January 31

Read: Genesis 1:27; 2:16-17; 3:6

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him (Genesis 1:27).

The Origin Of Inherited Sin

As our first parents came from the hand of the Creator they were like God in their attitudes toward right and wrong.

God endowed them with a quality of spirit which inclined them to goodness. This ready and glad conformity to the divine will is clearly reflected in Eve’s spontaneous reaction to Satan’s suggestion that God was stingy and unfair.

Moffatt translates Satan’s approach in Genesis 3:1 thus:

“And so God has said that you are not to eat from any tree in the park?” At once the woman’s natural impulse for truth and her inherent loyalty to God showed themselves in her reply. “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden [God has given us plenty]. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden [just that one tree], God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it.”

In spite of man’s original inclination to righteousness, God had planned that holy living must be the result of man’s own free choice. Satan came to our first parents with a subtle temptation and they chose evil. They weighed the known will of their Creator against the suggestion of Satan and turned away from God. The seed of human sin was sown with that choice; we are still reaping the tragic harvest.

What was true in the Garden of Eden is equally true today. No state of grace puts us in the place where our choices become unreal. In the experience of entire sanctification God graciously restores this blessing of an inward inclination to holy living. But not even for righteousness will God debase our essential human dignity by canceling our power of choice.

Thought For Today

Our choices are the hinges upon which the doors of destiny swing.