Lesson 1

When Adam and Eve sinned, they allowed sin to enter the world. Their nature also changed. When God created them, they had a pure an innocent nature free of sin. Although they were flesh and blood, they were not consumed by God’s holiness. They walked and talked with God. “And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God in the middle of the trees of the garden.” (Genesis 3:8) This was not an unusual occurrence. God walked in the garden where Adam and Eve lived. But when they sinned, they hid from God. They had been innocent of evil and without knowledge of sin. But when they disobeyed God’s command, sin entered their hearts. And sin entered into the world. That sinful nature is passed down to all humanity.

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It is a hopeless state to be in sin. Sin is bondage and can’t be escaped. When in sin, we can’t escape it. Even if we try to do good. We can’t sustain it. We just mess up every time. That’s because of that sin nature. In the spirit realm where God lives, there are two kingdoms. There is the kingdom of God which is good and where there is love, joy and peace. And there is the kingdom of sin and darkness which is ruled by the devil. (Colossians 1:13) More about these two kingdoms in other lessons.

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Our sinful nature can only change when we believe on Jesus and surrender our lives to Him. Jesus took on our sin and put to death all sin, past, present and future. Now we have hope of salvation. “For we ourselves also were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, slaving for various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:3-7) God in His great love and mercy sent Jesus, the sinless for the sinful to take the punishment and death for our sin. Sin is death. I’m not talking about the death of our body. All of mankind cannot live in this body forever. It’s of this world. And everything in this world has to die. But our spirits, the real “us” lives forever. Either in the presence of God or not in the presence of God. A side note here. We are spirits who live in a body and have a soul which is the mind, will and emotions. This will be further explained in other lessons.

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Sin is death to our spirits. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) Sin is a sentence of death. Good works can’t change that. You can’t give any amount of money to change that. You can’t sacrifice enough to change that. Death is the payment for sin. But when we read Romans 6:23, we find that God in His love and mercy has poured out grace which is His undeserved favor, in a free gift for us to escape this death. And it is life through Jesus Christ. Jesus took on our sin as His. He took the death that was ours and gives us life eternal. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes on Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.” (John 3:16-18)

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Those who accept God's free and merciful gift, who believe on Jesus and surrender our lives to Him are changed. Our nature is changed and sin no longer has dominion. What happens is that when we surrender to Jesus, that old nature dies through the death of Jesus. But our spirit is then reborn of God with a new nature and actually a new person. “So that if anyone is in Christ, that one is a new creature; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2Corinthians 5:17) It’s a do over. We become a new person with a new nature. We find that the desire for sin is gone. That doesn’t mean we don’t “fall” into sin. It means its lust has lost its power. We may fall into temptation and sin, but we are not dominated by that sin nature. We will begin to loathe sin. And when we loathe our sin, the Holy Spirit will work in us to not sin in that way again. This may be difficult to understand. It has to do with spiritual laws. It is the Truth that Jesus preached.

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What we need to concentrate on from these Scriptures is that no one was able to come up to God's standard. No one. But those who believe in Jesus, in the work on the Cross and surrender our lives to Him, have our core nature changed. Although we do not come up to God's standard, Jesus did it for us and we are in a process of change through the work of the Holy Spirit.

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Review these Scriptures and allow the Spirit of God to give you understanding of all their connotations.

Blessings