December 4 – The Fall of Man

Romans 3:23 (WEB)
For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God…

You don’t have to look around at our world for long to understand that not everything is beautiful and good. Our world is full of pain and suffering and heartache, too. If God created a good and beautiful world, then how did all this suffering become a part of it?

I’ve heard some pretty interesting answers to this question over the years. But I will show you what the Bible says about this in Genesis chapters 2 and 3. It has to do with that gift of free will which God gave mankind.

Genesis 2:15-17 (WEB)
Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”

God created Adam and Eve with the ability to choose. They could chose to obey God or not. They could chose to worship Him or not. If you think about it, love isn’t really love if you force someone to love you. And if God wanted to have an authentic relationship with the people He had created, then they would need to have the ability to choose to love Him or not love Him.

So far in their relationship, Adam and Eve had no reason to doubt God’s goodness or truthfulness. Everything they saw in their new world spoke of a good God. Until one day a voice of doubt spoke to Eve.

Enter the serpent, the deceiver, the adversary of God and His creation. In Genesis 3:1-5, the serpent, who is later identified as Satan, plants seeds of doubt about God’s goodness into Eve’s mind. “God’s withholding something good from you,” he tells her. “He just doesn’t want you to be like Him. You want to be like God, don’t you? Go ahead. Take the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eat it.” He lies and says there will be no consequences, just good, positive results from this indulgence. And Eve, deceived, makes her choice.

Genesis 3:6 (WEB) 
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took some of its fruit, and ate. Then she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too.

And with this choice sin entered into our world and spread to all future generations. This is called the Fall of Man. And contrary to what the serpent said, there were indeed consequences. You can read about them in Genesis chapter 3. Much of them you know. The beautiful world that God created would now experience decay and death, just as God had said.

The first death actually occurred when, instead of Adam and Eve dying for their sin, an animal was slain by God in their place and its skin covered their shame (v. 21). But the sacrifice of an animal could not fully eliminate their debt and determine their final destiny. Their human bodies were now destined to die one day. Yet their God-breathed souls were eternal. Were their souls now destined to a place of eternal death and separation from God? This was a consequence bigger than they could handle.

What God did next may surprise you. He was not about to give up on his relationship with those He created. Tomorrow we will see how on this day He put into motion a plan to demonstrate His great love for them. Because He is a God who not only forgives, but also makes a way for restoration.

No matter how badly we have messed up and no matter what we have done, God loves us and is always ready to forgive a repentant heart.

Romans 6:23 (WEB)
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Brandon Lake, “Daddy’s DNA”

Scripture verses taken from the World English Bible (WEB), Public Domain.