Article 1: The Effect of the Fall on Human Nature

Man was originally created in the image of God and was furnished in his mind with a true and salutary knowledge of his Creator and things spiritual, in his will and heart with righteousness, and in all his emotions with purity; indeed, the whole man was holy. However, rebelling against God at the devil’s instigation and by his own free will, he deprived himself of these outstanding gifts. Rather, in their place he brought upon himself blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and distortion of judgment in his mind; perversity, defiance, and hardness in his heart and will; and finally impurity in all his emotions.

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As William Shakespeare once said, “that word 'grace' in an ungracious mouth is but profane” (King Richard II, Act II, Scene III). In the previous two heads of doctrine, the Synod of Dort carefully dealt with the fact that our salvation begins with something good in God (his love toward lost and fallen sinners), and not something good in the creature (foreseen faith or obedience). Having demonstrated from Scripture that God directs his saving grace to the specific individuals he intends to save–not to the world generically or impersonally–the Canons move on to turn attention to the fact of human sinfulness and how it is that the saving merits of Jesus Christ are applied to God’s elect.

Approaching this matter in both a logical and redemptive-historical order, the Canons move from God’s decree in eternity past, to Christ’s redemptive work for his people on Calvary’s cross, and then finally to the way in which the benefits of Christ’s doing and dying become ours. This is what we as Reformed Christians mean when we speak of “redemption decreed, redemption accomplished. and redemption applied,” the pattern set out by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 1:3-14.

Without a sufficient awareness of the sinful human condition according to the Scriptures, there can be no real appreciation of God’s graciousness to us. Unless we come to realize the gravity and depth of our offences against the infinitely holy and righteous God, and unless we understand that we deserve his eternal and unending punishment because of our sins, we cannot even begin to appreciate that word “grace.” That word “grace” is indeed profanity on the lips of one whose self-righteousness is not yet crushed by the awareness of their sin and their eternal peril.

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