Many people can agree that something is deeply wrong with our world. We only have to read a newspaper, turn on the TV, or connect to the internet to know this is so. We not only hurt each other, but we harm ourselves in endlessly destructive ways.
Sin is a powerfully destructive force in the world. However, it's important to remember the impact is felt not only by those around us, but it deeply affects the heart of God. Sin's greatest impact is in our relationship with God. Not only do we fail to cherish and enjoy Him, but our rebellion against Him earns us the wages of sin: death and eternal separation from Him (Romans 6:23). The fact that God is holy means that he is perfectly just and cannot tolerate the destruction of His creation; the good world and humankind. God hates the sin that damages us, our lives, and our relationship with Him.
Genesis 2 ends with the man and woman in a garden, free to enjoy all of its delights, with only the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" off limits. We don't know how long Adam and Eve lived in this paradise, but the Bible records the rebellion that began to ripple outward throughout all creation.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, "You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" "You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" The man said, "The woman you have put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And 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." To the woman he said, "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it,' Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By 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." Genesis 3:1-19
The gift of freedom was given by God to both angels and human beings. For Adam and Eve, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented a choice — whether to humbly trust God and submit themselves to His gracious rule, or to turn from Him and go their own way. We know which choice they made, and the consequences have been passed down to us.
After their disobedience, the harmony and intimacy that existed between the man and woman quickly turns to blame and shame — the man blames the woman, the woman blames the serpent, and the serpent slithers away. They hide from God in fear as they begin to experience the consequences of their rebellion. Their intimacy with God is ruptured, and as death, sin, and rebellion spread out to infect every aspect of creation, the shalom that characterized God's good world evaporates. After Genesis 3, the next several chapters record the ways in which the world becomes increasingly tainted. God's good world (including the humans made in His image) remains, but it has been fundamentally altered.
There is not one aspect of human life that has not been affected by the entrance of sin and death into the world. Humanity had to find more and more words to describe the evils that beset them. Corruption. War. Hate. Disease. Selfishness. Greed. Deceit. Rape. Murder. Theft. Fear. Guilt.
Every relationship we were made for was fractured. Instead of intimacy with God, there is fear and hiding. Instead of intimacy between man and woman, there is shame, hurt and a struggle for power. Even creation itself groans under the weight of human disobedience.
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Romans 8:20-22
Instead of humble obedience to God and joyful delight in His creation, humanity became enslaved to the power of sin. Our inner natures have become bent towards evil. And the Scriptures teach that the end result of our sin is death.
Sometimes this death is the by-product of our own sinful choices. Sometimes it is the result of someone else's choice or just living in a marred world. Often it is a combination of all three. What is certain, we all experience the deadly consequences of sin. And as if that's not bad enough, the Bible says that unless our sin problem is addressed, we will experience spiritual death which means being separated from God both now and into eternity.
The good news is, that isn't the end of the story. Tomorrow, we'll see how God provides the rescue we so desperately need.