The Bible says that God gave Adam and Eve free reign to everything on earth with a single exception: They were not to eat, not even touch, fruit that hung from a particular tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden, a garden paradise that God had created for his new creatures. If they did, God made it clear that the consequence would be death.
Satan makes his grand entrance into the biblical account in Genesis 3, and you can easily guess exactly what he harps on: the lone “Do Not Touch” placard in the midst of a world of “Do As You Wish” signs.
When Eve is alone, Satan, in the form of a serpent, begins to question God’s restriction, making it out to be some cockamamie scheme God crafted to make sure that Adam and Eve don’t become like God himself. Satan urges Eve to eat the fruit so that her eyes will be opened, so to speak, and she’ll see the world as God sees it. In a nutshell, Satan’s challenge to Eve was: Think different. Think different from the way God designed you. Be your own master. Don’t take limits from anyone else.
Eve gave in to the temptation and took the fruit and ate it, but didn’t stop there. She got Adam to eat it too. This original disobedience by Adam and Eve is often referred to as the Fall of man. Satan got his way that day, and the world has been forever changed since then.
Think different: The sequel
Satan used the same Think Different strategy when he tempted Jesus in the desert. Check out the account in Matthew 4:1-11:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him into the holy city. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will give his angels charge concerning you,’ and, ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you don’t dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again, it is written, ‘You shall not test the Lord, your God.’” Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. He said to him, “I will give you all of these things if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and served him.
Satan, in effect, told Jesus to “think outside the box” – be a king without the cross. The first temptation was to misuse his miraculous power by changing the stones into bread; the second was to use sensational means to win the world (resulting in pride), and the third was to escape crucifixion (the Bible says Jesus’ death and resurrection is the only way we can be reconciled to him; see 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Acts 4:12) and worship him instead. Unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus didn’t fall prey to Satan’s temptation.
Considering how the Fall changed everything
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones discovered a long-lost statue that’s hidden in a cavern filled with booby traps. When he finally arrives at his destination, he faces a huge obstacle – the weight-sensitive stand on which the treasure lies. If the exact weight doesn’t remain on the stand, a booby trap goes off. Jones attempts to replace the artefact on the mount with a bag of sand weighing roughly the same amount. When he does so, everything seems okay for an instant, but then the fact that his measurements are off becomes quite obvious as the stand sinks and all heck breaks loose. The cave begins to collapse, boulders fly everywhere, and poison darts fly in every direction, shooting at Jones as he runs away.
When I think about the Fall of man, that scene comes to mind. Perhaps for a brief moment after they sinned, Adam and Eve thought everything was fine, but soon after, all heck began to break loose. First, they both realized they were naked as a jaybird and had to flee to the nearest Gap store for the latest button-fly fig leaves. Second, they tried to hide from God (though, as Jonah later testified, running from God is a lost cause). Third, in speculation, perhaps it was at this time that Tony, their pet tiger, started to look upon them as lunch. In short, everything had changed in their perfect world.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, sin was introduced into the world and has been a problem ever since. Several fundamental changes happened as a result of their disobedience, and they affect us today:
Sin tore relationships among humans. An immediate effect of the Fall was a psychological barrier between Adam and Eve. Not only did they want to clothe themselves and hide their bodies from each other out of embarrassment, but also when God questioned Adam later, Adam immediately blamed Eve for their sin, further dividing the couple. Not many years later, the ultimate expression of a severed relationship occurred when one of their sons (Cain) murdered the other (Abel). Check out Genesis 4 for details on this saga.
Sin severed humanity’s intimate relationship with God. Genesis paints a picture of a very intimate father/child relationship between God and Adam and Eve before the Fall. Amazingly, he is even depicted as walking in the garden with them. But after the Fall, God’s garden strolls are noticeably absent from the rest of the Bible. Adam and Eve were both fearful of God and ran from him, terrified of his holiness in light of their sin. Clearly, a brick wall was put up between humans and God that ultimately had to be broken down by God himself, when he sent Jesus to earth (for that story, see Chapters 3 and 5).
Sin brought humans into bondage. Although Satan fooled Eve into thinking that disobedience would free her from God’s rule, the reality was that she and Adam just exchanged masters. When they obeyed God, he was their master. But through disobedience, sin became a master for Adam, Eve, and everyone else who followed after them. Paul wrote in Romans that humans, without the help of Jesus, are slaves to sin (Romans 6:17).
Sin introduced decay and deterioration into the world. The Bible is very clear that sin not only had a spiritual significance, but also had physical ramifications. Before the Fall, death didn’t exist. But after that, sin’s effect was as if a deadly virus was injected into the world’s bloodstream, bringing death, decay, and disorder.
Sin is inherited by every generation. Take a glance at any world history book, and you’ll quickly realize that every chapter of human history has been marked by sin: wars, persecutions, slavery, conquest, pollution, colonialism, and terrorism, to name a few. Through the years, people have developed a variety of schemes to deal with the effects of these sins, but the reality is that a lot of really bad stuff has and continues to happen in this world, regardless of how well educated, well fed, or comfortable people are. No one seems to be able to shake loose of it.
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