Looking down at the ground from the
ninth-floor building under construction, my uncle, who was a subcontractor,
told me that if I ever fell, the fall would not hurt me! As a
teenager at the time, I remember looking at him with a certain look of
incredulity. Then my humorous uncle remarked, “Now, the sudden stop is another
matter!”
There are basically two types of falls in the physical world: elevated falls and same-level falls. The more common are same-level falls: slips, trips, or hitting an object on the way down. But elevated falls naturally produce more serious injuries. There is nothing positive associated with falling unless you are, say, a skydiver or a bungee jumper. Falling can be harmless and embarrassing or painful and life-threatening. Accidental falling is in essence making a descent unwillingly.
In the spiritual realm, stumbling over sin is never by accident (Jas 1:14-15). Rather, there is only intentional falling with known and unknown consequences. The only positive thing about falling in Scripture is a willful descent before Yahweh in recognition of His holiness, sovereignty, and worthiness of worship.
What comes to mind, at least in my mind, first and foremost, whenever talking about a fall in Scripture is the fall of man, the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The sudden stop was irreversible on man’s part once fallen; it included spiritual death, no peace with God, and no peace of God. God addressed man’s impotency to save himself by providing animal skins as a covering for sin (Gn 3:21; Heb 9:22) until the Perfect Lamb should come as the Substitute to redeem fallen man from the penalty of sin (Rom 6:23; 3:21-22, 23-24; 25, 26), making salvation available to all only through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for sin (1 Jn 2:2).
Adam and Eve left the Garden as saved sinners but would have to live with being expelled from the Garden, enduring pain and suffering, hardship and toil, and eventually experiencing physical death (cf. Gn 2:17 with Gn 5:5; Rom 5:12). They were forgiven and restored, but would live the rest of their days with suffering and sorrow in tow (cf. Gn 3:7, 10, 15-19, 24; 4:8).
There are basically two types of falls in the physical world: elevated falls and same-level falls. The more common are same-level falls: slips, trips, or hitting an object on the way down. But elevated falls naturally produce more serious injuries. There is nothing positive associated with falling unless you are, say, a skydiver or a bungee jumper. Falling can be harmless and embarrassing or painful and life-threatening. Accidental falling is in essence making a descent unwillingly.
In the spiritual realm, stumbling over sin is never by accident (Jas 1:14-15). Rather, there is only intentional falling with known and unknown consequences. The only positive thing about falling in Scripture is a willful descent before Yahweh in recognition of His holiness, sovereignty, and worthiness of worship.
What comes to mind, at least in my mind, first and foremost, whenever talking about a fall in Scripture is the fall of man, the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The sudden stop was irreversible on man’s part once fallen; it included spiritual death, no peace with God, and no peace of God. God addressed man’s impotency to save himself by providing animal skins as a covering for sin (Gn 3:21; Heb 9:22) until the Perfect Lamb should come as the Substitute to redeem fallen man from the penalty of sin (Rom 6:23; 3:21-22, 23-24; 25, 26), making salvation available to all only through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for sin (1 Jn 2:2).
Adam and Eve left the Garden as saved sinners but would have to live with being expelled from the Garden, enduring pain and suffering, hardship and toil, and eventually experiencing physical death (cf. Gn 2:17 with Gn 5:5; Rom 5:12). They were forgiven and restored, but would live the rest of their days with suffering and sorrow in tow (cf. Gn 3:7, 10, 15-19, 24; 4:8).
Whenever we embrace sin, we stumble
over sin, and the sudden stop will assuredly happen. Since all sin is against
God (cf. 2 Sam 12:13a; Ezek 18:20), fellowship with God (practical
relationship), not salvation (positional relationship), is broken when
believers fall into sin. Pinpointing the precise moment when fellowship with
God is severed through disobedience only God knows, and He makes that
determination (cf. Ps 66:18). One indication that fellowship with God is
hindered in the previous Bible reference is unanswered prayer – “the LORD will
not hear [me].” The only remedy for the restoration of fellowship with God is found
in 1 Jn 1:9. But we must agree with Him about some personal sin and do an about-face in attitude and action concerning it – “confess.”
Unlike a physical fall, a spiritual
fall is harmful before contact because the thoughts of man can sin against God
before the very act (cf. Mt 5:28). The sudden stop initiates at the moment of
disobedience, offending God’s holiness and grieving His Holy Spirit; the peace
of God has vanished and replaced with guilt and shame from conviction. A vacuum of the heart grows as the titillating enticements are turning into painful daggers of the conscience; ugliness and confusion abound; the senses return from animal instincts to human in nature.
The eyes are open to self-deception! There is a dirtiness that a hundred showers cannot wash away. The sudden stop includes all of the ripple effects derived from stumbling over forbidden pleasures.
We need to avoid willfully choosing to
stumble over sin. It reflects a love problem (Jn 14:15), first of all, but
second, it reveals rather quickly a sustained spiritual injury of choice that
has the potential of haunting us all our days if discovered. Though forgiven and restored
back into fellowship with God, some people may say they forgive you, but they
never forget and will never let you forget that they hadn’t forgotten about it by keeping you
at arm’s length. Those sorts of people are experiencing a sudden stop of their
own and are too spiritually insensitive to realize it!
The sudden stop is the price of “doing
sin,” buying off on the devil’s package of “goods,” a fall of choice of our
own making (Jas 1:14). Oftentimes we can set ourselves up for a potential fall by
intentionally thinking about something unsafe spiritually that leads us to trip,
slip, or hit an object. Getting the thought life under control will
avoid a lot of stumbling stones in our path...
Whenever we rationalize in some contorted, twisted kind of way that justifies “doing sin,” it’s like “doing drugs,” which brings a whole host of unintended results, like taking us rapidly to SuddenStopville, guaranteed! Sin is habit forming, as well, and the self is only to blame. But the sudden stop is sure to come with the doing (Gal 6:7, 8). My uncle was right; I probably would survive the fall, but that sudden stop is a horse of a different color… Isn't it better for us to avoid the sudden stop altogether by staying away from sin and falling only before God? <><
Whenever we rationalize in some contorted, twisted kind of way that justifies “doing sin,” it’s like “doing drugs,” which brings a whole host of unintended results, like taking us rapidly to SuddenStopville, guaranteed! Sin is habit forming, as well, and the self is only to blame. But the sudden stop is sure to come with the doing (Gal 6:7, 8). My uncle was right; I probably would survive the fall, but that sudden stop is a horse of a different color… Isn't it better for us to avoid the sudden stop altogether by staying away from sin and falling only before God? <><
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