REJECTION OF CREATURELINESS
Sin is the rejection of creatureliness. Man is a creature, meaning that he has been created; and he was created by the Creator, the God of the Bible (see: Elohim – The Creator and Creature). To be creature is to be created.
But sin in man’s reasoning and reflection causes man to reject this fact, or at least to live as though it is not a fact. For to be a creature is to be beneath, to be below, to be contingent, to be accountable to the Creator. It is to recognize the Creator and to comprehend the proper relationship of the creature to the Creator, which is submission.
The original couple in the garden was dependent on God and accountable to Him—they were creatures and He was the Creator. Initially they were aware of their position and accepted their position. However, in Genesis 3:5 the text states that the serpent informed them that if they ate the forbidden fruit they would then “be like God,” so in their minds was lodged the thought of throwing off creatureliness and becoming like the Creator. They desired to supplant God, the same desire to which Lucifer had succumbed in his original sin (see: Sin in Heaven).
Their eating of the fruit was intended to make them “like God,” rather than them remaining in the lesser state of creature dependent on the Creator. The allure of escaping creatureliness and elevating their position was too great; they wanted to become what they were not, to be what they could not be. But it is impossible for the creature to be anything but a creature.
To be a creature is to always be a creature; that which is created cannot become that which is not created. In other words, the creature cannot become the Creator, man cannot be God—man cannot change what he is, who he is. Theism can never be replaced by humanism; it is impossible for man to supplant God.
This profound separation between the Creator and the creature is the separation that man throughout his history, beginning in Eden, has attempted to ignore, change, or adulterate. But the separation remains and will remain.
Indeed, the
very root of sin is unwillingness to acknowledge the reality and
implications of
creaturehood (George Ladd,
The Pattern of New
Testament Truth, 33).
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