But God did not create man like a robot who would automatically love and have fellowship with Him in return. He gave man a will and the freedom of choice.
Man can choose to keep God’s commandments or he can live his life apart from God. Man chose to disobey God and go our own willful way. We still make this choice today. This resulted in a separation between God and man. God is completely holy and perfect, while man is sinful and imperfect.
The Bible says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6).
People continue to go their own way today. And this applies to all men.(“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.†Romans 3:23)
Each one of us is guilty. All of us have made decisions and done actions and had thoughts that were contrary to what God desires. We have been like wandering sheep.
The result of turning away from God and doing things that are displeasing to God is spiritual death …. eternal death.
The Bible also says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23). For now we will just look at the first half of this verse. Paul states here that the consequences or payment we receive in return for our sins is eternal death. So you can see that on man’s s side we have eternal death, and on God’s side there is eternal life. The last part of this verse talks about the free gift of God being eternal life, and that will become clearer as we develop this diagram. For now, we seem to be stuck on the death side.
So you can see that on man’s side we have sinned, and the penalty of those sins is eternal death. Also we see that the consequences of our sins is for us to face the judgment of Cod. This gives a pretty dismal picture of our situation on this side of the chasm that separates us from God.
“…your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.†(Isaiah 59:2)
On our own, there’s no way we can attain the perfection needed to bridge the gap to God. Through the ages, individuals have tried many ways…without success.
Good works won’t do it…or religion…or money…or morality…or philosophy…
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.†(Proverbs 14:12)
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