Chapter 6: Of The Fall Of Man, Of Sin, And Of The Punishment Thereof.

Understanding The Westminister Confession of Faith Chapter 6:
Of The Fall OF Man, Of Sin, And Of The Punishment Thereof.

All Bible-believing evangelical Christians are agreed that we have an eternally true account of the way sin came into the world in the Genesis 3 story of the fall of Adam. The essential thought of this narrative is that both Adam and Eve disobeyed an express command of God not to eat the fruit of a particular tree in the Garden.

God said that disobedience would bring death. The tempter working on the woman by the method of the half truth urged that disobedience would not bring death, implying that the command of God had meant that death would immediately follow the eating of the forbidden fruit. Our first parents were fooled, and the rest, like they say, is history.

From this we can see that the central idea of sin is the wilful disobedience to the law of God. The apostle John tells us that those who sin are practising “lawlessness” for sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). So, a simple definition of sin is: it is a transgression of the law.

Sin is an act - and from the very beginning it has been known that acts have effects - not only in the outward world of things and persons, but also upon him who commits the act.

The 6th chapter of the WCF teaches us that our first parents “fell” from their original righteousness and communion with God. And because they are the “root of all mankind”, the guilt of their sin is “imputed...to all their posterity”. From “this original corruption” we are now “indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” This chapter further goes to point out that subsequently, our “actual transgressions” flow out of this original corruption.

On this corruption of nature, the WCH states that it remains during this life in those that are regenerated. That is, it remains even in thosse who are saved. In other words, our nature and all its inclinations (the WCF calls it “motions”) are “truly and preperly sin” although we are by grace through faith in Christ pardoned and saved.

On the punishment of this disobedience, the language of the article in WCF is so apt and beautiful that it is best to quote it fully for you. The article says, “Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt and upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and eternal.”

By His grace and mercy we are spared the “wrath of God and the curse of the law.” Let us therefore, emulate the desire of David the psalmist to “publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all [His] wondrous works.” (Psalm 26:7)

In Christ,
Rev Robert Chew