We would be the first to admit that there is much we do not know nor understand about our first parents’ initial disobedience and rejection of their Maker’s authority. We do, however, know something firsthand of the consequences thereof. And, what are those consequences? Well, for starters, we are going to die. Yes, die. We are all infected with a terminal moral disease called “sin”, and it will kill us all, just like it has already killed the billions who have gone before. Romans 5 makes it quite clear, as does 1st Corinthians 15, that the entirety of the human race has descended from our common parents Adam and Eve. In so many respects, as they were, so are we. They possess the original gene pool with all its attendant variants, and we are descended from them. The table of nations listed in Genesis 12 has proved to be incredibly accurate as regards Adam and Eve’s descendants and their respective geographical locations in the ancient world. And, we all know our supposed new world is but a spin-off of the old world.
Original sin came into being when Adam and Eve rebelled against the authority and warning of their Maker, the Creator God Himself. When they did so, they took unto themselves something that God did not put in them when He created them. When God created them as His crowning achievement on the sixth and last day of His creative work, He pronounced everything, including Adam and Eve, as very good. Now, after their disobedience, what was very good became decidedly less than good. A contaminant has entered the picture as well as the very bodies of Adam and Eve. The contaminant was moral, but it extended to the physical, reaching all the way to imposing death. The first and immediate type of death was spiritual and resulted in separation from their Creator. Hence, a hiding from Him, the fig leaves, and so on. The other type of death was physical, and, while not imposed immediately as was spiritual death, it none-the-less began with a dying process in their bodies that eventually ended with their physical death as well.
And, so it is with us. We, all of us, are in Adam. Our heritage is inescapable. And, in Adam, as stated in Romans 5, “therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sin.” And 1st Corinthians 15 adds to that in saying, “As in Adam, all die; so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” So, what was the scope of Adam’s sin? It was as broad as the totality of all humanity. This is why we die, both spiritually and physically. This is why everyone’s life terminates physically with an obituary, and this is also why our Substitute Jesus Christ came, so that death would not have the final victory. Christ was delivered for our offenses, and raised for our justification. We are eternally grateful.
CC 09-17
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