Genesis: The effects of Adam’s disobedience.
Man died spiritually
Man faced physical death as he was banished from Eden. (God placed a guard at the garden of Eden.)
Adam’s sin affected the animal kingdom
Adam’s sin affected the environment? (ground was cursed)
Adam’s sin affected mankind? (Man had to work to produce food to eat; Pain for women in child birth and we now inherit Adam’s sinful nature)
God’s creation was good not.
There was not layers of death and disease underneath.
Genesis 1:31.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
The world we live in today is not the very good world that God created, Adam’s disobedience toward God brought about several significant changes that affect not only each and every one of us but also creation.
Genesis: The effects of Adam’s disobedience.
1. Loss of Righteousness and the guilt of sin.
Before the Fall, God’s original creation was a place where Adam and Eve are described as being naked and without shame.
Genesis 2:25.
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
The description of God “walking” in the garden indicates that there was fellowship between Him and Adam.
Genesis 3:8.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
1. Loss of Righteousness and the guilt of sin.
However, the serpent (Satan) came to Eve and tempted her to eat from the tree that God had commanded Adam not to eat from.
After disobeying God’s command not to eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, both Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened and they became aware of their nakedness and their former perfection was just a memory. Because of this disobedience, mankind now stands as guilty sinners in Adam
1 Corinthians 15:21-22.
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
Genesis: The effects of Adam’s disobedience.
2. Separation from God. Adam fell from a state of innocence and from the fellowship he once enjoyed with God. This fall from grace can be seen when Adam and Eve, after hearing the voice of the Lord, were afraid because they were naked.
Genesis 3:10. He answered, I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.
Their shame in being naked, which in their innocence they had been without, is a consequence of their disobedience Genesis 3:7. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
2. Loss of fellowship & separation from God.
Because of their nakedness, they hid themselves from the presence of God, with whom they once had fellowship in the garden.
As descendants of Adam, we all now enter the world separated from God, and are by nature children of wrath.
Ephesians 2:1–3. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
Genesis: The effects of Adam’s disobedience.
3. Cursed Environment
Genesis 3:17–18.
To Adam he said, Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, You must not eat from it, Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.
Man’s sin caused the ground to be cursed, resulting in thorns and thistles and the need for man to work.
3. Cursed Environment.
Genesis 8:21.
The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
God's commitment is to never again curse the ground or the earth as He has done through the flood. This should not be read as God lifting the original curse on the ground in response to Adam's sin. The curse of weeds and frustrating toil and the work required to bring crops from the ground remains to this day. Instead, God's commitment here should be seen as a decision not to annihilate life on the ground as He did with the flood.
3. Cursed Environment.
Romans 8:19–22.
For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
3. Cursed Environment.
Genesis 1:29-31.
And God said, See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.
Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food; and it was so.
Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
3. Cursed Environment.
Genesis 9:1-6.
So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.
After the fall God still blesses obedience.
Leviticus 26:3-8.
If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country.
You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you...
After the fall God still blesses obedience.
Leviticus 26:14-17.
But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you:
I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength.
You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you...
Genesis: The effects of Adam’s disobedience.
4. Physical death
4. Physical Death.
The fulfilment of God’s promise that Adam would die reveals the punishment Adam received for disobeying God’s command.
Genesis 3:19.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.
Adam was told that he would return to the dust from which he was taken, a concept that is referenced by many of the Old Testament writers.
4. Physical Death.
Job 10:9.
Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you moulded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again?
Psalm 90:3.
You turn people back to dust, saying, Return to dust, you mortals.
Psalm 104:29.
When you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust.
Genesis: The effects of Adam’s disobedience.
God is responsible for man’s physical death though, as He expelled man from the Garden of Eden so that he would not be able to eat from the Tree of Life and live for ever, even placing a guard to prevent man from eating from the tree.
Genesis 3:22-24. And the LORD God said, The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis: The effects of Adam’s disobedience.
Romans 5:12. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.
4. Physical Death.
Man’s physical death.
Not only did God determine that man in his fallen state must die, He shortened man’s lifespan at the time of the flood when he destroyed all human life except for Noah and his three sons and their wives.
Genesis 6:3.
My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal, his days will be a hundred and twenty years.
4. Physical Death.
It is not good for fallen man to live too long. Genesis 6:1-3. Then the Lord said, My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.
You may think it gives a person more time to repent.
76% of Christians decided to follow Jesus Christ before the age 16.
85% of Christians decided to follow Jesus Christ before the age 21.
4. Physical Death.
The older you get the harder your heart gets.
Ecclesiastes 12:1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.....
Ecclesiastes12:7.
Remember him, before the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Adam disobeyed and physical death came not only to him, but also to his descendants.
5. Spiritual death.
Why do we have to be Born Again?
When mankind disobeyed God in the garden of Eden he died Spiritually and in fact God warned Adam that this would happen.
Genesis 2:17.
But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.
Adam did not die physically until he was 930 years old and had sons and daughters with Eve.
Genesis 5:4.
After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.
5. Spiritual death.
Luke 12:4-9.
I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
None of us can say that we will be alive tomorrow.
James 4:13-16.
Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.
5. Spiritual death.
Ephesians 2:1-5.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world…..
God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.
Colossians 2:13.
When you were dead in your sins and uncircumcision of you flesh, God made you alive with Christ.
He forgave us all our sins……
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations are taken from the NIV:
THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™
Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations taken from the NASB:
New American Standard Bible®,
Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Used by permission. (http://www.lockman.org/)