What Happened in The Fall

The first three chapters of Genesis lay the foundation for the rest of the Bible. A proper understanding of the relationship between the Creator and His creation is essential for a proper understanding of all Scripture. That relationship is revealed in Genesis 1-3. The first two chapters describe God’s original intent: humans were to be His agents, His vice-regents on the earth. The world God made was perfectly suited for the people He made. It was also a place where Creator and created could have fellowship with few barriers. Chapter three tells what happened when Adam and Eve disregarded God’s authority and tried to become independent. God granted them their independence, and that destroyed the perfect fellowship they had with Him and the rest of creation as well.

The penalty for human rebellion was immediate expulsion from the Garden of Eden and eventual physical death, but that was not all. They soon learned that the perfection God had created in Eden had been removed from their existence. They quickly discovered that not only had they lost their fellowship with God, their relationship with each other and the rest of creation was also damaged. The loss of Eden literally went deep into their inner selves: the prophet Jeremiah would later say that the human heart became deceitful and disastrous and beyond their own understanding. This wide-ranging brokenness explains most of what is recorded from Genesis four all the way to the book of Revelation.

The Bible would have been a very sad tale if not for one thing: God did not give up on His creation. God so loved the world, John 3:16 tells us, that He made a way for His broken people to regain the lost relationship they had forfeited. The way God chose to bring about the reconciliation can be a bit baffling if you don’t understand God’s character. Our human heart asks why God couldn’t just forgive the transgression and restore fellowship if He truly loved the world. That could not happen because even though God is love personified, He is also holy and just. His holiness excludes anything unholy from His presence; His justice demands payment for indiscretion.

God could have simply wiped humans from the face of the earth and started over; He came close in Noah’s time, allowing only eight people to be saved. But the Bible teaches that God had a plan for His creation – a plan He formulated even before He made the earth. This is part of the mystery of the ages Paul refers to in Ephesians. It appears that God’s intention when He created the earth was to demonstrate His love, not just to humans but to all His created beings on earth and in heaven. To satisfy His justice and prove His love, He sacrificed the dearest thing any human can imagine: His Son.

About two thirds of the Bible, what we call the Old Testament, lays the groundwork for God’s plan to redeem His chosen ones. The children of Adam and later, more specifically, the children of Israel were taught how to relate to a holy God – a God who could not tolerate unholiness of any kind. The law given through Moses, and the sacrificial system it included were meant to demonstrate in a visceral way that departure from God’s rules brought costly penalties. All the bloody sacrifices required under the law of Moses prefigured a once-for-all sacrifice that would finally redeem God’s fallen world.

Just as the Mosaic sacrifices had to be perfectly formed, without spot or blemish, God’s ultimate sacrifice would also have to be perfect. The only way that could be accomplished was to bring a perfect human into being who could pay the redemption price on behalf of His peers. Anyone born of Adam inherently had the stain of Adam’s transgression and was therefore not qualified to serve as a perfect sacrifice. For that reason, God used a virgin, Mary, to miraculously bring a human to earth who was not a child of Adam but a child of God Himself. This enabled the Son to do what no other human could do: live a life completely without sin – spotless, without blemish – a perfect human.

On the cross of Calvary, Jesus, the Messiah promised by the prophets, bore all the sin of all the sons of Adam past, present, and future. When He died, Jesus paid the price of redemption for all those sins. Paul calls Jesus the second Adam because whereas Adam failed to be obedient and lost Eden, Jesus was perfectly obedient and regained the lost Paradise. Paul refers to everyone born in Adam as dead men walking because the death penalty given to Adam was passed on to his descendants. The death he is referring to is more than physical death; it is more importantly that broken, dead, fellowship with God and the rest of creation. To escape from that death, a person must resign their position in Adam and realign with a position in Christ.

That is what the Bible asks for when it requires belief in Christ for salvation. The Greek word for belief can also be translated trust. When we trust Jesus, we are putting our trust in Him to deliver us from the death we inherited from Adam. The “everlasting life” promised to believers is the life Adam forfeited when he rebelled against God. When the last of God’s chosen people come to faith in Christ, God will finish His redemptive work, and the perfect world Adam left behind will be recreated as the “new earth” promised in Revelation. After the final judgment of all people, the faithful from all ages will enjoy the restored fellowship Adam lost in the Fall. Earth will once again be God’s Garden, and believers will spend eternity in His presence there.

When you look at salvation this way, it becomes clear why it is not one’s behavior that determines their destiny; it is all about belief/trust in Christ. There are many “good” people who will not find favor with God because they have rejected the only One who can deliver them from death, regardless of whatever good they might do. The Scripture plainly asserts that no one can be good enough to merit God’s favor. This is why salvation is called a gift of God’s unmerited favor or grace. Having said that, I must add that true belief in Christ will spark a desire to please Him which will lead to obedience to His commands. This is why James could say that a believer’s works show their faith, and faith without works is dead.

 Millions of people, many of them calling themselves Christians, believe that their good deeds will earn God’s favor. That is not what the Bible teaches. The entirety of Scripture, cover to cover details God’s plan to bring His chosen people back into fellowship with Him – the fellowship He desired in the Garden of Eden. This is why true Christianity is not about religion: rites, rituals, and rules. True Christianity is about relationship – relationship with the Sovereign Creator God. The worst result of the Fall is the loss of that relationship. The good news (aka the gospel) is that restoration of that relationship is available through Jesus Christ. And the result of the relationship with Christ is the opportunity to spend eternity in God’s presence like He intended in the Garden.

Related Posts: The Knowledge of Good and Evil; Second Exodus; Necessary Obedience