1689 Weekly Chapter 6 Paragraphs 1-3
The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith is a tried and true teaching tool. It lays out the faith in a clear, systematic way and shows the connections among doctrines. It also serves as a standard by which teaching in the church can be measured. Below, you will find a portion of the Confession to be read weekly alongside scripture.
Chapter 6 Paragraphs 1-3
Chapter 6 - The Fall of Mankind, and Sin and Its Punishment
1. God created humanity upright and perfect. He gave them a righteous law that would have led to life if they had kept it but threatened death if they broke it.1 Yet they did not remain for long in this position of honor. Satan used the craftiness of the serpent to seduce Eve, who then seduced Adam. Adam acted without any outside compulsion and deliberately transgressed the law of their creation and the command given to them by eating the forbidden fruit.2 God was pleased, in keeping with his wise and holy counsel, to permit this act, because he had purposed to direct it for his own glory.
1. Genesis 2:16, 17.
2. Genesis 3:12, 13; 2 Corinthians 11:3.
2. By this sin our first parents fell from their original righteousness and communion with God. We fell in them, and through this, death came upon all.3 All became dead in sin4 and completely defiled in all the capabilities and parts of soul and body.5
3. Romans 3:23.
4. Romans 5:12.
5. Titus 1:15; Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10–19.
3. By God’s appointment, they were the root and the representatives of the whole human race. Because of this, the guilt of their sin was accounted, and their corrupt nature passed on, to all their offspring who descended from them by ordinary procreation.6 Their descendants are now conceived in sin7 and are by nature children of wrath,8 the servants of sin, and partakers of death9 and all other miseries—spiritual, temporal, and eternal—unless the Lord Jesus sets them free.10
6. Romans 5:12–19; 1 Corinthians 15:21, 22, 45, 49.
7. Psalms 51:5; Job 14:4.
8. Ephesians 2:3.
9. Romans 6:20; 5:12.
10. Hebrews 2:14, 15; 1 Thessalonians 1:10.
1. God created humanity upright and perfect. He gave them a righteous law that would have led to life if they had kept it but threatened death if they broke it.1 Yet they did not remain for long in this position of honor. Satan used the craftiness of the serpent to seduce Eve, who then seduced Adam. Adam acted without any outside compulsion and deliberately transgressed the law of their creation and the command given to them by eating the forbidden fruit.2 God was pleased, in keeping with his wise and holy counsel, to permit this act, because he had purposed to direct it for his own glory.
1. Genesis 2:16, 17.
2. Genesis 3:12, 13; 2 Corinthians 11:3.
2. By this sin our first parents fell from their original righteousness and communion with God. We fell in them, and through this, death came upon all.3 All became dead in sin4 and completely defiled in all the capabilities and parts of soul and body.5
3. Romans 3:23.
4. Romans 5:12.
5. Titus 1:15; Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10–19.
3. By God’s appointment, they were the root and the representatives of the whole human race. Because of this, the guilt of their sin was accounted, and their corrupt nature passed on, to all their offspring who descended from them by ordinary procreation.6 Their descendants are now conceived in sin7 and are by nature children of wrath,8 the servants of sin, and partakers of death9 and all other miseries—spiritual, temporal, and eternal—unless the Lord Jesus sets them free.10
6. Romans 5:12–19; 1 Corinthians 15:21, 22, 45, 49.
7. Psalms 51:5; Job 14:4.
8. Ephesians 2:3.
9. Romans 6:20; 5:12.
10. Hebrews 2:14, 15; 1 Thessalonians 1:10.