Systemic Sinnership (not merely actual sins
committed) is the primal predicament of humankind before God. This Sin
is unbelief. Unbelief isn't cerebral agnosticism but rather the ungrateful,
contemptuous denial of God's goodness and repudiation of his command (gift).
"Unbelief is not one of the grosser passions, but sits and holds sway
at the summit -- the citadel of the will and reason, just like its opposite,
faith." (214)
The human predicament is universal: there are no
exceptions to it or modifications of it or alternatives to it.
While the structure of reason survives the Fall (otherwise
fallen humans would no longer be human), the integrity of reason does
not (otherwise fallen humans could reason themselves out of their
predicament.)
To assert "free choice" (i.e., the freedom or
non-bondage of the will) is insist that we can will ourselves out of our
predicament, and therefore to affirm self-justification.
Perforce the righteousness we need but cannot furnish for
ourselves has to be gift.
The gift of righteousness isn't the gift of something
but is rather the self-bestowal of Jesus Christ, the Righteous One himself.
This gift has to be revealed to us, since humankind
cannot anticipate the nature of its depravity or the nature of righteousness
or the means by which it is wrought for us (the cross) or the nature of our
coming to possess it. I.e., because Sin not only corrupts us but also blinds
us we cannot foresee the nature of our predicament, the nature of its cure,
or the nature of the application of the cure.
Since the gift is gift, it can only be owned in faith,
faith being, amidst much else, the admission that "Nothing in our hands
we bring."
Since we live in sin, and therein come to apprehend that
sin lives in us, we can live in Christ (and live out of Christ, live from
Christ) only as Christ lives in us.
To say we contribute, however slightly, to our
justification is to claim a residual capacity, however slight, for reason or
will with respect to our "rightwising" before God.
In sum, the affirmation of "free choice"
eliminates every aspect of the gospel: "the purpose of grace, the
promise of God, the meaning of the law, original sin, divine election."
(203)
