MAN’S FALL AND REDEMPTION

Theme: “Man was created in the likeness and image of God, but fell by transgression from the state of righteousness and holiness in which he was created into a state of death in which he is a slave of sin until he is delivered by the power of the Gospel.”

God created sea creatures and birds and they were good, but the Bible does not say that they were created in the image of God.  (Genesis 1:21)

God created cattle, creeping things and beasts of the earth and they were good, but the Bible does not say that they were created in the image of God, either. (Genesis 1:25)

But man was created in the image of God.

Genesis 1:26-27:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

After man was created, God saw that everything was very good (Genesis 1:31). At this point, man had not sinned and was spiritually alive to God. However, once Adam sinned, he experienced spiritual death – his spirit was no longer able to commune with God. In fact, Adam tried to hide from God rather than fellowship with Him and was banned for life from the garden.

Proof that there is a distinction between being physically alive and being spiritually alive:

God told Adam, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 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.” (Genesis 2:16-17)

But Adam did not die physically the day he ate of the forbidden tree.  Adam had kids and lived to be 930 (Genesis 5:5). Yet God said he would die the day he ate of the tree.  God did not lie.  Adam DID die spiritually, but he did not die physically that day.

Once you leave this earth as a Christian, you will still be spiritually alive. You have eternal life (1 John 5:13 and many other places). You will still be alive even though the body you occupied will decompose. Your physical body that you now have does not have eternal life, but your spirit does.

Paul says this in Ephesians 2:1:  “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins…” He does not mean that you were raised from the dead physically, but you were raised from the dead spiritually. For this to happen, you had to be born again.  This was not a physical rebirth, but a spiritual rebirth.  See John chapter 3.

The Bible totally contradicts the theory of evolution. Yet many Christians are intimidated around educated people who have studied evolution.  They feel embarrassed that they don’t have a good answer for skeptics who ask, “What about the dinosaur bones? They’re much older than 6000 years, but the Bible says the earth has only been around for 6000 years. So why not believe the evidence and conclude that the creation story in Genesis is just a fairy tale?”

I have been asked this many times and you will be asked this too in one form or another at some point. You should know for starters that the Bible actually does NOT teach that the earth is 6000 years old.  The current order of things is roughly that old, but there was something here earlier.

Proof that the account of creation in Genesis 1 was not the original creation of the earth, but a re-creation after divine judgement wiped out whatever was there before:

Genesis 1:1 says that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. Genesis 1:2 starts by stating that the earth was without form, and void.  This would leave the impression that God created the earth empty in the beginning.  But Isaiah 45:18 says that God did not create the earth empty or a wasteland (the word used in the original text is Strong’s Hebrew word #8414, tohu, which means empty or without form).  This same Hebrew word also appears in Genesis 1:2, where it says that the earth was without form and void – tohu. So God did not create the earth empty, but the earth was empty in Genesis 1:2. The only conclusion we can reach without assuming that the Bible contradicts itself is that the earth had become empty between the time that God made it and the account in Genesis 1.

The King James Bible says in Genesis 1:28 that God commanded man to replenish the earth.  This would only be possible if there were something there before that had been wiped out.  This is not an ironclad proof in itself, though, because some other translations, including the New King James Version, say fill instead of replenish, and the Hebrew word there (Strong’s #4390) actually can be translated either way. But it is the same word uses in Genesis 9:1 after Noah’s flood, where Noah is commanded to replenish the earth.  Again, the New King James says fill the earth, but it is obvious from its use in Genesis 9:1 that it can mean “replenish”.

2 Peter 3:5-7 contains a subtle hint of a wiped-out world that had to be replenished. “For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungoldly men.” At first this would seem to be a reference to the flood in the days of Noah, but there is a problem with that interpretation. In Noah’s flood, the earth was flooded, but the heavens remained the same as they were before.  In this flood to which Peter refers, the heavens and the earth both perish and there are a new “heavens” and earth. No event since Genesis 1:2 adequately meets this description.

Another apparent reference to this first (pre-Noah) universal flood is found in Psalm 104:5-9:  “You who laid the foundations of the earth, that is should not be moved forever, You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled; at the voice of Your thunder they hastened away. They went up over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place You founded for them. You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth.”  The word deep (Strong’s #8415) can be translated a surging mass of water, but it is obvious without knowing this that there were mountains already there (not yet to be created) that were covered.  But could this not be a reference to Noah’s flood.  At first glance it looks like it could, but a subtle and easy-to-overlook point is that during Noah’s flood, the waters did not “flee” or “hasten away” – they receded very gradually!  Genesis 9:3 says “And the waters receded continually from the earth,” and Genesis 9:5 says that the waters “decreased continually until the tenth month.” That can’t be the same thing Psalm 104 is talking about where that waters “fled” and “hastened away.”

Jesus said that he beheld Satan fall like lightning (Luke 10:18). There is no record of this event since Genesis 1:2, either, leading us to conclude that it must have happened at some earlier time. By the time we get to Genesis 3, Satan was already fallen and there is no mention of his fall in Genesis 1 or 2.

Darkness and floods are depicted in Scripture as events related to judgement, not creation.  This would at least hint that there had been a judgement on the earth.

Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible says that the Hebrew word translated “was” in Genesis 1:2 (“And the earth was without form and void”) is actually a form of the verb to become, not the verb to be, in the Hebrew. In other words, the earth became without form and void.  However, even if Genesis 1:2 refers to a static moment in time where the earth was without form and void, this does not negate the other arguments above.

Perhaps the most subtle proof of a “pre-Adamite” world is the existence of demons. The only logical origin of demons would be a world before the universal flood in Genesis 1:2. Tradition says that demons are fallen angels, which would not prove a pre-Adamite world. The problem with this tradition is that it is directly contradicted by Scripture in Jude 1:6:  “And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.” The fallen angels are chained up – they are not running around the earth possessing people.  (There are no instances of angels, fallen or otherwise, possessing people anyway!)  So where did the demons come from?  It seems logical to conclude that they came from the age when Satan fell.

Ezekiel 28:11-19 is widely held to be a reference to Satan and his fall, and I don’t see anything to contradict that explanation. But who are the “kings” in this passage? They’re not in Genesis!  “I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings.”  When Satan fell to earth, he was laid before some kind of rulers on the earth at the time.  This must be before the “re-creation” account in Genesis, since there is nothing remotely like this in Genesis.

The Bible does not teach any kind of macro-evolution where lesser beings turn into greater beings.  It teaches the very opposite – that everything reproduces after its own kind, not a greater kind.  Some people teach that evolution is Biblical and that the account in Genesis 1 must mean “millions or billions of years” when it says “days”.  But Genesis 1 talks about evening and morning on those days, which indicates literal days, not figurative ones.  My guess is that someone came up with this argument because they couldn’t deny that dinosaur fossils exist, but they want to believe that the Bible is true anyway.  However, as seen above, the existence of dinosaurs long ago does not disprove Genesis 1 or the rest of the Bible.

Man is held morally accountable to God.  Apes are not. Dogs and cats are not. A morally accountable creature did not evolve from a morally unaccountable one.  There is no such thing as doggie adultery; Fido can do whatever he wants with Fifi one day and Mitzi the next day without experiencing retribution from God. It makes no sense to think that a morally accountable creature could “evolve” from a morally unaccountable one.

Although man was created very good, when Adam sinned, he was no longer righteous or holy.  God commanded him not to eat of a certain tree and Adam disobeyed God. As a result, he became mortal, as God could not allow him to live forever in his fallen state. Part of the “curse on the earth” in Genesis 3 due to Adam’s sin was physical death: “Till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)

It is important to know the difference between the curse on the earth in Genesis 3 and the curse of the Law in the Law of Moses.  Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law (Galatians 3:13); the curse of the Law included every form of sickness whether specified or not (Deuteronomy 28:61) as well as poverty, shame, defeat and many other undesirable things. We are redeemed from everything in that curse. See Deuteronomy 28:15 through the end of the chapter for the fullest, but not the only, exposition of the “curse” for not obeying the Law.

Christ did not redeem us from the curse on the earth in Genesis 3 in this present life, although ultimately we are redeemed from this curse, too:

• Childbirth is still painful; we are not redeemed from childbearing pain, though we are promised not to die in childbearing if we continue in faith, love and holiness with self-control (1 Timothy 2:15). Some people have put forth the idea that women do not have to feel pain during childbirth because we are redeemed from the curse, but the curse we are redeemed from is the curse from disobeying the Law, not the curse on the earth in Genesis 3.
• The husband still rules over the wife in natural matters, as Scripture makes clear (Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Peter 3:5 and elsewhere).
• Men still have to work for a living, you don’t get everything free like they did in the Garden of Eden.  Again, some have actually tried to teach that we don’t have to work; we can just supposedly “believe God” since we are redeemed from the curse.  Again, they have the two curses confused.  The New Testament still teaches that if anyone is unwilling to work, he should not eat!  (This does not mean you can’t enjoy a retirement if you’ve saved up for it, and God isn’t upset if you’re unemployed as long as you’re willing to work if you can find work!)
• We still die physically (Hebrews 9:27 and common sense tell you that); if you were redeemed from the curse on the earth, you would never die. On the other hand, you are redeemed from sickness, so it is not necessary to suffer an agonizing illness before you die!  A once-popular teacher in the Midwest tried to teach that you never have to die physically because you’re redeemed from the curse. (This teaching declined in popularity after he died.)

Sin has spread worldwide since Adam allowed it to enter the earth.

Romans 5:12:
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

Man today takes on the nature of Adam through sin. He is spiritually dead.  He cannot save himself. No man can save another man – a slave can’t free another slave.  He needs to be washed from his sins to be able to stand in the presence of a holy God.  Good works cannot raise a dead man.  It is necessary to be made alive (Ephesians 2:1, Ephesians 2:5) by being saved through faith (Ephesians 2:8) by receiving God’s Son (John 1:12). We will study more Scriptures on this subject in Lesson 6.

As a Christian, you are no longer a slave of sin (Romans 6:17). You were a slave of sin, but you aren’t one now!  The Gospel has freed you from sin so that you are no longer sin’s slave.

Sinners sin. That’s why they’re called sinners!

Believers believe. That’s why they’re called believers!

If you’re a believer, you’re no longer a sinner – it is now your nature to believe, not sin.

It is a waste of time to tell sinners to quit sinning. It is their nature to sin! They need to be born again so that they will no longer be slaves to sin.

That’s why it’s pitiful when church people shun “undesirable” people because of their sin. Jesus loved sinners and spent time with them, even to the point of being persecuted for being called a Friend of Sinners. God detests a “holier than thou” attitude toward sinners.  We have what we have by grace alone, and that same grace is available to the sinner.

It’s also pitiful for anyone to have the attitude, “Clean up your act and get in church!”  The sinner CAN’T clean up his act and that’s why he needs to be in church to hear the Gospel that alone can deliver him from his sin nature. Again, Jesus set an example for all of us in the compassionate way He dealt with sinners.

Women don’t have abortions because there’s a lack of picketers shouting, “Baby killer!”  They have abortions because they’re sinners!  Whether abortions are legal or not, people are going to have them anyway because they are sinners. We need to remember the root of the problem rather than trying to treat the symptoms.  The sinner’s sin is the symptom of the real problem – his dead spirit that is a slave of sin.  The sinner needs JESUS, not a lecture on right living, which he would not have the power to do anyway.  (See Romans 7 for Paul’s discourse on the hopelessness of trying to “clean up your own act.”)

Dealing with the sin is not the answer for the sinner – dealing with the root cause – needing Jesus to make them alive – is the answer!  Jesus will change them from the inside out and take away the desire to live a life of sin.

Paul warned the Colossians that laws and rituals are “of no value against the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:20-23). Legalism – do-and-don’t-lists – won’t stop people from sinning.  The sinner is a slave of sin until he is made alive in Christ. It is useless to preach dos and don’ts instead of preaching new life in Christ.

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