Chapter IIThe Philosophy of the Fall—IBoundless Inheritance of CovetousnessWhat shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. (Romans 7:7)It is said, it was because Adam ate the apple that he was lost, or fell. I say, it was because of his claiming something for his own, and because of his I, Mine, Me and the like. Had he eaten seven apples, and yet never claimed anything for his own, he would not have fallen: but as soon as he called something his own, he fell, and would have fallen if he had never touched an apple.What is true of Adam is true of every man and woman, and “not all mankind could amend his fall, or bring him back from going astray.” This inheritance of covetousness is the very essence of the Fall, and no praying and no power of man, singly or banded together, can ever avail to touch it; the only thing that can touch it is the great Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lust and covetousness are summed up in the phrase, “I must have it at once and for myself.” It is an absolute flood in the nature of man, it overtakes his spirit, it overtakes his soul and body. In some natures the spirit of covetousness works through the body and is seen in sordid ways; sometimes it is kept back and only in man’s reason is it manifested; and sometimes it is held still further back and suppressed, but it is there. The background of the whole thing is the lust of possessing according to my affinities.(a) Birth of Death“For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Death is the inheritance of the whole human race; since Adam, no man has ever been alive to God saving by the supernatural act of re-birth. Do not get the idea that because man did not die suddenly physically, he is not dead. The manifestation of death in the body is simply a matter of time, “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” The birth of death was in that moment; not the birth of death for one man, but the birth of the death of the whole human race. God’s attitude revealed in the Bible towards men is that they are “dead in trespasses and sins”; no touch with God, not alive towards God at all, they are quite indifferent to God’s claims.(b) The Bye-Law of Death“For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one . . .” (Romans 5:17). A bye-law is a supplementary regulation, and the bye-law of death is a supplementary regulation on account of disobedience. “For I was alive without the law once,” said the Apostle Paul, “but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death” (Romans 7:9-10). We are all alive apart from God in our own consciousness, and when preachers talk about being dead in trespasses and sins, good worldly-minded men and women are amused at our being so stupid as to tell them they are dead. They say, “I am alive, my body is alive; my mind and heart and soul and spirit are alive; what do you mean by being dead?” But immediately a soul comes into contact with Jesus Christ’s standard, instantly the realisation comes of what death means.(c) Branded by Death“For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Every natural virtue is death-branded, because the natural virtues are remnants of a ruined humanity, they are not promises of an evolving perfection. Take the life of the intellect or of the spirit, where does it end? “He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” Love produces such pain (apart from a knowledge of God) that it makes the sensitive soul wonder if it is worth while to love. Death is everywhere, on the attainments of the mind, of the heart and spirit. When you try to approach God in prayer and draw near to Him, you find the curse of this disposition of covetousness—“I must have this for myself, I want to be right with God for my own sake”—and it saps the energy out of devotion, out of communion with God and Christian service, until the soul is almost wrung to despair. It is that kind of thing which made the Apostle Paul say—“sold under sin.” We have to get down to this aspect of sin which is not familiar to us as a rule.Talk about conviction of sin! I wonder how many of us have ever had one five minutes’ conviction of sin. It is the rarest thing to know of a man or woman who has been convicted of sin. I am not sure but that if in a meeting one or two people came under the tremendous conviction of the Holy Ghost, the majority of us would not advocate they should be put in a lunatic asylum, instead of referring them to the Cross of Christ. We are unfamiliar nowadays with this tremendous conviction of sin, which Paul refers to as being “sold under sin,” but it is not a bit too strong to say that when once the Spirit of God convicts a man of sin, it is either suicide or the Cross of Christ, no man can stand such conviction long. We have any amount of conviction about pride and wrong dealing with one another, but when the Holy Ghost convicts He does not bother us on that line, He gives us the deep conviction that we are living in independence of God, of a death away from God, and we find all our virtues and goodness and religion has been based on a ruinous thing, viz. the boundless inheritance of covetousness. That is what the Fall means. Let it soak into your thinking, and you will understand the marvel of the salvation of Jesus Christ which means deliverance from covetousness, root and branch. Never lay the flattering unction to your soul that because you are not covetous for money or worldly possessions, you are not covetous for anything. The fuss and distress of owning anything is the last remnant of the disposition of sin. Jesus Christ possessed nothing for Himself (see 2 Corinthians 8:9). Right through the warp and woof of human nature is the ruin caused by the disposition of covetousness which entered into the human race through the Fall, and it is this disposition which the Holy Spirit convicts of.Chambers, O.
