Once Adam and Eve sinned and ate the forbidden fruit everything about God’s creation changed. Sin has inescapable consequences. After they sinned, Adam and Eve recognized that they were naked, they lost their innocence, and they were ashamed so they tried to hide from God. Their perfect relationship with their Creator was broken. There are consequences to sin and God gave a punishment to everyone who was involved in the Fall. (Genesis 3:14-24)
Genesis 3:14-15
14So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
The serpent himself was cursed by God, his position was made lower than all other animals and he was forced to crawl along the ground. In addition, in the curse of the serpent God put enmity between the serpent and mankind.
Enmity is hatred or mutual hostility. The offspring of the woman (Jesus our Savior) would eventually crush the serpent’s head, but not before being injured by Satan’s bite (hung on the cross). With the Fall mankind’s great struggle with sin began and it ushered in man’s need for a savior.
Genesis 3:16
16To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Giving birth to children, which was meant to bring delight and happiness to the woman would be filled with pain. In addition, her relationship with her husband was changed. There would be struggle in the marriage relationship, something that God didn’t intend when he gave Eve to Adam as a helper.
Genesis 3:17-19
17To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, `You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Although God didn’t curse Adam, he did curse the ground. Instead of being able just to tend a garden as he did in the beginning, Adam would have to work hard to get the food needed to live. In cultivating the ground some of the plants would cause him endless trouble (thorns and thistles, i.e. weeds), instead of the good God intended.
Also, at this point God said that Adam would return to the ground. That meant he would die and that his physical body would break down into the elements it was made from. He was made from the elements in the dust and through death he would be buried and his body break down and become dust.
Genesis 3:20-24
20Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
God demonstrated that death entered the world when he killed an animal and took its skin to cover Adam and Eve’s shame (nakedness). That foreshadowed the death of Jesus on the cross to cover our sin and shame.
God banished them from the garden. Banish means to force out or remove someone from a particular place. Human nature became fallen and perverted. Before Adam sinned, he had only known God and what was good, but he had come to know evil. His relationships with God, his wife, and his environment were broken and changed. God had created mankind to live forever in a perfect place but because of the Fall he couldn’t allow this. God had to banish Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden so they wouldn’t eat from the tree of life and live forever.
Because of Adam’s sin, all people are born with a sin nature, so Adam’s offspring became sinners too. Sin doesn’t get better over time, it gets worse. If sin isn’t overcome people become slaves to it. If sinful people were able to live forever, they would commit unspeakable evil. God’s good creation was no longer perfect, and he wanted to limit the damage people could do to it and to one another.
God designed people to live in an eternal relationship with him and he still desires to have that relationship with people. Jesus came to restore man’s relationship with God and make a way for people to gain eternal life and overcome the power of sin in their lives.
Romans 5:18-19 says, 18Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. Jesus, by dying on the cross, crushed Satan’s head and provided a way for each of us to become right again. We become right (justified) when we put our faith in the work Jesus did on the cross when he paid the penalty for our sin.
There are milestones in a person’s life.
- Birth brings physical life. We are all born into a state of condemnation because of Adam’s sin. We are born with a sin nature which means we are inclined to do wrong.
- Faith brings spiritual life. Once we put our faith in Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross we are saved. That means we are justified and delivered from the penalty of our sin. It also means that the Holy Spirit begins to do a work in us delivering us from the power of sin and making us holy. We are given a new nature so we can choose to do what is right. If we don’t believe in Jesus we continue in our sin, separated from God.
- Death ushers a person into eternal life. For all eternity we will either dwell with God in glory in heaven or be separated from God and damned to hell. In hell there is no presence of God. That is what makes it hell.
- Overview Questions: What happened to the serpent because he deceived Eve? What happened to Eve because she ate the fruit? What happened to Adam because he listened to Eve? Why did God banish them from the garden?
- Thought Questions: Why did God have to punish Adam and Eve for their sin instead of forgiving them? What happens if there aren’t bad consequences for doing bad things? Why is everyone born a sinner? What do we have to do to be made right again?
- Prayer: Thank Jesus that because of his death on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin you can be in a right relationship with him. Thank him that when you suffer the consequences of your sin you see how much you need a savior.
- Week’s Memory Verse: Romans 5:18-19
18Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. What happened to all men because of Adam’s sin? What did Jesus do for men?
What was the consequence of the Fall?
Adam made us sinners; Jesus died to make us right.