Last week I started off with the angst of the fall and sin’s effects on our lives. Each of us knows deep in our hearts that the way the world works is not things should be. The present state of affairs is not the ideal state of affairs. Our very recognition of death as bad and mourning those who have died points to the intrinsic knowledge that there is something greater and that death is our enemy. Indeed, in the Garden death was not the guaranteed end of all men. That is, until the Fall.
In The Garden
In Genesis we begin with an explosion of creation by God. The Earth, the heavens, the multitude of stars including our sun, are spoken into existence by the omnipotent will of God. All plants and animals spring forth at the word of God. The Earth is now teeming with life! This good land is ripe for a caretaker. Into this creation, which God has called good, God creates mankind. He forms man from the dust and personally breathes life into him. “Adam,” as he is called, had a purpose. Genesis 2:15 says that man was placed in the Garden of Eden to work and keep the garden.
Man is made by God to work.
As soon as Adam is placed in the Garden, God gives him conditions for his life. He is allowed to eat of all trees in the Garden except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He is told if he eats of that tree he “shall surely die.” Adam enjoyed unbroken fellowship with God. Verse 18 continues the narrative with God including Adam in his creative acts by delegating authority to Adam to name the animals God has created.
Pause.
Not only was God not distant at all before the Fall, but man worked alongside him. How wonderful that God not only fellowshiped with Adam, but included him in His work. Almost as if this was the first “bring your child to work” day. Except, instead of occupying the child with coloring books or a smartphone, Adam is naming the animals God has created. Into this God creates Woman, recognizing that man should not be alone. Adam, and now Eve, enjoy glorious, sinless, open, and unhindered fellowship with the Creator God of the universe.
The Serpent
Into this comes the Serpent. The Devil. He tempts Adam and Eve to transgress the single command of God. God has given one command to them, and Satan tempts them by calling God a liar. “You shall not surely die,” he says. He directly contradicts Almighty God. Further, he claims that man will become like God which is the very thing Satan desired for himself. (Isaiah 14:12-14) Our Parents ignored God’s command and in so doing sinned against him.
In Adam All Die
Man sinned against God and in so doing death entered. Man died spiritually at the point of sin and now as a result of sin he would also die physically. Sin also had the crushing consequence of breaking man’s fellowship with God. Genesis 3:8ff relates how God walked in the Garden in the cool of the day and man hid from him. He walked in his Garden in the time of the day most desirable, when the air had cooled, and I imagine it would have been most pleasurable for man. Yet they hid.
Adam and Eve had fellowship with God but because of sin they now hid from their loving Creator. Sin breaks our fellowship with God. Not just Adam and Eve, but all of their children. Us. God made clothing for Adam and Eve from skins. For the first time, something died and blood was shed as penalty for sin. The blood of atonement is foreshadowed. The Gospel is preached in the protoevangelion in Genesis 3:15.
Paul later tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that through one man death came to all. In Adam, death entered and now affects all mankind.
Sinful By Nature
Through this original sin, all men are sinful by nature. We merit hell because we are sinners. We sin because we are sinners, not that we are sinners because we sin. What I mean is, we do not enter life guiltless. All are guilty from the womb to the tomb. We sin because it is our nature to do so. We are totally depraved as it would come to be called. That does not mean that we are as evil as can possibly be, but that our nature is so corrupted by sin that we cannot do good apart from God.
We sin because we are sinners. We shake our fists at a holy God because our nature is corrupted by sin. The Earth groans (romans 8:22) as it awaits the coming redemption of God. All of Creation was affected by sin. To what extent is still unclear. What is clear is because of sin God’s wrath and judgment hangs over all of us. Our sin merits nothing but our damnation and judgment. Because of our sin and total corruption of our nature we cannot choose to do good. We choose evil. Only. Continually.
We are under judgment and incapable of escaping it.
“For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
1 Corinthians 15:21-22
We all died in Adam. Will we all be made alive in Christ?
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