The Fall Of Man
Reprinted from The Spiritual Sword
David R. Pharr

“Why did God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of Eden?  Would it not have been better for the tree to be kept from them?”

“Why was the serpent allowed to tempt them?  If there had been no temptation, perhaps there would never have been sin?”

“Why were Adam and Eve given the capacity to sin?  Could not God have made them so they could never sin?”

These and like concerns are sometimes raised, but the book of Genesis does not discuss such questions.  Instead, it deals with the reality of what actually happened and the consequences thereof.  While we accept that they are answered in the fact of man’s creation as a rational being endowed with freewill, it is not necessary for one to fully grasp the divine purpose in order to know the origin and effects of sin.  It is all here–evil, hardship, suffering, heartbreak, death, and hopelessness.  Where did it all begin?  It began when our primeval parents transgressed in eating the forbidden fruit.

Not Myth

Modernists treat Genesis 3 as a myth.  But to deny the historicity of the biblical account is to make the scheme of redemption a solution for which there is no problem.  If there was no separation from the tree of life, why was a plan necessary for its restoration?  If paradise was not lost, why must there be a means for paradise to be regained?  If death did not come into the world because of sin, why was an offering for sin needed to set us free from the fear of death (Heb. 2:14f)?

Both prophets and apostles accepted the fall in Eden as authentic history and the beginning of human sin and all its fruits (Job 31:33; Hos. 6:7; Rom. 5:12ff; 16:20; I Cor. 15:22f; II Cor. 11:3; I Tim. 2:14; Rev. 12:9).  “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12).  It is the tragic reality of the first transgression that magnifies the remedy that is in Christ.  “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (I Cor. 15:22).  So much was lost in Adam, but so much more is gained in Christ.  Jesus’ own reference to the beginning of marriage certifies the actuality of the Genesis record (Matt. 19:4f; Gen. 1:27; 2:23; cf. John 8:44).

Reality of Choice

Made in the image of God, Adam and Eve were made with the power of choice, creatures with freewill.  They were given oversight in the garden (Gen. 2:15) and were superior over all else made (Psa. 8:6f).  They were made for God’s glory (Rev. 4:11) and enjoyed his fellowship.  But with privilege was responsibility.  And responsibility required choice.  The crucial choice was whether they would obey the command of God.  “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:16f).

It is significant that the test was a positive commandment.  Some have reasoned that the issue seemed rather innocuous.  “Why would God be so severe over the eating of a fruit?”  It is commonly assumed that righteousness is little more than decent moral conduct.  Whether to eat a fruit would not seem a moral issue.  The point to be made is that any transgression of any divine commandment is sin (I John 3:4), always with deadly consequences (Rom. 6:23).

Every person’s character is the sum of the choices made through his life.  God did not create the first pair as sinners.  No one is born a sinner.  Sin is always by consent.  “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not” (Prov. 1:10).  The instruction was clear.  The alternatives were evident.  Sin entered the world when they made the wrong choice.

Calvinism argues the doctrine of hereditary depravity, that all are born with a sinful nature passed through the generations from Adam.  Sinful conduct is the result of inborn depravity.  The doctrine is false, of course (Ezek. 18:20), and is made more absurd by its failure to explain the first sin.  Our first parents did not sin because they had inherited a sinful nature (see Luke 3:38).  They sinned because they made the wrong choice.

Neither were they created with a propensity for sin.  “God hath made man upright” (Eccl. 7:29).  It is true that “there is none righteous” and that “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:10, 23; et al), but in every case it is personal transgression.  While we may speak accommodatingly of “the Fall” (as the beginning of sin and its consequences), the fact is that each person falls by his own transgression.  The first sin was not the “original sin” of Augustinian and Calvinistic theology.  Adam’s sin did not create some kind of hereditary disposition to evil.  The only spiritual and moral trait we inherit from our first parents is the power of choice.  Here, then, is a most sobering truth:  The enormity of Adam’s sin was in its effect on all subsequent generations, but in consequences to the person, no man’s disobedience is any less bitter.

Reality of Temptation

“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (Jas. 1:13).  We may not understand how Satan took the form of a serpent.  We may not understand how he directly communicated with Eve.  However, we fully understand the reality of temptation.  We know also that as God cannot be the source of evil in the world, there must indeed be a devil.  The cunning approach of Satan underscores the reason for Paul’s concern in IICorinthians 11:3.  “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”  There is always a chain of enticement arranged link by link until the soul is made captive.

The temptation began with the raising of doubt.  “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”  Insinuated was the suggestion that there was an unnecessary prohibition.  Did the Lord expect too much?  Was there something to be missed by not eating of that tree?  Was it reasonable that such a tree would be available and yet was not to be enjoyed?  The question exaggerated the prohibition: “every tree.”  The serpent would have us believe that obedience is a burden, but God’s commands are never grievous (I John 5:3).  No seduction is more hateful than doubting God’s benevolent love (cf. Deut. 1:26f).

Next there was direct denial.  The warning was clear: “lest ye die.” Satan, the father of lies (John 8:44), said, “Ye shall not surely die.”  Here was a direct contradiction of God’s warning, but with a subtle play on the word “die,” which fashioned a half truth, the most dangerous of all lies.  They would not instantly drop dead.  Therefore, he would have her believe, the consequences would not be so immediate and severe.  He continues to delude people by the notion that delayed justice is avoided justice (Eccl. 8:11).

The twin link of denial is deceit.  By questioning both God’s veracity and motives, Satan persuaded Eve that there was much to be gained.  “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”  In being “deceived” (I Tim. 2:14), Eve was led to not fear the Lord’s warning and to trust the devil’s promises.

No temptation can be effective without personal desire.  “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (Jas. 1:14f).  The process defined by James is exemplified in the first sin.  “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.”  Here also are all the elements of worldliness summarized by John: “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (I John 2:16).

The man was not deceived as was the woman (I Tim. 2:14).  It is idle, however, to speculate on what led Adam to knowingly partake.  The simple truth is that she “gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.”  What must be acknowledged is that whether under deception or in full awareness, sin committed is always sin.

Reality of Sin

It is unnecessary to argue the reality of sin.  As surely as there was a first man and woman, so there was a first sin.  And as surely as there have been generations of men and women, there has been sin ever since.  This is attested by Scripture (Gal. 3:22; et al).  It is loudly proclaimed in every newspaper.  It is silently, but indisputably, affirmed in every sensitive conscience (see Rom. 7:22ff).

Reality of Consequences

Sin always promises what it cannot give.  Satan promised enlightenment, but the “eyes of them both were opened,” not with omniscient wisdom, but with shame of conscience.  Rather than being like God (Gen. 2:5), they realized they were ungodly, unworthy of his fellowship and afraid of his wrath.  They “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord.”  Adam said, “I was afraid.” All of this was the working of conscience.  When God asked, “Where art thou,” it was not to find his location, but to impress Adam with where his sin had placed him.  All of the questions were pedagogic, designed for self-examination.  In a single act of disobedience they had degraded themselves into conscience-smitten, terrified creatures.

Some biblical parallels may impress us with the enormity of what had happened.  When Isaiah saw the Lord, his conscience terrified him because he knew (as Jesus declared) that only the pure have the privilege to see God (Isa. 6:1ff; Matt. 5:6).  Awed by the greatness of Jesus’ power, Peter pleaded: “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8).

More is involved, however, than an inward sense of guilt.  The guilt was actual and justice was demanded.  God had given warning and his warnings are never empty threats.  Sin separates from God (Isa. 59:2).  It separated Adam and Eve from the paradise of Eden, driving them out into a world of pain, hardship, fear and dying.  Every cry of pain, every stab of a thorn and every bereaved heart reminds us of sin’s perpetual curse.

Reality of Death

Banishment from the tree of life meant death.  As representative head of the human race, Adam’s transgression condemned him and his progeny to mortality.  “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”  Paul explained that “in Adam all die” (I Cor. 15:22).[i]  It was the sin of “one man” that brought to us all the reality of death[ii] (I Cor. 15:21; cf. Rom. 5:12ff[iii]).  Hebrews 2:14 reminds how the human race “through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”  “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body”(Rom. 8:22f).

Reality of Hope

The late Franklin Camp would refer to Genesis 3 as “the saddest chapter in the Bible.”  He was right.  All the trouble, suffering, hardship, heartache, hopelessness, loss and dying that has ever come into this world had its genesis when Adam and Eve chose to take a bite of sin.  Yet, the Bible is a book of hope.  God “rested” (ceased work) on the seventh day, having created a perfect paradise.  But when sin entered, he went back to work.  That work was the scheme of redemption and the rest of the Bible tells the story of the unfolding of his saving plan.  This is promised in the first hint of a Savior (Gen. 3:15) and is typified in the first blood shedding for the purpose of covering man’s sin (Gen. 3:24).

Everything lost in Adam is regained in Christ.  We can hardly miss the comparisons and contrasts between what happened with Adam in Eden and what happened with Jesus in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1ff).  The story of our Lord’s victory over temptation is more than simply evidence of his righteousness.  It also serves to show his fitness to remedy all the harm caused by the first sin, and not only Adam’s sin, but everyone’s sin.  “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Endnotes:
[i] This does not exclude Eve.  “Male and female created he them . . . and called their name Adam”(Gen. 5:2).

[ii] The point of these references is, of course, to assure that Christ is as surely the “firstfruits” of the resurrection as was Adam the firstfruits of death.  “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.  For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming” (I Cor. 15:20-23).

[iii] “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned . . .” (Rom. 5:12).  It is debated whether the death named is physical death or spiritual death.  See Howard Winters, Commentary on Romans (Greenville, SC: Carolina Christian, 1985) for reasons to consider it a reference to spiritual death.  Moses Lard regarded it as physical death.  “God decreed beforehand that if Adam sinned, both he and all his posterity should die.  All were thus bound up alike in the same decree to the same doom.  Accordingly, when Adam sinned, the decree took effect, and all died.”  Lard regards the cause stated (“for all have sinned”) as reference, not to personal sin, but to sin committed representatively in Adam.  Moses E. Lard, A Commentary on Romans, (Commentary on Paul’s Letter to Romans, (Reprint, Delight, AR: Gospel Light Pub. Co.).  J. D. Thomas argues persuasively that the Aorist tense (“sinned”) indicates “a one-time action,” which points to Adam’s one act which brought death to all.  “That the above is true is also brought out in verses 13 and 14 in that ‘death reigned’ between Adam and Moses, even though the people who lived in that period did not sin in the same way Adam sinned–namely, to bring death upon themselves.  Yet they died, so their deaths were attributable to being the consequence of Adam’s sin” (“An Exegesis–Romans 5:12,” Gospel Advocate, May 5, 1983, p.273).  This clarifies why infants may die even though they are guilty of no wrong.

Back to Articles Menu
Carolina Messenger
Spiritual Sword