WHAT HAPPENED IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN?
GENESIS 3:1-7
by Pastor Bill Parker
This study is concerned with what actually happened when
Adam fell in the Garden of Eden as recorded in Genesis 3.
A wise man once said something to the effect that if a person is "wrong
on the fall, they are wrong on it all." In essence, this is true. But before
we go to Genesis 3, let's first consider the effects of Adam's
fall as recorded in Romans 5 and how this shows the necessity
of salvation by God's free and sovereign grace in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We will consider what happened in the Garden of Eden in this context.
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Romans 5:12 -- Wherefore, as by one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for
that all have sinned:
God the Holy Spirit by the Apostle Paul reveals God's way
of justifying sinners based on the ONE ground of salvation, the imputed
righteousness of Christ. He does this by comparing the role of Adam, the
first man, in the condemnation of all whom he represented with the role
of the Lord Jesus Christ in the redemption of all whom He represented.
Sin came by ONE man, Adam, and the whole human race, all whom he represented,
sinned, not personally, but in the person of our representative, Adam.
Sin came into the world through the first man Adam, and death (spiritual,
physical, legal) passed, or literally, "spread to all men" because
"all sinned" in Adam. This means the whole human race, each individual,
were legally constituted sinners on the ground of Adam's one sin. In what
sense did each individual participate in Adam's sin? The whole human race
in Adam became guilty by REPRESENTATION. Adam was the federal head
and representative of the whole human race, so that when he sinned, all
of his posterity sinned, again not personally, but in the person of our
representative Adam. In time, the actual guilt of Adam's sin is imputed
or legally charged to the account of all whom he represented, and, in time,
each one receives from Adam a sinful fallen human nature. Death passed
through from father (Adam) to son (the whole human race).
Romans 5:13-17 is a parenthesis that explains
how that just as death is the fruit and effect of Adam's sin, justification
and life (salvation) are the fruit and effect of Christ's obedience unto
death (His righteousness). This sets forth one of the most profound, vital,
and unique truths of Christianity -- JUST AS ADAM'S SIN DEMANDED THE GUILT
AND CONDEMNATION OF ALL WHOM HE REPRESENTED, CHRIST'S RIGHTEOUSNESS (the
merits of His obedience and death) DEMANDS THE JUSTIFICATION AND ETERNAL
LIFE OF ALL WHOM HE REPRESENTED. In other words, men and women do not become
guilty by their personal sinning or anything that proceeds from our persons.
We become guilty by Adam's sin imputed, or legally charged, to us. Our
personal sinning is merely the fruit and evidence of our connection with
Adam, and it only adds to our condemnation. By the same principle, we do
not become justified by personal obedience or anything that proceeds from
our persons. We become justified by Christ's righteousness imputed, or
legally charged, to us. Our personal obedience is merely the fruit and
evidence of our connection with Christ.
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Romans 5:18 -- Therefore as by the offence of one judgment
came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one
the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. {19} For as
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of
one shall many be made righteous.
The method of condemnation and justification are the same
in principle. Sinners are justified through the imputation of Christ's
righteousness just as they were condemned through the imputation of Adam's
guilt. Just as the whole race of humanity was lost through the representative
act of the first Adam, God's elect are saved through the representative
act of the last Adam -- the Lord Jesus Christ --
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1 Corinthians 15:21 -- For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead. {22} For as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
We can conclude then from God's Word that sinners are saved
in the same manner in which they were lost -- THROUGH THE ACT OF A SUBSTITUTE
AND REPRESENTATIVE. As Adam, by his one transgression, brought guilt and
condemnation to all who were connected with him, so Christ, by His act
of righteousness (His sinless life and substitutionary death) brings justification
and life to all who are connected with Him. This is why we must insist
that to deny the doctrine of total depravity and to promote universal notions
of the atonement is to deny the Gospel -- God's promise of salvation and
final glory based on the righteousness of Christ. Many believe that a person
can be saved believing such God-dishonoring, Christ-denying, man-exalting
doctrines, but we will see is that herein lies one of the main evidences
of total depravity as we consider what actually happened in the fall of
mankind through Adam.
Now, keeping these great truths in mind, let's go back
to Genesis 3 and examine the precise nature of Adam's fall.
Since it affected so many, all whom Adam represented (the whole human race),
and since the only hope of salvation is through the Lord Jesus Christ,
the last Adam, the Representative of the whole election of grace, it would
do all of us good to understand the exact nature of the fall. It is through
an understanding of the fall of Adam as a representative and redemption
by Christ as a Representative that we come to understand right and wrong,
according to God's testimony, and understand what it is to be lost and
to be saved. Consider how the natural man judges saved and lost. Consider
their standard of judgment, and we will begin to see the true nature of
total depravity.
I. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOD AND ADAM.
The relationship between God as sovereign Creator and
Adam as creature was a covenant relationship --
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Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in
the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. {28}
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that
moveth upon the earth.
God created Adam and Eve in His own image. This mainly refers
to the fact that Adam and Eve possessed all the qualities of character
that God communicates to humans. God has communicable attributes incommunicable
attributes. For example, God is holy and He created Adam as holy. On the
other hand, God is immutable. He has no beginning and no end. But Adam
had a beginning, and being a creature could never be immutable. Creation
by definition means change. Adam and Eve were holy both in their state
(their persons) and in their character and conduct. They were not immutably
holy, but they were holy. They were sinless. Adam was the first man, the
best and the most intelligent man. He was the crown of God's creation.
The covenant agreement into which God entered with Adam
was a covenant of works. God as the supreme, sovereign, righteous Creator,
entered into this covenant with Adam, the first man. God appointed Adam
as the representative and federal head of the entire human family. Adam
stood as a responsible, rational creature. The terms of this covenant were
very simple -- obey God and live; disobey God and die.
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Genesis 2:16 -- And the LORD God commanded the man,
saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: {17} But of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for
in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
God promised Adam eternal, spiritual life if Adam would obey
the commandment of God perfectly, and God added the threat of death should
Adam sin in the least detail. Adam already had spiritual life but the difference
between the spiritual life of original man and the spiritual life of redeemed
man is that Adam's original life was mutable. Adam being a creature was
subject to change and, therefore, liable to fall. This is the nature of
a creature. Only God is immutable! This might give us a clue to one of
the greatest mysteries concerning God's reason for ordaining the fall of
mankind in Adam. We know, first and foremost, it was His own glory in the
redemption of mankind by saving His elect through the Lord Jesus Christ.
But also this may have been the only way that God who is immutable could
have eternal, unbroken fellowship with mutable beings. Think about it --
How can the Immutable have eternal fellowship with the mutable? It boggles
our minds. God has not revealed all things to our finite minds.
So God put Adam to the test. The objective test of the
covenant of the covenant of works was in the "tree of the knowledge
of good and evil." This tree represented God's sovereign authority
and His standard of good and evil, along with His sovereign right
to determine good and evil. It is God, not man, who is the standard of
good. It is God, not man, who determines what is right and what is wrong.
So the welfare of the whole of humanity depended upon Adam's obedience
because Adam represented the whole of humanity. It is important to remember
that this covenant of works was never intended to be a covenant of salvation
or redemption. There was no provision in this covenant of works for mercy
or grace. There was no remedy for disobedience and no way of recovery in
this covenant. Disobedience meant swift and certain death with no hope
of salvation in this covenant of works. This is the reason God reveals
plainly that "by deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified
in His sight" (Rom. 3:20). This is another reason why we who believe
the Gospel must insist that all who believe in a universal atonement are
lost and do not believe the Gospel of God's grace. Universal notions of
the atonement automatically makes salvation conditioned on the sinner.
This reduces salvation to a covenant of works. Anyone then who believes
salvation conditioned on sinners in any way is seeking an impossibility,
because he is seeking salvation based on the terms of a covenant that provides
no salvation.
Salvation and recovery is according to the terms of
another covenant, a covenant of grace, through another representative,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam. The Gospel is the preaching of
the terms of this covenant of grace. It is a promise of salvation conditioned,
not on sinners, but on the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinner's Substitute and
Surety. This reveals the absolute certainty of the salvation of all whom
He represented based on His righteousness alone without our works and efforts
as pertaining to the ground of salvation. Salvation cannot be conditioned
on anything proceeding from a sinner's person or character and conduct
at any stage and to any degree. God must be glorified, Christ must be exalted,
and all boasting must be excluded in sinners.
II. THE FALL OF ADAM AND THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE.
When did Adam fall and what was the nature of his fall?
Adam fell when he broke the covenant of works by eating the forbidden fruit
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was not simply the act
of eating the fruit that brought about the fall of Adam, and what the fruit
was specifically is not important. If it were, God would have revealed
it specifically. It was an actual fruit from an actual tree. It was not
sex as sex was not forbidden. God had before commanded Adam and Eve to
"be fruitful, and multiply" (Gen. 1:28). To get caught up
in such minor issues is to miss the whole point of the story. Adam actually
fell before he ate the fruit because in his mind he had determined to disobey
God. His eating the fruit was simply the result of his making a judgment
and coming to a conclusion based on Satan's lie. This is very, very
important if we are to understand the fall of man and the real basic evidences
of fallen, sinful human nature. It is recorded in Genesis 3:1-7.
Satan first began tempting them by challenging God's authority,
God's truth, God's promise, and God's threat --
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Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any
beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman,
Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? {2} And
the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of
the garden: {3} But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the
garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it,
lest ye die. {4} And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely
die: {5} For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes
shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Notice as God had said of the fruit of this tree, "Ye
shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die," Satan's
message to Adam and Eve was "Ye shall not surely die." God
the Creator who is holy, sovereign, good, wise, and powerful, had set the
standard of good and evil. He had told Adam and Eve that it was evil to
eat of the fruit of that tree. He had told them that if they ate of it,
they would die. But Satan told them it was not evil to eat of the fruit
of that tree. He told them it was good and that they would not die. In
essence Satan was saying that God is not the only one who can say what
is good and evil, who can set the standard of judgment in these matters.
Satan in essence told Adam and Eve that they could set their own standard
of good and evil -- "then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil." A lot of people take this phrase
to mean that Adam and Eve in their ignorant innocense did not know the
difference between good and evil. This is why many unbelievers look upon
this story as a myth describing man's liberation rather than the truth
describing man's fall. Adam and Eve knew the difference between good and
evil. Adam was an intelligent, rational creature who was made in the image
of God. He was the most intelligent human being ever as he was the first
man. God did not create Adam as, nor enter into the covenant with him as,
an ignorant, irrational, immature child. Adam knew full well what he was
doing.
Some say that the phrase, "ye shall be as gods,"
means that Adam wanted to take God off the throne and replace God with
himself. But I believe they miss the point of this phrase. Again, Adam
knew full well that he did not create the world. He knew that his power
was limited, but in eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, he sought to
be "as gods" in the sense that he could aspire to be independent
from God and set his own standards of right and wrong, good and evil, of
saved and lost. This has been the problem with sinful man all along.
Adam and Eve listened to Satan's lie, and Adam made a
judgment, a conscious decision, based on Satan's lie. Adam did not believe
God's threat or God's promise. He did not believe God. He believed Satan's
message -- "ye shall not surely die." Adam fell when he took
sides with Satan against God. He sought to set his own standard of good
and evil. In essence we could say that Adam sought to set his own standard
of saved (continuing in life) and lost (death). Satan spoke peace to Adam
and Eve in opposition to God's testimony. The moment Adam did this, he
became guilty, defiled, totally depraved, spiritually dead, and under the
sentence of condemnation.
This proves that sin is not essentially immorality.
Immorality is certainly sinful, but it is just an effect of a greater,
deeper problem. Sin is essentially unbelief of God. Unbelief is what causes
man to declare his independence from God and seek to set his own standard
of good and evil, of saved and lost. When immorality and selfishness occur,
they flow from unbelief, but sin is essentially unbelief. Adam and Eve
were the only human beings on earth at that time. They had no neighbors
so they could not sin against the second table of the Decalogue which has
to do with perfect love to our neighbors. It forbids adultery, murder,
lying, stealing, covetousness. Adam could not have committed any of the
sins on which religion majors today. There were no drugs or alcohol, no
R-rated movies. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were righteous and holy,
and they had free access and fellowship with God.
Adam sinned, and his sin resulted in a three-fold death
(physical, spiritual, and eternal). By that one sin Adam brought both himself
and Eve into a state of condemnation. They were now alienated from God,
enemies of God, no longer in God's family but now in Satan's family, under
the powers of darkness. Now they were guilty and defiled. And remember,
they still had no neighbors. They were still moral in all these areas mentioned
before. What was the first thing they did after the fall? They did not
get drunk or perform some perverted act of gross immorality. They did not
seek to murder each other. They realized their own nakedness and sewed
fig leaves together to cover themselves (Gen. 3:7). Now this
does not mean that they did not know that they were naked before the fall.
They knew they were naked, but their nakedness before the fall brought
no shame because there was no sin to make them ashamed. Before the fall,
they were pure and holy. It also means that after the fall they both realized
they were exposed to God's wrath at that time. The fig leaves represents
man's efforts to cover himself or shield himself from the wrath of God
by his own efforts. This is sinful.
But we see here in the garden that as long as sin is charged
to a person's account, he is guilty and defiled. He is in a state of wrath,
no matter how moral he might appear. We see examples of this all through
the Bible (ex. Nicodemus, Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisees). The objective
of God's command to Adam was faith-obedience. Adam was to obey God because
he recognized God's sovereign authority and right, and because he believed
both God's promise and God's threat. But Adam chose to believe Satan and
disbelieve God. He plunged himself and the whole human race into condemnation,
and the greatest evidence of this state is unbelief that causes us to seek
to set our own standard of saved and lost, which in turn causes us to speak
peace to ourselves and to others apart from God's testimony.
Again, here we see the real essence and evidence of total
depravity, of lostness, of spiritual kinship with Satan --
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(1) MAKING JUDGMENTS BASED ON SATAN'S LIE. Consider
how Eve judged against God's express testimony that the fruit was good
to eat -- "And when the woman SAW that the tree was good for food,
and that it was PLEASANT TO THE EYES, and a tree to be desired to make
one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto
her husband with her; and he did eat" (Genesis 3:6).
Here judgment was based on Satan's lie and upon outward appearance.
This is what all men and women without exception do naturally. How does
lost humanity judge good and evil, saved and lost? They judge based on
Satan's lie and by outward appearance and reputation. They refuse to judge
by God's testimony alone (God's truth and doctrine). They judge based on
what they in themselves believe to be true (Satan's lie) and by what they
see (outward appearance and reputation). This is self-righteous judgment,
and it is what Christ taught against in Matthew 7:1-5 and
John 7:24. The Apostle Paul wrote against to the Corinthian
and the Galatian churches (2 Cor. 5:16; 10:5-12). Read Galatians
1:8 --
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But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any
other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him
be accursed.
The "we" here refers to an apostle (a person
of reputation), and the "angel from heaven"refers to outward
appearance. The Gospel "which WE have preached" refers to
God's Gospel, God's testimony, God's doctrine. So if a person of reputation,
or one who outwardly appears righteous unto men, preaches any other gospel,
any doctrine other than God's, we are to count that person as lost and
under God's wrath. This is totally opposite of what we will do by nature.
By nature we will always insists on judging this by Satan's lie based on
something other than, even opposed to, God's testimony. How many times
have you said, or heard others said, "They don't believe the same doctrine
we believe, but they are saved because of their godly lives." When we say
that a person who does not believe God's Gospel leads a "godly"
life, we are going against God's testimony and taking sides with Satan
against God. We are setting our own standard of godliness and calling good
evil and evil good. This is the main evidence of total depravity as it
covers all lost sinners without exception, moral and immoral.
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(2) SPEAKING PEACE WHERE THERE IS NO PEACE. As lost
sinners make their judgments based on Satan's lie and by outward appearance
against God's express testimony, they will always speak peace to themselves
and to others based on things that are highly esteemed among men but an
abomination unto God. Whereas God's testimony says, "Ye shall surely
die," they will take sides with Satan in saying, "Ye shall
not surely die."
This was always a mark of false prophets in the Old Testament
(ex. Jer. 6:14; 8:11), and it has always been the way of
false religion to establish sinners in false refuges (ex. Isa. 28:14-18).
God's testimony always sweeps away the refuge of lies as it exposes what
we do not see by nature and by natural conscience -- that as long as we
are either ignorant of or not submitted to the imputed righteousness of
Christ revealed in the Gospel, as long as we are in unbelief, we are lost,
and all our efforts at religion and morality are dead works and fruit unto
death (John 3:18-20). Apart from being convinced of sin,
of righteousness, and of judgment (John 16:8-11),
we will continue in our depravity making our judgments based on Satan's
lie and speaking peace where there is no peace (John
8:44).
III. THE ONLY HOPE OF REDEMPTION.
Only perfect righteousness and holiness can regain and
maintain fellowship with God, and this defines God's grace in salvation.
God the Father sent God the Son as the Representative, Substitute, and
Surety of guilty, defiled sinner's chosen out of Adam's fallen race. The
same God who set the standard of good and evil has set the terms and conditions
of the redemption of mankind. The Bible teaches that even before the fall
God chose a particular number of sinners out of Adam's fallen race and
gave them to Christ, God the eternal Son. God conditioned all of the salvation
of the elect on Christ and in time sent Christ into the world as their
Representative and Surety to fulfill these conditions by establishing a
righteousness for them. God revealed this immediately after the fall in
the promise of the Messiah --
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Genesis 3:15 -- And I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head,
and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Satan brought in the ground of our condemnation. The woman's
seed (Christ) would bring in the ground of our justification by establishing
righteousness for us. This righteousness is the entire merit of His obedience
and death for their sins. Righteousness is the condition for salvation.
And sinners do not have it by nature and cannot produce it by practice.
It has been provided by God through Christ, therefore, it is called the
righteousness of God. It is revealed in the preaching of the Gospel of
salvation conditioned on Christ alone --
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Romans 1:16 -- For I am not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth;
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. {17} For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live
by faith.
These truths do not shut sinners out of the kingdom of heaven
because all who hear these truths are commanded to believe them, to receive
Christ and plead His righteousness as the only ground of salvation, and
repent of dead works and idolatry. Sinners are commanded to stop judging
by Satan's lie and stop speaking peace to themselves and others apart from
the only ground of peace -- the righteousness of Christ (2 Cor. 5:21).
Any sinner who considers himself or any other sinner saved apart from this
gives evidence of total depravity and spiritual kinship with Satan. The
only thing that will keep sinners thinking this way is their own self-righteousness,
self-love, and religious pride inherited from Adam.
This is an amazing thing when we consider that most preachers
spend their time preaching against immorality. Many preachers who claim
to believe the doctrine of total depravity usually define it by describing
great depths of immorality. They talk about how this nation is "going to
hell in a hand-basket" because of alcohol, drugs, murders, homosexuality,
and many, many more awful sins. And these things are awful. They are sinful.
They are sins we must oppose, preach against, and do our best to discourage.
But if these things are main subjects of our preaching, and if these things
are the main issues of the repentance we promote, then we will not even
come close the real issues of salvation, of true faith and true, Godly
repentance. We may get men and women to reform their lives and repent of
open immorality, but this kind of preaching will never bring a sinner to
justifying faith and true repentance before God. The reason is that the
kind of repentance this preaching promotes is legal, self-righteous repentance
that is an abomination unto God. By nature, we all think that when we and/or
others repent of immorality, that is salvation and true, Godly repentance.
But by nature we all think that when we repent of such things, this recommends
unto God or that this is the evidence of salvation and true repentance.
But true, Godly repentance springs from justifying faith.
It comes from a saving knowledge of how God can only save us based on the
righteousness of His beloved Son. In light of the Gospel, we see that a
sinner truly repents of his sins before God when he sees that nothing can
save him or recommend him unto God, not even his repentance and reformations,
nothing but the blood and the righteousness of Christ. When we by faith
see this, then we will repent of dead works and idolatry and give evidence
of spiritual kinship to Christ. Consider 1 Corinthians 15:22once
again --
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For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all
be made alive.
All who are "in Adam" are lost, guilty, defiled,
totally depraved, under the wrath of God, and spiritually kin to Satan.
This is evidenced in many ways in many different persons. Some may be immoral
and some may be religious, but the one thing they all have in common is
that they make their judgments based on Satan's lie and will speak peace
to someone in opposition to God's testimony. We know this by their doctrine.
They do not believe God's Gospel, and they set their own standard of judgment.
Remember what Christ told the Pharisees when they gained converts to their
self-righteous religion. They were convincing some Gentiles to give up
an immoral way of life and embrace a religious, moral way of life, and
He said, "Ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves"
(Matt. 23:15). All who are "in Christ" are saved,
justified, made holy and fit for heaven, adopted into the family of God,
and certain for heaven in and by Christ. This too is evidenced in many
ways. There may be different personalities, different gifts, different
levels of growth, but they all believe God's Gospel. They all plead the
righteousness of Christ as the only ground of salvation, and they have
all repented of dead works and former idolatry. They will not speak peace
to themselves and other while ignorant of these things. They judge saved
and lost by God's testimony alone.
