Articles
The Solution to Mankind's Problem
Just as surely as mankind’s problem of sin is identified from the beginning, so is the hope of overcoming the problem. If life were without purpose and hope, there would be no purpose in identifying sin as a problem. Problems are identified and presented not so as to frustrate and cause despair and hopelessness but in order to identify and present solutions. Scripture is not needed to identify sin and its fate if there is nothing to be done about it. Thus, by its very existence, Scripture’s purpose is not only to identify sin and heap guilt and shame upon mankind but also to reveal a solution to the problem.
From the beginning, God has offered this hope despite our sin. While the end result of sin is death, a solution to overcoming sin and death is implied by the fact that we are made acutely aware of the problem by both revelation and experience.
God is not the creator of problems; He is the creator of solutions to problems. Having been created in His image, we, too, are capable of solving problems of both the physical and the metaphysical. Indeed, there is within human nature a capacity for contemplating nature and that which is beyond the realm of the natural. While some might attribute this to ignorance, it is more reasonable to suggest that such attributes as faith, hope, and love are not illusions of the over-active imaginations of ignorant, accidentally-evolved, higher animals but spring from realities which transcend nature and which mankind has been purposefully given the ability to comprehend to some degree.
When Adam and Eve first sinned, they immediately became aware that there was a problem and set about to solve the problem; “they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” (Gen. 3:7). That the problem of nakedness and its shame was not easily solved by some natural means is made evident by the fact that Adam and Eve still sought to hide themselves from God (vs. 8). That only God, by His grace, could solve the problem of Adam and Eve’s own making is made evident when He clothed them with that which adequately covered the shame of their nakedness.
The problem of sin is evident. We see that evil is real even though it is not subject to testing by the scientific method. We have a problem that cannot be solved by natural means. Yet, even in the midst of the curses that accompanied the first sin, we find the first promise of the hope of overcoming. Life would go on, and, in time, the Seed of woman would bruise the head of the serpent (vv. 14,15).
It is not by chance that Scripture virtually begins and ends by addressing the problem of sin unto death while providing the solution of salvation unto life. Like bookends in the library of Scripture, compiled over 1500 years, are the announcements of the defeat of our common enemy. These texts, and all in between them, provide the hope needed to endure the trials of this life while seeking the salvation solution that God graciously offers to the problem of sin. In Genesis 3:15, a glimmer of hope is dimly seen as “the serpent” is told that the Seed of woman would eventually bruise his head. In the Revelation of Jesus Christ, this promise is finally fulfilled as “that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan...who accused [brethren] before our God day and night, has been cast down” (Rev. 12:9,10).
As the apostle Paul wrote, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under [the curse of] the law” (Gal. 4:4,5; cf. 3:13). Quoting from Deuteronomy (27:26), Paul had reminded, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them” (Gal. 3:10). This is equivalent to, “in the day that you eat of it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17).
So, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). A virgin woman conceived a Son by the Holy Spirit and He was named “Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:18-23). “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). In so doing, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’) (Gal. 3:13). He became accursed for us “that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles...that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (vs. 14; cf. Gen. 12:3). This is “the gospel which [Paul] preached…which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved...that Christ died for our sins...was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:1-4).
The end (result) of the problem of sin is death, but the end (demise) of the problem of sin is found in Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross and His own subsequent conquest of death in His resurrection from the dead. The beginning of the solution is found in God’s loving and gracious promise. Jesus is the solution to the problem of sin. The end (result) of the solution is the salvation of all who entrust and commit their souls to their Creator through Jesus Christ.
