Our human story often begins with a simple phrase,
born this way. Before choice, before you've acted,
before you've formed a memory, you were born
bent, born corrupt, born ruined at the root.
If that's the beginning, then everything else
follows. If we were born metaphysically broken,
then salvation must repair our substance. But
what if scripture begins somewhere else? We return
to the epistle to the Hebrews. For as much then
as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same,
that through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is, the devil, and
deliver them who through fear of death were all
their lifetime subject to bondage. Hebrews 2,
14 and 15. Bondage, fear, death. Bondage, fear,
death. That is existential language. It's not
courtroom language. We'll be returning to that
verse often because it's my conviction that Hebrews
2 should be placed alongside John 3 .16 in terms
of how we view what's going on in the New Testament.
Let's go back to Genesis. After Adam sins, he
says, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I
was afraid, and I hid myself. Death had just
been pronounced. For dust thou art, and unto
dust shalt thou return. Death enters. Fear awakens.
Hiding begins. The first recorded emotion of
fallen humanity is not philosophical corruption.
It is fear. So here's the thesis. Maybe we were
not born metaphysically monstrous. Maybe we were
born mortal. And mortality does something to
you. It talks to you. It whispers, you will not
last. You cannot control the ending. You are
vulnerable. And when that settles into the human
heart, fear becomes instinct. And then sin begins
to form. Sin is self -preservation without trust.
Sin is self -preservation without trust. It's
not wrong to preserve your life. It's not wrong
to not want to die. But when you go outside the
means, when you go outside the parameters, the
boundaries of what God has given you, now you've
entered sin. Do we sin because we are sinners?
Or are we sinners because we sin? If we sin because
we are sinners, corruption is our original essence.
But if we become sinners because we sin, and
if we sin because we fear death, then mortality
is at work. Listen to the epistle to the Romans.
For we have proved both Jews and Gentiles that
they are all under sin. Romans 3 9. That's dominion
language. Romans 5 verse 12. Wherefore, as by
one man sin entered the world, and death by sin.
And so, death passed upon all men. Two verses
later, nevertheless, death reigned. Death reigned.
R -E -I -G -N. The reign of a king. Death spread.
Death became atmospheric. If death reigns, fear
is rational. And if fear becomes instinct, self
-preservation becomes urgent. But self -preservation
without trust becomes sin. So, let's make this
concrete. Sin is self -medicating fear. Hebrews
says we were enslaved to fear of death. So here
is the uncomfortable question. What prescriptions
are we writing ourselves for fear of death? What
are we doing to numb our vulnerability? Pleasure?
Control? Money? Being admired? Being right? Being
certain? We all write prescriptions. Loneliness
rises. We medicate. Insecurity rises. We medicate
with pride. Financial fear rises. We medicate
with accumulation. Loss of control rises. we
medicate with domination. All along, we know
we will still die. So sin becomes anesthesia,
temporary relief, long -term distortion. Honestly,
you can take any sin, and if you think about
it, you can trace it to the fear of death somehow.
This is going to radically alter how you deal
with your own sins, if you see that connection.
A drowning man will push someone under to get
one more breath. Is that because he was born
a monster, or because he is panicking? Human
history is panic scaled up. Fear reshapes behavior.
Behavior reshapes identity. Identity hardens
into what we call sinner. And what is the engine
underneath? It's fear. John Calvin famously said,
Man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory
of idols. He's not wrong, but he's wrong as to
the cause. The cause is not inherited depravity
from Adam. The cause is fear of death and bondage
to the enemy. Now, look at Christ instead. In
Gethsemane, he says, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful,
even unto death. Matthew 26, 38. He feels mortality
fully, and yet, nevertheless, not as I will,
but as thou wilt. He doesn't numb out. Even on
the cross, they gave him vinegar to drink, mingled
with gall. And when he had tasted thereof, he
would not drink. He refuses the anesthetic. He
does not medicate fear. he absorbs death consciously.
Where Adam hid in fear, Christ remains. Where
we write prescriptions, he refuses anesthesia.
That is not incidental. That is redemption. Our
predicament does not require inherited depravity,
original sin, inherited guilt as the engine when
we have already inherited death and susceptibility
to the demonic. Paul says, For as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Made alive. If death is the root problem, the
answer must be new life, that through death he
might destroy him that had the power of death
destroy. Because if death is defeated, fear loses
leverage. If fear loses leverage, sin loses its
oxygen. Paul declares, the last enemy that shall
be destroyed is death. O death, where is thy
sting? O grave, Where's thy victory? That is
conquest. So, perhaps the story does not begin
with born corrupt. Perhaps it begins with born
into death, enslaved by fear. Medicate the panic
until Christ walks into death without numbing
out. He breaks it from the inside and rises.
And if he rises, death is not ultimate. If death
is not ultimate, fear is not sovereign. That
is resurrection life. That is union. That is
the gospel.