Adam and Eve: Temptation and Sin

Genesis 3:1-13, 23, 24

GOLDEN TEXT: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”—Ezekiel 18:9

ADAM’S first sin brought the penalty specified in this lesson; but it is not the thought that subsequent sins brought other additional penalties. The Bible proposition is that God, having made Adam perfect, required perfect obedience as the condition of his continuance in divine favor and everlasting life. One act of disobedience broke the covenant between God and Adam by which he was treated as a son and guaranteed everlasting life. (Hosea 6:7, margin) As a sinner he dropped from favor immediately, under the sentence, “dying thou shalt die.”—Genesis 2:17, margin

Nothing that Adam or his children could do subsequently could alter that sentence or recover them to covenant relationship with God. But death was the limit of the penalty; it could not be increased by any subsequent sin, just as a murderer sentenced to be hanged could receive no more severe penalty, whether he had committed one crime or a thousand. By a law of nature, heredity, Father Adam transmitted to his race a share of what he possessed, both good and bad. Hence we were all born in sin and “shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”—Psalms 51:5

If our Christian forefathers could but properly have studied and appreciated today’s lesson, they would have known what the Bible teaches respecting the “wages of sin,” and would have seen how seriously religious thought had drifted away from the divine testimony to “doctrines of devils.” (I Tim. 4:1) How plain the Scriptural account! How distinctly God forewarned our first parents that eating of the forbidden fruit would be disobedience and would bring upon them the death penalty!

We can see the force of the declaration that God, after they had disobeyed, drove them out of the Garden of Eden that they might die—that the penalty He pronounced against them might be accomplished. Had they continued in Eden, eating of its life-sustaining fruit, they would have continued to live indefinitely. In order that the sentence of death might be executed upon them, they were driven out and the angel’s flaming sword protected the entrance to paradise.

Lucifer was originally one of the holy angels of a very high order. The Scriptures indicate that he became disloyal and fell into sin and thus acquired the name of Satan, or adversary of God, as he is generally referred to in the Bible. In this lesson he is shown seeking to alienate the affections of our first parents from the Creator by tempting them to sin and in this way making them his servants, thus separating them from their Creator and bringing them under His penalty for their disobedience—death. Lucifer being a spirit being, would be unseen by Mother Eve, except as he would assume some kind of a material body: It suited his purposes to use a serpent and through it to tempt her.

It seems reasonable that the serpent spoke by signs, as we sometimes say, “actions speak louder than words.” The serpent, the record seems to indicate, ate of the forbidden fruit in the sight of the woman and then manifested its wisdom, its sagacity. Thus Mother Eve was deceived. She craved knowledge. She probably reasoned, why had God forbidden that particular fruit? It did not kill the serpent. Why should it kill her? The serpent seemed wiser than any of the other animals. Why should not that fruit make her wiser, too? Could it be that God wished to keep them in ignorance and for that reason had forbidden their eating of that special fruit?

Such disloyal thoughts should have been promptly rejected. Confidence in their Creator should have been complete. But the insidious poison worked. More and more Mother Eve craved knowledge and imagined what wonderful blessings it could bring. Probably she surmised that her husband would not consent, so she ate alone. She was not deceived as respects the wrong she was doing, but she was deceived regarding the result. Evidently the serpent was not poisoned by the fruit and she did not realize that the poison to her was that of disobedience, bringing the death sentence. Father Adam’s eating of the fruit was with full knowledge of the result. In love with his wife, he ate knowingly, preferring to die with her rather than to live without her.

The Bible distinctly tells us that God foreknew the fall of man, and that before the foundation of the world, in His plan, He had provided the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world and thus to effect, ultimately, a reconciliation for all of Adam’s race desirous of living righteously. God had a glorious purpose interwoven with His permission of sin, which the majority, even of Bible students evidently but faintly discerned until recent times.

Jesus intimated in one of His parables that shortly before the establishment of His Kingdom, His church would be like a company of virgins, all pure, justified, but some of them wise and some of them foolish. He intimated that at that time the wise virgin class would understand features of the divine plan previously kept secret. Evidently we are living in that time now, and it is on this account—and not because of superior wisdom—that the wise virgin class is today attaining an appreciation of God’s plan, including His reasons for having permitted the reign of sin and death amongst mankind for six thousand years and which is to be abolished by Messiah’s reign of righteousness during the seventh great thousand-year day.

QUESTIONS:

Do the Scriptures indicate that God has ever increased the wages of sin?

Who was Lucifer, and how did he use the serpent in placing temptation before Mother Eve?

Was Adam deceived? What induced him to partake of the forbidden fruit?

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