改革宗信仰基础09：亚当的堕落Basics of the Reformed Faith: The Fall of Adam
作者: Kim Riddlebarger 译者/校对译: 蔡璐/王一
大多数人都相信一个完全错误的观念，那就是人性本善。当我们与他人比较的时候，我们通常觉得自己还不错。或许我们会不情愿地承认有些人的确比我们更好，但是大部分情况，我们都觉得自己还不错。
问题是，人性本善这个观念忽略一个事实，那就是人类是堕落的族类，在上帝公义的审判之下，等侯死亡的判决和永久的刑法。真实情况是上帝不会将我与其他什么人比较，因为他们和我一样是罪人。上帝反而会拿我与他圣洁、公义、良善的律法的标准来比较（罗 7:12）。当上帝用他的律法的标准来衡量我的时候，很快得出结论，正如所有人都由亚当而出，我同样不能够达到上帝完美的标准。我是一个罪人。我伏在死亡的判决之下。这是如何发生的呢？
这里便立刻涉及到公平性的问题。上帝用一个我不能达到的标准审判我，这公平吗？如果我们孤立地、不依靠任何圣经依据来看这个问题，答案也许是“不”。圣经教导亚当不仅是第一个人类（所有的人类都是他血统上后裔），而且亚当被造是圣洁、无罪的。亚当被安置在伊甸园中、在行为之约的条款之下，“这样做（不吃被禁止的树上的果子），就因此活着”，或者“吃了那颗树上的果子就会死亡。”亚当选择了后者，使得约里面死亡的咒诅临到全人类。人们通常认同本杰明·富兰克林那著名的格言：世上只有两件事是不可避免的，一个是死亡，一个是税收。然而，这两件事都是由人类的罪而来的。事实上，人类的死亡不是自然产生的，而是亚当堕落的后果。
在亚当吃了分别善恶树上的果子之后，上帝立刻对他宣判行为之约里的咒诅。“（耶和华）对亚当说：‘你既听从妻子的话，吃了我所吩咐你不可吃的那树上的果子，地必为你的缘故受咒诅：你必终身劳苦，才能从地里得吃的。地必给你长出荆棘和蒺藜来，你也要吃田间的菜蔬。你必汗流满面才得糊口，直到你归了土，因为你是从土而出的；你本是尘土，仍要归于尘土。’”工作成为劳苦。多产的土地长满杂草蒺藜。生产儿女成为痛苦。更糟的是，亚当面临死亡的刑罚，我们也和他一样。
因为亚当的行为是为我们做的，他站在我们的地位上（在伊甸园中他作为我们的代表），我们在上帝面前，像亚当一样有罪，因着第一位父亲亚当的反叛行为，我们仿佛亲自置身在伊甸园中，亲自悖逆了上帝。亚当的罪责归算给我们（罗 5:12，18-19）。不仅亚当的悖逆使我们在上帝面前有罪责（guilt），我们还继承了他的罪性（sinful nature），我们各样犯罪行为是从这罪性中来的（罗 7:5）。我们犯罪因为我们想要犯罪。实际上，我们喜爱犯罪。这与我们基本都是向善的、偶尔才犯罪的观念大相径庭。事实上，我们都是有罪的人，然而我们罪的倾向因着仁慈上帝的恩典而被约束。
圣经教导我们人生来就有罪，我们现在、将来也绝对不会在上帝面前无罪（诗篇 51:5，58:3）。正如保罗在《以弗所书》第二章1-3节中所说的，我们死在罪中，生来是可怒之子。保罗在《以弗所书》第四章17-19节讲说，亚当堕落的影响也如此临到我们身上。“你们行事，不要再像外邦人存虚妄的心行事。他们心地昏昧，与上帝所赐的生命隔绝了，都因自己无知，心里刚硬，良心既然丧尽，就放纵私欲，贪行种种的污秽。” 亚当堕落的结果很严重。我们的心思虚妄，我们的头脑昏暗，我们与上帝隔绝，我们寻求满足我们自己罪恶的本性而不寻求讨上帝的喜悦。
所有这一切都是从亚当在伊甸园的叛逆行为而来。正如清教徒恰当地形容：“在亚当的堕落中，我们都犯罪了。”因为亚当犯罪，我们生来就是有罪的，已经在死亡的刑罚之下，也不能做任何事来救我们自己。
这一切的后果都是因为亚当的堕落。
Basics of the Reformed Faith:
The Fall of Adam
By Kim
Riddlebarger
Most
Americans operate on the sincere but completely misguided assumption that deep
down inside people are basically good. When we compare ourselves to others, we
might be able to measure up pretty well. Sure, there are some who we might
begrudgingly admit are better people than we are, but we still do pretty well
in most of our self-comparison tests against others.
The
problem with assuming that people are basically good is that it completely
ignores the fact that ours is a fallen race, under the just condemnation from
God, awaiting the sentence of death and eternal punishment. The reality is that
God is not going to compare me to someone else, who is a fallen sinner like I
am. Instead, God will measure me against the standard of his law, which is
holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12). And when God measures me using the
standard of his law, it will soon become clear that like everyone else
descended from Adam, I cannot meet God’s standard of perfection. I am a sinner.
I am under the sentence of death. How did this happen?
This
immediately raises the question of fairness. Is it fair for God to judge me
against a standard I cannot possibly meet? The answer would be “no,” if we were
to look at this question in a vacuum without any biblical context. The Bible
teaches that Adam was not only the first human (from whom all humans are
biologically descended), but that Adam was created holy and without sin. Adam
was placed in Eden under the covenant of works with its condition, “do this
(not eat from the forbidden tree) and live,” or “eat from the tree and die.”
Adam chose the latter, bringing down the covenant curse of death upon the entire
human race. People often agree with Ben Franklin’s famous adage that the only
two things in life which are inevitable are death and taxes, both of which I
might add, stem from human sin. Yet, the fact remains, death is not natural to
the human race. Death is the consequence of the fall of Adam.
When
Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God immediately
pronounced the covenant curse upon him. “And to Adam [God] said, “Because you
have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I
commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it
shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the
sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out
of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Work
became toil. Fruitful fields were filled with weeds and thistles. Child-bearing
became labor. And even worse, Adam now faced the sentence of death. And so do
we.
Because
Adam acted for us and in our place (by serving as our representative in Eden),
we are as guilty before God for Adam’s act of rebellion as if we had been in
Eden, personally rebelling against God as did our first father. The guilt of
Adam’s sin was imputed or reckoned to us (Romans 5:12, 18-19). Not only did the
fall of Adam render us guilty before God, we have all inherited a sinful nature
from Adam, and it is from that sinful nature that our own particular acts of
sin spring (Romans 7:5). We sin because we want to sin. In fact, we like to
sin. This is a far cry from the notion that we are all basically good people
who occasionally sin. Rather we are sinful people, whose sinful propensities
are restrained by the grace of a merciful God.
The
Bible teaches that we are sinful by nature and by choice, and that we are not
now, and never have been, innocent before God (Psalm 51:5; 58:3). As Paul
recounts in Ephesians 2:1-3, we are dead in sin and by nature children of
wrath. In Ephesians 4:17-19, Paul speaks of the effects of Adam’s fall upon us
in the following terms. “You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the
futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated
from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their
hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to
sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” The consequences of
Adam’s fall are grave. Our thinking is futile, we are darkened in our
understanding, we are alienated from God, and we seek to gratify our sinful
nature rather than seek to please God.
And
all of this stems from Adam’s act of rebellion in Eden. As the Puritans so
aptly put it, “in Adam’s fall, sinned we all.” Because Adam sinned, we are born
with a sinful nature, already under the sentence of death, and unable to do
anything to save ourselves.
This
is the consequence of Adam’s fall.
