The Fall of the Human Race

August 4th, 2011

A. Welcome back! Remember, this is our first series: “What does it mean to be a Jesus Follower?”

In our last post, we covered how God created a spiritual universe before He created the Heaven and the Earth. This realm was populated with hierarchies of angels, including 3 Archangels – Lucifer, Michael and Gabriel. All these being exist in ‘the 3 heavens’, or layers of the spiritual universe.

Next, He spoke the physical worlds and the universe of stars and the solar systems into being. He continued with land and sea, with creatures to inhabit both areas. Then God turned to His greatest creation – Adam and then Eve.

He placed the first couple in a perfect paradise called ‘The Garden of Eden’. At some time, this perfection was untested – much like an 8 year old who hasn’t seen the world yet. Pride and self-will entered the heart of one of the Archangels, Lucifer and he began to plan to be better than his Creator. We find 5 statements Lucifer made in his intentions in Isaiah 14:13-15.

Rebellion first happened in the heavenly realm ….. around God’s own throne. Lucifer took 1/3 of the angels with him and left God’s presence. At that point, Lucifer set himself up in opposition to God and war was declared in the heaven. Good and evil began their ‘dance to the death’. It was such a turning point that even Lucifer’s name was changed to Satan. He and his demonic angels are involved the battle to win the hearts and minds of mankind around us today.

This is where we pick up the story in this post, the third topic in our series: The Fall of the Human Race. Today, we want to cover how Adam and Eve fell from the perfection of Eden to the place where Satan could take their authority and rule over all mankind. We will also look at the consequences of following the deception of Satan on the whole human race for over 7,000 years in our continued post, 3b.

2. So the story begins:

To understand this drama, I want to take you back in time, before there was time … before the worlds, the universe and before the angels were created. Once there was only a Supreme, Intelligent, all-knowing Being that we call ‘God’. In the vastness of everything, the all-loving One existed alone.

This Supreme One decided to have a people to help rule this expanse with the power and authority, imagination and creativity that this Supreme One possessed. The idea grew and the planning began. What would it be like to have a people that chose to follow, not because they were made to but out of free will? What would have to happen to allow this free will to happen?

This Creator foresaw all the pain and suffering that would be released upon this creation IF the plan was set in motion. He was never taken off guard by what was to come….but He decided it was necessary if the plan for this perfect, tried and tested people could happen.

…and so the idea and plans were started until one day, the Word was spoken and all things began to come into being. First the angels and their responsibilities in the spiritual realms were created.

Next, the physical worlds of stars, galaxies, universes beyond our imagination were set in place. Then Earth, the seas set in boundaries, the land and then the creatures in the waters and on the land were made.

Then the Creator began the final triumph – a human being was formed and he was named Adam.

3. We are all made in God’s image

Human beings are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). When the Bible says “Let us make man in our image”, it refers to the Father as the Creator, the Word which became the Son and Holy Spirit. In this verse, we see the godhead in plural form, the Hebrew ‘Elohiym’.

…..but what does it really mean to be made in God’s image?

The writer, Paul mentions in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 that we are a three part being: we inhabit a body, use a soul but we really are an eternal spirit being.

a. We inhabit a BODY to live in this physical world

The body is our ‘tent’ or outer shell that exists in the physical world (Romans 8:11, James 2:26). We contact the physical world through our five senses: taste, touch, smell, hearing and sight.

Although God is a spirit, when He appears to man, He has taken on a human shape as well appeared through angels. God also appears to have a human-like ‘body’. Moses was not allowed to see God’s face, but was allowed to see His hand and back (Exodus 33:23). We have already seen that Jesus (God in human form) sits in heaven in a human body (Hebrews 6:20).

b. We use a soul to interface with the physical and spiritual worlds.

The soul is the essence of our personality. The soul makes sense of the physical world around us. It interprets what the five senses discover.

When God created us, we were shaped to have a soul (Genesis 2:7), just like God has. Both God and we are capable of having personality. Animals, and to some extent angels, don’t have souls in the same sense. Following are some aspects of soul:

EMOTIONS – God gets angry (1 Kings 11:9), so do we. God grieves (Ephesians 4:30), so do we, MIND – God considers and thinks (Neh. 5:19), so do we. WILL – God has volition and choice (Deut. 12:5), so do we, IMAGINATION – Both God and us have creative abilities.

b. We are created as spirit beings

The spirit part of us is the real ‘being’. It motivates the soul and body. Our spirit is eternal already. When we die, our spirit goes to ‘live’ with the Master we have chosen. If we choose God, we will be in His presence forever. If we don’t accept God’s way of salvation through Jesus Christ, we will live with another ‘master’, Satan, and we are doomed to share his destiny.

4. Both God and humans are beings who use faith

Humans are superior to angels in some ways. We need faith to please God (Hebrews 11:6), but angels do not use faith to see Him. Angels came into the glorious presence of God, and still one third rebelled. We, on the other hand, can only see God through eyes of faith.

If we are loyal to God on Earth, we will be loyal to Him when we see Him in His full glory. Because of this we were made just a little lower than God (Psalm. 8:5, literally God, not angels) and God has crowned us with glory and honour. One day we will judge angels because of our faith walk (1 Corinthians 6:3).

(Also see our post on the place of angels in our world today.)

B. So what Happened in the Garden of Eden?

1. The Creator’s original design was for Adam and Eve to multiply, fill the Earth and to rule over the creation, (Genesis 1:28)

2. The Man was created to TEND the Garden:

As part of Adam’s rule over the Earth, he was commanded to care and tend the Garden. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Genesis 2:15

The word ‘tend’ is to use physical effort, like working the ground, harvesting, yet enjoying the work. The word ‘care’ is the Hebrew word ‘shamar’ which has the inference of keeping, guarding, observing, guiding, governing and protecting. To sum up Adam’s commission in the Garden, he was to: ‘guide, guard and govern’ everything in it.

Adam was given everything in perfect order but with one commandment. God created the Garden of Eden with two special trees in the middle it (Genesis 2:8). One was called the ‘Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil’ and the other was the ‘Tree of Life’. They could eat from anything in the Garden but Adam was not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:16-17). In fact, this was so important that God said that Adam would surely die if he ate the fruit of this tree.

3. Eve was created as Adam’s partner, helpmate and co-gardener.

Genesis 2:18 “The Lord God said ‘It is not good for man to be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him.’ “ So, God put Adam to sleep and took a rib and created Eve. Adam awake and said “…..WO…. MAN!…..” in his pleasure at seeing Eve. (joke!)

Her commission was to help him with the care of the Garden. She was never a second rate person, less than him. Neither was she designed to be ‘just a man with a womb’. She was to be equal but given a different commission; she was to be his helpmate.

4. So what ruined this perfect paradise?

Genesis, Chapter Three is fascinating Scripture. As Christian counsellors and mentors, we can find many clues to human nature in this section. How anybody can say it is an imaginary ‘fairy’ story when there is so much of the human condition revealed there, is beyond comprehension. There is so much ‘meat’ in these scriptures, we need to look at what took place, verse by verse, for the entire chapter.

Verse 1: “Now the serpent was craftier than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the women ‘Did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden?’

“The woman said to the serpent, We may eat of fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die’. “

We notice several things in these two verses:

a. Satan had somehow slipped past Adam’s guard and had inhabited the body of a snake. So where was Adam?

b. The snake talked to the woman. No other animals could talk so this would have been a warning sign to start with. Approaching Eve showed the snake’s cunning mentioned before.

c. The snake questioned what God had said …. and the woman added to what God had said. God had said nothing about touching the leaves or tree.

Verse 4: “ ‘You will not surely die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ “

d. Satan openly contradicts what the Creator had said and meant and then added the thought that ‘they could be like God’. This has been the temptation and driving force behind many dictators’s, despots and would be rulers of the world. Some even fall into that trap when they try to use occult means to gain power.

Verse 6: “When the women saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened…..” Genesis 3:1-7

e. In 1 Timothy 2:14, we are told that Eve was deceived into doing what she did – but Adam knowingly chose to eat the fruit. In fact, I believe he wanted to do this all along but allowed Eve to be ‘the bunny’ who did the deed. It would be part of her ‘helpmate commission’ Eve had been given in Genesis 2:18 “The Lord God said ‘It is not good for man to be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him.’ “

f. Many cultures and religions blame Eve but where was Adam? “…She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened…..” Genesis 3:7. So who should wear the main responsibility for this disobedience?

It was Adam who was to guard, guide and govern the Garden and take care of his beloved. He stood there – beside here – and watched her talk with the Snake. Yes, she could said ‘Go talk to my husband!’ Yet, Adam watched as she took a bite of what God had said would kill her and them – without stopping her! Then he also ate of the fruit … and then the eyes of both of them were opened. Adam becomes the first ‘wimp’ who didn’t protect those he loved. Only when Adam disobeyed did the consequences start.

In our next post, we will discuss how this event has formed the basis for the behaviour of many males … and many females even today. It is what the Bible calls ‘the old nature’.

5. There were multitudes of tress in the Garden but two trees were special.

So what did the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represent? When Adam rebelled and ate from this tree, his spiritual connected with the Creator was broken. To replace the guidance Adam once had through the Holy Spirit, he began to decide what is right and wrong, rather than let God decide.

Making our own rules has come down through the almost 7,000 years since their disobedience. We see the same consequences when we decide to do what we want to do, without regard to God’s plans. In other words we set ourselves up as judges of what is right and what is wrong. Our whole school system, legal and social roles reflect this independence from God’s way of doing things.

In our next post, we will continue with the story of Adam and Eve, the consequences of their actions and how this still influences us today. This is far from just a story or a myth as there are still many truths we can see about human nature, about how we react to evil and how to claim the freedom the Creator promised us.