Brad Alles

If humans’ purpose is to glorify God through using our talents and gifts in all we do, is the murderer glorifying God? Of course not. As stated earlier, when God made Adam and Eve, they were deemed “very good,” along with all creation. Yet that’s not exactly how you would describe the world today! What happened? To understand our planet, we need to realize the nature of humans. Our true nature is not good or basically neutral, as people in all other worldviews other than Christianity contend. Just look around. Do you lock your doors at night? That should tell you immediately what our nature is—sinful.

The Fall into sin was mentioned earlier as well. The change in human nature from “very good” to “sinful” occurred when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a tree that they were prohibited from eating since it would lead to their death (Genesis 3:1-7). Why would Adam and Eve eat from a tree that they were told to avoid? Because they exercised their free will and chose to go against God’s expressed will.

God gave Adam and Eve the dignity of free will. They could choose to obey God or not. Genesis 2:16-17 says, “And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’”  Adam and Eve choose to disobey, and from then on, the nature of man became sinful.  That is our true nature–not good, but sinful.  The cable news, headlines, and our locked doors display this truth daily.