Imagine an automobile, with all of its principal parts masterfully assembled by the mechanic. Every piece of metal or material comes together, affecting another, and with none doing the work of the other.

These parts are made to get the best out of each other, and the effectiveness of one depends on that of another. If one piece fails, it adversely affects the whole system.

Human beings are more than machines. But they are masterfully created as systems with different parts, whether individually or corporately, each crafted for specific irreplaceable functions.

Because of this, the sin of one man affects more than that man. Humanity is bound in an inextricable web of relationships that far extends beyond its natural and spatial confines.

How Sin affected Man’s Relations

Sin affects relations. Like in a fine functioning automobile, a fault in one crucial part lands the rest of the car in the danger of destruction.

There was a four-fold disintegration of human relations to which the sin of the first man led.

First, man’s relation with God was broken. We were spiritually from the living fountain. And this led to man’s continual return to the state of nothingness and chaos from whence he came. The machine broke ties with its Maker.

Secondly, inter-human relationships deteriorated as the blame game begun in the rosy garden of Eden, Adam blaming Eve, and Eve blaming Satan (Gen. 3:12-13). Breaking ties with the Maker makes inter-human relations impossible to maintain.

Thirdly, man’s relationship with creation was hampered as well. The earth that previously produced fruit now brings forth thorns and briars, and the land that gladly sustained him shall be his gruesome grave (Gen 3:17-19).

Humanity intended to reap from creation with his backs to its creator, wanting to use God for His goods, but not desiring Him. But God would not let it be.

Fourthly, not only is man’s relationships with God and with fellow men and with creation dysfunctional, there exist internal turmoil and disintegration (Rom. 7). Without peace with God, man did not have peace in himself. There are wars in his members (James 4:1-2).

The automobile is not adequately performing. There is infighting among its members.

Man is at war both within and without, making peace inwardly impossible to achieve through human effort. Mankind has to be redeemed from without, but the work of transformation must start from within.

How the Gospel Restores Man’s Relations

The Christian’s message is a redemptive message. It is not a message of creating a wholly new man, as it is one about remaking him.

The Gospel is a proclamation of what God in Christ through the cross has done for the broken man. God has restored man’s broken relationship with Himself. Those in Christ are remade, new creations so to say (2 Cor 5:17-21). New not in the sense that everything prior is destroyed, but new relationally, and redemptive-wise.

The image of redemption is that the broken automobile is being fixed. The work already began, by the producer. It could not do this on its own. He who made it must remake it.

This is the first way the Gospel restores man’s relationships. It reconciles us to God.

But the image of redemption is more encompassing than restoring a broken relationship between man and God. The cross of Christ also builds a new community. It is called the body of Christ, the Church (Eph. 1:22-23).

This is the second way the Gospel restores man’s relationships.

The Church community is God’s way of healing the bitter interpersonal relationships between men in this sinful world. The Church is founded on pure grace and forgiveness, for only this can cure the sin of blame shifting. We belong together as fellow sinners forgiven apart from our works. There can be found no wholesome healing outside this body.

Here there is no room for pretending that we are perfect, no reason for us to scorn a sinner. To be a Christian is to admit your sinfulness. It is to say ‘I am a sinner saved by grace, and you have nothing to hide or fear in my presence. I need grace as much as you do.’

The cross provides a cure for hypocrisy for if you pretend to need a saviour, then you need one indeed. But if you admit your need for the Savior, you have one indeed!

We are members of one body, in Christ. If one part of the body hurts, the whole body pains as well (1 Cor. 12:12-26).

The third way the Gospel restores man’s relationships is by redeeming us from our internal contradictions. We are being saved from our inward battles, wholesomely restored to the inner shalom of God.

This has profound implications on how we worship. The essence of the Great Commandment is to love God and man holistically (Mat. 22:37-40).

We must love God with our hearts, the seat of our affections. That is, we must not be dry in our approach to the things of God. The cross must amaze us moving us to hearty actions that proclaim the beautiful reconciliation we experience.

But we also must love God with our intellect. To be saved means to love God with not only your heart but also with your mind.

The Jews had one word for heart, mind, and will. The word is lev. The epitome of man’s wholeness in the Semitic thought as testified in Deut. 6:4 and Mat. 22:37-40 is his wholesome and glad submission to God.

The redemption of man rejects the notion that raises heart experience above mind reason or reason above experience. It refuses the dichotomy altogether.

Redemption in a man changes the heart and the mind. It transforms the will and emotions. It affects what he does in the body. Like the automobile, if one part is malfunctioning, the rest are impacted. You can’t love God with your heart and mind without an effect in your will and thus your actions.

Salvation reconciles man to God, man to man, and with himself.

And the final fourth way the Gospel restores man’s relationships is by changing how we relate with the rest of creation. Our reconciliation with the Creator causes us to love His creation. Sure, the ground still produces briars as part of the curse, but God is redeeming it.

All creation awaits with an expectation for the final revelation of the children of God when it will be ushered into glorious liberty (Rom. 8:21). We may say we are co-redeemed with nature. We cannot degrade creation when we have been affected by the knowledge of God’s wholesome redemption of all creation, the plants and animals, land and sea, hills and valleys.

As all creation awaits with an expectation for the final revelation of the children of God, those children cannot treat it as something unprofitable, made for destruction.

If God in Christ is restoring nature, the Church which is the first fruit of this redemption must care for creation.

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