In the beginning Adam sinned and
became a sinner. Sinning became an inevitable reality. As a result, all of his
descendants will not sin and become sinners, rather they will sin because they are sinners and will die as a result of sin (Psa 51:5; Rom 5:12, 15-19; 1 Cor
15:21-22).
I threw out some words at the
beginning of our series on what might come to mind when we hear the word
“helpless.” One word that might surface is “victim.” If we read “victim” into
the Fall, we lack a correct understanding of the doctrine of sin. Adam and
Eve were not victims by any stretch
of the imagination in disobeying God’s one and only prohibition in the Garden
of Eden; if anything they were volunteers.
Anybody reading Gn 3:16-24 can
quickly deduce that God was not cutting Adam or Eve any slack over being
disobedient, but note, He did not send them out of the Garden in a state of
spiritual death or separation from Himself. He made tunics for them. This reveals
the first recorded physical death of life, two animals. More than likely these
animals were sheep. These deaths served a two-fold purpose: spiritually, the
blood of the sheep covered their sin against God, and practically, the hides
provided more suitable clothing than fragile fig leaves. It was the first act of
grace recorded in human history (Gn 3:21).
They were no longer spiritually separated from God,
They were no longer spiritually separated from God,
There are 31,536,000 seconds in a year or 56.8 million plus deaths annually
worldwide. We are accustomed to death without ever getting used to it. Adam’s
exposure was the death of the two animals then came the death of Abel. The
world was set on a course of decay and death, but hey, their eyes were opened,
and they were like God, knowing good and evil (Gn 3:5, 6, 22)…! What’s wrong
with this picture? We need to be ever so careful in entertaining going against
the Word of God (cf. Gn 5:5). It will slap us into a helpless state (broken
fellowship, guilt, powerless, and ripples) quicker than we can blink an eye! Holiness is far
more sensitive than we realize. 1 Jn 1:9 is one of the most beautiful portions
of Scripture in addressing thoughts, words, and acts of stupid on our part.
For Adam and Eve, the opening of
their eyes and knowing good and evil turned out to be a shocking and dreadful
unanticipated result (Gn 3:5)! Oh, how those hollow words must have echoed and
resonated in their minds, “You will not surely die” (Gn 3:4). The awful and
embarrassing experience of being driven out of the Garden before the host of
heaven (Gn 3:22, 23, 24) and experiencing their first taste of the hurtful
sting of finality this side of heaven with the death of their second son, Abel (Gn 4:8). It seemed all
so surreal to them; this new reality, that is. Disobedience goes deep and long, doesn’t
it? It was a brilliant stroke of spiritual terrorism on the enemy’s part; Satan
got a lot of mileage out of the collateral damage. Oh, Lord, please be merciful for it
runs so long and deep!
Looking at the soil, smelling
it, feeling it, and tilling it for the next 930 years (Gn 5:5), Adam would be
reminded constantly of being created from the same ground, “taken” (Gn 3:19,
23), and the cost of failing to listen to God’s command that he would “return”
to the same ground he was now working and sweating over day after day. Both Adam
and his wife realized a little too late that the prohibition was actually a
positive thing; the serpent had framed and presented God’s command as something
negative and selfish on God’s part (Gn 3:5). Satan always maintains that God’s
imperatives are withholding of good, selfish, and mean-spirited. It was a lie
then and a prevarication now.
Think of it; of all the number of trees in the Garden (number
unknown), there was only one, not many, to avoid on their diet plan. The devil
is in the confusion; he was able to turn Eve's attention to the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil like a beckoning light by his craftiness. From Eve’s
viewpoint, don’t touch, don’t eat drew her like a bug. Eventually, we read of
the couple standing front and center at the tree that was really bad for food
(contrast Eve’s, “saw that the tree was good for food,” Gn 3:6).
People naturally gravitate to the negatives as sinners, but Adam
and Eve were without sin! For us sinners, those warning signs to keep off the grass, wet paint,
and electrified fences demand that we walk across the green, touch the
paint, or grab hold of the charged wire! Oh, this is so me! Common sense and optimism
have no efficacy in dealing with the negatives in the spiritual realm; it takes
the wisdom and power of Christ to overcome being attracted and messing with the
negatives today (Jn 15:5; Php 4:13).
In my writings, I have written
much about the influence of my grandfather who was truly a man of the land. I
observed and learned much from him at an early age. And as the old saying goes,
“If I had to do it all over again; I wouldn’t trade a lick of it for all the tea in China.” We spent time together working and hunting on the farm. In many ways he
shaped my terrestrial thinking on so many things without saying a word; it was in the way
he did things. Papa, as he was affectionately known, was not a man of many
words, but he was a man of action who knew how to work the land. He understood
his connection with the earth.
He lived a simple life, but life
on the farm was demanding and required faithfulness and fortitude. There were always chores
even on Sunday, like tending to all the animals. I visited the farm quite
frequently. Because I didn’t actually live on the farm, I had a more idealistic
notion of farm life. My cousins saw it differently than I did. When Papa spoke, you
listened. I can’t say I always agreed with him (driven by youth, arrogance, and
naiveté), but in my reflections of him, his wisdom was earthy and profound from having to work and
live off the land all of his life. Any farms, ranches, fresh vegetable stands, cattle, horses,
hogs, chickens, bird dogs, and even quail remind me of Papa and my surrealistic view of life on the farm.
I never understood my
fascination with the life surrounding agricultural or animal husbandry,
cultivating the land, or raising stock before my spiritual regeneration. There was this unexplainable pull in my
spirit as if I shared an affinity with the land and all that came with it, including
the trees, the grasses, and the animals. It was only after I was born again two months shy of 24 did I make sense of it all. Though I am an indirect creation of God (from the
womb), Adam came from the dust of the
ground (Gn 2:7). Barring the rapture, you and I will return to the dust as sons
and daughters of Adam from which the first Adam came. There is really but one race of man,
the human race, and Adam is the father of us all! I am not sure about any spark of
divinity in all of us, but I do believe there is a speck of dust in all of us
for we are all “in Adam!” This being “in Adam” brings about a host of
questions. Paul remarked,
“For since by man came
death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all
shall be made alive” (1 Cor 15:21-22, emphasis mine).
Some of the most nagging
questions in the Bible for me revolve around the story of the fall of man. Why
in the world would Adam sin against knowledge (Gn 2:17), knowing it would
result in being dust destined? He wasn’t a so-called Neanderthal type with a prominent
brow ridge (supraorbital torus) for God gave Adam a high degree of intelligence
as seen in his ability to name all the animals (Gn 2:19), and his beautiful brain
activity must have been off the charts for he was not hampered by the dynamics
of sin. Why would he want to return to the ground? Surely, there were more
things to do above ground! Obedience is far better than dirt-napping, eh! Heaven can wait since my time here is but a fleeting moment.
What motivated Adam to disobey
is of far lesser importance as to why we are sinners? We all sin for individual
reasons, but this original sin appears to have more of an encompassing,
universal aspect to it. Why should we be held responsible for an act committed
thousands of years ago in an environment so alien and unrelatable to our own by
an unknown relative? What is the relationship between Adam’s sin and ours? Why
are we born sinners? How is it that Adam’s sin led to our condemnation and
exposure to the wrath of the Creator God?
There are far more questions we
could explore, but if we truly believe that the Bible is the supreme authority
in all matters of faith and practice, this is where we should go for the answers
concerning all of these questions rather than listening to the theories of the
world. Secular psychiatrists and psychologists cannot even label aberrant human
behavior as “sin,” any more than our current Commander and Chief can
characterize the brutal and savage nature of ISIS as radical Islamic terrorism! However, the Bible
says we are all sinners. If the Bible declares it so then we are sinners,
period (e.g., Rom 3:23), but God has not left us without some explanation, and
how we interpret the biblical data is key to be sure.
In Part 5 it is my hope not to
get too bogged down in theological explanation of why there is something
inherent in being human. We can deny the bent to sin, but death will make liars
of us all (Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:22a). The question will be how did our sinful nature
come about anyway? Am I a sinner by representation or by my own choice? There
are two major schools of theological thought on those two questions. If you are not too
familiar with this discussion, you just might want to know because it impacts
your life here and where you spend eternity in the hereafter. <><
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| To Part 5 |
1.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2066.html
