What truly happened at the fall of man?

Adam and Eve were permitted to eat of all the trees of the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: of the which if they ate, in the same day they should die. Eve, being beguiled by Satan, ate of that tree; and at her suggestion, though not deceived as Eve was, Adam also took of it. Their eyes were at once opened, they knew they were naked, and hid themselves from God. They were transgressors, had fallen from their state of innocence, and acquired a conscience, and with it the sense of their own evil and guilt. When questioned by God, Adam laid the blame on Eve, ungratefully saying, "the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." The ground was then cursed for Adam's sake: in sorrow he should eat of it all his life: thorns and thistles should be produced, and in the sweat of his face he should eat bread.

When Adam sinned he was guilty of breaking a divine commandment, sin entered into his nature, and he hid himself from the presence of God. Moreover through Adam’s guilt sin entered into the world, and death by sin. Man acquired a conscience, having through sin, and in sin, the knowledge of good and evil, but was without power to do the good or forsake the evil. In mercy God excluded man from Eden, for the tree of life was there, and man could not be allowed to eat of that tree and live for ever as a sinner in a world of sin. Against this dark background God announced the coming of the Seed of the woman who, at great cost to Himself, would bruise the serpent’s head. It was a simple and clear indication that God has purposes to deal with the entry of sin into the world, and with the effects of sin.

Let us now look at the first of these. We turn to Genesis 3, and there we find Adam created in innocence, set in the garden of Eden, an earthly paradise, surrounded with blessing and good; and in this paradise there were two trees, the tree of life and the tree of responsibility (of knowledge of good and evil). He was left there to maintain himself in a position and in a condition in which he had been placed. He had access to the tree of life, but had no promise. He had simply to enjoy what God had given him, and own the Giver in His gifts which surrounded him. He was given to understand that he had no further responsibility than to observe the command of God, to abstain from eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, failing which, death would be the effect and consequence of his breach of the command. This was the measure of his responsibility. He had no position to attain to or object to gain by his obedience to the command. Alive in a certain condition, and observing it, he maintained himself in that condition. He was not told to "Do this and live;" but, alive in the position God had placed him in, he was to retain it by doing as commanded, and so enjoy all the blessings of his position. Satan now comes upon the scene. He suggests the thought to his mind that God was withholding the richest blessing in prohibiting him to eat of the tree of responsibility; that His love was not such a love as he supposed; and, moreover, that God had not been truthful as to the result He had placed before him; for that, instead of death, God knew that they would become as gods, "knowing good and evil." Man's heart, already turned away from God, opened itself to these suggestions — doubted the love that was thus withholding the best blessing from him — despised the truth, and offended the majesty of God, and aspired to be a god himself, knowing good and evil. Satan thus obtained the place in his mind that God should have had. Adam's heart — turned away from God — readily hearkened to the suggestions of Satan and fell! He thus constituted God his judge by his fall. If God had judged His creature before this, He would have been judging Himself; for He had made man after His own image and likeness and had pronounced His work "very good." This was His judgment upon His own workmanship when it came forth from His bands. But when Adam transgressed, he constituted God a judge, and obtained the knowledge of good and evil — good, without the power to accomplish it; and evil, without the power to avoid it. His conscience, thus obtained, told him that he had made God his judge; for when the voice of the Lord God was heard in the garden, the man and his wife felt that the covering they had made to hide their nakedness, and which had, perhaps, satisfied them for the time, was no covering when God spake. So when challenged by God he says, "I was afraid, because I was naked." Conscience awoke under the voice of God, and thus drove Adam to hide amongst the trees of the garden. The knowledge he had obtained when he fell had no power to make him draw near to God, but rather drove him from His presence. It was the sense of responsibility, united to the knowledge of good and evil. And so we find that God "drove out the man," cutting off his access to the tree of life. It was a blessing and a mercy, in such a condition as that which he now had attained; access to the tree of life would only have perpetuated a life of misery and separation from God and good. The man and his wife pass out from the presence of God with a knowledge they can never unlearn, and with a nature that never can be innocent again. We cannot return to innocence, and we never can unlearn the knowledge of good and evil. Nor can we ever return to paradise again, such as that from which Adam was driven. The man and his wife, thus driven out, become the root and head of a lost world. Their sin does not stop in effect with themselves; but condemnation passes upon the whole race, which is driven out from the presence of God in them. Death is their portion in this world. Judgment, the second death, the lake of fire is the end. In the judgment-resurrection (Rev. 20) we find the two things brought on the scene again, the principle of the two trees — life and responsibility. The book of life is opened, and the books, I doubt not, of their responsibility. They are judged out of those things which are written in the books, according to their works, "and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

The end of the first chapter of man's history is sadly solemn. And the Lord God said: "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever, therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life" (Gen. 3:22-24). Satan proved too much for man at the beginning. He conquered him utterly by guile and deceit. Such was it with the first young man, and so has it been with all his descendants. Ruined, wretched, afraid of God, blaming his wife — knowing good, but unable to do it — knowing evil, and unable henceforth to abstain from it — under sentence of death — the practical slave of Satan, whom he credited rather than God — he is driven out of Eden into a wilderness! In this mercy was apparent. To have eaten the tree of life, and perpetuated an existence of misery on earth, would have been his crowning sorrow. God forbade that, as he "drove out the man." But ere driven out, faith, which counts on God, would seem to have sprung up in his heart, for Adam called his wife's name Eve, "because she was the mother of all living." At the moment all were under the sentence of death; but God's word as to the woman's seed caused faith and hope to spring up, I cannot but believe.

Man was gone from God; and it was now manifest and undeniable. Even before Jehovah Elohim called Adam and Eve into His presence, the fall was working its evil consequences. They were ashamed for the first time, and they sought to hide their shame from themselves and from one another. When they heard the voice of the LORD God, terror was added exceedingly, yet in vain; for how can man escape if summoned there?

Alas! it was not long before Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree, and brought upon themselves the dire consequences of their guilt. There was the sin of disobedience that made man guilty before God; there was the distance that separated the guilty sinner from God: there entered into the nature of man the evil principle that has been transmitted to every child of Adam, with the knowledge of good and evil there was neither power to resist the evil nor to do the good; there were entirely wrong thoughts of God implanted in the mind of man and with it the hatred of God that was soon evinced by Cain; there was exclusion from the garden of delights; there was the curse on the ground and with it a life of toil and sweat; and the sentence on Eve of sorrow in her conception.

Not only was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden, there was also the tree of life, and this tree had not been forbidden. When Adam sinned the tree of life was forbidden, and God sent the cherubim with the flaming sword to guard the way of the tree of life. This was a merciful intervention of God. How awful it would have been if man in sin had been allowed to avert the sentence that God had pronounced, and that a sinful race, with all the accumulated knowledge and results of sin, had polluted God's fair earth for ever. What a defeat it would have been for God! What a triumph for Satan! What awful misery and degradation for the human race!

"And they heard the voice of Jehovah Elohim walking in the garden in the cool (wind) of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah Elohim, in the midst of the trees of the garden" (ver. 8). Confidence in the Lord God was manifestly gone and sin had filled their hearts with terror as well as unbelief. For faith would have known that distance or darkness makes no difference to Jehovah, as is so beautifully expressed in Ps. 139. His voice was no attraction now; His rich unvarying goodness toward them was forgotten. They had acquired the knowledge of good and evil, but alas! to their own self-condemnation. So it is always. Not death only, but a bad conscience, they have left as a sad legacy to all their descendants. Man conscious of evil shrinks from God and distrusts Him.

So we find here the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah Elohim in the midst of the trees of the garden. No more flagrant proof could well be of the mischief the enemy had wrought. The wiles of the mighty and subtle Satan had drawn the first pair into rebellion, and their instant attempt to conceal themselves was the unmistakable evidence of it. They "hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah Elohim." Had there been the least working of repentance, they had sought Him in self-reproach and horror at their sin, they had cast themselves in confession on a mercy which endures for ever. But there is no genuine repentance without faith, and faith in Him was wholly wanting. The voice of Him as He walked in the garden alarmed them, and they hid themselves away from Him.

The first thing the old serpent does is to put something between God and us, to put himself between both. The only thing which can render us happy is that there is nothing between God and us, and that God loves us. Satan begins by rendering the soul distrustful of God, and suggests to the woman to wish for a forbidden thing, and to satisfy the wish, hinting that God does not love to gratify us, and would keep some great good from us. The enemy does not direct our mind either to the goodness of God, or to our obeying God. The woman knew well why she ought not to eat of the fruit of that tree, and that death would be the inevitable result. Had not God forbidden and threatened?

God has warned us of the consequences of sin. He had said, "In the day that thou eatest, dying thou shalt die," But Satan, who ever seeks to deny and lower the truth of God, says to the woman, "Ye shall not surely die … ye shall be as God." And it is true that the fall has rendered man much more intelligent relative to good and evil; but Satan hid from him that he would be severed from God, and with an evil conscience. Their eyes were opened, it is said; and they knew that they were naked as they looked at themselves.

Eve well knew the goodness as well as the command of God; nor had she forgotten the dread penalty of disobedience. She even added to His words, "neither shall ye touch it," which adding may seem pious, but is neither seemly nor wise. The serpent advances a bold step now, and dares to give God the lie. This soon follows, when the heart conceives distrust of His love. "Ye shall not surely die." "Fear nothing of the sort. On the contrary, to refrain from the fruit of that tree is to abandon your just hopes. God does not wish you to know good and evil as He does. He wants you to remain babes and slaves. Instead of dying, He knows that, in the day ye eat of it, your eyes shall be opened to know what He does. Fear not death, and assert your independence." Divine truth and majesty were thus alike assailed.

Thus far the serpent had dealt in negatives, but now he comes to a positive assertion and dangles before the woman's mind a tempting bait. "Ye shall be as gods," were the words by which he asserted deity for man as the result of disobedience, and he insinuated that God knew that this would be the result of their eating of the forbidden tree, and that the real reason why the prohibition was given was that He desired to withhold from them this coveted prize from motives of jealousy.