Mankind

Remarkable advances in science have led to the cure of such dreaded diseases as polio and tuberculosis. But, because much of the disease and illness people experience is caused by sin and by ignoring principles of healthy living, there will never be a cure for all disease until Satan’s power is done away with.

Our bodies are only a part of what makes us human beings. We also have souls and spirits (see I Thessalonians 5:23). The body is the physical part of our nature. The soul corresponds to the mind. The spirit is that part of us that sets us apart from the animals, that stamps upon us the image of God. The spirit is the part of us that yearns for communion with God. If the spirit in us is not in tune with God, then you do not have access to the source of healing. If you lived in the perfect presence of God, there could be neither sickness nor death. There would not be infection or disease because such things cannot exist in the presence of God.

Some disease is caused directly by sin. Much sickness is the result of deep-rooted bitterness and uncontrolled stress. When people refuse to forgive or when they let themselves be “stressed out” by the pressures the world puts on them, that frequently leads to sickness. Those who live harried and hurried lives frequently develop ulcers, arthritis, high blood pressure, asthma, and similar ailments. Alcohol and cigarettes are also great contributors to disease because they weaken the human body.

Another reason for disease is that much of the food we eat contains poison and unhealthy additives. Sugar and salt and white flour and other harmful substances weaken our bodies when used in excess. We do not get enough of the natural nutrients we should have. We try to milk too much out of our land, and, in doing so, we wind up damaging the crops we grow for food. When we eat what is contaminated, our bodies are harmed also.

There will never be a decrease in diseases until people learn to eat properly, exercise properly, treat their bodies properly, and stop ingesting chemicals and other foreign substances that hurt their bodies. Nor will disease decrease while people continue polluting the water and air with carcinogens and fighting wars that destroy vegetation, uproot whole nations, and bring about famine. All these things are contributors to disease–and disease, because of infection and contagion, has a way of growing.

Sickness and disease will be a part of life on this planet until Jesus comes back. When He comes, He will set things properly in order, and there will be no more sickness and no more death. That is the promise we have from God. In Revelation 22:2, we are told that the heavenly city of New Jerusalem will contain a tree whose leaves “were for the healing of the nations.” We are reminded in Revelation 21:4 that when we dwell in the presence of God, “There will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Man, through his own efforts, will never find a cure for all diseases. But Jesus, when He returns to earth, will do away with disease and sickness forever.

Original sin is a theological term that goes back to the fall of man. As I said before, man was created in God’s image, righteous and free. He was a free moral agent, freely able to choose God or turn away from Him. By eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he did the one thing he was asked not to do. Breaking God’s one commandment to him was sin. At that point he was driven from the Garden of Eden and cut off from the tree of life (see Genesis 3:2-24).

From that moment on, the spirit of man was damaged. It is as if man is now born with a moral handicap. He is lame in the most important part of his being–his spirit.

That is original sin. The Bible says, “They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies” (Psalm 58:3). There is a rebellious nature in most children. They just like to do whatever you tell them not to do. This natural rebellion stems from man’s original sin. Instead of being morally free, man has a decided tendency toward sin–urged on toward evil by what is called “the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

Only those who come to Jesus can be rid of this tendency. That is the whole concept of being born again. Our spirits are re-created. Our spirits are now joined with God’s Spirit, and we have the ability to live a godly, holy life in Jesus Christ. On our own, we simply cannot do it. The apostle Paul says, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death” (Romans 7:24)? He says, the thing that I want to do, I cannot do. The good I would do, I cannot do, whereas evil lies close at hand (see Romans 7:15-20).

Paul struggled against his fallen nature until he realized that “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). He also said, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). The renewal and change in Jesus Christ can free people from the bondage of original sin.

We should keep in mind that original sin is a tendency to do evil, not an act of evil. Guilt comes when we commit acts of evil. There is no such thing as “original guilt.” God does not punish people for tendencies, only for what they do in light of what they know. Therefore, little babies do not go to hell because of original sin, because babies have never committed any sinful acts.

According to the book of Genesis, the races all came from Noah. The human race started with Adam and Eve and grew evil very quickly. Pretty soon, “Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). When God looked at the earth He saw violence. The earth had become a terrible place to live, because lust for self-preservation had grown so strong that in order to eat and find a mate and protect their families, men were killing each other. So God said He was going to destroy all the people and start a new race with Noah and his sons
(see Genesis 6:7-8).

God did this by bringing a great flood upon the earth. After the flood there were Noah and his wife and their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives.

Ham became the father of the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, and the other black races, as well as the Canaanites who once lived in the land now occupied by Israel.

Japheth was the father of the Greeks, the people who lived in the islands of the sea and who settled Europe and Russia.

Shem was the father of the Semitic people–the Jews, Arabs, and Persians.

We believe it is real. It is as good an explanation of what happened as there could be. The word Adam means “red” or “of the earth.” It also is a generic term for man. It does not offend my reason to think there was one original couple that God made, and that from this couple came all the other people on the earth. Nor would my faith be shattered if one day I learned that this story was an allegorical description of God’s creation of man.

These original humans were not subhuman or Neanderthal creatures. They were beautiful human beings, created in the image of God, with tremendous intelligence and ability. If man has gone away from that, he has gone down instead of up.

Some people may ask where the Garden of Eden was. The Bible says that it was to the east (of Israel) and mentions four rivers relative to it: The Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates (see Genesis 2:10-14). These meager references would place the garden somewhere around modern Iraq or possibly northern Syria.

Ancient Chinese culture may refer to Eden. The written Chinese language symbol for west means two people in a garden. This character dates back at least three thousand years. If a Chinese person were asked to explain the word west, he would have to say, “Well, that is where two people lived in a garden.” The existence of this remarkable symbol would indicate a pre-Christian tradition that the people who populated China came from the west, perhaps someplace in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, and that the early Chinese ancestors were familiar with the story of the first couple living in a garden–possibly the Garden of Eden.

Man was created in God’s image and has a spirit, which the Bible often speaks of as the heart (see Romans 10:10). He has a soul, which is essentially his sense of self, the center of which would be the mind. And he has a body, which holds it all together. Human beings are made up of body, soul, and spirit. God intended that the spirit of man be continuously in touch with the Spirit of God. The spirit, in turn, is supposed to radiate through the mind and the body to the outside world.

The problem we are facing today is that most people are directed instead by external stimuli that come to us through the bodily senses. So the body begins to be the controlling factor through gluttony, sex, pride, or whatever. Because the body controls the soul, the soul is able to conceive of schemes to make the body happy. And the end result is that the spirit of man is submerged by selfishness.

The spirit of the first man was like a mirror, reflecting the glory of God. He had the imago dei, “the image of God,” clearly within him. Because God was personally revealed to him, God’s way was uppermost. But when man sinned, his inner mirror was clouded or darkened. He could no longer see God clearly. As a result, instead of being directed by God’s Spirit, people are manipulated by their bodies or their minds toward evil. In Genesis we read, “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21).

When man was created, he had the capacity to serve God, and doing that came naturally because he was in the presence of God. As long as man’s spirit functions as it should, serving God is natural, so man tends toward good. But once he is removed from God, self-preservation becomes more important; and man will kill, lie, cheat, and hurt others in order to preserve his self-esteem, his self-image, and his life. Humans have a tremendous capacity for good or evil because they are made in the image of God. Man can do more good, but also more damage, than any animal because man has a godlike capacity.

Theologians have a saying that Adam in the Garden of Eden was posse non peccare (able not to sin), and if he had continued in that, he would have come to the point where he was non posse peccare (not able to sin). He would have become so established in righteousness that he would not have been able to sin. From then on he would have been transformed to ever higher righteousness. But instead, he fell, and as a result became evil. That is why Jesus said that every man or woman had to be born from above, or “born again,” in order to see God’s kingdom (see John 3:3).

Man’s spirit has to be restored by being cleansed from sin by Jesus Christ, then created anew by operation of God’s Spirit. With his own spirit under the control of God’s Spirit, the remainder of man’s being–soul and body–would be controlled from within instead of from without.