And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
Confronted in the garden after hiding, the man admitted that the companion given to be with him had given him of the forbidden tree and he had eaten, neither denying the act nor able to excuse it yet without penitence. In the words about the woman given to be with him he laid blame partly on her and partly on God for giving her, offering apology and excuse to escape the dreaded sentence rather than honest confession. That spirit of self-justification originated with the father of lies and is natural to all the guilty sons and daughters of Adam, who shift fault to another to conceal evil unless restrained by grace. Such shifting of blame has no power to save from the result of disobedience and did not excuse him, for true repentance bears its own guilt without deception and is justified through Jesus pleading His blood for the repentant soul. His disobedience was transgression of the divine law given in Eden, which God did not overlook with indulgence but met with exact justice, requiring the sacrifice of His Son as substitute and surety to open another trial and restore what was lost.
Words and Eden Setting
God confronted Adam after he hid in the garden, and Adam answered that the woman given to be with him gave him of the tree and he ate. That answer came after Adam and Eve lost their covering of light and garment of innocence, became afraid to meet their Creator, and hid from Him. Though privileged in Eden and permitted to eat of every tree but one, in eating they broke the command and became sinners. His fall from his high estate came by listening to Satan's misrepresentation of God, through whom sin entered the world and death by sin and the floodgates of woe were opened upon the world. His transgression had no excuse, because all his wants were generously supplied and only one prohibition had been laid upon him, and the whole account stands as a lesson that God's Word is to be sacredly respected and His requirements implicitly obeyed.
Adam admitted that he ate the forbidden fruit, neither denying the act nor being able to excuse it, yet without penitence. His admission was not prompted by repentance for disobedience but was an attempt to cast blame and reflection upon God. In the words about the woman given to be with him he laid guilt partly upon his companion and partly upon God for giving her to him. Throwing the blame on Eve and on God for giving her to him is what is natural for all guilty human beings, to shift fault to someone else instead of confessing sin. He specifically censured Eve for leaving his side and permitting herself to be deceived by the serpent, faulting her for being deceived and for giving him the fruit though admitting he ate it. While doing so he began to see the true character of his sin yet still reproached her folly in leaving his side.
Adam and Eve wrongly expected that because of His love God would excuse their disobedience and make their punishment less severe. Eve had been cautioned not to separate from her husband in their garden labor, but she wandered from his side absorbed in her work, felt danger alone yet dismissed her fears as sufficient in wisdom and strength, and gazed with curiosity and admiration on the forbidden tree questioning why God withheld it. She was then addressed by Satan speaking through the serpent, and after the serpent tempted her she ate and then tempted her husband, and he let himself be seduced and ate with her despite God's command. After eating they lost their covering of light and garment of innocence, became afraid, and hid from their Creator despite being permitted every tree but one and commanded not to eat. The taking of the forbidden fruit looked simple and unworthy of notice, a small act and slight test, yet it brought awful consequences and terrible retribution.
That apparently small transgression opened the floodgates of woe to the world, and the holy pair fell and lost Eden and were expelled in retribution for disobedience, closing the gates of Paradise against them. It stands as a beacon of warning that carelessness in little matters and talking of liberality and not being particular in regard to requirements leads to wide deviation from the only true pattern. A transgression that appears small and recoverable shows how easy it is to debase and corrupt the soul by sinning against light and knowledge, strengthening the hands of sinners and accumulating evil unto eternal ruin of thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions. Ever since that transgression sin has been increasing in volume and prevalence and is still increasing, and it brought selfishness into man's work which cannot be approved while even one thread of selfishness remains.
Blame Without True Repentance
Filled with shame and terror after eating, Adam thought only how to excuse his sin and escape the dreaded sentence of death. When questioned, he admitted that he ate of the tree, yet laid the guilt partly upon his companion and partly upon God for giving her to be with him. His answer was apology and excuse rather than honest confession. His moral perceptions had been deadened by sin, and a partial blindness remained, so his confession was insincere, not inspired by the divine Spirit, and not acceptable to God unless yielded to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.
The spirit of self-justification seen in him originated in the father of lies and has been exhibited by all the sons and daughters of Adam. What is natural for all guilty human beings is to shift fault to someone else instead of confessing sin. After sin they began accusing one another, to conceal or excuse the evil in the heart, unless restrained by Christ's grace. His response stands as an example of human impenitence in the history of sin and its consequences.
Shifting blame to someone else has no power to save from the result of disobedience and did not excuse him. His transgression had no excuse, because all his wants were generously supplied and only one prohibition had been laid upon him. He remained guilty for listening to his wife and hearkening to her instead of obeying God's command not to eat. True repentance instead leads a person to bear his own guilt and acknowledge it without deception or hypocrisy. Those who so acknowledge their guilt will be justified, because Jesus will plead His blood in behalf of the repentant soul.
Results of the Fall
Listening to Satan's misrepresentation of God, Adam fell and through that disobedience sin entered the world and death by sin. That one transgression opened the floodgates of woe upon the world, bringing disappointment, sorrow, suffering, want, misery, guilt and unutterable woe. What looked simple and unworthy of notice brought awful consequences, for the holy pair fell and lost Eden. His example warns later people not to disobey, yet they continue to fall through their own violations.
Adam fell from his high estate, losing innocence, divine favor and happiness, the glory God had given him, and his right to the Eden home. The holy pair were expelled and driven from the garden, from the tree of life, and from God's visible presence. Humanity came under sin's curse. An angel with a flaming sword barred the way to the tree of life so that disloyal disobedience would not be immortalized.
Judgment came with the ground cursed for his sake, to be eaten from in sorrow all the days of his life and to bring forth thorns and thistles. Disease, suffering, and death increased after the fall, and later disease and decline trace to its consequences. Accumulated suffering began there.
The fall displays how terrible the power of sin is, for the man who from love to Eve had deliberately chosen to forfeit God's approval, his home in Paradise, and an eternal life of joy then tried to make his companion and even the Creator responsible for his own transgression. By disobedience he became a law to himself, bringing discord and unhappiness and making a separation between him and God. Humanity forfeited its original likeness to God, for sin marred that likeness, weakened human powers, dimmed spiritual vision, and brought subjection to death. Nature itself was marred and defiled by sin, with the brightness of God's presence departing from it though beauty and signs of the Creator remained, and earth's brightness departed. That apparently small transgression closed the gates of Paradise and brought selfishness into man's work, which God cannot approve while even one thread of selfishness remains in it.
Seeking knowledge God had withheld, Adam and Eve gained only an acquaintance with sin and its results. Their disobedience estranged humanity from God and separated earth from heaven, bringing loss rather than the lasting joy God would have given. Under the fall they came under the power of the prince of darkness and under the sentence of death. After the fall Satan claimed to be the prince of the power of the air with control of everything in nature, permitted to sow tares and to work out his principles of evil, while God protects from his wrath those who desire to work out the principles of heaven.
The resulting evils have been aggravated by continuing violations of God's moral and physical laws. The Fall is repeated whenever inherited bodily and moral damage passes disease and weakness to children. The curse increases as transgression increases, and sin has been increasing in volume and prevalence ever since.
Law Justice and Redemption
The eating in Eden was transgression of the divine law given there, and that law is the basis of all right conduct, with reward for obedience and penalty for disobedience, the transcript of God's character. Disregarding the prohibition broke that law, made the penalty due, put human beings in Satan's hands, brought sin into the fair world, and opened the floodgates of woe. After that transgression men and women grew more and still more bold in disobeying, falling through their own violations, with the greatest loss and deepest injury conceivable in losing beautiful Eden.
The whole account stands as a lesson for all mankind that God's Word is to be sacredly respected and His requirements implicitly obeyed. It teaches that His commands are sacred, that He means what He says, that He requires strict regard for His commandments, and that the only safe course is to obey all His requirements at whatever cost. Keeping His commandments is the test of love, so disobedience was failure to love, and the wages of sin is death; if people walk contrary to God, He will walk contrary to them.
God did not overlook the transgression with merciful indulgence but dealt with it as severe and exacting, expelling the holy pair from Eden in retribution for disobedience over what looked simple and unworthy of notice yet brought awful consequences. His retributive justice never fails, as plainly as when the law was proclaimed at Sinai with its definite penalty and sure punishment, warning that disobedience brings death. That dealing reveals His justice and proves the law could not be changed and altered to meet man in his fallen condition, for if change had been possible Adam would have been pardoned and retained his home in Eden. Instead the penalty of transgression, death, remained unaltered, the Father did not put benevolence above justice to give unconditional pardon, for that would set aside the principles of righteousness, exalt the sinner in impenitence, and encourage transgression instead of abating it.
The debt of that transgression required the valuable sacrifice of the darling Son from heaven to save the fallen race, and because of it the Son of God stepped in and pledged His own life as the penalty for transgression, becoming man's substitute and surety so that man might have another trial and be placed with all his posterity upon probation. Fallen man has been granted another trial only through the sacrifice of Christ in God's wise plans, and through that sacrifice guilt and sorrow brought into the world are met with salvation from sin's penalty. That provision did not abolish God's law but exalts the law of God and evidences its sacred character, and through the merits of the blood of Christ it makes it possible for fallen man to keep the law of God, to learn the lesson of obedience with its positive promises, and to become members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King.
The fallen condition required redemption to restore the divine image and bring people back to the perfection for which they were created, for through disobedience humanity forfeited its original likeness to God, sin marring that likeness, weakening powers, dimming spiritual vision, and bringing subjection to death. Christ undertook to redeem humanity by becoming human and obeying where Adam had failed, redeeming Adam's disgrace and failure by overcoming temptation where Adam fell. Though fallen and under sentence of death, Adam was given an open door of hope, so that through faith in Christ he could find refuge and life, and through Christ alone humanity could have access to God. Since that fall men are so weak in moral power that overcoming in their own strength is impossible, so Christ left His heavenly home and walked as a man among men to bring divine aid by which certain victory can be claimed, in contrast to Adam becoming a law to himself.
God's talk with Adam and Eve in Eden giving them heavenly instruction is the gospel shining forth with no uncertain light, the beginning of the light that has continued to shine down through the ages from Genesis to Revelation. It is a grand truth of sacred history possessing amazing strength and beauty and as far-reaching as eternity, a golden link in the perfect chain of truth revealing Christ's first advent, His incarnation, His divinity, His atonement, His wonderful life in heaven as advocate, and the office of the Holy Spirit. It shows man's broken relation to his Creator and the mediatorship of Christ between man and his Creator, connected to the Son's relation to the Father and position in heaven and mission as manifested in miracles and teachings. The law runs like golden threads through the gospel while the blood of Christ remains the sinner's only hope, and the transgression and its results are to be plainly brought out before rulers and all in responsibility to show amenability to God's law and duty to obey all His requirements, with the law magnified and glorified before all.
The teaching of the fall of man and the consequences of that sin, which opened the floodgates of woe upon the world, is most important knowledge to receive, definite truth flashing divine light and glory upon all who will receive it. It is to be searched by comparing Scripture with Scripture to learn the terms of salvation, and to be exalted in every school.
Warning Example Through History
The full and explicit account of the law given in Eden, the temptation and fall, and the punishment that followed stands recorded by principles of justice for the benefit and warning of all who read it. It teaches obedience to the law, that the wages of sin is death, that retributive justice never fails, and that strict regard for the commandments is required as plainly as at Sinai with its definite penalty. It is the sad story of that one sin which brought death and all woe with loss of Eden, showing the result of even one wrong act. It stands as a beacon of warning at the byways leading from the path of life against even one departure from right, against disobedience, and against carelessness in little matters and unparticular liberality about requirements that leads to wide deviation from Christ the only true pattern. Satan bewitches the mind to disregard this warning, so that instead of reforming defects of character men become more faulty because they lose sight of the true Pattern.
Adam's fall brought sin into the world through disobedience and warns later people not to disobey, yet they continue to fall through their own violations of the law. After his transgression men and women became more and still more bold in disobeying God's law. Men deplore Adam's fall yet disobey just as he did, indulging appetite and passion in direct violation of the law, so instead of stopping with Adam there has been a succession of falls that has left the race far lower physically, mentally, and morally than if the fall had ceased with Adam. That fall was not the only fall but the beginning of a succession of falls from Adam's day to the present, each greater than the last in every species of crime. The race now so devoid of health, beauty, and moral power, with disease of every kind fearfully increasing, is not as God created it, and this condition is not by His especial providence but directly contrary to His will, having come by man's disregard of the very means God ordained to shield him from terrible evils. Since that fall men are so weak in moral power that it is impossible for them to overcome in their own strength, and obedience to God's law in every respect would save men from intemperance, licentiousness, and disease of every type, for no one can violate natural law without suffering the penalty.
From that time sin grew worse until God destroyed the world by a flood, saving only Noah and his sons, and has kept steadily increasing since. The verse belongs to the story of humanity's fall and the beginning of ruin that spread through continued transgression, opening the floodgates of woe upon the world. Sin entering the world and death by sin is perpetuated as one after another repeat it. The perpetuation darkens the intellect, makes truth fade and lose power to sanctify, dulls conscience by repetition until sin no longer arrests the transgressor, and leaves men diseased, depraved and dying. Man loses the reflection of God's character and degenerates, the calamity becomes universal with the serpent's track and venomous sting seen everywhere, the whole earth is defiled under its inhabitants, the curse increases as transgression increases, and the earth is prepared for purification by fire.
Adam himself repeated to his children and children's children to the ninth generation the history of man's holy and happy estate in Paradise and the fall. The fall taught him through suffering the necessity of strict adherence to God's law, and with that lesson he explained the merciful provisions for salvation. For nearly a thousand years he lived among men as a witness to the results of sin and faithfully sought to stem the tide of evil by this instruction. Yet few gave heed to his words and he was often met with bitter reproaches for the sin that had brought woe upon his posterity.
The inspired, factual account of the fall is one of the great facts given by the inspired writers and a pillar of the Christian faith alongside creation, the atonement, and the perpetuity of the law of God. Yet it is practically rejected, wholly or in part, by many who profess Christianity. To practically reject that account is infidelity prevailing even in the church and refusal to accept the Bible as the guide of life.
The Bible gives authentic history of the early history of the world, the origin of the earth, the creation of man, his fall, and the introduction of sin into the world. Without this history the mind is left to fables and conjectures, bewildered by false theories, subjected to superstition and falsehood, and enfeebled in intellect by entertaining error; with it in possession there is no need to be hampered by human conjectures and unreliable theories. The fall of Adam and Eve followed the disaffection and fall of Satan from a heaven where spotless purity reigned and God was over all. The fall exposes the workings of the wily foe since Adam's day, and the same principles are still at work, with the end thereof certain. Men are all on trial during probationary time, with Satan playing the game of life for every soul and Christ at work for every soul. Each person chooses the character he forms, consenting to receive the moral image of God and become like Him in character or refusing the character of Christ and losing heaven, and has the gracious opportunity of working out his own salvation by laying hold of the Saviour and by faith receiving His merits and perfecting a character like His.
Adam and Eve lost their right to Eden because they disobeyed a command of God. Their fall proves that being once in grace does not mean remaining always in grace and demonstrates the sure result of transgressing God's law. The condition of the fallen race today testifies to the awful results of that transgression. Since the time of Adam there has been a succession of falls, with men doing just what God told them not to do and thereby perpetuating the disobedience that led to Adam's fall. Pleading family convenience and setting a bad example before one's family and children continues that disobedience, and God holds each person as a responsible moral agent for whom it makes every difference whether he obeys or disobeys.
Call to Obedient Living
The disobedience in Eden that lost the right to the Eden home sets the choice still before every person, either to repeat that transgression or to walk in humble obedience. The choice must be made now to leave the side of the great rebel, to repent for time and talents given to the enemy, to give the whole soul to God, to choose the good and refuse the evil, and to seek the Lord while He may be found without delay. Choosing that same disobedience forfeits the right to the Eden restored, while searching the Scriptures, placing oneself in right relation to God, and overcoming as Christ overcame by perfect obedience to His Father's commandments brings people back to their Eden home and by bending footsteps heavenward points others to that home.
The transgression was violation of the law of God, the greatest loss and deepest injury that can be conceived, for it lost beautiful Eden for the first parents and opened the floodgates of disappointment, sorrow, suffering, want, misery and woe upon the world. Fallen humanity has been granted another trial only through the sacrifice of Christ in God's wise plans, with positive promises held out to all who obey and with obedience required to become members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King. The example stands before every soul to teach avoidance of sin and abhorrence of sin as the hateful thing it is, and to feel in view of the sufferings sin is sure to inflict that it is better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least of God's commandments. To protect the human family from repeating the fall, the light of God's law must be made known so clearly that it is as a city set on a hill which all can understand if they will, parents must plainly teach it to their children and urge obedience all their lives with no excuse of ignorance, and mothers as queens in their households are to keep this result before the tender minds of their children while training them to be obedient to all the statutes and commandments of the Lord.
What looked simple and unworthy of notice brought awful consequences, for the holy pair fell and lost Eden and were expelled in retribution for disobedience, and God did not overlook the transgression with merciful indulgence but dealt with it as severe and exacting, the debt requiring the valuable sacrifice of His Son from heaven to save the fallen race, which exalts the law and evidences its sacred character and through the merits of Christ's blood makes it possible to keep it. The same principle condemns excusing violation of the Sabbath by God's mercy, by common practice, or by greatness of transgressors, for mercy only covers guilt after sin is repented of and forsaken and never lessens guilt while sin is continued. The sin is repeated when God's plain command is discarded, as in rejecting the Sabbath of the Lord for a spurious sabbath, while the lesson that God punishes transgression was so taught by the expulsion that the fallen pair continued to observe the Sabbath after their fall.
The eating of what God had forbidden began humanity's surrender to appetite and marked the fall on the ground of temperance, proving that indulged appetite and errors in food influence moral tendencies, weaken physical, mental and moral efficiency, make it impossible to overcome temptation, and hinder sincere piety and religious fervor. Men deplore the fall yet disobey just as was done then, indulging appetite and passion in direct violation of God's law, so that instead of stopping there has been a succession of falls each greater in crime leaving the race lower physically, mentally and morally, devoid of health, beauty and moral power, with disease fearfully increasing not by God's especial providence but directly contrary to His will by disregard of the very means ordained to shield from terrible evils. Christ in the wilderness passed over that same ground and gained the victory, redeeming the failure and placing the human family on vantage ground with God so that overcoming in their own behalf is possible through the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour. Preparing for Paradise restored requires bringing perverted appetite under strict control, for indulging depraved appetite weakens power to resist evil and enables Satan to fasten evil habits and ensnare in the net of his devices, while obedience to God's law in every respect including natural law would save from intemperance, licentiousness and disease of every type, since no one can violate natural law without suffering the penalty.
God's creation of one wife established His order for marriage, and after the fall people followed their own desires and changed that order, with multiplying wives increasing wickedness and unhappiness. The disobedience broke the charm of obedience and marked the rise of self-will in humanity, so that sinful desires readily align with the law of self and resist God's will, and obedience to God is an absolute necessity, not a choice to set aside at will. Since God means what He says and if people walk contrary to Him He will walk contrary to them, the only safe course is to obey all His requirements at whatever cost, even retracting a promise contrary to Scripture rather than keeping it and dishonoring God, because all His requirements are founded in infinite love and wisdom, with heaven to gain and perdition to shun. Anyone who hears the truth and turns from it because accepting it would retard success in business repeats the partaking of the fruit of disobedience, and such refusal of light is turning from God, selling the soul in a cheap market, making a bargain with Satan, and violating conscience, which kept pure and upright would be worth more than the whole world, leaving conscience ever unreliable.
The transgression and its results are a grand truth of sacred history possessing amazing strength and beauty and as far-reaching as eternity, among the most important knowledge to be gained, and a golden link in the perfect chain of truth from Genesis to Revelation revealing Christ's first advent, incarnation, divinity, atonement, wonderful life in heaven as advocate, and the office of the Holy Spirit, and therefore is to be exalted in every school. The divine law is the basis of all right conduct with reward for obedience and penalty for disobedience, so the transgression and its results are to be plainly brought out before rulers of the nations and all standing in positions of responsibility to show their amenability to God's law and their duty to obey all His requirements, with the law magnified and glorified before all as running like golden threads through the gospel while the blood of Christ remains the sinner's only hope. Violation is a terrible loss to the disloyal and the deepest injury to God because the influence of every transgressor leads and sustains others in that same sin, and since God gave His only begotten Son to save from that ruin the human agent must cooperate by using every God-given facility to extend the truth and save perishing souls. Even what appears as the first very small sin opened the floodgates of woe and will bring eternal ruin upon thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions, showing how easy it is to debase the soul by sinning against light and how transgression that appears small strengthens sinners' hands and accumulates evil, so the worldly side must be watched with constant vigilance and no place given to the devil.
As Eden was lost by transgressing God's law which is the transcript of His character, those who transgress that same law now will lose heaven, for keeping the commandments is the test of love and disobedience is failure to love. The human family is therefore called to obey the light that comes about the binding claims of God's law, to lift the cross in view of the whole world, to search the Scriptures, to place themselves in right relation to God, and not to repeat the transgression but to be obedient to all requirements.
Confronted in the garden after hiding, the man admitted that the companion given to be with him had given him of the forbidden tree and he had eaten, neither denying the act nor able to excuse it yet without penitence. In the words about the woman given to be with him he laid blame partly on her and partly on God for giving her, offering apology and excuse to escape the dreaded sentence rather than honest confession. That spirit of self-justification originated with the father of lies and is natural to all the guilty sons and daughters of Adam, who shift fault to another to conceal evil unless restrained by grace. Such shifting of blame has no power to save from the result of disobedience and did not excuse him, for true repentance bears its own guilt without deception and is justified through Jesus pleading His blood for the repentant soul. His disobedience was transgression of the divine law given in Eden, which God did not overlook with indulgence but met with exact justice, requiring the sacrifice of His Son as substitute and surety to open another trial and restore what was lost.
Words and Eden Setting
God confronted Adam after he hid in the garden, and Adam answered that the woman given to be with him gave him of the tree and he ate. That answer came after Adam and Eve lost their covering of light and garment of innocence, became afraid to meet their Creator, and hid from Him. Though privileged in Eden and permitted to eat of every tree but one, in eating they broke the command and became sinners. His fall from his high estate came by listening to Satan's misrepresentation of God, through whom sin entered the world and death by sin and the floodgates of woe were opened upon the world. His transgression had no excuse, because all his wants were generously supplied and only one prohibition had been laid upon him, and the whole account stands as a lesson that God's Word is to be sacredly respected and His requirements implicitly obeyed.
Adam admitted that he ate the forbidden fruit, neither denying the act nor being able to excuse it, yet without penitence. His admission was not prompted by repentance for disobedience but was an attempt to cast blame and reflection upon God. In the words about the woman given to be with him he laid guilt partly upon his companion and partly upon God for giving her to him. Throwing the blame on Eve and on God for giving her to him is what is natural for all guilty human beings, to shift fault to someone else instead of confessing sin. He specifically censured Eve for leaving his side and permitting herself to be deceived by the serpent, faulting her for being deceived and for giving him the fruit though admitting he ate it. While doing so he began to see the true character of his sin yet still reproached her folly in leaving his side.
Adam and Eve wrongly expected that because of His love God would excuse their disobedience and make their punishment less severe. Eve had been cautioned not to separate from her husband in their garden labor, but she wandered from his side absorbed in her work, felt danger alone yet dismissed her fears as sufficient in wisdom and strength, and gazed with curiosity and admiration on the forbidden tree questioning why God withheld it. She was then addressed by Satan speaking through the serpent, and after the serpent tempted her she ate and then tempted her husband, and he let himself be seduced and ate with her despite God's command. After eating they lost their covering of light and garment of innocence, became afraid, and hid from their Creator despite being permitted every tree but one and commanded not to eat. The taking of the forbidden fruit looked simple and unworthy of notice, a small act and slight test, yet it brought awful consequences and terrible retribution.
That apparently small transgression opened the floodgates of woe to the world, and the holy pair fell and lost Eden and were expelled in retribution for disobedience, closing the gates of Paradise against them. It stands as a beacon of warning that carelessness in little matters and talking of liberality and not being particular in regard to requirements leads to wide deviation from the only true pattern. A transgression that appears small and recoverable shows how easy it is to debase and corrupt the soul by sinning against light and knowledge, strengthening the hands of sinners and accumulating evil unto eternal ruin of thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions. Ever since that transgression sin has been increasing in volume and prevalence and is still increasing, and it brought selfishness into man's work which cannot be approved while even one thread of selfishness remains.
Blame Without True Repentance
Filled with shame and terror after eating, Adam thought only how to excuse his sin and escape the dreaded sentence of death. When questioned, he admitted that he ate of the tree, yet laid the guilt partly upon his companion and partly upon God for giving her to be with him. His answer was apology and excuse rather than honest confession. His moral perceptions had been deadened by sin, and a partial blindness remained, so his confession was insincere, not inspired by the divine Spirit, and not acceptable to God unless yielded to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.
The spirit of self-justification seen in him originated in the father of lies and has been exhibited by all the sons and daughters of Adam. What is natural for all guilty human beings is to shift fault to someone else instead of confessing sin. After sin they began accusing one another, to conceal or excuse the evil in the heart, unless restrained by Christ's grace. His response stands as an example of human impenitence in the history of sin and its consequences.
Shifting blame to someone else has no power to save from the result of disobedience and did not excuse him. His transgression had no excuse, because all his wants were generously supplied and only one prohibition had been laid upon him. He remained guilty for listening to his wife and hearkening to her instead of obeying God's command not to eat. True repentance instead leads a person to bear his own guilt and acknowledge it without deception or hypocrisy. Those who so acknowledge their guilt will be justified, because Jesus will plead His blood in behalf of the repentant soul.
Results of the Fall
Listening to Satan's misrepresentation of God, Adam fell and through that disobedience sin entered the world and death by sin. That one transgression opened the floodgates of woe upon the world, bringing disappointment, sorrow, suffering, want, misery, guilt and unutterable woe. What looked simple and unworthy of notice brought awful consequences, for the holy pair fell and lost Eden. His example warns later people not to disobey, yet they continue to fall through their own violations.
Adam fell from his high estate, losing innocence, divine favor and happiness, the glory God had given him, and his right to the Eden home. The holy pair were expelled and driven from the garden, from the tree of life, and from God's visible presence. Humanity came under sin's curse. An angel with a flaming sword barred the way to the tree of life so that disloyal disobedience would not be immortalized.
Judgment came with the ground cursed for his sake, to be eaten from in sorrow all the days of his life and to bring forth thorns and thistles. Disease, suffering, and death increased after the fall, and later disease and decline trace to its consequences. Accumulated suffering began there.
The fall displays how terrible the power of sin is, for the man who from love to Eve had deliberately chosen to forfeit God's approval, his home in Paradise, and an eternal life of joy then tried to make his companion and even the Creator responsible for his own transgression. By disobedience he became a law to himself, bringing discord and unhappiness and making a separation between him and God. Humanity forfeited its original likeness to God, for sin marred that likeness, weakened human powers, dimmed spiritual vision, and brought subjection to death. Nature itself was marred and defiled by sin, with the brightness of God's presence departing from it though beauty and signs of the Creator remained, and earth's brightness departed. That apparently small transgression closed the gates of Paradise and brought selfishness into man's work, which God cannot approve while even one thread of selfishness remains in it.
Seeking knowledge God had withheld, Adam and Eve gained only an acquaintance with sin and its results. Their disobedience estranged humanity from God and separated earth from heaven, bringing loss rather than the lasting joy God would have given. Under the fall they came under the power of the prince of darkness and under the sentence of death. After the fall Satan claimed to be the prince of the power of the air with control of everything in nature, permitted to sow tares and to work out his principles of evil, while God protects from his wrath those who desire to work out the principles of heaven.
The resulting evils have been aggravated by continuing violations of God's moral and physical laws. The Fall is repeated whenever inherited bodily and moral damage passes disease and weakness to children. The curse increases as transgression increases, and sin has been increasing in volume and prevalence ever since.
Law Justice and Redemption
The eating in Eden was transgression of the divine law given there, and that law is the basis of all right conduct, with reward for obedience and penalty for disobedience, the transcript of God's character. Disregarding the prohibition broke that law, made the penalty due, put human beings in Satan's hands, brought sin into the fair world, and opened the floodgates of woe. After that transgression men and women grew more and still more bold in disobeying, falling through their own violations, with the greatest loss and deepest injury conceivable in losing beautiful Eden.
The whole account stands as a lesson for all mankind that God's Word is to be sacredly respected and His requirements implicitly obeyed. It teaches that His commands are sacred, that He means what He says, that He requires strict regard for His commandments, and that the only safe course is to obey all His requirements at whatever cost. Keeping His commandments is the test of love, so disobedience was failure to love, and the wages of sin is death; if people walk contrary to God, He will walk contrary to them.
God did not overlook the transgression with merciful indulgence but dealt with it as severe and exacting, expelling the holy pair from Eden in retribution for disobedience over what looked simple and unworthy of notice yet brought awful consequences. His retributive justice never fails, as plainly as when the law was proclaimed at Sinai with its definite penalty and sure punishment, warning that disobedience brings death. That dealing reveals His justice and proves the law could not be changed and altered to meet man in his fallen condition, for if change had been possible Adam would have been pardoned and retained his home in Eden. Instead the penalty of transgression, death, remained unaltered, the Father did not put benevolence above justice to give unconditional pardon, for that would set aside the principles of righteousness, exalt the sinner in impenitence, and encourage transgression instead of abating it.
The debt of that transgression required the valuable sacrifice of the darling Son from heaven to save the fallen race, and because of it the Son of God stepped in and pledged His own life as the penalty for transgression, becoming man's substitute and surety so that man might have another trial and be placed with all his posterity upon probation. Fallen man has been granted another trial only through the sacrifice of Christ in God's wise plans, and through that sacrifice guilt and sorrow brought into the world are met with salvation from sin's penalty. That provision did not abolish God's law but exalts the law of God and evidences its sacred character, and through the merits of the blood of Christ it makes it possible for fallen man to keep the law of God, to learn the lesson of obedience with its positive promises, and to become members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King.
The fallen condition required redemption to restore the divine image and bring people back to the perfection for which they were created, for through disobedience humanity forfeited its original likeness to God, sin marring that likeness, weakening powers, dimming spiritual vision, and bringing subjection to death. Christ undertook to redeem humanity by becoming human and obeying where Adam had failed, redeeming Adam's disgrace and failure by overcoming temptation where Adam fell. Though fallen and under sentence of death, Adam was given an open door of hope, so that through faith in Christ he could find refuge and life, and through Christ alone humanity could have access to God. Since that fall men are so weak in moral power that overcoming in their own strength is impossible, so Christ left His heavenly home and walked as a man among men to bring divine aid by which certain victory can be claimed, in contrast to Adam becoming a law to himself.
God's talk with Adam and Eve in Eden giving them heavenly instruction is the gospel shining forth with no uncertain light, the beginning of the light that has continued to shine down through the ages from Genesis to Revelation. It is a grand truth of sacred history possessing amazing strength and beauty and as far-reaching as eternity, a golden link in the perfect chain of truth revealing Christ's first advent, His incarnation, His divinity, His atonement, His wonderful life in heaven as advocate, and the office of the Holy Spirit. It shows man's broken relation to his Creator and the mediatorship of Christ between man and his Creator, connected to the Son's relation to the Father and position in heaven and mission as manifested in miracles and teachings. The law runs like golden threads through the gospel while the blood of Christ remains the sinner's only hope, and the transgression and its results are to be plainly brought out before rulers and all in responsibility to show amenability to God's law and duty to obey all His requirements, with the law magnified and glorified before all.
The teaching of the fall of man and the consequences of that sin, which opened the floodgates of woe upon the world, is most important knowledge to receive, definite truth flashing divine light and glory upon all who will receive it. It is to be searched by comparing Scripture with Scripture to learn the terms of salvation, and to be exalted in every school.
Warning Example Through History
The full and explicit account of the law given in Eden, the temptation and fall, and the punishment that followed stands recorded by principles of justice for the benefit and warning of all who read it. It teaches obedience to the law, that the wages of sin is death, that retributive justice never fails, and that strict regard for the commandments is required as plainly as at Sinai with its definite penalty. It is the sad story of that one sin which brought death and all woe with loss of Eden, showing the result of even one wrong act. It stands as a beacon of warning at the byways leading from the path of life against even one departure from right, against disobedience, and against carelessness in little matters and unparticular liberality about requirements that leads to wide deviation from Christ the only true pattern. Satan bewitches the mind to disregard this warning, so that instead of reforming defects of character men become more faulty because they lose sight of the true Pattern.
Adam's fall brought sin into the world through disobedience and warns later people not to disobey, yet they continue to fall through their own violations of the law. After his transgression men and women became more and still more bold in disobeying God's law. Men deplore Adam's fall yet disobey just as he did, indulging appetite and passion in direct violation of the law, so instead of stopping with Adam there has been a succession of falls that has left the race far lower physically, mentally, and morally than if the fall had ceased with Adam. That fall was not the only fall but the beginning of a succession of falls from Adam's day to the present, each greater than the last in every species of crime. The race now so devoid of health, beauty, and moral power, with disease of every kind fearfully increasing, is not as God created it, and this condition is not by His especial providence but directly contrary to His will, having come by man's disregard of the very means God ordained to shield him from terrible evils. Since that fall men are so weak in moral power that it is impossible for them to overcome in their own strength, and obedience to God's law in every respect would save men from intemperance, licentiousness, and disease of every type, for no one can violate natural law without suffering the penalty.
From that time sin grew worse until God destroyed the world by a flood, saving only Noah and his sons, and has kept steadily increasing since. The verse belongs to the story of humanity's fall and the beginning of ruin that spread through continued transgression, opening the floodgates of woe upon the world. Sin entering the world and death by sin is perpetuated as one after another repeat it. The perpetuation darkens the intellect, makes truth fade and lose power to sanctify, dulls conscience by repetition until sin no longer arrests the transgressor, and leaves men diseased, depraved and dying. Man loses the reflection of God's character and degenerates, the calamity becomes universal with the serpent's track and venomous sting seen everywhere, the whole earth is defiled under its inhabitants, the curse increases as transgression increases, and the earth is prepared for purification by fire.
Adam himself repeated to his children and children's children to the ninth generation the history of man's holy and happy estate in Paradise and the fall. The fall taught him through suffering the necessity of strict adherence to God's law, and with that lesson he explained the merciful provisions for salvation. For nearly a thousand years he lived among men as a witness to the results of sin and faithfully sought to stem the tide of evil by this instruction. Yet few gave heed to his words and he was often met with bitter reproaches for the sin that had brought woe upon his posterity.
The inspired, factual account of the fall is one of the great facts given by the inspired writers and a pillar of the Christian faith alongside creation, the atonement, and the perpetuity of the law of God. Yet it is practically rejected, wholly or in part, by many who profess Christianity. To practically reject that account is infidelity prevailing even in the church and refusal to accept the Bible as the guide of life.
The Bible gives authentic history of the early history of the world, the origin of the earth, the creation of man, his fall, and the introduction of sin into the world. Without this history the mind is left to fables and conjectures, bewildered by false theories, subjected to superstition and falsehood, and enfeebled in intellect by entertaining error; with it in possession there is no need to be hampered by human conjectures and unreliable theories. The fall of Adam and Eve followed the disaffection and fall of Satan from a heaven where spotless purity reigned and God was over all. The fall exposes the workings of the wily foe since Adam's day, and the same principles are still at work, with the end thereof certain. Men are all on trial during probationary time, with Satan playing the game of life for every soul and Christ at work for every soul. Each person chooses the character he forms, consenting to receive the moral image of God and become like Him in character or refusing the character of Christ and losing heaven, and has the gracious opportunity of working out his own salvation by laying hold of the Saviour and by faith receiving His merits and perfecting a character like His.
Adam and Eve lost their right to Eden because they disobeyed a command of God. Their fall proves that being once in grace does not mean remaining always in grace and demonstrates the sure result of transgressing God's law. The condition of the fallen race today testifies to the awful results of that transgression. Since the time of Adam there has been a succession of falls, with men doing just what God told them not to do and thereby perpetuating the disobedience that led to Adam's fall. Pleading family convenience and setting a bad example before one's family and children continues that disobedience, and God holds each person as a responsible moral agent for whom it makes every difference whether he obeys or disobeys.
Call to Obedient Living
The disobedience in Eden that lost the right to the Eden home sets the choice still before every person, either to repeat that transgression or to walk in humble obedience. The choice must be made now to leave the side of the great rebel, to repent for time and talents given to the enemy, to give the whole soul to God, to choose the good and refuse the evil, and to seek the Lord while He may be found without delay. Choosing that same disobedience forfeits the right to the Eden restored, while searching the Scriptures, placing oneself in right relation to God, and overcoming as Christ overcame by perfect obedience to His Father's commandments brings people back to their Eden home and by bending footsteps heavenward points others to that home.
The transgression was violation of the law of God, the greatest loss and deepest injury that can be conceived, for it lost beautiful Eden for the first parents and opened the floodgates of disappointment, sorrow, suffering, want, misery and woe upon the world. Fallen humanity has been granted another trial only through the sacrifice of Christ in God's wise plans, with positive promises held out to all who obey and with obedience required to become members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King. The example stands before every soul to teach avoidance of sin and abhorrence of sin as the hateful thing it is, and to feel in view of the sufferings sin is sure to inflict that it is better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least of God's commandments. To protect the human family from repeating the fall, the light of God's law must be made known so clearly that it is as a city set on a hill which all can understand if they will, parents must plainly teach it to their children and urge obedience all their lives with no excuse of ignorance, and mothers as queens in their households are to keep this result before the tender minds of their children while training them to be obedient to all the statutes and commandments of the Lord.
What looked simple and unworthy of notice brought awful consequences, for the holy pair fell and lost Eden and were expelled in retribution for disobedience, and God did not overlook the transgression with merciful indulgence but dealt with it as severe and exacting, the debt requiring the valuable sacrifice of His Son from heaven to save the fallen race, which exalts the law and evidences its sacred character and through the merits of Christ's blood makes it possible to keep it. The same principle condemns excusing violation of the Sabbath by God's mercy, by common practice, or by greatness of transgressors, for mercy only covers guilt after sin is repented of and forsaken and never lessens guilt while sin is continued. The sin is repeated when God's plain command is discarded, as in rejecting the Sabbath of the Lord for a spurious sabbath, while the lesson that God punishes transgression was so taught by the expulsion that the fallen pair continued to observe the Sabbath after their fall.
The eating of what God had forbidden began humanity's surrender to appetite and marked the fall on the ground of temperance, proving that indulged appetite and errors in food influence moral tendencies, weaken physical, mental and moral efficiency, make it impossible to overcome temptation, and hinder sincere piety and religious fervor. Men deplore the fall yet disobey just as was done then, indulging appetite and passion in direct violation of God's law, so that instead of stopping there has been a succession of falls each greater in crime leaving the race lower physically, mentally and morally, devoid of health, beauty and moral power, with disease fearfully increasing not by God's especial providence but directly contrary to His will by disregard of the very means ordained to shield from terrible evils. Christ in the wilderness passed over that same ground and gained the victory, redeeming the failure and placing the human family on vantage ground with God so that overcoming in their own behalf is possible through the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour. Preparing for Paradise restored requires bringing perverted appetite under strict control, for indulging depraved appetite weakens power to resist evil and enables Satan to fasten evil habits and ensnare in the net of his devices, while obedience to God's law in every respect including natural law would save from intemperance, licentiousness and disease of every type, since no one can violate natural law without suffering the penalty.
God's creation of one wife established His order for marriage, and after the fall people followed their own desires and changed that order, with multiplying wives increasing wickedness and unhappiness. The disobedience broke the charm of obedience and marked the rise of self-will in humanity, so that sinful desires readily align with the law of self and resist God's will, and obedience to God is an absolute necessity, not a choice to set aside at will. Since God means what He says and if people walk contrary to Him He will walk contrary to them, the only safe course is to obey all His requirements at whatever cost, even retracting a promise contrary to Scripture rather than keeping it and dishonoring God, because all His requirements are founded in infinite love and wisdom, with heaven to gain and perdition to shun. Anyone who hears the truth and turns from it because accepting it would retard success in business repeats the partaking of the fruit of disobedience, and such refusal of light is turning from God, selling the soul in a cheap market, making a bargain with Satan, and violating conscience, which kept pure and upright would be worth more than the whole world, leaving conscience ever unreliable.
The transgression and its results are a grand truth of sacred history possessing amazing strength and beauty and as far-reaching as eternity, among the most important knowledge to be gained, and a golden link in the perfect chain of truth from Genesis to Revelation revealing Christ's first advent, incarnation, divinity, atonement, wonderful life in heaven as advocate, and the office of the Holy Spirit, and therefore is to be exalted in every school. The divine law is the basis of all right conduct with reward for obedience and penalty for disobedience, so the transgression and its results are to be plainly brought out before rulers of the nations and all standing in positions of responsibility to show their amenability to God's law and their duty to obey all His requirements, with the law magnified and glorified before all as running like golden threads through the gospel while the blood of Christ remains the sinner's only hope. Violation is a terrible loss to the disloyal and the deepest injury to God because the influence of every transgressor leads and sustains others in that same sin, and since God gave His only begotten Son to save from that ruin the human agent must cooperate by using every God-given facility to extend the truth and save perishing souls. Even what appears as the first very small sin opened the floodgates of woe and will bring eternal ruin upon thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions, showing how easy it is to debase the soul by sinning against light and how transgression that appears small strengthens sinners' hands and accumulates evil, so the worldly side must be watched with constant vigilance and no place given to the devil.
As Eden was lost by transgressing God's law which is the transcript of His character, those who transgress that same law now will lose heaven, for keeping the commandments is the test of love and disobedience is failure to love. The human family is therefore called to obey the light that comes about the binding claims of God's law, to lift the cross in view of the whole world, to search the Scriptures, to place themselves in right relation to God, and not to repeat the transgression but to be obedient to all requirements.