Annual Spiritual Checkup
As an extra resource, we encourage you to read this piece by The C.S. Lewis Institute called "What God Wants from You." The C.S. Lewis Institute writes: "Each year many of us will go through a physical checkup, perhaps do a financial checkup at year's end or at tax time, and perhaps do a performance review at our workplace. But how often do we take time to review our spiritual life?" As the third in a series of "spiritual checkup" topics, this piece on giving ourselves fully to God reminds us to ask ourselves, "Who do we follow? Who do we serve? Who do we love?" Are you setting out on your own journey to find yourself, or are you living in true relationship with your Maker? Let's examine our spiritual lives and prayerfully seek God's help and growth in the New Year. Read the article HERE.
Discussion Questions
““I wonder if you’ve discerned the difference between a desire of the flesh and a craving of the righteous heart ... Your heart is made for righteousness the way a fish is made for water ... You will never be happy and you will never be truly human if you’re not cultivating the sacred heart of Jesus Christ.””
GENERAL BIBLE STUDY
The following questions are meant to facilitate a study of the passage. These questions are optional.
Observation - What does it say? When you hear and read this passage what do you observe? What do you see that particularly catches your attention or strikes you?
Interpretation - What does it mean? What is the importance of the Doctrine of Humanity? In the epic sweep of God’s eternal, redemptive story, why does the Doctrine of Humanity matter?
Application - What does it mean to you? What, if anything, about the Doctrine of the Humanity, challenges or deepens your understanding of your faith or your relationship with God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
THE DOCTRINE OF HUMANITY (excerpts from To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism*)
What is the human condition? “Though created good and made for fellowship with our Creator, humanity has been cut off from God by self-centered rebellion against him, leading to lawless living, guilt, shame, death, and the fear of judgment. This is the state of sin.” (Genesis 3:1–13; Psalm 14:1–3; Matthew 15:10–20; Romans 1:18–23; 3:9–23)
How does sin affect you? “Sin alienates me from God, my neighbor, God’s good creation, and myself. Apart from Christ, I am hopeless, guilty, lost, helpless, and walking in the way of death.” (Genesis 3:14–19; Psalm 38; Isaiah 53:6; 59:1–2; Romans 6:20–23)
What is the way of death? “The way of death is a life without God’s love and Holy Spirit, a life controlled by things that cannot bring me eternal joy, leading only to darkness, misery, and eternal condemnation.” (Genesis 2:16–17; Deuteronomy 28:15–19; Proverbs 14:12; John 8:34; Romans 1:24–25)
Can you save yourself from the way of sin and death? “No. I have no power to save myself, for sin has corrupted my conscience, confused my mind, and captured my will. Only God can save me.” (Psalm 33:13–19; Isaiah 43:8–13; John 3:1–8; Ephesians 2:1–9)**
ROMANS 5:12-21 (excerpts from Romans: God’s Good News for the World)**
Introduction - In Romans 5:1-11, Paul introduces two communities, “one characterized by sin and guilt, the other by grace and faith. Anticipating verses 12-21 a little, we may say that the former is in Adam and the latter in Christ.”
Section 1 (Romans 5:12-14, Adam and Christ Introduced) - In this section Adam and Christ are introduced - “Adam as responsible for sin and death, and as a ‘pattern of the one to come’ (Romans 5:14) who is Christ.” Here “Paul describes three downward steps or deteriorating stages in human history, from one man sinning to all men dying.” Sin entered the world through one man, Adam. Death then entered the world through sin. In this way, death came to all men, because all sinned. We take this to mean all sinned in and with Adam. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, “God has always dealt with mankind through a head and representative. The whole story of the human race can be summed up in terms of what has happened because of Adam, and what has happened and will yet happen because of Christ.”
Section 2 (Romans 5:15-17, Adam and Christ Contrasted) - In this section, Adam and Christ are contrasted. “In each of these three verses, the work of Christ is said to be either ‘not like’ Adam’s or ‘much more’ successful than his.”
Section 3 (Romans 5:18-21, Adam and Christ Compared) - In this section, Adam and Christ are compared. The language is “just as . . . so also.” “For through the one man’s one deed (Adam’s disobedience or Christ’s obedience), the many have been either cursed or blessed.”
REFLECTION
Are humans inherently good or evil? How would you answer this question? Why? [a]
Paul describes Adam as “a type of the one who was to come” (Romans 5:14). What did he mean?
In his book The Last Adam: A Theology of the Obedient Life of Jesus in the Gospels, Brandow Crowe writes, “Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels as the last Adam whose obedience is necessary for God’s people to experience the blessings of salvation.” [b] Consider Jesus. How is he similar to Adam? How does he differ from Adam?
Martin Luther exhorted a man distressed about his sin, “Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him and say - Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You took on what was mine; you set on me what was yours. You became what you were not that I might become what I was not.” (See 2 Corinthians 5:21.) What does this mean to you?
In his book Revolution Within: A Fresh Look at Supernatural Living, Dwight Edwards writes, “With God’s gift of purity, not only is something infinitely negative - sin’s penalty and guilt before God - now taken away, but something infinitely more positive is added: We’re permanently clothed in bestowed righteousness.” [d] Edwards continues, “As believers, we’re more than forgiven sinners; we’re saints decked out in the finest wardrobe heaven has to offer.” Because of Jesus’ mercy and grace, you are made righteous. You are not a sinner but a saint who sins. Does this feel true in your life? Why or why not?
In his letter to Timothy Paul states, “But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5 NASB). If this is the goal of our instruction, does understanding how Jesus addressed the Doctrine of Humanity better equip you to “love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith?”
Closing Prayer for Mission
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the Cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.
Sources:
*To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), pages 23-24.
**Stott, John, Romans: God’s Good News for the World, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 148-153.
[a] Augustine writes, “Human nature was certainly originally created blameless and without any fault; but the human nature by which each one of us is now born of Adam requires a physician, because it is not healthy.” McGrath, Alister E., The Christian Theology Reader, 4th Edition, (Chichester West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) 352
[b] Crowe, Brandon C., The Last Adam: A Theology of the Obedient Life of Jesus in the Gospels, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 2
[c] Packer, J. I., Growing In Christ, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994), 80
[d] Edwards, Dwight, Revolution Within: A Fresh Look at Supernatural Living, (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2001), 62
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
Banner: “The Creation of Adam,” 12th century mosaic, Monreale Cathedral, Sicily