Our first parents being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit.1 This their sin, God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.2
II. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness, and communion with God,3 and so became dead in sin,4 and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.56
Exposition of 6.2
This section points out the consequences of the sin of our first parents, in regard to themselves. They “fell from their original righteousness,” and became wholly corrupted in all the faculties of their souls and members of their bodies. The understanding, once a lamp of light, was now overwhelmed in darkness. The will, once faithful for God, and regulated by his will, now became perverse and rebellious. The affections, once pure and regular, now became vitiated and disordered. The body, too, was corrupted, and its members became instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. Our first parents likewise lost the happiness which they had formerly possessed. They were expelled from that pleasant and delightful abode in which God had placed them, the ground was cursed with barrenness for their sake, they were doomed to lead a life of toil and sorrow, and at last to return to the earth from which they were taken. But this was the least part of the misery into which they fell. They lost communion with God, the chief good; they forfeited his favour, and incurred his righteous displeasure. They became dead in sin—obnoxious to that death which is the wages of sin, and which had been threatened as the penalty of their disobedience. “In the day thou eatest thereof,” said God, “thou shalt surely die.” This threatening included temporal death, consisting in the dissolution of the union between the soul and the body, spiritual death, consisting in the loss of the favour and the image of God; and eternal death, consisting in the everlasting separation of both soul and body from God. The very day in which our first parents sinned, the sentence of death, though not immediately executed in its fullest extent, began to lay hold upon them. They became mortal, and were exposed to the disorders of a vitiated constitution; the principle of spiritual life was extinguished in their souls, and they were bound over to eternal wrath; and, had not a Mediator been provided, not only would they have returned to the dust, but they would have been “punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.”
Shaw, Robert. 1845. The Reformed Faith: An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Christian Focus.
Gen. 3:13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. 2 Cor. 11:3. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Rom. 11:32. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
Gen. 3:6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and 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 eat; and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. Ver. 7. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked: and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons. Ver. 8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. Eccl. 7:29. Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions. Rom. 3:23. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
Gen. 2:17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Eph. 2:1. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.
Tit. 1:15. Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. Gen. 6:5. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Jer. 17:9. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? Rom. 3:10. As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: Ver. 11. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God: Ver. 12. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Ver. 13. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Ver. 14. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Ver. 15. Their feet are swift to shed blood: Ver. 16. Destruction and misery are in their ways: Ver. 17. And the way of peace have they not known: Ver. 18. There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Westminster Assembly. 1851. The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition. Philadelphia: William S. Young.
Thank you Jason for all your hard work. I am really enjoying the articles that you post!