Creation and Fall: All are Sinners
- Creation and Fall: All Are Sinners
- General Outline
- God created man to rule under God’s authority as his representative
- God shows his authority over mankind by giving a specific command to be obeyed
- The justice of the death penalty
- Adam and Eve chose to follow Satan and became his slaves and slaves to sin
- God cursed Satan and gave a great promise
- The suffering, hardship, and banishment from the Garden that came from losing eternal life
- Good news: God himself covers Adam and Eve’s shame and through Jesus fulfills the promise
Creation and Fall: All Are Sinners
General Outline
- God created man to rule under God’s authority as his representative
- God shows his authority over mankind by giving a specific command to be obeyed
- The justice of the death penalty
- Adam and Eve chose to follow Satan and became his slaves and slaves to sin.
- God cursed Satan and gave a great promise.
- The suffering, hardship, and banishment from the Garden that came from losing eternal life.
- Good news: God himself covers Adam and Eve’s shame and through Jesus fulfills the promise.
God created man to rule under God’s authority as his representative
The Torah begins with these words: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The following verses show how God created everything in six days. God simply spoke and what he commanded came into being. “Let there be light!” he said, and there was light! On the sixth day, God created Man.
💬 What purpose did God give mankind when he created them? What do YOU think? What do Muslims think?**
Genesis 1.26-28
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
These commands that God gave show us who we are and why we exist. They show us God’s purpose for our lives. We are created in the image of God, which means that we are different from animals. Several times God uses the word “over”. He says, “have dominion over the fish, over the birds, over all the earth.” We were created to rule over the earth as God’s representatives.
But as the Creator, God is king over all, so man’s rule is also “under”. Man is to rule under God’s authority. This means that we are to use everything that God created and gives us as his good gifts to us in order to fulfill what God wants. We do not rule as the highest ruler, but under God. How do we know this? Because God is the one who is commanding man in these verses! When he says to man, “rule, be fruitful, multiply, subdue,” these commands show that he is the ultimate authority, not man!
ILLUSTRATION: As the owner of my own business, I have authority “over” my business. But my business is also under the authority of the government. I’m free to run my business, but only “under” the laws of the land.
💬 In your opinion, how does God show his authority and rule over us? What do you think?**
God shows his authority over mankind by giving a specific command to be obeyed
With Adam, God showed his authority over him by giving him a command. Giving a command to someone shows that you have authority. But what is the other side of giving a command? Obeying that command! By obeying God’s command, Adam would show his submission to God’s authority.
ILLUSTRATION: As a business owner, I have authority over my employees. But if I never give an employee any command or direction of what to do, then it is meaningless to say that I have authority over him. But if I do give him a command of what to do, it is an opportunity for him to show that he respects and submits to my authority.
Therefore, God placed the man he made in the Garden of Eden and gave him a command. God said…. Genesis 2.16b-17
16 … “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.”
See how generous God is? He gave the man “every tree in the garden.” Only one tree was withheld from him—the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” This tree represented a choice and a test for Adam: would he let God decide what is good and what is evil? Or would he decide for himself?
By giving him this command, God gave Adam an opportunity to show that he submitted to God’s authority. Obeying this command was how Adam was supposed to begin his rule under the authority of God.
💬 What do you say? Is man obligated to obey God? What should God do if man doesn’t obey?**
The justice of the death penalty
The punishment if Adam disobeyed God was also clear. God said, “in the day that you eat of (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), you shall surely die.”
Here at the very beginning of the world, God was showing that he is the judge of all. God is a just judge. He calls black, black and he calls white, white. And he is very clear—the penalty for disobeying is death.
💬 What do you think? Was the punishment of death that God pronounced here a just punishment?**
We may think that death was too harsh of a penalty for eating a piece of fruit, but the sin was not just eating. It was disobeying. And disobeying shows a lack of belief in God.
God is just and he always judges rightly! But still, this is really hard for us to accept!
- Couldn’t God give a lighter punishment?
- Why is it death specifically that is the punishment for rejecting God’s authority?
Genesis 2.7 answers these questions. God created man from the dust and then “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Man’s life came from God’s spirit given to him. So when Adam rejected God, God’s sentence of death was just because when Adam rejected God, he was rejecting the Spirit of life!
ILLUSTRATION: What if a huge oak tree decided that it did not want to be in the sun. Would it remain alive? No! It would die because it is the SUN that gives it life!
Adam and Eve chose to follow Satan and became his slaves and slaves to sin
So what happened next? God’s enemy, Satan, came to Adam and Eve in the form of a serpent and said to Eve…
Genesis 3.1b-5
“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
At this point, Adam and Eve had two choices before them: Would they believe what God had said? Or would they believe Satan?
💬 What choice do you think they made? Why did they make that choice?**
They chose to follow Satan rather than God. Why?
- Satan told them to question what God had said: “Did God actually say…?”
- Then Satan said the opposite of what God had said, “You will NOT surely die”.
- Finally, Satan gave them a false promise that they would “be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So Eve, believing Satan’s false promise, took some of the fruit and ate it. She also gave it to her husband who was with her and he ate it also.
Together they rebelled against God. They rejected his authority over them.
They did not listen to and follow what he said. Instead they listened to and followed what Satan said. Satan made them think they were doing what they wanted, but they were actually following Satan—they were doing his will! At that moment, they became Satan’s slaves!
💬 Do Muslims believe that people are sinners and slaves of Satan?**
Jesus once made this invitation to a group of Jews: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” When Jesus said, “will set you free” they didn’t like it! They said, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is that you say, ‘You will become free’? Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8.32-34)
Adam and Eve, just like those Jews tried to hide the truth about themselves and their sin.
Before they sinned, Adam and Eve were naked, but they were not ashamed. But after they sinned they saw that they were naked and so they made clothing out of fig leaves to cover themselves. Then they tried to hide from God.
God came to them in the garden and called to them.
Genesis 3.9b-13
“Where are you?”
10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Notice that Adam blames Eve, and then Eve blames the serpent. Adam even blames God! “the woman YOU gave me…” Neither one of them confessed their sin to God.
God cursed Satan and gave a great promise
💬 So what did God do? How did he respond to this? What do you think?**
First he cursed Satan. And in that curse there is a promise that is the foundation of the entire story of the Bible. Here it is!
Genesis 3.15
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.
God is making a promise here to all of humanity: someday a Savior will be born who will defeat Satan. When God says, “he shall bruise your head.” that is a picture of someone crushing the head of a snake–killing it and defeating it! And when he says to the snake, “you shall bruise his heel,” that is a picture of the snake harming the Savior, but not being able to totally defeat him.
💬 There is so much pain and suffering in this world. Where does it come from? Why is life so hard?**
The suffering, hardship, and banishment from the Garden that came from losing eternal life
This story also tells us where pain and suffering come from. After God promised the defeat of Satan, he tells the man and woman about the consequences of their sin.
God tells them they will both face hardship and pain. This will be in their relationship with each other as well. Then he gives the exact reason this will happen: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ “
You see, the pain and suffering in our lives always reminds us that ever since Adam and Eve all of us are sinners. Just like them, if we meet with difficulties God is showing us that we also have rebelled against him. Our difficulties do not come because God is unjust, but rather because we are unfaithful and disobedient!
This story also shows another reason for our difficulties and hardships.
Because of their disobedience, God banishes Adam and Eve from the garden. He blocks the way to the garden’s “tree of life.” The way is blocked by angels and by a “flaming sword.”
What was this tree of life? This tree represented God’s holy, life-giving presence. If they had listened to God and obeyed him, they would have gained eternal life from him. But they followed Satan instead of God. They chose Satan over God! Therefore God drove them from his presence and they lost that eternal life.
God is the giver of life! And we are separated from the giver of life. The Holy Book calls this state “spiritual death.” Do you remember what God said about disobeying his command? “In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” In the moment that they disobeyed, they died spiritually. And one of the evidences of that spiritual death is that we are all dying physically as well.
💬 What do you think? How can this break in our relationship with God be fixed?**
Good news: God himself covers Adam and Eve’s shame and through Jesus fulfills the promise
There is a lot of heaviness in this story, for sure! But there is good news as well! God did something else when he sent them away from the garden. Genesis 3.21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
If you recall, they had tried themselves to cover their nakedness and shame with clothing that they made themselves out of fig leaves. But God made them garments of skin. And with this he was showing them, “I myself will cover your shame!” The rest of the Holy Book’s story is about how God did that.
Much later, when Jesus was born, God’s promise to Adam and Eve was fulfilled.
- Jesus was the “offspring of the woman” that God had promised.
- Satan bit Jesus’ heel—using sinful men, he nailed him to a cross. But this was God’s plan. Just as prophesied, Satan could not destroy him. Jesus rose on the third day and defeated death! And that was the “bruising” of Satan’s “head.”
- With his death, Jesus passed through the flaming sword and opened the way to the tree of life.
- When we believe in Jesus and repent of our sins and follow him, we are restored in our relationship with God. God gives us his own eternal life so that when we die, we will be together with him forever.
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