Journey of Sin and Grace

by Richard Wiedenheft

“During the 1996-97 school year at Spring Vale Academy, I taught Old Testament Survey to freshmen and sophomores. As my students and I completed Genesis and reflected on it, they were amazed that this book displayed so much human nature in the raw. It was as if the Devil were thwarting God at every turn, pulling humanity into the cesspool of selfishness and sin, making it impossible for God to be in loving fellowship with the beings He created in His image.

Even among the heroes in Genesis there were minor and major flaws, sins that underscored the fact proclaimed later by the apostle Paul: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Yet just as Genesis demonstrates the sinfulness of humanity, so it displays the inexorable power of God’s grace, before which all human beings must bow in reverence or be crushed in judgment. Nothing thwarts the redemptive plan of God!

Sinfulness of humanity

We don’t get through the third chapter of Genesis before we read about the rebellion of our first parents. Tempted by the Devil, they broke the one command God gave them. This is followed in chapter 4 by the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, a heinous crime that must have stuck a knife of disappointment and grief into the hearts of their parents and Creator…”

(this article is an excerpt from the May–June 2007 edition of the Sabbath Sentinel)

To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 6, click this link: https://biblesabbath.org/tss/525/tss_525.pdf