Q. What is the misery of that state into which man fell?
A. All mankind, by their fall, lost communion with God, are under His wrath and curse and are made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and the pains of hell forever.
Commentary
The first and deepest misery we experience in our fallen state is that we have lost communion with God. Man was made for fellowship with his Maker, and in the fall that fellowship was broken. Adam, who had walked with God, now hid himself among the trees and was driven from the garden (Genesis 3:8, 24). To be cut off from God, the fountain of all life and joy, is the root of every other misery, for the soul made for Him cannot be at rest apart from Him (Augustine of Hippo).
Beyond this loss, the catechism says we are under His wrath and curse. Our condition is not merely the absence of God’s favor but the presence of His settled opposition to sin. We are “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3), justly exposed to the penalty His law pronounces: “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law” (Galatians 3:10). From this flow all the miseries of this life, the sorrows, sicknesses, disappointments, and griefs that touch every person, and finally death itself, the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). And beyond death lies the most fearful misery of all, the pains of hell forever, the eternal punishment of those who die unreconciled to God. Our Lord spoke plainly that “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).
Nothing less than this drives a sinner to seek deliverance. We do men no kindness when we hide from them the true extent of their danger. Yet the catechism sets out our misery so fully precisely because the deliverance it goes on to describe is so great. The next question turns from the depth of our ruin to the riches of God’s grace, and the wonder of that grace can only be measured against the wrath and curse from which it saves. The one who has trembled at the misery of his fallen state is ready to hear the good news of a Redeemer.
Scripture Proofs
“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 3:8).
“He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24).
“The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17).
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:41–46).
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’” (Galatians 3:10).
“Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:3).
2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689
6.3: They being the root, and by God’s appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of the sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death, and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free.