Introduction: Four Fall-like events in the Book of Genesis
The Book of Genesis presents to us four fall-like events.
1. The first is Satan’s Fall, wherein sin had its beginning. Old Testament passages such as Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-16 each begin with God's judgment pronounced on certain kings, with the judgment speech switching to the primordial fall of Lucifer to become Satan. I take this first fall-like event to have occurred between the "white-space" of Genesis 2:25 and Genesis 3:1.
The seventeenth century theologian Thomas Watson in his "Body of Divinity" summarizes this initial cosmic fall:
The origin of sin, from whence it comes. It fetches its pedigree from hell; sin is of the devil. 1 John 3:3 ‘He that committeth sin is of the devil.’ Satan was the first actor of sin, and the first tempter to sin. Sin is the devil’s first-born.
2. The second fall-like event, which will be the focus of today's post and the next several, is the fall-like event most familiar to students of the Bible - namely the fall of Adam and his wife in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3.
Sin was sourced in Satan, and then became distributed through our first parents. As we shall see in later posts, Adam and Eve were like gateways through which sin was distributed to the human race and onto the whole physical creation (1 Corinthians 15:20-22; Romans 5:12-21; Romans 8:21-25).
3. The third fall-like event occurred in the events that led to God judging the world with the world-wide flood (Genesis 6-9).
4. The fourth fall-like event we find in the book of Genesis is that of the Tower of Babel incident, recorded in Genesis 11:1-9.
All four of these fall-like events, with Adam's fall being most prominent, function together to explain what theologians call "the noetic effects of the fall", that is, the decay, moral ruin, spiritual darkness, and posture of judgment by God upon the fallen race of Adam.
Why Adam's Fall is important to understanding the significance of Christ's accomplished work of salvation as the second Adam
It is against such an otherwise bleak backdrop that God's redemptive plan of salvation, no doubt planned between the Father and Son before time began (2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2), and worked forth through God's covenants with Eve (Genesis 3:15,20-21), Noah (Genesis 8-9), Abraham (Genesis 12; 17; 22), David (2 Samuel 7:13-16), the New Covenant itself (Jeremiah 31:31-34), would be revealed and worked out in history.
When a Jeweler wants to accentuate the beauty of a gem, they'll place it on a dark cloth. God's decree to permit sin to intrude into His creation was part of His plan. The 1689 2nd London Baptist Confession, in its sixth article, first paragraph, summarizes:
"which God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory."
God permits what He hates to achieve the great good He intended (see Genesis 50:20; Acts 2:23-24; Romans 8:28). God is not the author of evil. The Westminster Confession of Faith, in its third article "Of God's Eternal Decree", paragraph one, summarizes with Scripture proofs:
"God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: (Eph. 1:11, Rom. 11:33, Heb. 6:17, Rom. 9:15,18) yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, (James 1:13,17, 1 John 1:5) nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. (Acts 2:23, Matt. 17:12, Acts 4:27–28, John 19:11, Prov. 16:33)"
As we understand how God had already foreknown of the intrusion of sin into our world, we come to realize that the Father, Son, and Spirit had planned the redemption needed to counteract the evils of sin and its effects on the human race and creation. The Son Himself came as the Father's appointed Redeemer, the Son of God incarnate, Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:21-23; John 1:14; Titus 2:11-13; 1 Peter 3:18).
Other New Testament passages bear-out that the incarnation of the Son of God to be a man. Jesus came as "the Second Adam" (Romans 5:12-14; 1 Corinthians 15:45-47). Christ's perfect life, substitutionary death on the cross, glorious resurrection, and ascension is contrasted with the failure of the first Adam. Christ came to undo what had been done by Adam, as well as to destroy the work of the Evil one who tempted our original parents (Hebrews 2:11-15; 1 John 3:8).
The importance of studying the Fall of Adam
As we turn our attention to Adam's fall in Genesis 3, we cannot overemphasize the importance of that chapter in Genesis. One writer has noted,
“Genesis 3 is unquestionably
one of the most important chapters in God’s revealed Word. Without the
historical record of the plight of man, and indeed all the trouble in the world
caused by sin, would be an unfathomable riddle.”
In the church I pastor, our children have been studying through Adam Murrell's "Young Baptist Catechism". In that work, questions pertaining to Adam's fall are asked.
Question 29: Did all mankind fall in Adam’s Sin?
Answer: All mankind, descending from Adam, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression.
Question 30: Into what state did the fall bring mankind?
Answer: The fall brought mankind into a
state of sin and misery.
These questions, and the foregoing introduction, serve to get our thoughts in gear a closer look at the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. In this post and the next, we
are going to understand Adam’s Fall through what is called the doctrine of
original sin.
