There would be no manifestation of God’s grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from.
Adam was made as the image and likeness of God and was given dominion over the earth. He was called to live by faith and obey God’s commands. He was created to be the divinely appointed gardener who would turn the whole earth into a garden, and thus, as it were, extend the glory of God. But Adam failed. Instead of exercising the privilege of reflecting God as his image and experiencing in his miniature what it meant for God to be Lord of all – Adam forfeited it.
The Author of Faith, Tabletalk, Oct. 2004, p. 29, Used by Permission.
In God’s sight there are two men – Adam and Jesus Christ – and these two men have all other men hanging at their girdle strings.
The fall into sin took place before Eve actually ate from the tree, since she had already fallen to Satan’s temptation in her heart.
Why Do God’s People Obey Him? by Scott Hafemann taken from The God of Promise and the Life of Faith by Scott Hafemann, copyright 2001, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org, page 170.
If you ask why God ordained the fall of man and the sinful state into which he would go, the answer is that God ordained sin so that we would know Him in the fullness of His revelation of Himself. If God had not ordained sin, we would know Him only as the Creator; because God has ordained sin we can know Him as the Redeemer.
Redemption Planned, Tabletalk, Feb. 2004, p. 9, Used by Permission.
If the story of the fall reveals our own sin and guilt, it surely also reveals the amazing depths of God’s love and mercy. It was the Son of God who placed a sword at the entrance to the Garden of Eden. He did it not just to keep Adam out. He did it so that, at just the right time, he could walk through in our place, to satisfy God’s just wrath and make a way for us to enter back in, through the gate, to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever in the glorious presence of God.
The fall marks one of the most significant divisions in history, and all of us stand on the wrong side of that division. Many things happen in the Bible that don’t have a universal effect. The fall is not one of them.
The Story of the Fall by Michael Lawrence taken from Biblical Theology by Michael Lawrence, copyright 2010, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org. Page 132-133.
The fall is progressive, not static. Things don’t just go from good to bad. Rather, things continue to get worse. They don’t stay the same, and they don’t get better. It’s like a fatal disease that begins at a point in time, but then progresses and runs its ever increasingly destructive course.
The Story of the Fall by Michael Lawrence taken from Biblical Theology by Michael Lawrence, copyright 2010, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org. Page 133-134.
The devil’s attack against God begins with the greatest of God’s creatures, the one who has dominion over all else, the one who bears God’s image and holds the dearest place in God’s heart. It says quite a lot that what the devil hated most in God’s perfect world was the man and the woman in their relationship with God (Richard and Sharon Phillips).
Holding Hands and Holding Hearts, P&R, 2006, p. 38. Used by Permission.
The way to destroy Adam and Eve, [the devil] realized, was to turn their (Richard and Sharon Phillips).
Holding Hands and Holding Hearts, P&R, 2006, p. 38. Used by Permission.
God’s curse on the woman is alive and well today. Go to any checkout counter and look at the contents of so many women’s magazines. Page after page, article after article, is devoted to the very things God cursed Eve with: an obsession with possessing and captivating men, mainly through beauty and sex. If it is true that women tend both to long for a man and to try to control the man they have, the origin of this problem is found in God’s curse on Eve (Richard and Sharon Phillips).
Holding Hands and Holding Hearts, P&R, 2006, p. 44-45. Used by Permission.
We can observe three characteristics of this now-cursed desire of the woman for the man. First, the woman’s desire serves her own ends rather than serving first the glory of God and then the well-being of the man. Second, her desire weakens and disarms the man rather than complementing and helping him. Third, her desire for the man is driven by carnal emotions – fear, jealousy, self-pity, anger, pride – rather than by trust in God’s design (Richard and Sharon Phillips).
Holding Hands and Holding Hearts, P&R, 2006, p. 45. Used by Permission.
Because of this curse, feminine sin involves disrespect toward men, challenging for control, belittling comments, incessant nagging, and exploiting his weaknesses, all in the place of godly respect and helpful companionship. The man must strive against her for headship, for respect, and for the rule that God gave him over the relationship (Richard and Sharon Phillips).
Holding Hands and Holding Hearts, P&R, 2006, p. 47. Used by Permission.
It was thus in mercy that God cursed the woman and the man, injecting a poison into their relationship for which He alone is the antidote. In the futility of love apart from God, Adam and Eve were to turn back to God, just as we must turn to God today for grace to repent of sin and minister in love. Love between a man and woman simply cannot work without love for God at the center of the relationship; by means of His curses, God mercifully brings this fact to our attention so as to woo us back to Himself (Richard and Sharon Phillips).
Holding Hands and Holding Hearts, P&R, 2006, p. 49. Used by Permission.
I have argued that there is a pattern of love in marriage ordained by God. The roles of husband and wife are not the same. The husband is to takes his special cues from Christ as the head of the church. The wife is to take her special cues from the church as submissive to Christ. In doing this the sinful and damaging results of the Fall begin to be reversed. The Fall twisted man’s loving headship into hostile domination in some men and lazy indifference in others. The Fall twisted woman’s intelligent, willing submission into manipulative obsequiousness in some women and brazen insubordination in others.
Desiring God, 1996, p. 186, Used by Permission, www.desiringGod.org. Get this book!
Let us, then, have it fixed down in our minds that the sinfulness of man does not begin from without, but from within. It is not the result of bad training in early years. It is not picked up from bad companions and bad examples, as some weak Christians are too fond of saying. No! It is a family disease, which we all inherit from our first parents, Adam and Eve, and with which we are born.
Few preachers of religion do believe thoroughly the doctrine of the Fall, or else they think that when Adam fell down he broke his little finger, and did not break his neck and ruin his race.
Man was originally created in the image of God and was furnished in his mind with a true and salutary knowledge of his Creator and things spiritual, in his will and heart with righteousness, and in all his emotions with purity; indeed, the whole man was holy. However, rebelling against God at the devil’s instigation and by his own free will, he deprived himself of these outstanding gifts. Rather, in their place he brought upon himself blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and distortion of judgment in his mind; perversity, defiance, and hardness in his heart and will; and finally impurity in all his emotions.
The Canons of Dort, The Third and Forth Main Points of Doctrine: Human Corruption, Conversion to God, and the Way It Occurs. Article 1- The Effect of the Fall on Human Nature.
In effect, by accepting Satan’s statement, Eve was calling God a liar, even though she might not have recognized those implications of her action. She accepted Satan as the truth-teller and God as the prevaricator. By partaking of the fruit she was implicitly stating her belief that Satan was more interested in her welfare than God was. Yielding to the temptation implied that she accepted Satan’s analysis of the situation instead of God’s.
Hermeneutics, Baker Books, 1981, p. 219.
