THE BIBLICAL GOSPEL: God’s Glory & Man’s Rebellion

Romans 10:17

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”

“For thus says Yahweh, who created the heavens He is the God, who formed the earth and made it; He established it and did not create it a formless place, but formed it to be inhabited:

“I am Yahweh, and there is none else.

I have not spoken in secret,

In some dark land;

I did not say to the seed of Jacob,

‘Seek Me in a formless place’;

I, Yahweh, speak righteousness,

Declaring things that are upright.

Gather yourselves and come;

Draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations;

They do not know,

Who carry about their graven image of wood

And pray to a god who cannot save.

Declare and draw near with your case;

Indeed, let them consult together.

Who has made this heard from of old?

Who has long since declared it?

Is it not I, Yahweh?

And there is no other God besides Me,

A righteous God and a Savior;

There is none except Me.

Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth;

For I am God, and there is no other.

I have sworn by Myself,

The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness

And will not turn back,

That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.

They will say of Me, ‘Only in Yahweh are righteousness and strength.’

Men will come to Him,

And all who were angry at Him will be put to shame.

In Yahweh all the seed of Israel

Will be justified and will boast.”

—Isaiah 45:18-25.

GOD’S PERSON: GOD IS CREATOR, SOVEREIGN, LORD

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). God is Creator. God is “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15). God is Lord over His creation and His creation belongs to Him: “The earth is YHWH’s, as well as its fullness, the world, and those who dwell in it” (Psalm 24:1). God has supreme and absolute sovereign control of everything and He always has and He always will: “And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17); “and upholds all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). “Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17). 1 Timothy 6:15.

God is perfectly, absolutely good: “You are good and do good” (Psalm 119:68). “Good and upright is Yahweh; therefore He instructs sinners in the way” (Psalm 25:8). “Yahweh is good to all, and His compassions are over all His works” (Psalm 145:9). “And a ruler questioned Him, saying, ‘Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone’” (Luke 18:18-19). Because God is good, He created everything very good: “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

God has created everything for His glory: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36). “For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16). “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (Jude 24-25).  “‘Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created’” (Revelation 4:11). God will give His glory to no other:

“‘I am Yahweh, that is My name;

I will not give My glory to another,

Nor My praise to graven images’” (Isaiah 42:8).

MAN’S REBELLION AGAINST GOD

God created man in His image so that man would function as God’s vassal-king on the earth; so that man, bearing God’s image, would represent Him and have dominion over the earth: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, so that they will have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’” God created man and all His creation very good; seven times does Genesis 1 say that God saw that what He had made was good (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31), and the last time “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). It was without sin, death, or the curse; it was a glorious state where God dwelt among men (Genesis 3:8).

But man rebelled and sinned against God in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-7). “See, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices” (Ecclesiastes 7:29). Therefore God pronounced the curse so that there is now pain, toil, and death in a cursed creation (Genesis 3:14-19). When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, they died spiritually: “And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may surely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die’” (Genesis 2:16-17). “Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, so she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings” (Genesis 3:6-7).

As a result of Adam’s sin, sin entered the world: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—” (Romans 5:12). And, “For as through the one man’s disobedience” [Adam] “the many were appointed sinners, even so through the obedience of the One” [Jesus the Son of God] “the many will be appointed righteous” (Romans 5:19). Because of Adam’s sin in the Garden, all mankind is now a race of sinners: “for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin” (Romans 3:9).

Psalm 14:3 says, “There is no one who does good, not even one”. Mankind is completely and thoroughly wicked and depraved. Because of Adam’s fall in the Garden mankind is conceived in sin, everyone is born into this world a sinner against the holy God: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). “‘What is man, that he should be pure, or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?” (Job 15:14). Man is “abominable and corrupt”, man “drinks unrighteousness like water!” (Job 15:16). “How then can mortal man be right with God? Or how can he be pure who is born of woman?” (Job 25:4). “For the wicked boasts of his soul’s desire, and the greedy man curses and spurns Yahweh. / The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek Him. All his thoughts are, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 10:3-4). “The wicked are estranged from the womb; these who speak falsehood wander in error from birth” (Psalm 58:3). Also Genesis 8:21, 1 Kings 8:46, Ecclesiastes 7:20.

All mankind is born into this world spiritually dead: “But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many” (Romans 5:15). “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh are not able to please God” (Romans 8:6-8). “And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (Ephesians 2:1-3). “Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness” (Ephesians 4:17-19). “And you being dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive with Him, having graciously forgiven us all our transgressions” (Colossians 2:13). “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. The one who does not love abides in death” (1 John 3:14). “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have that life” (1 John 5:12).

Man is absolutely without excuse for their rebellion against God because man rejects and hates and blasphemes God who has created him: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

“Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions; for their females exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the males abandoned the natural function of the female and burned in their desire toward one another, males with males committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to an unfit mind, to do those things which are not proper, having been filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the righteous requirement of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:18-32).

All the world is accountable to God: “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are in the Law, so that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rm 3:19-20). The Law reveals man’s sin because man cannot keep God’s law, man breaks it and sins against God continually. And this is God’s purpose in giving it: to show that man cannot obey and be righteous, to reveal sin. “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse, for it is written, ‘cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to do them.’ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident, for ‘the righteous shall live by faith’” (Galatians 3:10-11). “Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed be by law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were held in custody under the Law, being shut up for the coming faith to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor unto Christ, so that we may be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:21-24). “But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and godless, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for sexually immoral persons, for homosexuals, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted” (1 Timothy 1:8-11).

“What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! Rather, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law. For I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, ‘you shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, worked out in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the Law sin is dead. Now I was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died; and this commandment, which was to lead to life, was found to lead to death for me. For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:7-12).

Man in his natural state does not want to come to God, to be reconciled and in fellowship with God; man does not want to repent of their sins, to believe in God for forgiveness of sins: “‘And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light lest his deeds be exposed’” (John 3:19-20). “and although they know the righteous requirement of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:32).