Q. Did our first
parents remain as they were created?
A. Left to the
freedom of their own wills, our first parents sinned against God and fell from
their original condition.
Adam and Eve were created as perfect beings who did not know
sin, suffering, or sickness in any way. That was God’s original intention, and
for an unknown amount of time our first parents lived in the perfect Garden of
Eden.
Everything changed the moment that Eve chose to disobey God
and take a bite of the forbidden fruit. It wasn’t so much the act of eating the
fruit that got them into trouble, but the willful choice to question God’s
goodness.
God had made clear to the first couple that in the day they
ate of the fruit, they would surely die (Genesis 2:17); this did not usher in
an immediate death like with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), but rather
introduced the process of death and decay. For the first time in history things
began to wear out, which would eventually result in death.
The life that you and I are familiar with is far different
than the one Adam and Eve knew in Eden. We live in a world where heartbreak and
hunger run rampant; we see murders and mayhem, death and disease, wars and
wreckage. These things come as a result of the Fall. We will one day die
because of sin: “For by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;
and death passes upon all men, for all have sinned (Romans 5:12).”
This is not the world that God created and called very good;
this is a world destroyed by sin and the subsequent curse. But take heart: God
has made a way to rescue us from this sinful planet, and even now Jesus is
preparing a place in heaven for those who are His children (John 14:1-6), where
we will live with God free from the curse of sin.
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