Counsel #2 — The Fall’s Consequences

Picture: Counsel #2 — The Fall’s ConsequencesCCW 63.1

Many people think justification isn’t important. A brief survey of world religions demonstrates that people generally believe that we can and should reform ourselves to become righteous. Some Christians also feel this way and suggest that legal justification is a form of “fiction.” But this view doesn’t take The Fall into account. When Adam and Eve sinned, there were a series of consequences. One of these consequences was a change in human nature. Before The Fall humans were able to automatically think and choose righteous things. But after The Fall, human nature became depraved—became immoral and wicked. We are incapable of making ourselves righteous. The only way for God to bring us back into a right standing with Him is for Him to pardon us.^{[85]https://ssnet.org/blog/monday-consequences-of-fall/}CCW 63.2

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…” Romans 5:12 NKJVCCW 63.3

“Adam was endowed with a nature pure and sinless, but he fell because he listened to the suggestions of the enemy. His posterity became depraved; by one man's disobedience many were made sinners.” Ellen White in The Youth’s Instructor, June 2, 1898, par. 4CCW 63.4

Reflect: How does your view of human nature and our inability to make ourselves righteous inform your understanding of how to be saved?CCW 63.5