The Fall of Man. What exactly happened?

The Fall of Man

We may think our inclination away from God became a part of our makeup after the fall, which may be the case, however, if the capacity or potential ability to stray from God did not exist prior to the fall, Adam and Eve would have never strayed.

Is there a difference between inclination and capacity? The first is the actual direction one is inclined toward and the latter is the capacity to choose between different directions/ options, not the actual inclining.

Prior to the temptation, Adam and Eve had the capacity to choose more than one direction. Ultimately, there can only be ¹two directions on how we go about life, dependence/trust in God or independence from God, and trust in self. Either God is sovereign, or we are (¹for a fuller discussion of this point see The Dilemma of Finiteness).

It could be argued that they would not have strayed if not presented with the temptation proposed by the serpent. But whatever was in the makeup of Adam and Eve that allowed them to be enticed, it had to exist before the proposed offer. The serpent's proposal did not create the ability to choose or not choose God, it only brought it out in the open so to speak, where it could be tested to see if they would use that ability to choose to trust and submit to God, his wisdom, direction, and design or rebel and turn from it and Him. In short, if there was nothing within them (a capacity) that enabled or allowed them to be lured away from God and go contrary to his direction/ instructions to begin with, they would not have strayed.

So what exactly was inherent within Adam and Eve that enabled them to choose the serpent’s proposal over God’s command/promise/warning “do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…if you do you will die?”

Gen 2:16  And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

The following passage gives us some clues.

Gen 2:9  And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant

to the sight and good for ¹food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

This verse tells us both trees were pleasant to the sight and good for ¹food. There was nothing inherently evil about the forbidden tree. The primary difference between the two trees is one was forbidden. God created both trees so there was nothing innately wrong with either. God himself said everything he created was very good. This included all the trees.

Gen 1:11  And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good… 

29 And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food… 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.

This was God's description of how things were before Adam and Eve's rebellion, not after it. 

Five things are evident from the above passages.

·    Adam and Eve existed and trees existed and all of it was good. They not only had the capacity to enjoy but there were actual things present to enjoy, within and without. 

·   Adam and Eve were created with the capacity for pleasure; otherwise, they would not have experienced it when looking at the fruit upon the ²Trees. 

·      Our capacity for pleasure as well as the things that give pleasure were created by God. In fact, this capacity is part of their (our) being in His image, designed so they might enjoy or find pleasure in God himself and his good gifts of creation that convey his love to and for them and us.

·   God uses created things to provide for us and sustain us… “every tree…good for food…” These were his splendid gifts conveying his love, care, and provision for us as his image-bearers. 

·  They could choose. That there were alternate (or "competing") directions they could take represented by two designated trees shows they were given the ability to pick one or the other.

Some call this ability “free will.”³  (I think free choice better conveys how we were designed and is more in line with what scripture presents. Click here for a discussion on the difference between free choice and free will). We do know we are created in God’s image, which includes at least the capacity to choose one direction over another, not unlike choosing “competing” alternatives.

If so, is “free will” sin? I could not be since God himself has a will and makes choices. However, it certainly was part of the attributes of Adam and Eve that made it possible for sin -- rebellious distrust (unbelief) -- to occur. 

However the issue isn't choice but our ⁴limitations i.e. our being finite vs God being infinite. God knows and can bring about all things, we can not. The notion of our being our own god (proposed by the serpent) simply doesn't fit who we are. It is contrary to our design.

For a brief discussion on the difference between will vs our passions,

click here. 

One thing from scripture we know with certainty; we are created in God’s image and part of our being like Him is our design for relationship; the giving and receiving of love, honor, and value. (This is what God is like and we are like Him - in His image). And not just any relationship, but primarily a relationship with God first out of which all other relationships must flow to work properly i.e. as they were designed to operate. 

A key element of any relationship is trust. What was challenged by the serpent's proposal to our first parents was whether God was trustworthy in giving them what they needed i.e. did He really have their best interest in mind in forbidding them to eat from the tree of the ⁵knowledge of good and evil? At a minimum, the question was raised and entertained on whether God was doing what was best for them by denying them this one tree, i.e. was God “holding out” on them?  After all did God not say that every tree was good and available for food. This challenge or enticement by the serpent cast doubt on:

1.  Whether God really loved them and wanted what was best for them in forbidding them from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A question designed to undermine that relationship of trust in God, they experienced prior to this enticement.

2.  It also introduced the errant notion that they might be able to care for themselves better than God could.

3.  And that they would no longer need God to determine what was right or wrong since they would be “like God knowing good and evil.” They would no longer be bound by the dictates (law) of another but be their own "lawmaker."

The warning given by God to Adam was "In the day you eat you will surely die." 

This was a promise/warning given by God they were given to believe or not since Adam had not observed or experienced death and therefore did not have a full grasp of the significance of what it entailed. We can assume all he knew at this point was it was not good only because God warned him it was something to avoid, i.e. he had not experienced evil (harm or loss, much less death) firsthand and therefore could not confirm the consequences from personal experience. He was simply asked to trust God's assessment and directions regarding this one tree.

When Adam ate, he immediately broke away from trusting God and placed his trust in himself and in creation (of which Eve was a significant part), breaking trust and separating himself from willful dependence on God as his Creator and Sustainer. Adam pulled away from trust in God, severing and killing the relationship with God held together by that trust. Immediately by this turning away the union between him and God the relationship between God and Adam *died -- and so did Adam as a result, first spiritually than later physically. And, from that day to this man -- on his side of the ledger -- lives in an ongoing state of rebellious distrust, death, and separation from God.

*Some argue that the Spirit of God indwelt Adam prior to him breaking trust with God and left once Adam rebelled. 

Even for those of us who are now in Christ, there remains a strong inclination away from trust in God. It is this inclination that God is reversing through Christ. Or to say it another way, God is always working to restore and increase our trust in Him once we accept his offer of complete forgiveness and legal restoration in Christ. In fact, his giving us Christ to restore us is the first proof that he still loves us in spite of our rebellion and we can trust him i.e. God never moved away from his love for us, we did. 

The act of God providing and assigning to us (in Christ) the status of being trustworthy and loyal to Him, which we had abandoned -- i.e. in Christ he now looks upon us as if we are trustworthy and loyal to him -- is clear evidence God still wants to be in a relationship with us i.e. even though we had abandoned him, he had not abandoned us but in fact, still loved us as much as he did before our rebellion. The legal consequences, however, had to be addressed and thanks to Christ they ultimately were. 

Christ’s nature vs. ours.

Can we get a clearer understanding of how we are wired by observing how Christ handled challenges, struggles, and temptations? Christ didn’t have the deeply imbedded 

·   “avoidance mechanism” that we now have. Christ was not naturally inclined away from God. He did not have a sinful nature or a deeply rooted distrust of God.

·   or a fixed state of unbelief or state of distrust. Discussed more below.

However, He was a man and operated as a man while on earth. By that I mean He was finite with limitations like every other man. He was the 2nd Adam. He was limited mentally (i.e. not all-knowing at all times, in all things) and physically (not everywhere present) and therefore he experienced areas of need, lack and loss (He got hungry, tired, experienced pain and so on) which he had not experienced as God the omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient Son prior to becoming a man.

Though he never broke trust with the Father, His trust in the Father was truly, genuinely, and severely tested. 

What is interesting is the only attribute he retained was his omnibenevolence, that he is “all good,” which includes but is not limited to his grace, love, mercy, kindness, and patience. This comes out of the core/ primary character quality of God who is love.

Because of His becoming a man, several things occurred. He experienced time. He experienced all those things mentioned above, hunger, fatigue, and pain. He had to learn to depend on His Father and for the first time he had to trust Him in new and different ways, i.e. as a man. We are told He became perfect and learned obedience through the things he suffered Heb 5:9, 2:10, and 7:28.

When scripture says Christ learned obedience, how can the all-knowing Creator and sustainer of all things learn anything? Because he set aside His divine attributes and was fully man while on earth. He operated as a Spirit lead man for the first time. He learned to depend on His father in ways he had not encountered before i.e. as a man. He limited himself by his own free choice ("...he emptied himself..."Phil 2:7; John 10:18) and experienced challenges that put His trust in His Father to the test in a different and new way; a way he had never encountered before. For the first time, he experienced things that appeared to indicate His father did not love Him ("...my God, my God, why have you forsaken me..."), so he had to trust in His father’s love even when it looked the opposite i.e. He had been abandoned. This was a new experience he had to go through or "learn." 

This test of trust is not unlike what Adam and Eve experienced in God's withholding of the fruit of the tree (or even what we experience when God withholds certain things from us). In forbidding the fruit it appeared God did not love them fully but was holding out on them. And this possibility was presented to them for the first time by the serpent. At least this is the notion they bought into and acted on (and the very same notion we now wrestle with). 

As well, when Christ suffered the loss of certain benefits (the fullness of his deity during the incarnation) or faced the prospect of future loss (the cross. "...if possible let this cup pass..."), He too was tempted like Adam to believe His Father did not fully love Him (and apparently felt the absence of his Father's love for the first time when he cried, "...my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"). 

But when challenged,  His trust never faltered, though it was tested, as demonstrated initially in his wilderness temptation, later in the Garden of Gethsemane and ultimately on the cross. Jesus never chose at any point not to trust His father, even though that trust we certainly and severely tested, eventually costing him his life. Unlike Adam or us, Jesus, the man, never actually entered into and participated in any behavior that sprung out of distrust for His father. We know this because we are told He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (i.e. unbelief/distrust) (Heb 4:15).

Us vs Christ

We live in an ongoing, fixed state of unbelief and distrust, which is what I meant by the phrase “avoidance mechanism” used earlier. We go through life often questioning God's love when life gets hard. We like Christ must also learn obedience (actions grounded in trust of God and His goodness) through the things we suffer. 

God now constantly seeks to wean us away from distrust in Him and self-trust introduced by the serpent - which Adam bought in to - and reverse that condition by turning us back to complete trust in God and our acknowledging dependence on God again at ever-increasing levels or degrees. The bible describes this process as “… being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”

We are always being tested at every turn on whether we trust God or not (not because God enjoys our struggles but simply because we were designed to be in a trusting relationship with him and he's seeking to restore - and strengthen - the original relationship and the necessary dependence for that relationship, that we have rebelled from).

We are in a state of brokenness, but He is the great physician. The underlying disease, if you will (separation from God and his love), has been killed (though the symptoms linger). We are now reinstated, adopted, and beloved children of God in Christ. But we are still in ongoing rehab from the lingering symptoms of it and will not be fully mended until we leave the rehab center, i.e. this present state of existence.

God’s removing the just condemnation for our sin and putting that on Christ, then assigning His righteousness to our account and freely giving us His Spirit at our spiritual birth - thereby opening up our eyes and His words to us - were the foundation and beginning of that reversal process. 

2Co 3:16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

2Co 3:17-18  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the 

Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (emphasis mine)

Now we have a new dynamic within us (His love-Spirit) in addition to the “avoidance mechanism” (distrust) still present. Now we have a view of God because the veil has been removed. We have been reborn and are spiritually alive whereas before there was no sight, no seeing spiritually (How can a dead and therefore blind man see after all?). Now we have been given an ever-increasing glimpse of his majesty, beauty, and glory and as a result, have a longing for Him that was not present before His Spirit of love and grace opened our eyes and came to live in us. The more of His majesty and glory we see the we change. God has opened our eyes to see what we did not see before, namely, who He truly is in the greatness of his glory, love, and majesty. 

Now, with this new dynamic of the Spirit - as we press into Him more and more - He shows us more of His beauty and majesty. Our desiring Him grows the more His Spirit reveals Him to us. And His Spirit reveals more of Him to us, the more we draw near to Him. The more we draw near the more he reveals. 

When Christ’s trust of His father was tested in new areas, there was the real struggle or temptation to choose to not trust His Father. (Mat 26:39; Mat 4:1-11)  This is similar to the state Adam was in when he was confronted with whether to trust or not trust God in Eden. Like Christ, Adam did not have an embedded inclination away from God (an "avoidance mechanism"), and as Christ, Adam was finite with the option and opportunity to become perfected in His trust of God in a fuller way or to not trust Him. Adam chose to not trust God. Christ chose to trust Him. Rom 5:17-19

To recap and sum up, there are 4 factors involved in our first parents being allured away from God, all of which were present before Adam’s rebellion.

1. The ability of choice to trust in, depend on, or pursue any particular person or object to derive our sense of meaning and purpose. We are not programmed like robots.

2. We are “wired” for relationship: To give and receive love, honor, and value. We are designed to love and be loved, to honor and be honored, to value and be valued. Therefore, we need and desire the giving and receiving that comes through relationship and cannot be complete without relationship.

3. We are finite and therefore dependent on someone or something outside ourselves in order to be whole and complete as we were intended and designed to be.

4. The presence of created things that have real value and use for us.

     By created things I mean everything that comes from God that is not God. Not just animal and plant life but everything; the air we breathe, the sun we enjoy and the functioning of all creation depends, fellow humans, the time we are allotted, our ability to think, choose, feel, taste, hear, see, smell, touch, consume, procreate, our very existence, everything. “… in Him, we live and move and have our being” Act 17:28. As well as all the innate abilities we are given to honor God with but use instead to exploit creation so we can maintain life without God.

The creation was also evidence of God’s care, creativity, power, and majesty and intended to point us to Him. Created things give glory to and display the worth and beauty of God (if the painting is beautiful, imagine what the wonder, variety, and creativity of the painter is like). Created things were not given to us to derive our ultimate, eternal, and permanent meaning from or to be used to that end but were designed to show His love and majesty and glory to us so that we would be drawn to Him and worship Him through them. Instead, we are now drawn away from Him by these things. Not because of the things, but because of our distrust of our Creator and life giving God.

Again, all the above elements were a part of our being creatures created by God that existed prior to the fall. Without any one of them, the rebellion of Adam and Eve could not have occurred.

Key reasons *created things will not and cannot give us what we need.

·   They are designed to display, demonstrate, express, declare, manifest the greatness and majesty of God and thereby point us to Him, the true source of life.

·    They are ultimately not life itself but sustained/maintained by God and given as gifts to sustain our lives i.e. they are the means of life...only God is the source of life.

·   creation is given for our sustenance and enjoyment to be received with thanks.

·   To demonstrate God’s love, power, wisdom, majesty to us and to others with and through them. 

·   We are designed for the eternal (God) and not the temporary (creation). The temporary, though very real and very necessary (we are and always will be created/physical beings) is a window through which we observe and receive the truly beautiful and majestic God himself. 

Even now, as fallen but redeemed men and women in Christ, we still must choose to trust God or not trust Him on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis. We are confronted with this choice of whether to trust or not trust Him at every turn. We are not fully aware of the extent to which we do not trust Him or when and where this takes place and how deeply we are still inclined away from trusting God. This is part of the maturing process; discovering how deeply we are inclined away from choosing to trust God and in turn abandoning our attempts at independence (self-trust).

The difference between Adam before he rebelled and us since that rebellion is we now carry around within us a natural inclination or bent away from God in a way we did not before we rebelled. This inclination away from God is now a core, deeply embedded, and fundamental part of our makeup and still with us even in Christ. What is the same however is we also still have choice. As before the fall, we still must choose or not choose God today on this side of the fall. We still must decide if we are going to trust God’s offer and direction for our lives and that it is better than our choosing our own direction, simply because we did not create ourselves and do not necessarily know what it is we need most to be all we were designed to be (though we tenaciously cling to the belief that we do). This is the exact opposite of what Adam did in his rebellion.

Since Christ, a new dynamic is also present within us. The Spirit of God and Christ, who reveals the love of the Father and the Son to us, enables us to understand, reveals His words to us, resurrects faith in us, and guides us among many other things.  God now woos us with his love and the greatest evidence is sending his son to restore us back to him

So is this capacity or ability to be drawn away, which we had from the beginning, the same as our current propensity to be drawn away, or are they somehow different?

It seems there is a deep-seated and fixed distrust in us now, that wasn’t present in Adam before the rebellion. That distrust appears to have become a part of our present and fixed state once Adam and Eve crossed the threshold of not trusting God in choosing to participate in what was forbidden by God, eating from the forbidden tree. Before the fall there was only the capacity to distrust. Now it is an embedded and ongoing part of our make up i.e. it is a present inclination within us, our nature. 

Though all the elements that made it possible for distrust were present, (the four listed above) something occurred once we crossed that line of actually choosing not to trust God, which has marked us in a way we weren’t before that choice. We know we spiritually died and we can speculate that the "breath of life" breathed into us at our creation, i.e. Spirit of God himself, left us at the rebellion. Even now, with the reintroduction of God's Spirit through our acceptance of God's offer of forgiveness for our rebellious distrust, we seem to have a new element I have called the "avoidance mechanism" that was not present in Adam. 

Unlike Adam, who had no natural pull away from God, we are inclined away from God even as His children. And unlike Adam when he was tempted, he did not have to fight this natural inclination away from God that permeates every part of our souls, as we do. So in some sense, it appears the trust required of us is greater than the trust required of Adam, as we are always fighting this embedded bent away from God.

However, at the same time, this condition results in a greater appreciation and experience of all that God is. This appreciation displays God more fully in all His grace and glory for where sin abounds, grace much more abounds, and to him who is forgiven much loves much. 

So what appears on the surface to be a disaster, the rebellion of Adam, in fact, turns out to be to our ultimate benefit and to God's greater glory.

Rom 11:33-36  Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?"  For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

The trust required of Christ and what Christ gave up was far greater than Adam's. Adam was simply asked to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of God and evil. He actually did not know what he was being asked to give up since he had never experienced death or the knowledge of good and evil or even understand what it was.

Christ emptied himself of all His divine attributes, and in addition, suffered a cruel and shameful death He did not deserve. He took all of this on himself knowingly and voluntarily so that we might be bought back and restored to a relationship with our loving Creator and Provider we rejected, and still reject.

It is the inclination of this ongoing and subtle distrust of God that is deeply rooted within and throughout us that our loving Father seeks to remove and heal us.

God allows us to be sinful…

Today, the offer to remove the barrier and hostility between God and us as untrusting rebels (sinners) is available for anyone who accepts God's provision of an assigned right standing before God offered to us in and through Christ. Through Christ, we can be restored back to the full communion and relationship we had with Him before our rebellion. 

But once restored, He does not fully remove our inclination away from Him. But He does put his Spirit within us and places His “…laws into our minds, and write them on our hearts…” so that we now see him more clearly, desire him and come to Him freely as He reveals himself to us… as we see Him in the greatness of love and that He loves us even when we do not fully love or trust Him. (He does this because He wants us to come to Him out of choice, not as robots or mechanically. So we would freely choose Him because we love Him). We now relate to him only as his beloved children. So in the greatest sense (legally from God's point of view) our distrust of God no longer matters. God now sees us only as His perfectly beloved child. 

As we see His love for us more and more, regardless of distrust and unfaithfulness, it makes us want to conduct ourselves in such a way that brings Him honor, joy, and pleasure. We love him because He first loved us.

If our bringing honor to God was not something we freely chose out of love, trust, and gratitude for Him, it would not bring Him true honor. Honor is best brought about by those who freely choose to honor Him. They seek to honor Him because they love Him, because they want to honor Him, not because they have to honor Him. Christ met the obligation of having to. If they had to honor Him in order to be loved and received by Him, then it would be done out of threat, not love. We would obey Him out of threat of rejection, not out of love, gratitude, and appreciation.

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See Chandlers “Explicit Gospel” on how God draws us by grace, not fear.

¹Implied and inherent in food is dependence. Adam and Even needed sustenance on a regular basis i.e. they were dependent on food as creatures prior to their rebellion not just to experience the pleasure of eating. Certainly for even life itself with the Tree of Life, otherwise why call it the Tree of Life. And ultimately God was the sustainer even though indirectly through food. 

²Adam and Eve had the capacity for pain before the fall but did not experience it as we do now because their spiritual, emotional, and physical needs were fully met by God. The experience of pain resulted from the absence of those needs being met and the absence of the pleasure he was experiencing in and through his union with God and God's complete provision before he rebelled from that union.

³In our present state of rebellion and separation from our Creator, we do not seek God on our own. So God must seek us. And He did initially and primarily through sending Christ to show His love and provision to restore us back to Him. In addition, he continues to do so now. By letting us experience the full brunt of the inadequacy of our living without Him i.e. our being finite. He either creates within us a complete dissatisfaction in the creation (in whatever form we are most dependent on it be that money, fame, pleasure, etc) or allows us to experience so much pain that His creation can not sustain us so we cry out and turn back to him.

⁴For a discussion on the difference between being finite vs sinful, click here. 

⁵For a further discussion of the knowledge of good and evil, click here.