Adam, the Channel of Sin's Entrance into the Human Race
God is the Author of all life and after His creation of living things "He saw everything that He had made, and, behold it was good." But today death reigns everywhere. No living thing is exempt from its touch or its toll. It has wrought ruin everywhere. Surely God is not the author of death. From whence then did it come? God does not leave us in darkness on this question but in language simple enough for a child to understand. He tells how death came into the world of living things.
Romans 5:12, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."
This clearly teaches that death is a result; that sin is the cause. Death came because of sin.
But how did sin come into the world? Sin entered by one man. The blame then for the entrance of sin and death into His beautiful world cannot be placed upon God, for in His own Word He absolutely clears Himself from such a charge.
But who could the man be through whom such terrible havoc, such awful disaster to the whole human race, was wrought? God never leaves an honest, truly seeking soul without an answer that satisfies. In Romans 5:12 God plainly says that all mankind was involved in the disaster caused by one man's sin so he must have been a representative man, one in whom the human race was latent. The context, Romans 5:13-23, sets in sharp contrast sin and death, salvation and life, and traces each to its source in the only two representative men of all history: Adam and Christ. A study of this passage clearly reveals Adam, God's first man, to have been the one through whom sin and death came, and Christ, God's second Man, to have been the One through whom came salvation and life.
But if one has any question in his mind regarding this passage God states the case boldly and unmistakably in
1 Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
Adam is the man through whom sin entered into the human race. The consequence of sin was death. But we have seen in our previous study that Adam was created without sin and that he was put into an environment and enjoyed a fellowship with God both of which were conducive to a continuance in such a state of innocence and fellowship.
So the question forces itself upon one, "How could sin enter into such a man with its blighting curse? How was the tragedy of death ever enacted in that beautiful garden? The story is told in the second and third chapter of Genesis. This portion of God's Word spiritually apprehended and humbly accepted gives an answer which satisfied every true and sincere believer.
To answer the question we need to define sin. What could Adam do that could be called sin? The answer is simple. The only sin that Adam could commit was to transgress God's divine law, to will to disobey the clearly revealed will of God. As long as Adam continued to will to live his whole life within the circle of God's revealed will he could not sin. Adam had the right to will but he could remain without sin only as he exercised his will in perpetual submission to the higher will of God. Sin, then, is known disobedience to the clearly revealed will of God. Sin is the willful, deliberate, resistance of a subject to the rightful authority of a Sovereign. "Sin, in the Biblical view, consists in the revolt of the creature will from its rightful allegiance to the sovereign will of God, and the setting up a false independence, the substitution of a life-for-self for life-for-God". Sin as God Himself defines it is "transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4). God called Adam's sin "transgression."
Let us see from God's own record how sin entered into Adam with its curse of death.
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."
God gave Adam well-nigh unlimited liberty. But one commandment was imposed. (only one!) But one transgression was possible. Of every other tree he could freely eat. Of only one tree was he forbidden to eat and even for this prohibition God had a beneficent reason. Adam was on trial. He ate the forbidden fruit. He willed to have something which God for a living and beneficent reason had willed that he should not have. By that one act Adam sinned for sin is the transgression of the law. By his own volition Adam deliberately transgressed a divinely marked boundary; he overstepped a clearly revealed divine limitation.
But some one may ask, "When Adam was a perfect man with a sinless nature, living in a perfect environment and having perfect fellowship with God how could he be tempted to disobey? With all in his own personality and all in his environment favoring his complete and continuous obedience to the will of God, from what source could temptation to disobedience and self-will come? It is a legitimate question and demands an answer which God gives:
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?"
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 10)
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