LESSON TWENTY-FIVE

THE CONDITION
OF MAN AFTER ADAM’S FALL

OUTLINE

1. The condition before God:
   1. Having sinned.
   2. Being under God’s judgment and condemnation.
   3. Being under God’s wrath.
   4. To suffer death and judgment.
   5. To perish in the lake of fire.
2. The condition in himself:
   1. Being brought forth in iniquity.
   2. Being constituted of sin.
   3. The heart being deceitful above all things.
   4. Nothing good dwelling in the flesh.
   5. Being an enemy of God.
   6. Disapproving of holding God in his knowledge.
   7. Being lost and having gone astray.
   8. Being dead in offenses and sins.
   9. Being a slave of sin.
   10. Having no hope in the world and to die ultimately in sins.
3. The condition under Satan’s hand:
   1. Being a child of the Devil.
   2. Obeying the ruler of the authority of the air.
   3. The mind being blinded by the god of this age.
   4. Lying under the hand of the evil one.
   5. Being under Satan’s authority of darkness.
   6. To enter into the eternal fire prepared for Satan.

TEXT

Beginning with this lesson we enter into another section of the Truth Lessons. We will use twenty-four lessons to focus on the initial stage of God’s full salvation, the stage of regeneration. In this first lesson we will see the condition of man after Adam’s fall and before man receives God’s salvation. Man’s condition reveals his need for salvation.

After the fall and before receiving salvation, man’s condition before God, in himself, and under Satan’s hand is exceedingly pitiful and tragic.

I. THE CONDITION BEFORE GOD

A. Having Sinned

The first condition of man before God is that man has sinned and is sinful (Rom. 3:23, 10-12; 5:12). The sinfulness of man before God is in two aspects: positional and experiential. Positionally speaking, because men are descendants of Adam, who was the head of the human race and who represented all mankind, when Adam sinned, men were brought into a sinful position before God. Furthermore, because Adam was the forefather of mankind, out of whom came the whole human race (Acts 17:26a), he not only represented but also included the whole human race when he sinned. Therefore, when he sinned, all the descendants who would be born of him sinned together with him and in him. Through one person’s sinning, all the descendants of this one committed sin in him (cf. Heb. 7:9-10).

Men are sinful before God also from the standpoint of experience. Who has never sinned? Who has clean hands and a pure heart and has no experience of sin? No one can avoid lying, stealing, coveting, and filthy thinking. Because men are in a sinful position, they fall into sinful experiences; these sinful experiences of men prove that men are in a sinful position. Hence, whether in position or in experience, man is sinful.

B. Being under God’s Judgment
and Condemnation

Because men have sinned, they are under the judgment of God (Rom. 3:19). God is righteous, and He is the One who established the law; but men are sinful and commit sins. Therefore, according to God’s righteousness and God’s law, God must judge sinners. Hence, God’s righteousness and God’s law have subjected all the world to the judgment of God.

Today men are not only under God’s judgment, but they have been condemned already before God (John 3:18). Whether they know it or not, whether they sense it or not, men have been condemned already before God. People do not need to wait to be judged and then condemned by God. They were condemned before God long ago. When Adam sinned and was condemned by God, all men were condemned in him through his one offense (Rom. 5:18a). Today all men are already condemned sinners at the very moment of their birth.