Day 36: How Did Adam’s Response Affect Him?
Adam’s choice to listen to another voice rather than the voice of the Lord had disastrous consequences. Because Adam choose to rebel against God, he brought the power sin, death and condemnation into the human experience.
God had given Adam everything he needed to make the right choices. If Adam chose to follow God’s voice, it would have resulted in glorious freedom. Yet since He foolishly chose to follow the Enemy he would now be subject to death and slavery. These are the same choices and options that we all face:
Choice 1: Follow God >> Consequence: Life and Freedom
Choice 2: Follow The Enemy >> Consequence: Death and Slavery
Since God had created Adam and Eve with the ability of contrary choice—the ability to choose what is not in line with the truth, goodness, and glory of God—God honored their decision. Let’s look at the three main consequences for their choice.
Adam’s rebellion brought Sin into the world.
Romans 5:12
So then, just as sin entered the world through one man
and death through sin,…
God had established the consequences if Adam chose to rebel against His commands—“in the day that you eat (from the forbidden fruit), you will surely die.” When Adam chose to eat the fruit, he willfully chose to reject God’s counsel and instruction (TRUTH) and follow the counsel of the Enemy (LIE). In this one act, sin entered into the world.
This is a good place to define sin. In the Hebrew Scriptures, there are about 8 words that define and explain the general idea of sin. In the Greek Scriptures, there are around 12. So there are around 20 terms in the Bible that define the many different forms and expressions of sin. But there are a couple of passages that give us descriptions of the root of sin.
In 1 John 3:4 we hear, “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; indeed, sin is lawlessness.” This means that sin is an attitude or way of thinking that totally disregards God’s wise commandments as a means of instruction or counsel. Generally speaking, a law is a command that also has a penalty for disobedience. God commands Adam not to eat from The Tree and says that he will be penalized with death if he disobeys that command. Adam sins when he disobeys God’s law.
But disobedience is not Adam’s biggest problem. In fact, obedience or disobedience is only the result of another more fundamental mind-set. In Romans 14:23 we hear, “…whatever is not from faith is sin.” This truth gives us the root for all sin—lack of faith. For now, let’s just define faith as belief that leads to confident trust. So when Adam sins, when he is disobedient to God’s commands, he does so because he does not first believe what God had said is true nor does he apparently trust in God’s goodness. Sin is always produced when God’s counsel and instruction (TRUTH) are rejected due to a lack of faith—belief and trust in God.
Sin is always rooted in not trusting the Lord-God to be wise or good. Sin takes hold in any activity of thought, desire, or action that rejects truth, twists goodness, or corrupts what is glorious. Ultimately, sin rejects the good character of the One True God and His wise instruction.
Adam’s rebellion brought death into the world.
Adam’s sinful rebellion brought death into the World. In the Bible, death never means extinction or annihilation or ceasing to exist. In fact, every human being who has ever been conceived still exists. Our human spirits were designed by God to be immortal which is to say that once we came into existence, we would never cease to exist. Everyone who has ever lived will exist forever. But not everyone who exists forever will live (in joy, peace, and blessing) forever.
When we consider death from a biblical perspective, we see that the idea has at its root the concept of separation. So when someone dies physically, this means that his or her spiritual self separates from the physical body and goes into eternity. The physical body is dead because its life-giving “power” or “energy” is removed.
But notice that Adam did not “drop dead” when he ate the fruit. In fact, he would live for another 900 years!!! Adam did experience another form of death that day—spiritual death. If you will remember, our spiritual selves were designed to receive their life from God. When our spiritual component is separated from God—the root and source of all life—it dies. Spiritual death is simply separation and alienation from God, the source of all life.
As Paul says, the heart of all those who reject God’s truth becomes darkened (Romans 1:18). Instead of being the wellspring of life, it is now empty and void. Adam’s physical body was also corrupted by the power of sin. He would grow old, get sick, and eventually die physically. From the day that Adam ate the fruit until the day he died, he would have seen everything in his world coming unraveled. Because he did not trust the wisdom and goodness of Father-God, his act of disobedience brought sin, death, and separation from God into the human experience.
Adam’s rebellion brought slavery to sin into the human experience.
Far from gaining the freedom and god-like status The Serpent had promised, Adam and Eve had become hopelessly enslaved to sin under the dominion of the Devil. John tells us:
1 John 3:8
The one who commits sin is of the Devil, for the Devil has sinned from the beginning.…
It doesn’t take long to see the effects of this reality unfold in the next episodes of the human race. Cain and Abel are the first sons born to Adam and Eve. Cain murders Abel. In the stories from Genesis 4—11 we see murder, violence, and treachery spread deep and wide throughout the world. Sin and shame have taken deep root in the human experience.
Take a look at our circle diagram now—this represents what happened to Adam after his rebellion.
*You can find a complete list of all the MilktoMeat readings here.
