every faculty of soul and body. Our minds are darkened, our wills are rebellious, our affections are disordered, and even our best works are tainted with corruption. We have nothing to offer thee but our need. We have no claim upon thy mercy but thy promise. We bless thee that thou didst not leave us in this estate of death and defilement, but didst send thy beloved Son to be the second Adam — to obey where the first Adam disobeyed, to die where we deserved to die, and to rise as the firstfruits of a new humanity. We thank thee that as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Grant us faith to rest wholly upon his righteousness, seeing that we have none of our own. Send thy Holy Spirit to renew us day by day. Where our minds are darkened, give us light. Where our wills are stubborn, grant us submission. Where our affections are cold, kindle holy love. Mortify the sin that remains in our members, and quicken us in the inner man, that we may walk in newness of life. And hasten the day when the warfare shall cease, when indwelling sin shall be no more, and when we shall see thy face in perfect righteousness and unbroken communion. Until that day, keep us humble. Keep us dependent. Keep us looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. To him, with thee, O Father, and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.