The fall of man

by 

J.W.Weeda

 

     Dear readers:

 

   Before we go to the fall of man in this study we will first see about the creation of man. We go first to Genesis 1:26, 27. Open your Bibles in Genesis 1:26, 27. What do we read here? We read the following verses: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. ” From the above verses we can learn that God created man in His own image, after His own likeness. Man was not originally created like the beasts after their kind. We know and believe that man was created on the sixth day after the beasts were created. In Genesis 2:7 we read the following verse: ” And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” God took the dust of the ground to make man’s body. The basic chemical elements of the earth like nitrogen, oxygen, calcium were the basic physical elements of the human body. After that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. God blowed air into the inner figure He had just made. Man was made perfect with nostrils, lungs and a breathing apparatus, bones, organs etc. when he was made but was still not energized. God gave the life into man and He directly imparted life and breath into man. The same word for breath (ruach) is spirit or wind. God directly energized (not from a distance) life in man into his nostrils. So man became a living soul. The soul of man is higher than that of the animals souls because God directly energized the life in man. The soul of man are the emotions, desires and affections. The spirit is the seat of man’s intelligence and judgment. We can never find in God’s Word that beasts have spirits. The soul is more related to the body than the spirit is related to the body. Now we go to the following. What was God’s purpose for man? Psalm 8:6-9 is the answer for this where we read the following: “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas” God created man to set him over the works of His hand. Like a steward man his task was to reign over the earth and everything therein (like creeping animals, cattle, birds, fish)what God had made. And God placed man in a garden, the garden of Eden. Man was placed in Paradise. In Genesis 2:8 we read: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” God created man with the purpose of honoring and love Him. But it must be very voluntary. A robot cannot love his maker. It was and is Gods purpose that He will be honored and loved and that man could choose free for God or not. Man was thus able to make the right moral choice or the wrong moral choice. God gave man a free decision in this. We read this in Genesis 2:16,17: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 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” Man knew already what is good and if he rejects Gods Word and would eat from the forbidden tree than he had also the knowledge of good and evil. In Genesis chapter 2 Adam gave every living creature a name. Verse 20 we read from the same chapter: “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him” So God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and Adam slept; and the Lord took one of Adam’s ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman and brought her unto the man. Genesis 2:21, 22. Eve, the first woman, was thus made from Adam’s side, to be his helpmeet, his woman, his wife and to fill the earth and to subdue it. They both had an eternal spirit, the image of God. They were directly created by God, both man and woman. And God brought Eve to Adam and Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” Genesis 2:23, 24. Everything at that time was very good what God had created.

And then on a day evil came into this world which was created very well by God. Questions can rise why God Who is Holy and loving and had made everything and is omnipotent permitted evil into this world? God is omnipotent and He is perfect and righteous. The answer we can find in chapter 3 of Genesis. We have seen in the study of the Creation the fall of the devil . He, satan, was also in Eden. We read in Ezekiel 28:13-15 that the devil was the anointed cherub, was perfect in his ways from the day that he was created till the day that iniquity was found in him. From that time and because man and woman were made by God he became the man-slayer, the murderer . How he did this we can read in Genesis 3. He came through a serpent to the woman because he knew she was more weaker than Adam and easier to tempt. The devil is the biggest tempter and deceiver we know. We read in Genesis 3:1: “Now the serpent was more subtil 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?” There it begins, he lied to the woman because he is the biggest liar! God hadn’t said that. God had said to man: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 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” Genesis 2:16,17. Read now carefully what the answer from the woman is to the serpent: “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 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” She said in her answer we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. That is not what God had said to man and woman. God hath not commanded that they should even not touch it. He commanded not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil! Look what the serpent said to the woman: Ye shall not surely die: 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. Genesis 3:4-5. Satan here was ready to kill man! Because God had forbidden them to eat from this tree and when they should eat from that tree they should die, spiritual. It would result in eternal death. Satan called God here a liar: Ye shall be as gods! In the original we find Elohim here, so he told the woman that they should be as God.! He wanted to be more than God what we have seen in Isaiah 14:13, 14. The seven I will! By this he was fallen! And now he deceived first the woman and later indirect also the man through the woman. Let us see what verse 6 tells us: “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” Eve was completely influenced by the serpent (satan) of doubt and pride that she eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and gave also this fruit to her husband Adam and he eat also from the forbidden fruit. Adam knew very well what he was doing when he eated from the fruit from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He, Adam was responsible not only for himself but also for his wife, for the whole human race! He listened/hearkened to his wife and eat also of the forbidden fruit. He took it very easy. We don’t see that he fought against it or say to his wife I don’t eat from that fruit. That’s why we read in Romans 5:12 the following verse: “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 after that called Adam: Where art thou?

Adam and his wife Eve hid themselves for God because they were afraid because of nakedness Genesis 3:9.10. God asked Adam if he had eaten from the forbidden tree. And the answer from Adam was: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” Genesis 3:12 Adam blamed not himself that he eat from the tree but blamed his wife that she gave him the fruit of the forbidden tree. And Eve blamed the serpent instead to blame herself of guilt. You see also here that Adam was unthankful because he said the woman you gave me. That gives the impression that he was not happy with her. With the fall of man, satan became the god of this world. We can read this in II Corinthians 4:4. He is the deceiver of the whole world. After that God promised in Genesis 3:15 the following: “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 believed that he had won because he had deceived the first man and woman of this earth and also his descendants. The seed of the woman we know, because we have the whole Bible, Gods Word, is our Lord Jesus Christ. This promise God made with the first man and woman is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Adam and his wife Eve didn’t know that it was Christ of Whom God spoke to them. God didn’t reveal this to the first couple of this world.

Later God gave the law (Law of Moses) to his folk Israel. In Romans 5:20 we read: ”Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” What was the purpose of the law? Answer: ”What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” Romans 7:7 The law was to let see us that we are sinners and the law of Moses couldn’t save us. No one was justified by the law. Galatians 3:11: “ But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.” Christ had nailed the law on the cross on Calvary. We read in Galatians 3:13 that God in Christ not only died for our sins but also redeemed us from the curse of the law because the law of Moses brought also the curse: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” The law could not save us, the law let us see sin. The law was a schoolmaster till Christ came. In Galatians 3: 24 we read: “ Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” Christ died for this whole world on Calvary, carried our sins away there, nailed the law on that cross and rose again from the grave and later He shall cast the devil, the old serpent, into the lake of fire Revelation 20:10. Why did Christ died for our sins? Because we are the descendants of Adam and come from him and are sinners Romans 5:12. I Corinthians 15:3,4: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” The scriptures of God, the Word of God confirms this! Romans 5:8 tells us: “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. ”

 

Dear reader: Christ is the answer for the sin and curse of this world! He died for this world, for everybody on that cross once for all! For you and me He died on the cross on Calvary. He is the second Adam from heaven. The curse who came with the fall of man is sorrow, pain and suffering signified by thorns, sweat or tears, physical death. Christ, Son of Man and second Adam bore all that curse Himself for us on that cross on Calvary! We who accepted Him as personal Savior have a new life in Christ, everlasting life!

Dear reader if you don’t believe in God on this moment, acknowledge that you are a descendant from the first man, Adam and that your are a sinner. Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners; He gave His life for you on the cross and took all your sins upon Himself, was buried and rose again the third day! Accept Him as your personal Savior and thou shalt be saved forever! Acts 16:31. Do it today before it is too late! You can do it right now!!!