Adam and Even enjoyed splendid fellowship with Heavenly Father. Through His Spirit, they communed and fellowship daily. No one knows how long Adam and Eve walked with God in this holy relationship, but we do know that they caused it to be broken and therefore, it did not last. What did the first couple do to ruin things? To answer this question, it is important for us to understand a little more about God’s nature. Our God is sovereign. There’s no other like Him, and He doesn’t need anyone or anything to be what He is. He is love. He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere present. He sets the rules, and because of His enormous grace and love, He has left it up to us to follow them.
1Corinithans 14:33 gives us more information about who God is. It tells us that God is not the author of confusion. He is a God of peace, and He loves order. We need only examine our own governmental structures to understand what order means. We can see very plainly that with order, there are laws, because you cannot have order without them. Sovereignty is also identified by the laws it establishes. God is sovereign, He rules, and He has established laws because that’s what sovereignty does.
The laws that God has established are infinite and unfailing. They keep the earth rotating on its axis. They keep the sun shining every day and they keep the moon and stars shining every night. God provided everything that Adam and Eve could ever have wanted, and He also gave them dominion and authority to exercise over their own lives within the earth. All these privileges were contained within God’s sovereignty. Therefore, they had to be contained and exercised within God’s law. Adam and Eve were a part of God’s Kingdom, so they had to abide by the laws of love and faith that exist within His Kingdom.
They were not stupid people. Their minds were perfect, and their blood had no impurities. They were healthy, strong, and extremely intelligent. God delighted in communicating and communing with them. So, when God gave them His laws, they understood those laws perfectly. Genesis 2:16-17(NKJV) tells us, “16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” God probably has a good sense of humor, but He doesn’t play games. When He tells us not to do something, it is to keep us safe and under His covering.
Well, God has an enemy, and he is satan, the devil. Adam and Eve were tricked by his lies, and rather than trusting God’s Word with their whole hearts, they began to doubt God’s Word. Heavenly Father told them they would surely die if they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the devil told them that they would not die if they ate of it. Instead, the devil told them they would gain more knowledge and be like God. This lie spoken by the devil put doubt into Adam’s and Eve’s heart, and doubt is an enemy of faith. So, they acted on their doubt, bowed to the devil and did what he wanted them to do. To say that this was a horrible mistake is a gross understatement.
Adam and Eve lost their holiness. They could no longer be connected to God, and the Holy Spirit could not commune with them anymore. It was a catastrophic fall, because the devil, God’s archenemy, put them under a curse. They chose to believe what the devil told them over what God had commanded. Because of this, they moved themselves out of the place of God’s sovereignty, where God’s blessings and protection abound. They sold themselves into slavery, entered the realm of darkness, and moved themselves under satan’s rulership and dominion. Romans 5:12(NLT) says, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” It is easy to blame Brother Adam and Sister Eve for the horrible mess their disobedience caused, but sin didn’t stop with those two. Everyone born after them sinned as well.
Our Heavenly Father knows all things. He knew that Adam and Eve would sin, and even before He created them, He had a plan for humanity’s redemption. Acts 2:23(NLT) tells us, “But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him.” In this verse, Peter, one of Jesus’s disciples, was speaking to the people of Israel. Jesus Christ was marked out by God to perform miracles, wonders, and signs among them, and he did these things by God’s divine power, but they denied Christ and with the help of Gentiles, they crucified him. It is so true that when we were at our worst, God sent His best, and He did it all to save us.