Who are the Lost?

Who are the Lost?

Who are the lost? They are those who are in the original state we all come into the world, dead in sin, unable to be in fellowship with God. The only way out of that state is to be born again spiritually by placing one’s faith in Christ.

In the beginning there was no such thing as being lost. Adam and Eve were created as children of God, in full fellowship with Him. They broke that fellowship for both themselves and us when they sinned. Now, natural man doesn’t come into the world as a child of God because he lacks the ability to fellowship with God. He’s lost, apart from God. To better understand this we need to look in more detail at what happened in the Garden of Eden.

God created Adam and Eve fully alive, both physically and spiritually. Their physical life was wonderful, with bodies capable of serving them endlessly, without decline, disease, or death. But their physical life paled in comparison to their spiritual life. Their spiritual life allowed them to fellowship with God, to be at peace with Him, and to rest in the knowledge that He not only created them, but loved them as well.

All that changed when they sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. Physical and spiritual death entered the world. Physically, their bodies were converted from ones capable of ageless perfect physical health to ones that declined with age, were susceptible to disease, and eventually died. As bad as the physical consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin were, the spiritual effect were far worse: spiritual death and a sin nature.

Once Adam and Eve sinned, they were no longer fit to be in the presence of God, who cannot abide evil. They died spiritually, separated from God because of their sin. Their perfect fellowship with God was broken, and they knew it. But that wasn’t their only problem. Their original sin not only cost them fellowship with God, it also corrupted their very nature. From that day forward they had a sin nature, one prone to sin. Their original sin wouldn’t be their last; sin was now part of their lives.

What did they do after they ate the forbidden fruit? Did they seek out God, confess their sin, and ask His forgiveness? No. Being both spiritually dead and burdened with a sin nature that tends to evil over righteousness, they did precisely what every natural man has done since. They hid from God and tried to get by on their own, without His help:

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:7–8)

Left to their own devices, they would have hidden from God for the rest of their lives, eventually dying in their crude fig leaf underwear.