By Adam's disobedience all men were made sinners and the death sentence rested upon all.
Spiritual deterioration and death began immediately upon Adam's fall and the depths into which the human race soon sank are revealed in the following words:
Genesis 5:3), "And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for in this going astray they are flesh."
Genesis 6:5-6, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."
Physical deterioration began immediately upon Adam's fall and death and decay were the final outcome. Adam lived and died. The sad record of Genesis five shows that the seed of death implanted in Adam was transmitted to his posterity until each human being has to pay the death toll.
The Effect of Adam's Sin upon the Social Order
In the garden of Eden before the tempter entered it we see the social order as God intended it to be. Adam and Eve were perfect and were living in perfect adjustment with God; therefore there was perfect adjustment between themselves. Godliness and holiness were followed by righteousness and peace.
But sin entered the human spirit and severed its relationship with the divine Spirit. Immediately man was thrown out of adjustment with God and ungodliness was the result.
Sin entered the human personality and reigned over every part of it. Man's whole being was thrown into confusion and conflict. Man was thrown out of adjustment with himself and unholiness was the result.
Sin entered the human relationship God had established between his first man and woman and produced friction. They were thrown out of adjustment with each other and unrighteousness was the result. Each had sinned in eating of the forbidden fruit but each was unwilling to
bear the blame for it. Eve had tempted Adam but Adam had of his own free will hearkened unto the voice of his wife and disobeyed God's command. When brought face to face with his sin Adam played the part o a churlish coward blaming both God and Eve for his own misdoing.
Genesis 3:12, "And the man said, 'The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."
The sin that had introduced disorder into man's relations with God and into his own personality now introduced it into the relationship of fellow beings. Friction between man and man began in God's social order. "The break upward brought the break crosswise. That is the tragic Eden crisis. It touches us all most intimately today. The gloom and blight of the Eden crisis has cast its inky shadow over all the race, and over all life, ever since."
Its inky shadow cast gloom over that first home. The sin of the first parents was visited upon the first children. The eldest son Cain killed his brother Abel. Friction between parents bore fruit in murder between brothers. The maladjustment in God's social order begun in Eden has continued and grown apace into personal, family,civic, national, and international frictions until the whole world today is one seething, struggling mass of discontent, envy, greed, suspicion, jealousy, hatred, and revenge.
The Effect of Adam's Sin upon the Material Universe
The blighting, withering effect of sin was felt in the material universe for even the earth was cursed because of the sin of Adam.
Genesis 3:17-19, "And unto Adam he said, 'Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."
The soil should henceforth be comparatively barren, man would no longer be blessed by its spontaneous, prodigal abundance but would have to coax from it by the sweat of his face and much suffering the necessities of life.
The Effect of Adam's Sin upon God
While the sin of Adam brought incalculable suffering and sorrow to himself and to his posterity yet the One most wounded and wronged by sin was God. The defeat of His purpose in the human race and the dethronement of Himself in His own universe was the twofold aim of satan in Eden's tragedy. Behind the temptation was the tempter. "The fall began in heaven. Sin entered into God's house before it invaded man's. Christ felt its sting before man felt its stab." ("The Greater Life and Work of Christ" - Patterson). The sin enacted in Eden immediately created two very vital issues and brought God into a new relationship both to the tempted and the tempter, o the sinner and to satan.
The issue at stake between God and God's first man was God's union with the human race. Through Adam in creation God had become united with humanity. But now through sin that union had of necessity been broken. God, who is absolute holiness, could never countenance nor condone sin, much less dwell in its presence. Sin must be punished and the sinner banished. Adam and Eve, through yielding to temptation, had become sinners. God who had been their beneficent Creator, their bountiful Provider, their intimate Companion, in the light of their transgression of His holy law must assume a different relationship to them and the race latent in them from that which He had before.
God could never remain holy and just unless sin were punished according to its deserts and in such a way as to satisfy fully His holiness. When He gave His command regarding the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil He had clearly stated the penalty if the command were disobeyed. To be true to Himself He must now exact that penalty for their sin. He must become their judge and pronounce upon them the curse which sin merited.
But He had made the human race for Himself and His own glory. He could not willingly stand by and condemn it either to destruction or to eternal separation from Himself for He loved it with an everlasting love. God's holiness compelled Him to become a Judge but His love compelled Him to become a Redeemer. If His union with the human race had been broken through the first man's disobedience, He would send another Man to reestablish it through His obedience. If the race had been ruined through the first man's sin it should be redeemed through the second Man's Saviourhood. Thus God assumes a twofold relationship to Adam and Eve in their sin: that of a Judge and that of a Redeemer. The promise of a Saviour and the pronouncement of a doom were made. Both promise and pronouncement must be fulfilled.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 16)
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