What was Adam’s sin?
Was it simply eating a tempting piece of forbidden fruit, or something
deeper? Whatever you may think about the different roles Adam and Eve may have had
in the process of yielding to the temptation, one thing is abundantly clear: they
were both held equally accountable and came under the same curse of sin and
death that has been inherited by all of us.
Satan had planted doubt about God in the mind of Eve, that He was withholding something beneficial from them and that they would not die. This, she obviously communicated to Adam, or perhaps he was even there and said nothing. In any case, he likewise fell to the same doubt about God. Simply put, their basic sin was: to distrust God (what He had said) and to distrust in God (that He was good). These led to their act of disobedience. We call this The Fall of man.
Every mother knows that the surest way to tempt her children to sneak cookies from the kitchen is to warn them that the cookies on the counter are off limits. And you would probably say, “Of course, that’s human nature!” The more something is prohibited the more desirable it seems to become. So, what is it about human nature that causes us to react this way to rules and laws?
Is there any fundamental difference between cookie-sneaking kids and our ancient parents from whom we inherited this human nature? Their reasoning for disobeying would follow the same pattern: “Mommy won’t even know and probably won’t do anything even if we get caught,” and “She doesn’t want us to have something that is really good.”
Why did God give Moses the Ten Commandments for the people of Israel to live by? Was this Law good, or did it cause people to sin? The Apostle Paul would write centuries later, “By the works of the Law, no flesh will be justified in His sight” (Romans 3:20). For what purpose, then, was it given? Paul also answered that question (Romans 7:7-8).
The Law was given to cause sins to increase. No kidding, was it to make us worse? No, not at all. Without the Law we don’t have a measure of our sinfulness, but because our basic sin nature is not to trust God and to doubt His goodness, we naturally choose to do those things that He prohibits. We need a standard of performance to see how far we are falling short of God’s glory and the Law serves that purpose.
No wonder that the first commandment is: You shall have no other gods before Me. Whatever takes the most important place in our lives is our god. It can be anything: money, career, children, health, fame, pleasure, and even church work, to name a few. If our tendency, humanly speaking, already is to mistrust God whom we don’t see, how easy is it to substitute the things we do see in His place?
But there is an even more subtle temptation that we need to recognize. How is your discontentment index? If there are things about which you are discontent, are you aware that this also is sin? Paul said when the tenth commandment spoke to his heart about coveting, he realized that the Law could not save him but actually condemned him to death. Being discontent is nothing more than coveting a better lot in life than what we are dealing with. (I’m not talking about being discontent with your spiritual growth or other desires to improve but rather with the issues of life that daily face us.) It is saying, in effect, to God, “You’re withholding good from me and I don’t believe what Your word says about trusting You to help me.” The same sin pattern we’ve already seen.
God, in His mercy and compassion toward us, has provided the solution to our human nature problem (read: sin problem). He has given up His Son for us, providing a way through the cross to reverse the mistrust and rebellion that precipitated The Fall. Thank God that by believing that He gave us His only Son (trusting that He is good) that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life (trusting His word). – John 3:16
Satan had planted doubt about God in the mind of Eve, that He was withholding something beneficial from them and that they would not die. This, she obviously communicated to Adam, or perhaps he was even there and said nothing. In any case, he likewise fell to the same doubt about God. Simply put, their basic sin was: to distrust God (what He had said) and to distrust in God (that He was good). These led to their act of disobedience. We call this The Fall of man.
Every mother knows that the surest way to tempt her children to sneak cookies from the kitchen is to warn them that the cookies on the counter are off limits. And you would probably say, “Of course, that’s human nature!” The more something is prohibited the more desirable it seems to become. So, what is it about human nature that causes us to react this way to rules and laws?
Is there any fundamental difference between cookie-sneaking kids and our ancient parents from whom we inherited this human nature? Their reasoning for disobeying would follow the same pattern: “Mommy won’t even know and probably won’t do anything even if we get caught,” and “She doesn’t want us to have something that is really good.”
Why did God give Moses the Ten Commandments for the people of Israel to live by? Was this Law good, or did it cause people to sin? The Apostle Paul would write centuries later, “By the works of the Law, no flesh will be justified in His sight” (Romans 3:20). For what purpose, then, was it given? Paul also answered that question (Romans 7:7-8).
The Law was given to cause sins to increase. No kidding, was it to make us worse? No, not at all. Without the Law we don’t have a measure of our sinfulness, but because our basic sin nature is not to trust God and to doubt His goodness, we naturally choose to do those things that He prohibits. We need a standard of performance to see how far we are falling short of God’s glory and the Law serves that purpose.
No wonder that the first commandment is: You shall have no other gods before Me. Whatever takes the most important place in our lives is our god. It can be anything: money, career, children, health, fame, pleasure, and even church work, to name a few. If our tendency, humanly speaking, already is to mistrust God whom we don’t see, how easy is it to substitute the things we do see in His place?
But there is an even more subtle temptation that we need to recognize. How is your discontentment index? If there are things about which you are discontent, are you aware that this also is sin? Paul said when the tenth commandment spoke to his heart about coveting, he realized that the Law could not save him but actually condemned him to death. Being discontent is nothing more than coveting a better lot in life than what we are dealing with. (I’m not talking about being discontent with your spiritual growth or other desires to improve but rather with the issues of life that daily face us.) It is saying, in effect, to God, “You’re withholding good from me and I don’t believe what Your word says about trusting You to help me.” The same sin pattern we’ve already seen.
God, in His mercy and compassion toward us, has provided the solution to our human nature problem (read: sin problem). He has given up His Son for us, providing a way through the cross to reverse the mistrust and rebellion that precipitated The Fall. Thank God that by believing that He gave us His only Son (trusting that He is good) that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life (trusting His word). – John 3:16
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