We all know that Eve was
deceived, not Adam (1 Tim 2:14); there is no evidence that she directly heard
from God, but Adam apparently relayed the prohibition to Eve, except for the
touching part (cf. Gn 3:3); she added that no-touch amendment to the ban on her
own terms. Why in the world would she do that? History has shown she is not
alone in adding to God’s Word, but she was the first to do so! The subtle
serpent took advantage of Eve supplementing God’s Word by simply saying, “You
will not surely die” (Gn 3:4). Slick and sinister this serpent was/is.
When she touched the forbidden
fruit, she didn’t die, providing that extra nudge to support the serpent’s
contention that touching the fruit is not going to kill you! Maybe Eve
reasoned, “Well, I am still alive after touching it; maybe I won’t die eating
it either?” The next thing you know; there were chomps and swallows, and
something auto-transformational took place that had no reset – “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew….” (Gn
3:7).
How do we relate to “opened, and they knew?” They were created innocent; we are born fallen (Psa 51:5; cf. Rom 3:23; 5:12). We have no idea what a world without sin is like; they did; how great was the fall of them both! Perhaps the depth of the fall is better understood by being contrastive rather than comparative: sunlight and cave-like darkness, sinlessness and sinfulness, innocent and guilty, painless and painful, comfortable and sweaty, energetic and tired, healthy and sick, fellowship and separation, eternal and temporal, life and death, and so on.
How do we relate to “opened, and they knew?” They were created innocent; we are born fallen (Psa 51:5; cf. Rom 3:23; 5:12). We have no idea what a world without sin is like; they did; how great was the fall of them both! Perhaps the depth of the fall is better understood by being contrastive rather than comparative: sunlight and cave-like darkness, sinlessness and sinfulness, innocent and guilty, painless and painful, comfortable and sweaty, energetic and tired, healthy and sick, fellowship and separation, eternal and temporal, life and death, and so on.
We can see the contrasts before the fall and the divine decrees afterward (Gn 3:15-19), chased by the
murder of Abel by Cain (Gn 4:8), the ungodly lineage of Cain characterized by a
family trait of, “from the presence of the LORD (Gn 4:16-24), and culminating
in a world-wide spirit of,
“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually” (Gn 6:5).
Today is becoming eerily similar to that
spiritual summary of the antediluvian civilization. The antichrist spirit thrives in
such an abject atmosphere. Only eight are spared by an escape pod of faith (Heb
11:7; 2 Pet 2:5).
Adam, on the other hand, sinned
against knowledge in eating the forbidden fruit for God spoke directly to him
about this (Gn 2:17). Whenever we sin against knowledge we are inviting a
ripple effect without any idea how far the nearest shore is, but invariably,
our disobedience to God will ripple; nobody sins for free! In the case of Adam, he was already aware of the consequence of rebellion, “You shall surely die.”
It was a predictable cause and effect, but beyond that, Adam didn’t have a clue
of the ramifications of introducing sin into the world, and I don’t have to
tell you what kind of world we live in today; it is nothing like what we read
about during Edenic times before the fall, but afterward, the world went to the
pits.
In fact, none of us know the magnitude
of the ripple effect due to our willful rebellion in sinning against knowledge;
naturally, it is incomparable to the outreach of the original sin that is still
rippling today (Rom 5:12; 8:22), but our sins will ripple nonetheless to some
known and unknown shore. We can gain forgiveness to be sure (1 Jn 1:9), but we
all have to live with the ripple effect of our rebellion after forgiveness even though fellowship with God is restored. We can be forgiven and restored to fellowship, but the ripple effect of our disobedience will continue to ripple.
When will we ever learn that there
are always consequences to sinning against knowledge? It will probably never happen
down here. One thing history teaches us, according to my esteemed history professor, is “We never learn from history” which is why it is doomed to “repeat” itself.
Every generation is bent on reinventing the wheel because it knows best.
Reaping the ripple is called the
law of the harvest; we reap what we sow, right (Gal 6:7)? Never has there been
a principle so ignored than this one, except perhaps for the golden rule. So
many of us intentionally ignore the reaping and run like the wind with the sowing,
at that moment where consequences are inconsequential, like Eve handing Adam
the fruit of death (cf. Jas 1:14-15) – “Thank you, dear!” Adam knew he was
about to go stupid; I suppose this is the first recorded event of going stupid
in humanity! Second was Adam knowingly sinning against knowledge.
One of the things that the
idyllic Garden scene revealed to us was that even living in a utopian environment does not
prevent man from sinning. Man’s answer to all the manifestations of sin in the
world today is to create some kind of idyllic world…! It’s always about
the environment; there is little to no personal accountability for sin.
Remember the finger-pointing episodes when God arrived on the scene in the
Garden? It’s in our nature! I think Adam and Eve may have a rebuttal on the subject of pipe dreams – it’s called, “udopia,” and unlike us, they had the
advantage of being sinless. It’s a scary thought actually.
So, why did Adam do this
egregious thing? Why would he trash the goodness of God and chuck everything
away? Well, it is apparent he didn’t listen to God! It’s Hamartiology 101. We
will have to leave it there and ask Adam in heaven? I think we will be
disappointed by the answer if we are allowed to pop him the question up there.
He may say, “Look in the mirror!” There is nothing admirable about willfully
sinning against God for any reason; for God, sinning is a vile and ugly behavior with a leprous smell, even if it is possibly done for the sake of “love,” and I am not
suggesting that this is why Adam specifically decided to follow Eve in
rebelling, but it may have been one of several key factors. It makes me feel
uneasy that Adam fell from his innocence, but that’s another story.
It sounds all so noble and
romantic if such were the case that Adam died for love, a Romeo and Juliet
storyline. When she ate, “She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate” (Gn 3:6, emphasis mine); he
could have refused her offer because he was not deceived like his wife, but we know
he didn’t; he took the “no touch” fruit from her hand. Wasn’t it so romantic
that they realized they were “naked?” No, they were horrified!
After it was all said and done, the world plunged into a deep,
deep darkness that unleashed the destructive nature of the power and
pervasiveness of sin; man now has a sinful nature to manifest that will wreak
havoc on the world! The reason for any and everything will probably get all
filtered out in the “we shall be changed” transition (1 Cor 15:52). So asking
Adam or anyone the “why” behind the rebellion will never materialize. All of
that sin stuff is gone forever when we are glorified. The Bema Seat is all
about rewards for service, not a judgment for sin which was decisively and
eternally addressed at Calvary, by the way.
We know of only one sin that
Adam committed in the biblical record, but since we know of no other sin,
should we presume he never sinned again for the rest of his life? Did he learn his
lesson and plan on being a good boy from here on out? Unfortunately for
humanity, there was no reset button. Consider this; Adam carried his sinful nature
within him for 930 years after the worst day in the Garden of Eden, “and he
died” (Gn 5:5); his death is unequivocal proof that Adam was a sinner now and
so will be all of his descendants (Rom 5:12). Hmm, Adam is the father of the
human race. Yeah, you are a sinner just like me because all of humanity is in
Adam, and in Adam, all die (1 Cor 15:22a).
Genesis 5 reads like a genealogy
of death with the “and he died” clauses occurring 8 times. Even though Noah
escaped the flood, he was part of that family tree of the godly line of
Seth, Adam’s third son (Gn 4:25, 26), we read in Gn 9:29, “and he died.” Death
had passed to all men for all had sinned (Rom 5:12). Perhaps another way of
looking at Gn 2:17 is, “in the day that you eat of it” – [we, excluding God, of
course] “shall surely die.” Noah did, and so will we, barring the rapture.
What God warned Adam about did
happen; Adam died spiritually immediately and physically eventually. Did Adam ever sin again during those 930 years of
living in a world racked with sin? Yes, for a sinner cannot live a sinless life
(cf. 1 Jn 1:8). No one will ever live a perfect life other than Jesus Christ;
for He was sinless (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15; 1 Jn 3:5) as I mentioned in Part 2.
He had to be an acceptable sacrifice to address the penalty of man’s sin;
this is the meaning behind an unblemished lamb.
Remember Jesus’ first cousin, John the Baptist, declaring, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29)? Here is our unblemished Passover Lamb, Jesus! Through His sacrificial agape love for man, He did what human works can never accomplish; He satisfied God's righteous and just demands of the penalty of man’s sin for disobedience by offering up His life on the cross for you and me (Rom 5:8;1 Jn 2:2; 4:10).
Remember Jesus’ first cousin, John the Baptist, declaring, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29)? Here is our unblemished Passover Lamb, Jesus! Through His sacrificial agape love for man, He did what human works can never accomplish; He satisfied God's righteous and just demands of the penalty of man’s sin for disobedience by offering up His life on the cross for you and me (Rom 5:8;1 Jn 2:2; 4:10).
Before being forced from the
Garden forever (Gn 3:24), God provided a covering for Adam and Eve (Gn
3:21), foreshadowing the redemptive work of the Lamb of God. It is here in the realization,
exposure, cover-up, evasion, and finger-pointing by the parents of mankind that we see our utterly helpless state to do anything to remedy our spiritual condition of being
spiritually separated from God on our own.
It was pitiful; they became
“wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” after willingly eating the
forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is
definitively a picture of helplessness! They were not accustomed to this new normal. Their eyes being “opened” comes across as sort of a shock, as if
something not bargained for! The serpent’s forked tongue must have been flickering
a mile a minute as if picking up on the chemical particles of the scent of the
fall of humankind! The world was about to change. The smell was in the air, and
the demons were dancing with delirious delight.
Not only were Adam and Eve
absolutely helpless to do anything about their spiritual state of affairs, but neither will also any of their descendants because salvation is not of works (Eph
2:9; Titus 3:5; cf. Rom 11:5, 6, 7); it is sourced in God through Jesus Christ
alone (Jn 14:6; Acts 4:12). There is no donning of self-righteousness, or
hiding from the truth (in willful ignorance), or pointing the finger that is
going to bring relief from the penalty of sin – eternal separation from God in
the lake of fire!
Salvation can never be anything
other than what it has always been – the gift of grace (Gn 6:8; Eph 2:8). Only the helpless will see the grace of
salvation in Christ alone, and the salvation by works mentality will never
realize their helpless spiritual condition by rejecting the unmerited favor of
God for works. In the end the faithful floats away; the wicked sink beneath the
deluge of judgment. This has always been and always will be the end result of
two destinies. <><
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| To Part 4 |
