In all these, I may be able to hope. But I have o power to do anything
Yes, I know—and this is exactly what I’ve been saying all along, ever since you seemed to try and blur that very point.
I actually carry a twelve-page handout with me—it’s Wayne Grudem’s chapter on sin. That’s my introduction to the Gospel:
This is what you are.
It might not be the most popular approach, and I’m not sure it’s the best “intro” anyone’s ever thought of, but in today’s world, most people don’t even recognize their sin. And until they do—until they see the depth of their depravity—they can’t begin to understand the Gospel. We can’t grasp salvation until we see both God rightly and ourselves rightly.
I’m fairly certain the biggest problem with my little handout is that it reminds people they’re not who they’ve convinced themselves they are. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
Sometimes I wonder if anyone else carries around twelve-page handouts on sin in their purse. Probably not. But I do. I’m that woman—the one who decided that if I’m going to be ready for anything, I might as well be ready to look someone in the eye and tell them, gently but clearly, that they have indeed sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Because here’s the thing: our biggest problem today is that we no longer recognize sin. And if we can’t see sin, we can’t see anything else clearly either. We think we just need a bit of moral spackle and we’re good to go—straight to heaven, no transformation necessary. Maybe a golf course when we get there, if we’re still not that interested in God.
But that’s not the Gospel. That’s not reality. If you don’t believe you’re sinning against God in action, attitude, and nature—constantly—then the cross doesn’t make any sense. Christ’s death becomes unnecessary in a world where we’ve convinced ourselves we’re already fine.
I'm sure I have digressed at this point, I'm just talkative I guess.
I think of a few examples
Adam and Eve - God came and clothes them with the death of an animal (the first type of christ)
Abraham, God told him to go, And God would give him a son and this son would have an heir which would be the source of blessing for all the families of the earth, Abraham believed God And God accounted it to him as righteousness
Noah - God said I am going to flood the earth. But I will save you and your family, Noah had faith and the rest is history
If we go to Heb 11 we see all the witnesses of faith, and they all have 1 thing in common
They were given a promise
They trusted God. So recieved that promise
In faith, they did what God asks (please notice not all of them did it perfectly)
Your reference to Abraham, Noah, and the Hebrews 11 saints, notes that they “received a promise” and responded. That’s true. But we must not forget: the call came first.
- God came to Abraham before he believed (Gen. 12:1-4)
- God warned Noah before he built.
- The people in Numbers 21 heard the promise before they looked.
Faith was always a response to God’s initiative. As Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ”
And the call is not effectual for everyone, but only for those whom God in His sovereign decree elected to salvation.
We also see the example Jesus himself gave in John 3. The bronze serpent (a type of christ)
If you remember the story.
It's a main focus of yours yes, and one I already replied to you concerning. Did you actually read my post before replying?
You know it's fine with me if you wait to respond until you have the time to read my posts and address what I said I'm in no rush. I spend hours responding to just one post in a thread like this, I'm not just hammering out the first thing that comes to mind. I am trying to make certain I'm understanding the points your making and respond to your points clearly and witth Scriptural accuracy.
Its more than a game to me. So please take all the time you would like.
1. The people rebelled against God.
As they are want to do
Eternally Grateful said:
Numbers 21: And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.”
Sounds a lot like mankind, God gave us everything we need, but we rebelled against God.
2. God responded
So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. ...
Just like their rebellion caused a reaction from God our rebellion caused a response from God. Adam died
Did Adam actually die the second death? That seems unlikely, considering the way God clothed him and sustained him afterward. He was punished, yes—cast out of the garden—but also covered. That doesn't look like final condemnation to me.
Also, I have to push back a little here: you're speaking of God as if He's reacting—like man's rebellion somehow took Him by surprise and forced His hand. But that doesn’t square with the rest of Scripture.
God didn’t just “respond” in the wilderness with serpents because things spiraled out of control. The serpent pole wasn’t Plan B. It was part of the plan all along—a typological image of Christ, lifted up for the healing of those who look to Him in faith (John 3:14–15). That didn’t emerge from chaos; it was decreed. Designed. It preached the Gospel before the cross.
We shouldn’t frame God’s dealings with mankind as if He’s perpetually reacting to our failures. Left to ourselves, of course we fall. But when we fall, it’s not because God lost track—it’s because He withheld restraint for His own sovereign purpose. That’s a hard truth, but a biblical one. Scripture tells us repeatedly that when man plunges into sin, it is often because God has given him over or withheld restraint:
That’s why I personally stay alert when I see even the tiniest bit of restraint lifted. It’s usually not random. It’s sometimes judgment—or sometimes mercy preparing the way for deeper understanding. But either way, it’s not reactionary. It’s intentional and it's to us to learn from it.
. As did all of mankind, for as in adam all die.. then of course, we sin in rebellion also. And the poison of sin has us in deaths grip, as we are dead. And unless we are made alive (born again) we will remain dead for all eternity
You mention that unless we are made alive, “we remain dead for all eternity.” But biblically, the consequence is far more severe than simply “remaining” in a state of death. Scripture doesn’t describe a neutral stagnation—it describes
judgment. Those not made alive by the Spirit of God don’t merely stay dead—they are judged and cast into the second death, the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14–15). That’s not just theological terminology; that’s final condemnation.
Our physical death—the first death—is not the end. It functions as a legal threshold, leading into the courtroom of divine judgment. This is precisely why the
tree of life was barred from Adam and Eve after the Fall (Gen. 3:22–24): not as a reaction, but as a covenantal consequence. As Kline notes in
Kingdom Prologue, God “rejected Adam from the holy realm,” and this banishment was not merely punitive—it was juridical. The exile was part of God's covenantal execution of judgment upon sin .
Kline also helps clarify in his
Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview that death in Scripture, especially post-Fall, should be understood primarily as
covenantal separation from God, not just the cessation of biological life. He writes that “death is not annihilation but separation, exclusion from the divine Presence,” which frames the second death not as simple unconsciousness, but as active, eternal separation under judgment .
That ties directly into the biblical presentation of Adam as a federal head. In Adam, all died—not just biologically, but covenantally (Rom. 5:12–21). His transgression brought
legal guilt and spiritual death to his posterity. So in Adam, we are not just dead—we are guilty. And the only escape from that judgment is not resuscitation, but
regeneration. We must be born again. As Kline writes, this rebirth is a sovereign act of the Spirit reconstituting us in covenant with the Last Adam, Christ .
So to speak of the lost as simply “remaining dead” is to miss the weight of divine justice. They are not in limbo—they are under wrath. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), and apart from being raised with Christ by faith, the sinner perishes—not softly, but justly.
3. The people come to moses, and confess they have sinned and God is punishing them for that sin.
7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
Notice, the people confessed willingly. But this was not enough. God could have just forgiven them, but something had to be done to complete the picture or type of Christ.
Yes, I agree this was a sovereignly decreed typology.
Because the wage of sin is death. And we can not just confess our sin and think we get away with it Also, we can not pay for our sin, and make up for it in a way it can be forgiven, a price had to be paid.
To be fair, creation was created for the Glory of God.
“Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
God declares that He created His people
for His glory, which by implication includes the larger context of creation itself. It's not about having sin and some childish notion of "getting away with it", we are to display God's Glory, and He tells us how.
Sin is when we aren't doing that. That's what I am thinking lately, and is how I'm starting to understand it anyway. Wayne Grudem puts it this way (which I have incidentally memorized as it's a good definition) :
“Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature.”
But he adds that the root of sin is really this: not honoring God as God (cf. Rom. 1:21).
However, Berkhof builds on that:
“Sin is a lack of conformity to the moral law of God, either in act, disposition, or state... Sin is rooted in a failure to glorify God in the heart.”
And that’s exactly what it is. Sin is not merely the breaking of a rule—it’s the failure to reflect God’s glory, to live for His honor, to walk in worship, gratitude, and obedience.
In other words, sin is a betrayal of our very purpose.
The stars above fulfill their purpose—they shine and move at His command, and in doing so, they give Him glory (Nehemiah 9:6; Psalm 148:3). That is their worship.
But man did not glorify God. He rebelled—and that rebellion was not just an act, but a refusal to be what he was created to be. And in his fallen state, he cannot do otherwise. The natural man is incapable of fulfilling the very reason for his existence: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
4. So what is Gods answer?
8 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” 9. ;So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole;
A few things to see here
1. Moses (a type of christ) must work. He must provide a means of salvation for the people.
2. This offering, or this sacrifice or work, was given to everyone who is there (remember, they represent us, we all have sinned and fall short. The world. Not just a few select people
3. The people had to respond (whenever they were bit, if they looked, they would live)
So what is God’s answer? Or rather—what was His plan from the very beginning? The answer is Christ. Not as a rescue mission prompted by man’s fall, but as the eternal purpose for which all things were made. “All things were created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16), and He was “foreknown before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:20). Even when God called His creation “very good” (Gen. 1:31), the Hebrew
ṭôb me’ōd—“abundantly good”—speaks not only to natural order, but to the fittingness of creation to accomplish His redemptive design in Christ.
As Meredith Kline wrote,
“The divine purpose for creation was ultimately eschatological—it was forward-looking to the revelation of God’s glory through a consummate kingdom, with Christ as the last Adam ruling in it” (
Kingdom Prologue, p. 30). This is why I hold to a Christ-centered hermeneutic. He is not a reaction to sin, but the eternal reason for creation itself
Prayerfully, this finds you and your family well. I do want to apologize if any part of my response was unclear—I truly do strive to be thoughtful and precise in how I express these things. And thank you for your patience; this reply took me several hours to write, but I hope it reflects the care and respect I have for the weight of these truths and for our conversation.
To Him who loved us and gave Himself for us,
to the One who calls dead hearts to life,
who opens blind eyes and gives sight to the soul—
be all glory, and honor, and praise,
now and forever. Amen.
In Christ,
Hazelelponi
@Eternally-Grateful
Translation of the phrase: “For God did not send the Son into the world…”
