male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness after his own image, having the law of God written in their hearts and power to fulfill it, and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will which was subject to change. Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God and had dominion over the creatures. This is another tightly worded statement in the Confession of Faith, and it's theologically, I mean, it's hard for me to tell you how important, how crucial this is theologically. We see here not only the Christian worldview set over against pagan conceptions of man, but we have a very definite statement of theological, how can I put this, a very definite theological line on the nature of man that distinguishes Reformed Christianity from Roman Catholic Christianity, Pelagian Christianity, Arminian, Lutheran. It is an outstanding in the sense of distinctive doctrine of the Reformed faith, this presentation of man at his original creation. The statement begins that God made man after all other creatures. The implication being here, not just that man was, you know, the last, but man was also the climax of the created order. Because everything else is covered in section one, but man gets special attention in section two. After God had made all other creatures, he created man. Now this is not politically correct, is it? We couldn't write the Confession this way in our day. But you notice, at least the perspective of the Puritan writers, man encompasses what? Male and female. Now while that is not politically correct to state it this way, if you stop and think about it, I hope you can see the implication is that from the perspective of the writers of the Confession, male and female are equally human. There is no difference in dignity because they are put in the same category as man, the apex of creation. You know, they could have said, and then God made the male, the apex of creation, and then later as a secondary thought, gave him a woman too. You know, that would be rather chauvinistic. But the Puritans, even though they're not speaking in a way our culture likes, they were really speaking in a way that was high praise and flattery for females, a way in which other religious traditions think of the Muslims do not think of women. God created humanity, man, and male and female define humanity. Let's look at the proof text below under D. Genesis 1.27 says, God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. So now let's ask the question, according to the Bible was man the male created in God's image? To state it just that way, is that accurate? No. Why about the other way around? Did God create the female in his image? No, he created what? Man in his image, male and female, created he them. So again, what I pointed out a second ago about the writers of the Confession, they were actually imitating the logic of the scripture itself. The scripture sees humanity made in the image of God, male and female both, come under that category. Now that's not to deny that individual humans are not the image of God, it's to deny that somehow male or female are more or less the image of God. They are equally made in the image of God. Now some have suggested, they've drawn conclusions from this that I don't think are logical or reliable, but the suggestion I think is somewhat insightful, that man being made in the image of God requires that he be seen as a social creature. Because God is inherently social. God is not your lone individual. Many theological schools, you know, portray God, it's like, God's the individual out there, the transcendent, sovereign individual, then there are all these individuals here on earth. But we know from the doctrine of the Trinity that God has what might be called the principle of community within his own being. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally have had fellowship. And so when God makes man in his image, man images that social character as well. So here man is made in the image of God, male and female created he them. Now those considerations don't lead to women's liberation and all kinds of other conclusions that modern theologians want to draw from them. But I do think it shows us that we have to respect the equality of male and female as the image of God and also have a greater appreciation that God made us all for fellowship, both in the family and the church and society at large. Another implication of this teaching is that God made an original couple. If you have the Free Presbyterian publication of the Confession, turn to the larger catechism, question 17, which parallels our section for study tonight. Question 17 in the larger catechism says, How did God create man? After God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female, formed the body of the man of the dust of the ground and the woman of the rib of the man, endued them with living, reasonable and immortal souls, made them after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness and holiness, having the law of God written in their hearts and power to fulfill it and dominion over the creatures, yet subject to fall. And so there is a particular man made from the dust and a particular woman made from the rib of the man. And that means that if you hold strictly to the Westminster Confession of Faith, you cannot affirm an evolutionary origin for man. Because as you know, the doctrine of evolution would have many proto-humans. And there's no reason to think that at one generation what you have is popping forward from these proto-humans, the full human that is developed. The fact that there is one original couple indicates that God directly created the human race. And if you read the book of Genesis carefully, you'll see that that's demanded from a literary standpoint in the book of Genesis as well. There is a special engagement of the Triune Council when God creates man, which is unlike any other animal. Before man is created, God says, let us make man. There's a reference to the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Inter-Trinitarian Council, which is a special preface to the creation of man. And the Bible tells us that God created man, the first male, out of the dust of the ground. At this point, people who want to, they think, be friends of the Bible and reconcile it with science have a tendency to say, oh, isn't that a beautiful literary metaphor for evolution? God created man out of the dust of the ground. What you have is the primordial slime from which man eventually evolved by gradual stages of development. The problem is that the dust of the ground here cannot be interpreted as organic or living matter. Do you know why that is? Because also at the beginning of Genesis God says, from dust you came and to dust you shall return. So if from dust you came means evolution, to dust you shall return must mean devolution, right? That we don't really die, that in fact we just start degenerating down through the different lower animal species until we finally become primordial slime again. Well, so you got to play fair here. If you want to interpret the Bible on the one hand as allowing for evolution, given that language, then you have to allow equally for it to mean the other, and of course that's absurd. So there was an original couple, and those who are committed to the Westminster Confession of Faith must therefore, if they are consistent and logical, deny the doctrine of evolution. I have to be careful because now I might start ranting and raving and getting very depressed because the Presbyterian Church, which takes us as its doctrinal standard, has allowed for years men to compromise the doctrine of creation. Even some theistic evolutionists have become Presbyterians and even in our own denomination, although I think there's going to be an issue made of it, we face this problem. But I just want to point out for those who have been taught by me that if you hold to the confession, it's inconsistent to also hold to evolution. Now, we can move on from this to point out that evolution or not, the writers of the confession also deny the doctrine of primitivism. the idea that early man was something of a primitive, you know, in which you have, I mean, whether he evolved from lower animals or not, the point is man starts out as, you know, the kind of the ugg ugg caveman who one day gets burned by fire, you know, ooh, fire, burns, maybe we can cook with it, you know. I don't know why people ever believe this nonsense the anthropologists give them, but you know what I'm talking about? You have the cave dweller, you have the man who learned to make clothes, and then finally civilization develops. Well, that is not our view of man. It's not biblical, it's not confessional. After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male, and female with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge. righteousness and true holiness after his own image. So the original man from the biblical perspective was not primitive and then grew up to civilized man. From a Christian standpoint the original man was knowledgeable and righteous and good far more advanced than we are and we fell from that early glory when we decided to rebel against God. That's really quite a different view of human nature, quite a different view of the history of mankind. We see ourselves as wanting to get back to the garden, not in the sense of the hippie purity of Mother Earth. We want to get back to the garden because we want to be restored to that wonderful privilege and position that Adam had, and that was lost when he rebelled against God. We're told first of all that the first man was made with reasonable and immortal souls. And the proof is given in section E, Genesis 2-7. And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. It's always important on that verse to notice God did not give man a living soul, he became a living soul. I wonder if you can appreciate the distinction I'm drawing here. The word soul in Genesis 2.7 is not being used for the immaterial inside part of man. Notice that? God did breathe into him the breath of life. In that sense, God endued him with a special, if you will, private internal feature. But the word soul is not here used of that feature. Man becomes a living soul. He didn't have a dead soul, and God enlivened it. He became a living soul. Body, well, as the expression goes, body and soul. Body and soul together are here called living soul. Man became a living, animated creature, a soul. Ipsuche. Then Ecclesiastes 12.7 says, who gave it. We do know from the teaching of the Bible that when man's body dies, that man's personality does not. And that which is spirited about man, his spirit, can be said to go on to be apart from the body with God. Luke 23, 43, Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee today, shalt thou be with me in paradise. How does that prove that man was given an immortal soul? His body was going to die on the cross. What's that? That thief's body was going to die. He was going to physically die, and he would also live after that death though. Right. So Jesus says, though your body be dead, you will be with me in paradise. Matthew 10 28 fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul Rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell Now will the soul be obliterated then? The man's personality be destroyed We talked about killing the soul Destroying it in hell There are ways of ruining a thing without a knowledge. Right. And God's going to make man's personality experience hell forever. And in that sense it is destroying man's personality because this is not what he was made for. So by inference you work back to God made man with a soul that was intended to live forever with God and enjoy his presence. What does it mean that man was created with a reasonable soul? The ability to reason. Say what? The ability to reason. He has the ability to reason. Do animals have the ability to reason? Some say yes, some say no. Some animals that we've had seem to. Seem to? Think about what they're going to do when they die. Do you think we should have show and tell? Everyone can bring their pets and we can see how smart they are? Autumn, you said no. How come? I agree with you, by the way, over against the prevailing opinion about one's pets. You can train them, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can think on their own. I think we get into arguments here because we equivocate That is, we use words in two different ways. And so verbal disputes arise. Are animals reasonable? You mean, do they show any signs of intelligence? Where intelligence can be defined as a very low matter of, do they know to avoid danger? Can they remember that they're going to get a newspaper on the snout if they, you know, do the wrong thing? Well, yeah, animals have intelligence in that way that we don't see with carrots. Or if you do, I really would like you to bring back. But now, how might we understand reasonable, or in the expression reasonable soul, in a way that is unique to man? Do animals show higher intelligence? Higher than what? higher than what I just described about learning by conditioning, not to go to the bathroom in the house or else you'll get your snout whacked. They seem to have a little bit more ability than that. Well, higher intelligence, it seems to me, would be taking a principle that's supposed to be understood and applying it to something you've not learned. That is, extending knowledge is a sign of higher intelligence. Some animals make tools to get a job done. But they don't create industry, do they? They can make a tool to do a job. You can teach a parrot to imitate English words and sentences, right? Has anyone been able to teach a parrot to make up its own sentences with the words that it's been taught? No, that is to say the extension of intelligence, creativity if you will, is not found in the animal order, nor is advanced linguistic ability. Now I say advanced because people always love to talk about dolphins and Coco the gorilla and so forth. Maybe it's from where I'm coming, but when I hear these examples I always I was going to shake my head because this is so pathetic. These are supposed to be examples of something impressive. Yes, animals can be taught to use even symbols. Coco could look at a picture or even a word, I'm not sure which they did, and know that if that were the button pushed, then food or water or the kitten or whatever it is would be given to Coco. So yeah, one for one correspondence like that. Animals have intelligence. But do animals make up new sentences? Do they use language creatively? Can they extend the principles that apparently have been learned? They've gone in there and debunked that whole thing. They're saying that was a scam? Not a scam, but they were discarding so much information in their research that it was just all skewed. Because what I saw was that after they taught it a hundred and something concepts it would say come in and bring a banana with you or leave now and it would just have the symbol for leaving and coming and bring and it would start saying well the way they portrayed it was like you come in and bring food and all right now leave. It would have all these symbols for that. But again Dave even that's only in computer terminology a filing system. That's not interactive. So, I mean, yeah, so Coco could think of three commands at once. Come in, bring a banana, leave when you're done. But you see, it's all this symbol for that, this symbol for that, this symbol for that, and there's no interaction or creativity. It's just adding up the files of correspondences. The reasonableness of man's soul is something that you do not see in the animal domain. Man's linguistic ability, his reasoning ability, his creativity. And though you don't often hear this, let me just add for your interest, man's humor. See? Dolphins may speak to one another, but they don't tell jokes. Now he does do them. Yeah, because they laugh a lot at him, right? So there is something that's special about man because he's made in God's image. Now it's interesting, those very things that I point out about being unique, those things which are unique in man, you notice are very close to the divine nature itself. God the Father is a speaker. God created the world by what? Speaking. God the Son is called what in John the first chapter? The Word of God. And the Holy Spirit is the breath of God. God is a linguistic being. Now, I don't want to bring God down to the level of just common mundane linguistics, but you notice that God is a speaking God. And this is unusual. You look at the other religions of the world. The only religions of the world that have speaking gods are aping Christianity. They're all perversions of Christianity in one form or another. God is an impersonal principle God is, you know, the power of the natural order, all sorts of ideas of God, but the idea of a personal speaking God is Judeo-Christian. And man made in the image of this unique being also excels in linguistic reasoning or advanced intelligence abilities. Okay, so after God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls. This tells us about man's capability, if you will. If you use computer terminology, man has a certain programming ability. He's immortal, he's reasonable. But now the confession adds something about the substance of man's capability. Do you understand the difference? It's one thing to say that a saw has the ability to cut wood. It's another thing to say it cut that cedar board. The particular cedar board is not part of the definition of the saw's capability. Now, we've had man described in terms of his capability. He's reasonable. He's immortal. Specifically, though, he was endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness after God's own image. The proof text F below begins with Genesis 1.26. 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 over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. Colossians 3.10. And have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Renewed in knowledge after the image. So the image consists in knowledge. And then Ephesians 4.24 in that you put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. And so now the confession teaches us that man was created not simply capable of knowing things and being reasonable and not simply capable of making a moral decision and living forever with God. But man was created positively knowledgeable and positively righteous. And we want to distinguish this from the idea that man was created innocent. According to a line of theology running through Pelagianism And Arminianism, we have the view that man was created neutral as to his ethical state and he was innocent. He didn't have any blotches on his character or his record. And then man had to become righteous or become unrighteous depending on his free will. Is that familiar? That's why in later redemptive history, Pelagians, Arminians and others always want to make sure a man is left with a free will so that his salvation depends on him in some way. Of course, it's much worse in the Pelagian view, which a man is to imitate righteousness and do good things to be saved. The Arminian says there's nothing you can do except believe in Jesus, but apparently you're free to believe in Jesus and God doesn't decide how you're going to use your freedom and so forth. Well that all goes back to an original anthropology that says that God didn't decide that Adam and Eve would be positively righteous either. He left them free to become righteous or unrighteous. Now according to the Puritan or Reformed view of man, When we say that man was created positively righteous rather than just innocent or neutral, are we denying that man was created free? What's it say? It goes on to say that there was a possibility of transgressing because they were left to the liberty of their own will which was subject unto change. And so God created man righteous, but he did not create man unable to sin. So man is free to sin. He is capable of sinning. In our day, after man fell into sin, are men free to sin? Ah yes, that's why we have Mike here. You've got to watch out for Dr. Robinson. Okay, what am I tricking them into thinking? Well, men aren't free to choose sin in one sense, but in another sense they have to choose sin. So they have to choose some type of sin, but they don't have to choose any particular type of sin. Very good. So we want to say that men today are not free not to sin. but they are free to choose the sins that they perform. May I put that to you another way? I mean, repeat that. Men are not free not to sin. Every decision fallen man makes will be sinful. But he freely chooses the form of sin that he's going to engage in. Would it be correct to say that at the fall we lost the option of choosing to be right? Yes. We didn't lose the option. We lost the ability. And the option was always there. Now, but is it categorically true that all men after the fall are not free not to sin? No. Do you hear it? Not all men. Some men have been regenerated, haven't they? Don't feel bad, it's been a long day. So now, are Christians free not to sin? Yes they are. They're free to sin and they're free not to sin. So in that sense it's somewhat like Adam before the fall in that Adam could sin or Adam could choose not to sin. The difference is that Adam was a righteous man who had that ability. We are unrighteous men who have been regenerated and have this ability and we're working toward a higher glory. A day is coming, according to the Bible, when we will no longer be free to sin. Won't that be great? Does that mean we're working toward a day when we become robots? You know, a day where we will freely and always perfectly choose to do the right thing. David. Have you ever dealt with an Arminian telling them that in heaven you'll have this free will? Sure. Like they'd like to talk about, but you're not going to sin. How do they deal with that? Well, they have a hard time with it, and some, if they think long and hard, become consistent and say, well, I guess there's no eternal security even in heaven. Well if you're consistent you'd have to say men are either going to become robots and that's why they'll never sin or if they maintain their freedom then theoretically they could choose to sin and then they'd have to be thrown out of heaven. Now if they accept the idea that it's impossible to sin in heaven then couldn't God start out the whole program that way of creation? Sure. How do they deal with that going back to say, well, man had a free will to be a person and in a sense they need it? They don't deal with it, David. This destroys their system and you bring up the possibility of freely and infallibly doing what is right. Because if you grant that, then there goes their presupposition that freedom to do what is wrong is the precondition of integrity. Okay. Let's see if we can put this together in terms of man's freedom. Before the fall, man was free to sin. But he was positively righteous. After the fall, man became, he lost his freedom to do what is right. He's not free not to sin. At regeneration, we become free to do what is right again. but we're not positively righteous, we're not perfected yet, and the day is coming when we'll be perfected in holiness and we'll freely and always do the right thing. So is man's latter state, or his ultimate state, better than his created state? Sure. Right. And so I hope that that sends you home with a sense of awe and wonder that though men rebelled against God and destroyed that original purity, God in his plan is bringing us to a better and higher state than what Adam and Eve had. Because we're going to spend all eternity positively righteous and unable to sin and yet perfectly free in that. Can you explain then, as far as regenerate people, They can freely choose to sin or not to sin and yet we know that men cannot become perfectly righteous or we deny perfectionism. Is it true then that men even after regeneration, how do I want to put this, really do have to choose sin in some capacity or would you say they don't have to choose any particular sin but they do necessarily sin? Or just remove the modals of the can and the must type of thing? No, we want to say that theoretically, regenerate people could always do the right thing. But because they're dealing with the old man that's in them and the struggle of sanctification, they do in fact sin and the Bible assures us of that and that's why we say perfectionism is wrong. But it's not wrong in theory. If we all followed our regenerate nature perfectly and consistently, we'd never sin. But we know that won't happen until we're glorified and in the presence of God. We're going to get into the later state of man and the progress of salvation. But for tonight, what I want you to see is our view of man differ from all other religions and all other philosophies in the world. Our view of man is that he had a distinct beginning, that God created him not a primitive, but after his own image, in knowledge and righteousness, with a reasonable and immortal soul, and that nevertheless, man had the possibility of transgressing, as the Confession says. Yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject to change. Now, I think I've made clear to you what our doctrine is. This is going to confuse you a little bit. When the Puritans used the expression, the liberty of their own will, which was subject to change, they're not referring there to man's freedom, no matter what he does, or what we usually call free will. Here they're talking about the liberty of their own will, which is the righteous liberty that man had, his character as righteous made him free. Is man free after the fall? Well, you've already been taught we have to be careful. He's free in the sense that he chooses what he does. He's not free to do what pleases God. In that sense, man after the fall is not free but in bondage, right, as Luther said, the bondage of the will. It's in that sense that the writers of the Confession are saying that man was left to the liberty of his own will, which was subject to change. The free will that's affirmed in this sentence is the freedom to do what is right, the ability to do what is right, but that was subject to change. They could lose their ability to do what is right. And I think we can see that that's the way they're using this language if we compare chapter 9, section 3 of the confession. Chapter 9, section 3 says, Man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. Okay, so that ability of will to spiritual good I think is what's being referred to back here in chapter 4, and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will to do what is good, but which was subject unto change. Proof text below under I, Genesis 3.6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, 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 and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. Ecclesiastes 7.29, Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. It's always been a strange translation, I thought, to King James. They've sought out many devices, that is, ways to please themselves rather than God. They've found many ways to sin. Okay, I need to make a number of other points quickly here if we're going to finish tonight. The confession by teaching that all mankind comes from two original, non-primitive individuals who are made in the image of God implicitly condemns racism, doesn't it? They're not different kinds of human beings, but all stem from the original pair. And therefore, since the original pair were all that God meant them to be... See, if they had started out primitive, then you could say, well, one race of men developed faster than another, or is more civilized, or more intelligent, or whatever it may be. But all mankind stems from this original pair, so there's no room for racism within the reformed faith. There's no room for making women into chattel, into making them subordinate spiritually. Another observation, we sometimes say that man is made in the image of God. It's not unusual for people to think, well, man's spirit is in the image of God. so that part of man images God. But the biblical teaching is that man as a whole is God's image. The Bible doesn't speak of man having part of him be the image of God, but rather man is himself the image of God. So rather than trying to find the image of God in man, it would probably be more accurate to say man simply is God's image. Everything man is with a body images God who does not have a body. And our bodies, unlike the bodies of dolphins and Coco the gorilla, our bodies make moral decisions, have dominion over the animals and have reasonable souls, the ability of higher intelligence. Another element of the Puritan view of man, notice the stress put on the law of God. Now I realize some people say, well of course you'd say that Dr. Bonson, you theonomist, you. But I think if you're just doing an adequate exegetical job on the literature, the confession, that ought to catch your attention. There's no reason to mention the law of God this early, but you see already they're going to be thinking in terms of the Christian life, what man's obligation and guilt is before God, and so from the very beginning they make a statement that being made after God's image, man had the law of God written in his heart. It's plural actually, written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it. And they proved this from G. Romans 2.14 and 15. For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts. Somebody might object, well that passage of scripture, Romans 2, is not talking about man at creation. It's talking about sinful men. But you see, that strengthens the argument rather than weakens it, doesn't it? Because what Paul says is that even those who are outside of the circle of special revelation have the law of God written on their hearts. By nature, they have to reflect that ethical right and wrong, which the law speaks to us of. And so if man after the fall, apart from special revelation, has the law in his heart, how much more before the fall, before he rebelled against God, did he have that law written on his heart as well? And man not only had the law, they say he had the power to fulfill it. This sets us up later to be taught by the confession that when we are regenerated, one of the things regeneration brings is what? The power to keep the law. It's one of the great privileges of being a child of God. You can now do what your father wants you to do. You now have the power to keep your father's will, to obey the law of God. And that is a precious truth from a Puritan standpoint. It's really tragic, not just the theological debates and the divided fellowship to come with it over this theonomic issue. But from my standpoint, it's just tragic. People don't see that the law of God is, one, a great and glorious thing because it reflects God. But part of our great privilege as Christians is that we now have that power to keep it again. That's one of the things we should thank God for in salvation. We shouldn't be thanking him, oh, this is great. I'm no longer guilty. I can break the law and not worry about going to hell. We should rather say praise God that he's taken care of the penalty of hell and given me the ability now to do what is right. Well, I don't want to prolong this. I just want you to see that though it was not really strictly necessary, the Puritans have already set us up to think theologically in terms of the law of God as we come down the line. Now there's another sentence though. Not only did God give them the law, besides this law written in their hearts, he also issued a positive command to them. Why do we distinguish between the law of God in general and this positive command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge? The law is abiding and eternal for all men. That was a positive command applicable only to Adam and Eve, and actually to their posterity, given that they didn't fall, but it was not eternal. Here's what Mike is saying here. If I can put it to you in cash value, the nature of God required Adam and Eve to keep his law that was written in their hearts. That was not variable. It was not negotiable or discretionary. It isn't as though God could say, well, thou shalt not kill. That's a good law for Adam and Eve to keep. But thou shalt commit adultery is a pretty good law too. Oh, no, no, maybe thou shalt not commit adultery. You see, you don't have that variableness with respect to those laws because they reflect God's unchanging holiness. They're not negotiable. They're not arbitrary. But the positive command of God was not required by his ethical character. God did not have to say, don't eat of that tree. And that's why don't eat of the tree is not part of the law of conscience that all Gentiles have, whether they've come in contact with the Bible or not. You know, we don't come up to people that are in uncivilized, non-Christianized cultures and think, well, they know in their heart of hearts they're not supposed to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. No, that was a historic, particular instance, and the Puritans clearly differentiate that. Notice they even have a period, period, and then, besides this law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Was the law to not eat Was the prohibition of eating of that tree arbitrary? You've all been stung by my trick questions and now I've got you gun-shy. I want you all to be very firm in your theological commitment. Yes, it was arbitrary in the sense that it wasn't demanded by God's eternal righteous character. God could have said, don't swim in that river over there, right? Now, there are reasons. I'm not saying that God is just willy-nilly about things, but the point is, it's not required that God demand that they not eat of this tree. Was the tree poisonous? Is that why God said not to eat of it? No. I maintain it was just like any other tree. except for God's special intervention to set it apart, to consecrate it. He said, but of this tree you don't eat. And why did God give that command? Because it was a probation, it was a test of their obedience. Why is it called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Because their response to this tree was a reflection of how they would know good and evil. If they didn't eat of the tree, that tree typified their obedience and submission to God, that good and evil are determined by Him. If they did eat of the tree, it's because they had chosen to define good and evil for themselves. So the tree, you see, is the test, is then, typifies how they will know good and evil, what they will make of that. And so Satan tempts them at that very point, right? Eve says, well we can't eat of this tree because then we'll die. Satan says, you're not going to die. Don't you understand? God's trying to keep you from being like him. Listen to me closely. Satan was right. Not in the way he meant those words, but those words are correct. God didn't want Adam and Eve to try to become like him. Because God's the one who determines good and evil, right? So he said, don't you eat of that tree, and in that way you will respect my prerogatives. I'm sovereign. I determine good and evil, you don't. Your job is submission. And so, in that sense, Satan was right. God doesn't want you to be like him. And so, they ate. And they determined good and evil for themselves, and that is the source of all the misery. that we undergo in this life and our guilt before God and the threat of eternal damnation. The confession tells us at the end that while they kept this command, as long as they lived in submission to God's sovereignty as the one who determines good and evil, while they kept it they noticed two things. And it should break your heart to read these. If you stop in tenderness, think about this. As long as our first parents were in submission, they were happy in their communion with God and had dominion over the creatures. As long as man imaged God, he was in righteousness and submission to the law of God kept the probation. Man was the king over creation. He wasn't the ultimate king, he was a deputy under God who was the sovereign. But man was over all creation, he had dominion. And he didn't have to worry about the animals attacking him. He controlled all things for the glory of God. And he was happy. And that in itself ought to make us all long for the day when Adam and Eve knew happiness. And that's all they knew. Can you imagine that? I have days, I confess this not by way of whining, but I have days when I get real depressed, real unhappy with my life, I think things have gone badly and so forth. And I have to remind myself, God has given me moments of happiness and I don't deserve any of those. But can you imagine what it was like for them to not know anything but happiness? All the time? It's inconceivable to us. That's what Satan won for us in tempting our first parents. They were happy. Now notice the confession says happy in their communion with God. It wasn't a humanistic, selfish, autonomous happiness. It was true happiness, but it was happiness in fellowship with God. Not isolated from God or set apart from God. But by following God and knowing Him, they learned their true happiness. And it's dreadful that in the Bible, after the account of Adam and Eve eating of the tree, when God came in the cool of the evening and His voice was heard in the garden, they ran away. Now we all know what it is to run away from God because every day we're like that, we're ashamed of what we do. Can you imagine the dreadful, dramatic, crucial importance of the first time Adam and Eve realized, we've got to run, we're guilty. They were once happy in their communion with God and now communion with God had become a threat. We'll talk more about that as we go through the confession. obviously a very distinctive view of human nature given to us in the Westminster Confession. Man at creation is the image of God and yet free, happy in communion with God. And that's what we've lost by rebellion. And we've lost dominion over the animals as well. So that we can't fulfill what we are created to be, God's deputy on earth, God's deputies on earth. Well, questions before we end tonight? I know this is a confusion of apples and oranges, but what is the right way for us to think about ourselves and answer our Arminian friends when they say, well, you don't really believe that you're free not to sin, because God ordained, according to you, God ordained some sin. When Arminians say that we cannot be free not to sin because God has predestined that we sin, the answer is a version of what we say in general about free will and predestination. God predestines that I will freely choose to sin. That's why he holds me accountable for it rather than himself. Because he doesn't force me to do anything I don't want to do. He predestines that I will freely choose to sin. And then the Arminian will say, well that's impossible. God can't predestine that people freely do things, much less sin. then you turn to Acts the second chapter and Acts the fourth chapter and say that by his foreordination wicked hands crucified the Lord of Glory. They were wicked hands so they did what they wanted to do and God says you're accountable for that. He didn't force them against their will and yet what they did is everything that he had foreordained. The problem is that Arminians approached the Bible with a philosophy which is unbiblical. And then they do their best to fit in the teaching of the Bible to their philosophy. And I don't say that because we should be so proud. Well, we don't have that problem. Well, we all to some degree have that problem. But the difficulty with predestination and free will is created outside of the text of the Bible by a philosophical assumption that God can't predestine free acts. And then when you go to the Bible and you find those verses, everything gets kind of skewed. What do you do now? So, God predestined that I would gossip, let's say. But he predestined that I would choose to gossip, not that I'd end up doing it even though I'm doing everything. I don't want to say all these things and then I end up having those words come out of my mouth. I chose to say those words. The alternative would be defeating to the freedom of any action. You couldn't live that way if you didn't believe you were free. I can't pick up my Bible so as to write the kind of character that will not sin when the test comes. Well, many people say the only reason Calvinists act that way is because they don't know where God is predestined. So being ignorant of what he's chosen, then they have the illusion that they're choosing to do this and that and so forth. I've heard it, you know, people say, especially when they say non-Christians are not free to choose to be right. Well, they say, well, how come a lot of non-Christian people can still do good things? Well, we're going to talk more about man and sin in the confession, so I'll just give a brief answer right now. Unbelievers don't act as wickedly as they could because God, by his common grace, restrains them from doing so. If unbelievers were left to themselves, to be very clear about this, they wouldn't be able to survive. They wouldn't know to feed themselves. They wouldn't be able to get along with their neighbors. they would do nothing but wicked and self-destructive things. That they are sane and civilized and to some outward degree moral is only because God is gracious and he hasn't let the day of judgment come yet. But after the day of judgment, unbelievers are going to know nothing but hell because God's going to say, fine, now you are free to do all those things that you want to In that passage of God creating man in our image, us, how do Jewish people feel better or rabbis and so forth, the way that form is used, that us create man in our image? Nothing comes to my mind that I've studied specifically on that, so I'm speculating a bit here. I would imagine orthodox Judaism sees man being made in the image of God as pertaining to his dominion over the creation. Psalm 8 talks about man being made to have dominion over all things, and God is the sovereign and man is under him. But they probably see it, I'm saying probably, somewhat the way we do, that man is, like God, able to reason and to make moral decisions. What would you speculate on the dialogue there, God's talking to someone, let us make man our image, not including another person? The commentaries, the Jewish commentaries reflect on that, and sometimes it's taken as the plural of majesty. Writers, human writers, do the same thing. They say, well, we're not going to get into that right now. Well, who's the we here? You're the only one writing this book. But that is an accepted literary practice, to use the plural for the singular. Or it's sometimes thought that God is here speaking to the angelic host, let us make man in our image. Man is made a little lower than the angels, remember? Crowned with glory and honor. And so that's also a way that they have taken it. And they would say that the angels are created free of sin. They're a part of the human race. Yeah, but we don't get a definite word on the creation of angels in the Genesis account. Mike? What is the nature of the knowledge that was endued to our souls from that creation? Is that propositional? Is that... Like you said, that's not just the ability. That's actually they were functioning. Yeah, what I said is they have reasonable souls. That was their ability, their programming. But God also gave them data. He taught them. Well, he created them knowing things, like how to use language. Not just how to, that could be called programming, but they also knew vocabulary. God didn't have to start out with Adam saying, okay, ball, cat, dog, and so forth. He was created with knowledge, but particularly knowledge of God himself. I mean, Adam didn't have to sit there and think, now who is this being that's talking to me and what is my obligation? was created to know his maker and to respond in obedience to him. Doug? Dominion, prior to the fall over, land animals make sense to be sheep or wool or foxes or plowing. I have trouble visualizing what dominion over the earth, the fish means, or what dominion over the fowl means. You have a harder time visualizing dominion over the fish. Have you ever been to Sea World? Well, that's kind of a cheap illustration, but that does show that men can tame fish and use them for God's purposes. Dominion doesn't always mean that man is using the animal as an instrument. It may also mean that man understands the nature of this beast and how to respond to it. Like naming the animals, characterizing the animals, means to understand the lion and the giraffe and so forth and to properly characterize and know them. But the animals would have been subject to man. Communication? I don't know. I guess you'd have to say some kind of communication because if Adam wanted the lions to sleep tonight, he would have to tell them to sleep, I guess, right? Now the birds, we don't have so much. It takes a while for some people. That's what I was trying to do. The birds, we don't have something parallel to SeaWorld with the birds I guess. Parrots. That's probably as bad as the SeaWorld illustration, but it does show you that man is supposed to have some relationship to the birds where they are governed and so that they do what glorifies God and fits into man's plans. Even if you visualize getting rid of their fear or reticence toward man, it seems like that is a long way to picture it. Yeah, not only getting rid of the fear and reticence of animals, but how about getting rid of our being afraid of the animals? You know, before man fell into sin, it didn't have to worry about being attacked by killer bees. Which, by the way, are now in California. So, remember that as you drive home tonight. One more reason to wish we had not fallen into sin, because we'd have dominion over these bees. Okay, well, I think we're talked out. Thank you. When I turn off the tape recorder, remember, no more questions. Good night.