1. IT ORIGINATED WITH SATAN
ISAIAH 14:12-14 "How art thou fallen from heaven O, Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most high".
This significant passage refers to Satan and points back to the beginning of sin in the universe. Lucifer which means "day star," can be none other than Satan. When Lucifer said, "I will," sin began.
2. IT ENTERED THE WORLD THROUGH
ADAM.
ROMANS 5:12 "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned".
The first sin wrought the moral ruin of the race. By disobedience Adam passed to the human race the inherent
sinful nature he possessed.
It was not a particular sin but the inherent inclination to sin entered the human realm; so men became sinners by nature. That nature is present from the moment of conception, making it impossible for man to live in a way that pleases God. The psalmist said, "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me (PSALM 51:5)
When Adam sinned, all mankind sinned in his loins. Because
all humanity existed in the loins of Adam and through procreation have inherited his falleness and depravity.
Therefore it can be said that all sinned in Adam. As a result humans are not sinners because they sin, but rather
they sin because they are sinners.
3. SIN WAS AND IS UNIVERSAL
ROMANS 3:23 "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
It is only Christ who is exempted. He was sinless.
I PETER 2:22 "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in
his mouth.'
4. SIN INCURS THE PENALTY OF PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL DEATH. For the wages of sin is death ...… ROMANS 6:23
Death is the pay check of every man's slavery to sin. Death is in two inexorable absolutes; 1. Physical death and 2. Spiritual death.
PHYSICAL DEATH
Physical death affects only, the body and is not cessation of existence or of consciousness. The passage in LUKE 16:23 reveals that after the body ceases to function, man is conscious and possesses the full use of every faculty, i.e. memory, speech, sight etc. Because the unsaved man in hell, had the full use of the faculty of sight, for he "lifted up his eyes" and saw Abraham. (LUKE 16:23)
He had the full use of the faculty of his senses, for he was in "torment" (LUKE 16:23)
The faculty of speech was not left him for he "cried and said,
father Abraham, have mercy on me" (LUKE 16:24)
The faculty of memory was also in full exploit, for he remembered that he had five brothers. (LUKE 16:28)
It should be noted that the soul and the spirit live, separately of the death of the body, which is described as a "tabernacle" in which the "I" dwells, and which may be put off. The apostle Peter explains,
I PETER 1:13-14 "Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle (body), to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must PUT OFF this my tabernacle, even as our lord Jesus Christ has shewed
me."
Physical death is described appropriately in the bible as laying
aside ones earthly dwelling.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:1 "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens."
It should be noted that the spirit is the real person, not the
body. The body in Greek is skenon and it means tent, and so the apostle Paul explains in this scripture that though this earthly body (tent) will be dissolved God has promised that there will be a "building of God" - All physical death ends in the resurrection of the body.
1 CORINTHIANS 15:52 "In a moment, in a twinkle of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."
SPIRITUAL DEATH
Spiritual death is the state of the natural or unregenerate man
as still in his sins.
EPHESSIANS 2:1 "And you hath he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins."
It's the state whereby the natural or unregenerate man is
alienated from the life of God and is destitute of the spirit.
EPHESSIANS 4:18 "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart."
Prolonged beyond the death of the body, spiritual death is a
state of eternal separation from God in conscious suffering.
This is called "THE SECOND DEATH."
Both spiritual and physical deaths are the consequence of sin.
Therefore the universality of death proves the universality of
sin - Due to sin, all die – little children, moral people, and religious people die with the depraved.
DEATH OF THE CHRISTIAN Because physical death is a consequence of sin, it is not inevitable to the redeemed. Physical death has for the Christian a peculiar qualification. It is called "sleep" because his body may be awakened at any
moment.
PHILIPPIANS 3:20, 21 "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we look for the savior, the lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our lowly body, that it may be fashioned like his glorious body, according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."
At the death of the Christians, he is at once "with the lord"
and his body awaits resurrection at the return of Christ.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:8 "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the lord."