Introduction.
Although popular philosophy that
emphasizes the dignity and mental capabilities of man would flatter men into
thinking that they can produce from within themselves the desire to do good and
avoid evil, and that there is nothing
wrong with humanity, the bible teaches differently on this matter. God did make
man pure, good, special and even noble in nature [Genesis 1:27-30; 2:19], for
unlike all other creation he was made in the image of God, who went ahead and
placed him in charge of the rest of the entire creation! But a reading of
Genesis 3:1-7 teaches us that when Adam and his wife Eve disobeyed God and ate
the fruit that He had instructed them not to eat, they fell out of favour with
God and the goodness, purity and nobility of man was thence corrupted and he turned
into a being that was no longer able to choose good but rather became inclined
toward evil.[2]
This disobedience that led to this fall is called sin for essentially Adam and his wife went against the clear
command or law of God, and sin is lawlessness [Titus 2:14; 1John 3:4],
disobedience [Romans 5:19], trespass [Ephesians 2:1] and unrighteousness
against and before God [1John 1:9]. Wayne Grudem defines sin thus;
Sin is any failure to conform to the
moral law of God in act, attitude or nature. Sin is here defined in relation
to God and his moral law. [emphasis
mine][3]
Prior to the incident in the Garden of
Eden, when Satan deceived Adam and Eve to doubt God’s word and rely on their
own strength and ability in discerning good and evil, Satan,
himself a fallen
angel, rebelled against God and became evil [2Peter 2:4; Jude 6]. The strategy
Satan employed was to use Eve and get her to lure her husband into disobeying
the command that God had given to him more so as he knew that Eve was not the
covenant head, having not received the command directly like her husband and so
would not have the same sense of responsibility apart from being the more
likely vulnerable in the arguments. Satan thereafter cast doubt in them by
questioning the goodness, wisdom and care of God to them and suggesting instead
that God was a miser and legalist who did not have their interest at heart. He persuaded
them that God’s directive was really an interference with man’s liberty and
rights, a command that had been issued out of pure selfishness and a desire to
by God to keep man in subjection. Satan then simply lied “you will not surely
die” [Genesis 3:4], suggesting to man that he would instead become like God!
The desire for autonomy and independence from God, the seeds of pride and
unbelief that had been sowed as well as a rejection of God’s sovereign
authority led Adam and Eve, like Satan before them, to rebel against God![4]
Roger Weil grimly says of this first temptation and fall into sin;
Satan by tempting him caused Adam to
fail the test of pure obedience to God. Adam believed that by choosing his own
way he could be like God himself. Adam thus became the servant of sin. Because
he was the representative of the whole human race he transmitted to his
descendants the pollution and guilt of sin (Romans 5:12, 18-19). We therefore
inherit our fallen natures from Adam our earthly head.[5]
Somehow the Devil continues to tempt
people today to sin against God by basically using the same strategy that he
employed with Adam and Eve in Eden and a look at the temptation of Jesus as
recorded in Matthew 4 bears witness to this. In the first temptation and
clearly seeking to cast doubt in the mind of Christ about whom God had said in
Matthew 3:17 “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”, Satan starts
by saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become
loaves of bread.” Then he lies by misquoting and negating the intent of what
God has said in his word just like he did with Adam and Eve and it takes the
clear and perfect knowledge of the Scriptures by our Lord to put him off this
line of attack! Basically he employs the same trick in the second temptation
and upon realizing he has failed in both cases uses the third trick of creating
a desire to reject God’s authority, to seek to be autonomous from God and to
reject God’s clear command that He alone is to be worshipped when he asks
Christ to worship him so that he gives Christ his own kingdom! [Matthew 4:8-11]
These are really the same strategies and ways that Satan uses today to tempt
us. He has kept sinners in false comfort zones by conning them that there is no
God, or that the demands of God upon sinners are too burdensome, or that God
really doesn’t love us when He denies us the ‘pleasures’ of sin that this world
offers, or that God is tyrannical and really just does not want the best for us
and that his commands deny us the ‘right’ to acquire the best things in life
which we would acquire, say through corruption! No wonder that David in Psalm
73:2ff says that ‘his feet almost slipped when he saw how the prosperity of the
wicked and how they appeared healthy and unburdened by the cares common to
men’, and Satan uses these same kind of tricks on us today.
As
God had indicated that the penalty for sin would be death, the disobedience of
his command indeed caused Adam and Eve to ‘die’ in several ways. First and foremost
they died spiritually in that the communion with God that they had hitherto
enjoyed ceased. God is holy and cannot consort with sin and the sin of Adam and
his wife separated them from God such that they became as good as dead from
that point of sin onwards for it is only in communion with God that they could
truly be alive![6]
Other than this, they also now became susceptible to physical death so that in
Genesis 3:19 man is told that just as he had been made from the dust of the
earth, then to that dust he would return. Indeed and in fulfilment of this
promise we see in Genesis 5:5 that Adam physically died after he had lived for
930 years. Lastly, the penalty of death for sin meant that Adam, unless he
repented and was forgiven by God would face eternal death: the culmination of
spiritual death or separation from God. This is the unending form of death
reserved for sinners spoken of in Revelation 14:11 thus;
And the smoke of their torment rises
forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast
and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.
Unrepentant
sinners would and will therefore be sent into hell where they shall die
continuously and for all eternity.
On account of all the foregoing and going
now to Genesis 3:8 onwards, we see that sin has quite adversely affected the
various relationships that existed prior to its entry into the Garden of Eden. As
between man and God, it must be noted that prior to the fall man who had been
created upright and in God’s image had full communion with God. Louis Berkhof
says of the consequence of this sin,
As a result of it man lost the image of
God in the restricted sense, became guilty and utterly corrupt, and fell under the sway of death, Gen 3:19; Rom 5:12; 6:23[7]
Man became
separated from God [Deuteronomy 31:17f, Psalm78:59-62], felt guilty and no
longer wanted to be near God or even to encounter him. Little wonder then that
when God came into the Garden that evening, man decided to hide away from him, naked
and ashamed [verses 8ff][8]. And
this was an effect not only on Adam but a consequence that by transmission
befell all of humanity. In an article in the ESV study Bible and while
including a quote from Romans 3:10ff and Isaiah 53:6, the authors thereof make
the following startling and grim comments on the effects of the sin;
The curse brought physical and spiritual
death, separation from God and alienation from him and others. All people are
now conceived, born, and live in this fallen, depraved condition: “None is
righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have
turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even
one”[9]
This means that
man is no longer capable of pleasing God and God in turn banished man from his
presence [Genesis 3:23f] having lost the
favour of God and the communion hitherto existing.
The relationship between the man and the
woman was also affected in that the woman who hitherto had been referred to by
Adam as ‘bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’ [Genesis 2:23], was now
referred to disdainfully and most regrettably as ‘this woman you put here with
me!’ [Genesis 3:12] But that was not all, for in verse 16 we find that there
would eternally exist a power struggle between these erstwhile good companions
with the woman always seeking to be either like or above the man who had
already been given authority over her. The man who himself had shown much love,
companionship and understanding towards the woman would now exercise an almost
authoritarian rule over her!
The relationship between man and his work
was also affected. A look at Genesis 2:15 which is the point at which man is
put in charge of all that God had created and when he is tasked with working
the Garden seems to show that the work was joyfully accepted by man as not
burdensome. Indeed even thereafter, but before the fall, we do not see man
having any complaints of any sort about his work in the Garden as God had
mandated. However in Genesis 3:17ff we see God cursing the ground such that
man’s labours are no longer enjoyable but rather a most painful experience!
Says the LORD in part b of verse 17;
…Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18It
will produce thorns and thistles for you…19By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food until you return to the ground since fro it you were
taken…
Derek Prime,
commenting on the immediate consequence of sin in so far as man and work are
concerned says
The first man and woman’s experience of
the wonder of God’s creation was immediately spoilt: childbearing became
associated with pain (Gen. 3:16); daily work became a matter of toil (Gen.
3:17-19).[10]
In Conclusion we can say that although God
gave the earth to the children of men, designed as a comfortable dwelling for
them, sin has altered the property of it and it has instead become cursed for
man’s sin and has become a dishonorable habitation.[11]
Its spontaneous productions are now weeds and briers and to even get some
amount of good from it must require hard toil, ingenuity and labour from man.
The beautiful relationships that existed prior to man’s fall: whether between
him and his God or even with fellow man are all destroyed. It can only get
better through God’s intervention and we can indeed only thank God that He has
intervened through the perfect sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour.
Bibliography
Derek Prime, Bible Answers to Questions about the
Christian Faith and Life. [Ross-shire, Scotland] Focus
Publications, 2004.
ESV
Study Bible, Biblical Doctrine: An
Overview. [Wheaton, Illinois] Crossway, 2007.
John Calvin, Biblical Christianity. [Arlington London, England]; Evangelical
Press, 1982.
Louis
Berkhof, A Summary of Christian Doctrine.
[Edinburgh, UK] The Banner of Truth Trust, 2005.
Mathew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible. [USA];
Hendrickson Publishers, 1999.
Roger Weil, Foundations of the Christian Faith.
[Arlington, England] Grace Publications Trust, 2007.
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, An Introduction to
Biblical Doctrine. [Leicester, England]; Inter-Varsity Press, 1994.
[2] John Calvin, Biblical Christianity. [Arlington
London, England]; Evangelical Press, 1982. 55-70
[3] Wayne
Grudem, Systematic Theology, An
Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. [Leicester, England]; Inter-Varsity
Press, 1994. 490
[4] ESV
Study Bible, Biblical Doctrine: An
Overview. [Wheaton, Illinois] Crossway:2007. 2530-2531
[5] Roger Weil, Foundations of the Christian Faith.
[Arlington, England] Grace Publications Trust, 2007. 71
[6] Supra note 2 at
497-498
[7] Louis
Berkhof, A Summary of Christian Doctrine.
[Edinburgh, UK] The Banner of Truth Trust, 2005. 57
[8] cf Daniel 9:7;
Amos3:2f and Isaiah 59:1f ; The physical separation of man from God is
displayed starkly when in Genesis3:23f, we are told that man was banished from
working in the Garden of Eden
[apparently he had enjoyed working there] and was driven out from the
Garden [read ‘from God’s presence and communion with God’] and to ensure Adam
understood that he was no longer welcome, God stationed a cherubim with a flaming
sword at the gate of the Garden to guard the way to the tree of life!
[9] Supra note 2 at 2530
[10] Derek Prime, Bible Answers to Questions about the
Christian Faith and Life. [Ross-shire,
Scotland] Focus Publications, 2004. 48
[11] Mathew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible. [USA];
Hendrickson Publishers, 1999, 14-15
