I BELIEVE
Saved from the Swollen Self Jeff Wencel
The Gospel of the Kingdom in the Risen Lord Jesus God is. He simply is. He possesses being—necessarily. He lives everlastingly, no beginning, no end, dependent on no one and nothing, possessing life in himself. His being therefore defines all reality. When there was nothing, there was God, God existing in the fullness of divine glory: self-sufficient, selfsustaining, self-satisfied, exuberantly joyful, bursting as a cataract with unending, limitless holy happiness. Before any man was made, before land and sea were formed, before any thing sprouted up or moved on earth, the Three-in-One and One-in-Three possessed complete bliss and peace in their infinitely full divine fellowship. God the Father eternally perfectly generating and delighting in the Son, God the Son eternally perfectly reflecting and delighting in the Father, and God the Spirit eternally perfectly flowing back and forth between Father and Son as unending, limitless love, light and life. And God was without need, without lack, without defect. And then the triune fellowship overflowed. God spoke. He spoke in his Son—the Word. And worlds were fashioned. Matter was made (for God likes it). Man was made in our world of matter in God’s image. The Spirit was moving. The first man was named Adam (meaning “man”). From his flesh woman was taken; and she was named Eve (meaning “life,” for she was the life-bearer). Man, unable to contain himself for joy, poured forth poetry: “Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh!” God put the couple in a garden full of romance and beauty. In that
garden of grace, we read of the first wedding—the only wedding ever where two sinless, spotless humans would lock lips untainted by unholy speech. As Maker of heaven and hearth, of man and marriage, the Creator was King in his world. How could it be otherwise? And he made all things good. Very good. But something the very opposite of very good entered the King’s realm. Rebellion. Sedition. Sabotage. Seduced by Satan, the sinless pair believed a lie about God. Rather than trusting (as the lovers had every reason to do) the truth of the King whose covenant communication was life, light and love, Adam and Eve embraced bad theology. They exchanged the glory of the immortal Creator for images of the creature. They then began to speak words contrary to the Word. They exalted the Self over their Sovereign and entered the kingdom of darkness and death under hard taskmasters— Satan, Sin and the Swollen Self. The Self became the center. Man became in man’s mind the measure of all things. So, in Adam all fell, and fell hard. The holy King of creation had to react in wrath and exact a price as sin’s penalty. Ruination and wreckage followed. The light of God’s loving face was lost. The wonderful world of life, light and love became a world of darkness and death. Sin entered the world through the Swollen Self insubordinate to the Word, and death through sin, and so death spread to all because all sinned. Now a divine curse hangs over humanity: man is estranged from his Maker and has lost his sweet fellowship with the Father, Son and Spirit. But the Word would not let Satan, Sin or Self have the last word. God
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