Though unfamiliar to some, since at least Augustine it’s commonplace to speak of man’s fourfold state: the state of innocency, the state of nature, the state of grace, and the state of eternity. These distinctions hold a central place in understanding the human condition and the work of redemption. Referring to how essential they are to know, Thomas Boston once wrote, “These are weighty matters that pertain to practical godliness, which most people, including many professing believers in these times, are completely disconnected from.”

The Westminster Larger Catechism teaches that the fall has brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery. The Catechism will go on in the following questions to clarify the sinfulness and misery of that estate. Before the details are examined, it’s useful to simply take account of how far mankind has fallen.

Remember, when God created man, He made him upright (Eccl. 7:29), and placed him in the midst of a creation that had God’s divine approbation as being “very good” (Gen. 1:31). It’s hard for us to conceptualize what that must have been like, not only because we’re so far removed from that condition but because of the brevity with which it’s described. Again, Thomas Boston said, “The Bible only briefly describes this state compared to the subsequent states since it was short-lived, resulting from humans misusing their free will.”

While it was possible for Adam and Eve to sin, fresh from the hand of the Creator our first parents were morally good, endowed with knowledge and understanding, and their wills were aligned to God and their affections pure. They knew no sin, heartache, sickness, or death. They were untouched by misery. Their lives were lived in fellowship with God in which He loved them and they loved Him in return. In this condition, they were capable of fulfilling the purpose for which God caused all things to exist—to know, love, and serve Him according to His will. In short, they were happy and holy.

Owing to sin, however, Adam and Eve did not continue in that estate of innocence. Since Adam was a public person—humanity’s representative in the covenant of works—all mankind descending from him by ordinary means fell with him in that first sin. Tragically, this meant not only did they discontinue in that estate but their posterity, likewise, have been born into a condition very different from that first one: fallen from the state of innocency, fallen from the glory of God.

Our Catechism calls this the estate of sin and misery. It’s a condition that is described by the apostle Paul: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). The Catechism will continue in following questions to detail the sinfulness and misery of this condition. Suffice it to say at this point that it consists of sin and death.

Before the details, however, what needs to be emphasized is the universality of this condition. The Catechism says, “The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.” Of those descending from Adam by ordinary generation, there are no exceptions. Again, in another place, the apostle says we are “by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). Nature, in this place, isn’t a reference to mankind’s original creation, but rather who we all, because of the fall, have become. As John Calvin said, “There is a twofold nature: the one was produced by God, and the other is the corruption of it.…We are not born such as Adam was at first created.”

As this condition is universally shared by mankind, it becomes the common touchpoint for the introduction of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In our witness, we do fallen humanity no good to placate them with platitudes and affirmations of inherent so-called goodness and decency. In bravely exposing the natural estate of sin and misery, we show forth the need for a Savior. After all, it’s not the healthy who need a physician but the sick, and Christ hasn’t come to call the righteous but the unrighteous. Therefore, as Thomas Boston also said, any who desire to enter heaven must know “what humans are like in a state of corrupt nature, as they have undone themselves.”