The following is part of the “Quiet Time Meditations” series that explores various thoughts I have had while studying particular passages of Scripture.

If you asked the average Christian what the first sin was, you would likely get the answer of “eating the forbidden fruit” and little else.  In truth, the Fall is about far more than a poor diet choice.  Reducing the Fall to fruit misses the point of sin and thus cheapens the Gospel.  To examine what really happened in the Fall, we must go back to the Garden, remembering that this is no myth but actual history.  The scripture writers understood Adam and Eve as actual, historical people and the Fall as a true, historical event[1].  Admittedly, the Garden of Eden is so far removed from our present experience in the fallen world that it can certainly seem fanciful.  However, the command was real, the corruption was real, and the consequences were real.

The Command

Before the Fall and even before Eve was created, God charged Adam to tend the Garden and gave him a clear command: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).  At first glance, this command seems strange.  Of every command God could have given, why this one?  The punishment also seems harsh until one realizes that the command itself is insignificant when compared to the command giver: God.  Though it is true that all of God’s commands are for our good, this is not our primary motivation to obey them.  We must obey God’s commands not because of what they are but because of who He is.  To disregard any of God’s commands–no matter how “minor” they may seem–is an affront to our sovereign and wonderful God which devalues His infinite worth.

One might ask: If God wanted us to remain sinless, why did he put that tree there in the first place?  No tree means no Fall means no sin nature, right? Bearing in mind Romans 9, one must tread very carefully when posing such a question.  Since God does everything for His own glory, we must have faith that He created the tree of knowledge of good and evil, knowing that Adam and Eve would sin and that He would bring about salvation for His ultimate glory. One way God is more glorified with the Fall than without it is how God subsequently revealed His nature to us in ways not possible if we had not sinned.  For example, God reveals Himself gloriously to Moses:

“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

-Exodus 34:6-7, ESV

Many of these attributes would be incomprehensible to us apart from some understanding of sin, so it is no stretch to say our worship of God is magnified as we understand and experience His redemptive work.  Furthermore, we cannot assume that if the tree was absent the Fall would not have happened.  The tree was only a small part, a passive player in this story.  As we will soon see, there was much more happening in the Fall than just eating from the wrong tree.

The Corruption

The hedonist and legalist alike erroneously assume that sin is mere action.  Under this view, the sin of the Fall was simply eating the fruit that God said not to eat.  But action is only one component of sin.  The Fall begins with Satan deceiving Eve.  He starts off by casting doubt on the goodness of God: “Did God actually say, ‘you shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1).  At first, Eve holds her ground, correcting the serpent with God’s actual command: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, “You shall not eat of the tree that is in the midst of the garden,’” but then Eve adds to the command, continuing “’neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”  God stated nothing in the original command to Adam regarding touching the tree, so Eve either added this or possibly Adam had added it when he relayed God’s command to Eve.  If the latter is true (and since Adam and Eve knew no sin before this point—including legalism), the motive behind the extension of the command would have been to put in place a wise boundary to help prevent sin.  The sin then came in elevating man’s command to the level of God’s command by attributing it to God.  This was also a major sin of the Pharisees (Matthew 15:9, Mark 7:7).  If this was not the case then Adam had passed along God’s command and Eve added to it, thus beginning to agree with the devil that God’s command was unreasonable.  The devil then capitalizes on that doubt with a cunning lie: “You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5).  At this point, the seed of doubt begins to grow.  Adam and Eve doubt God’s goodness and give into temptation.  Wayne Grudem points out that like all sins, Adam and Eve’s sin incorrectly answered three questions regarding knowledge, morality, and identity: “What is true?”, “What is right?”, and “Who am I?”.[2]  They forsook the truth and moral uprightness of God’s command and what it revealed about His nature, causing them to find their identity in themselves rather than God. God did not tempt them by putting the tree in the garden, but they were dragged away and enticed by their own desires for knowledge and greatness (James 1:13-14). 

Thus, both sinned before they even took a bite. The tree itself was not the issue.  There is no reason to believe it had any “magical” quality.  The “magic” was in the decision to disobey God.  The sin was not the act of eating so much as the act of rebelling against God that was manifested by eating. Thus, when Eve ate the fruit, her hand merely carried out what her mind had already decided.  In that moment, the idols of knowledge and Self replaced God on the throne of Eve’s heart.  Adam’s failure to intervene and affirm the goodness of God against the devil’s lies proves that the same throne exchange had occurred in his heart as well.  This is especially evident when Paul says that “Adam was not deceived” in 1 Timothy 2:12, suggesting that while Eve was being led astray, Adam knew what was happening, making his inaction all the more sinful.  Adam’s inaction blatantly violated his calling as a man and husband.  Rather than selflessly lead, serve, and protect Eve, he selfishly and passively stood by, essentially allowing Eve to face God’s potential wrath alone in a sadistic experiment to test God’s trustworthiness.  When Eve did not immediately die, Adam’s sin of thought became action as he ate.  Thus, they both exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature (knowledge and themselves) rather than the Creator (Romans 1:23).  Like all sin, it began with idolatry, and like all idols, the fruit did not deliver what Satan promised it would.  Finally, Adam and Eve’s sin, being the prototypical sin, included all facets evident in various sins: thought, word, and deed, as well as action and inaction.  Indeed, the sin of the Garden went far beyond a poor dietary choice. 

The Consequences…and the Cure

Just as the sin itself was comprehensive, so were the consequences.  Immediately, Adam and Eve’s “eyes were opened” (Genesis 3:7).  As Satan had promised, they did gain knowledge, but contrary to his promise, they did not become like God.  Their sin actually made them less like God.  Whereas before the Fall they reflected God’s nature in righteousness, after the Fall that reflection was tarnished.  Their knowledge did increase, but it was in a way contrary to God’s knowledge.  They knew evil experientially as it became part of their nature, whereas though God in His omniscience knows everything there is to know about evil, He does not experientially know it since it is contrary to His nature.  The first thing they noticed was their nakedness (Genesis 3:7).  Before the Fall, they had been naked and unashamed (Genesis 2:25), without any inkling that they lacked anything.  After the Fall, their external condition was unchanged, but they suddenly perceived their incompleteness.  What they really felt was guilt and shame.  They also felt the severance of what had previously made them complete: their unhindered relationship with God.  They tried to remedy this by making coverings for themselves from fig leaves (Genesis 3:7), but like all empty religion, this external act may have solved a symptom, but it did nothing to address the core problem of guilt and shame.  When they heard God in the garden, their guilt and shame received a new companion: fear.  Though they undoubtedly had a healthy fear of God before the Fall, they now knew a new fear: dread of judgment.  This prompted them to hide from God (Genesis 3:10).  Only after God called them did they emerge.  We similarly hid from God until explicitly called by Him. 

Rather than repent when God confronted their sin, Adam and Eve both added a new sin: blame.  They internally rationalized their sin as the fault of their circumstances.  Eve blamed the serpent while Adam blamed Eve—implicitly blaming God as well: “The woman whom you gave me…” (Genesis 3:12).  God’s resulting judgment is universal.  Though both men’s and women’s pre-Fall callings and roles remained, they would now be fraught with struggles.  Their relationship with each other would be similarly fraught with hardship (Genesis 3:16).  Then they were both doomed to eventual physical death, along with the rest of creation (Romans 5:12).  We are all born into sin and follow in the footsteps of Adam and Eve, thus we all rightfully share in their curse.  Therefore, the Fall was the origin of our woes, for the entire world “was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope” (Romans 8:20).  This hope is the eventual restoration of man’s relationship with God and the earth’s ultimate liberation from death (Romans 8:21-22). 

Even while God issued His righteous judgement after the Fall, He hinted at this restoration.  Before pronouncing the curse on Adam and Eve, God declares the Gospel for the first time in His curse on Satan: “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise heal” (Genesis 3:15).  This clearly points to the Second Adam (Jesus Christ) being bruised by Satan yet decisively defeating Satan, which was fulfilled at Calvary.  This hope is the central theme of God’s curse on mankind. God’s statements can be thought of as a chiasm, since He speaks to Adam then Eve then Satan then back to Eve then back to Adam. In a chiasm, the non-repeated central section is the item of emphasis. In this case, that means the emphasis of the curse is the Gospel in Genesis 3:15. It is as if God is saying: “Adam and Eve, I’ll get to you in a moment, but first things first. This failure did not take me by surprise but was part of my plan all along in which I will reveal myself for my own glory. I have a plan and I will accomplish it. You rebelled, but I will redeem and restore, so before I pronounce the curse on you I will give you the hope of my salvation. Your descendent will be bruised but will defeat Satan and bring salvation to you in the process, so hope in Him.” Adam himself foreshadowed this when his sin was imputed to all people, pointing to the double imputation of our sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us (Romans 5). 

Finally, God in great mercy and grace, did not immediately kill Adam and Eve.  Still, something had to die to atone for their sin, so God performed the first sacrifice, killing an animal to provide a suitable covering for them (Genesis 3:21).  Their garments, provided by the blood of another shed on their behalf, were to remind them of the price of their sin and their incompleteness apart from the atonement provided by God.  They had no other hope, and neither do we.

After delving into the depths of the Fall, we see the reality and gravity of the command, corruption, and consequences surrounding it.  Though the Fall overshadows all of life, it is itself overshadowed by the great hope of the Gospel.  Just as the Fall was an actual event, so was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  So, though we groan inwardly awaiting glorification with Christ, we rejoice in our imperishable hope in Christ who began to reverse the curse of the Fall at Calvary and will finish that work!

“And when before the throne, I stand in Him complete; ‘Jesus died my soul to save’ my lips shall still repeat. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.”

-Elvina M. Hall, “Jesus Paid It All”, 1865

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[1] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan: 1994: 493.

[2] Ibid