Join us as we delve into one of Christianity’s most profound concepts—the fall of man. In this episode, we explore various perspectives on what the fall means across different religious beliefs including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. By examining the biblical narrative of Genesis, we find unexpected interpretations that challenge traditional predestination and free will.
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The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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If there is one concept that is central to Christian teaching, it is the fall of man. Nancy Peercy thought that there were three essentials to a Christian worldview. They were creation, fall, redemption. Well, the concept of the fall of man may be central to the Christian faith, but oddly, it isn’t universally understood the same way. The story of what happened is known well enough. God created man, male and female, in his own image and declared that they, like everything else he had made, were very good. He created the Garden of Eden around man and woman in an altogether safe and beautiful place. He told them to be fruitful and multiply, which I gather from the fact that they were naked, they went to work on soon enough. There were two trees in the garden. the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were allowed to eat of all the trees in the garden except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then along comes the serpent and tempted the woman to eat of that tree. She did. So did Adam. When God learned of what they had done, they were banished from the garden. The entire episode seems to be what is called in Christian literature, the fall. Now, from this all-too-brief story, and some later comments in the Bible, a surprising number of belief systems have arisen. Judaism, and Islam for that matter, interpret the account of the Fall as being simply historical. Adam and Eve’s disobedience would have already been known to God even before He created them. Thus, they don’t draw any particular theological implications for human nature. They conclude, quite simply, because of Adam’s actions, he and his wife were removed from the garden, forced to work, suffer pain in childbirth, and die. However, after expelling them from the garden, according to Judaism, God provided that people who honor God and follow God’s laws would be rewarded, while those who acted wrongly would be punished. That’s the Jewish view, and the Islamic view is quite similar to it. Now, this is surprising to me in a way, because not a few Christians also believe that the fall was known to God even before he created man. There are, it seems, two ways of looking at this. One, given the fact of free moral agency, the sin of man was inevitable. In other words, God knew that this was going to happen. In the same way you know that your dog is going to bark at a cat, not necessarily that it’s a causal thing or that you have written it that way or the history demands that it be that way. It’s just one of those things that’s going to happen because of the nature of things. The other way of looking at it is history is already written. Thus, the fall was not merely inevitable. It was written. It had happened. You know, it was down there in the whole realm of the videotape or the DVD that is human history. And God had looked at it ahead of time, knew this is the way it’s going to go. And so it started. Now, this obviously laps over into one’s belief about predestination. Oddly, the fall is not mentioned in Scripture in terms of the fall. You never find that expression used concerning that. So, what were the real consequences of the sin of the first man? Well, that too is clear enough on the page. Genesis 3, 14. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon your belly shall you go. Dust shall you eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. It shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Now, through this passage, we need to ask, what changed? In this case, the curse was on the serpent. He or she, as the case may be, because some ancient traditions have the serpent being a female, he or she was changed in nature. But then to the woman he says, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception, and sorrow shall you bring forth children, and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you. Now, what’s interesting here, no curse is mentioned. There are some who believe that because of the fall, the physical nature of woman was changed. Now, I don’t know what they thought would happen in childbirth before the fall. Did they think she would just pop it out, that it would be painless? There’d be no work involved in it? I don’t know. Now, an alternative explanation to that is that the woman was denied access to the tree of life and its healing leaves. Childbirth would be a labor in any case, but it would have been much easier with access to the leaves, the fruit, and the herbs of the garden. Thus, woman’s nature was not changed. Merely her environment and her circumstances were changed, and as a result of that, a consequence, not so much a punishment, but a consequence of her error, she would now have a lot more trouble bearing children than she would have had if she had been obedient and stayed in the garden. But what about Adam? Well, to Adam, God said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife. I think I’d better stay away from the jokes that follow on the heels of that. You have hearkened to the voice of your wife, and you have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake. In sorrow shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Now, there’s a distinction here, and I think it’s important to notice what he said to the serpent. Because unlike the serpent, man was not cursed, and there’s no suggestion that man or his nature were changed. The ground would be changed, cursed, I guess, if you will. But even here, we have to wonder whether the ground itself was changed or the change was in that ground he would have access to. In other words, when you’re in the garden, it’s going to be one way. When you go outside this garden, the land is going to be different. Okay, that’s something I think I can understand. Now, in a way, that would be a curse on Adam, but it is, again, a consequence of Of his actions, not necessarily a punishment for his actions. It’s an interesting distinction, but it’s important. The idea was Adam should do as it was told, stay in the garden, and he would have had a different bit of ground to work. Now, perhaps what follows on will clarify this. He speaks of this ground in verse 18 and said, “…thorns also and thistles it will bring forth to you. You will eat of the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and unto dust shall you return.” And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Now, up to this point, everything is really consonant with the idea that because of their error, the consequences were they would be outside the Garden of Eden and life would be totally different for them. Going on, to Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothe them. And the Lord God said, Behold, a man has become as one of us to know good and evil. And now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Get him out of here. So we know Adam was sent out of the garden to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden carabine and a flaming sword that turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. Now, all this is very simple until you start trying to explain the details. And that depends in a very large measure on the philosophy you have developed from attempting to reconcile other scriptures with the questions of life. Now, there are three ways of looking at this. Grab a pencil and a pad. I want to give you some information. And when I come back, I’ll tell you what those three are.
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Does everyone die because of Adam’s sin? Did the fall of man change human nature? To receive a free white paper taken from Ronald Dart’s book, The Lonely God, titled Understanding the Fall of Man, simply write or call and ask for your copy. There is no cost or obligation. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44. That’s 1-888-242-5344. And please tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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Now, I developed briefly three different ways of looking at the fall of man. One, strict predestination. In other words, Adam and Eve had no choice. It was written. That’s what they were going to do, and they did it. The second is a fall that involved a choice on the part of man, but it involved then a change in man’s nature. Remember, something really changed from what might have been to what was. The third is very similar up to a point, but it involved a choice that man made that involved a change not in his nature, but in his environment. By strict predestination, I mean the divine foreordaining of all that will happen, a divine timeline. It’s been particularly associated with the teachings of St. Augustine and of John Calvin. In this view, man is not free. In the last two, he had a choice, and he chose badly. Now, there may be something I don’t understand, because after all, these arguments are convoluted and complex, and they’ve been running on for thousands of years, at least hundreds of years. Now, there may be something I don’t understand, but it seems to me that in the case of strict predestination, there was no fall. How could there be? It was determined from the outset that man would sin and be banished. In a way, he was created in what they call a fallen state. The problem I would have with that, logically, is that God created man and woman, put them in the Garden of Eden, and said, hey, they are very good. I like what I have done here. So it strains my credulity to think that they were created in a fallen state or predestined at creation to fall. But in the case of the last two I enumerated, a fall that involved a change in man’s nature— and a fall that involved a change in man’s environment. In both cases, man had a choice and made the wrong one. He was told the consequences of it beforehand, and he didn’t believe it. Remember Nancy Percy’s three-part worldview, creation, fall, redemption. And actually, without a fall in some meaning of the term, redemption would be meaningless. Even as a teenage theologian, I could see that there was something wrong in giving me a law I couldn’t keep and then punishing me for not keeping it. You know, you think about that for a while, and you can see why a simple, logical, uncomplicated conclusion you could draw from this. How could I possibly be seen as guilty when I was predestined to do this and had no choice? Now, of course, in the really hardcore predestinarianism, I think there is a belief that people are popped out of the womb, and they take that first breath of life, and at that moment of time, they are already headed for heaven or hell. And there’s absolutely nothing in the world that can be done to change it. And this is a pretty hard doctrine. I don’t think that many people hold it quite that strictly anymore. But somewhere back down the line, that’s the way it was looking at it. And then, of course, if you had no choice, why not just throw out the charges? Why go through the agony of redemption? All you’ve got to do is, if man says, I’m sorry, all God’s got to do is say, oh, that’s all right, and let’s write this thing off. Now, I know that theologians have explanation for all this, but unless you can explain it to a serious-minded teenager, there’s something wrong with your theology. Those who argue for strict predestination are faced with some classic dilemmas. Consider the events that followed the fall, if that’s what it was. Genesis 3, verse 8. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day. You know, this is right after they have taken the fruit of the tree, their eyes were open, and all of a sudden they knew they were naked and made themselves some fig leaf aprons. Okay? All right, here comes God walking in the garden after that. They hid from the presence of God among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called to Abraham and says, Where are you? And he said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. And God said, who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of that tree where I have commanded you you should not eat? Now, if God knows everything, then he not only knew what they had done, he knew it before he made them. And not only that, he knew where they were hiding. I would have expected him to come into the garden and saying, you did it, didn’t you? Come on out. I see you over there behind that tree. You can’t hide from me. And I know what you have done, and I know who did it, and here’s what we’re going to do. Didn’t work out. Why did he do it this way? Well, you know, I think there’s an important distinction that needs to be made here, and I’ll come back to it in a moment. Does God really know everything, or does he know everything he wants to know? Strict predestination presents God as pretending not to know when he had to know all too well and knew before it ever started. That just doesn’t seem right. Part of the problem is another word that appears nowhere in the Bible, omniscience, which means all-knowing, all-seeing. Here’s a question for your next coffee break. Which of the following ideas limits God? Omniscience or God not knowing the outcome for sure until it happens? Now, Oddly, a lot of people will think that, you know, God not knowing the outcome, well, that’s limiting God. What you may not realize is that in a curious way, the advocates of an omniscient God do not give him the freedom to not know and not see things he doesn’t want to see. Here we have God presented to us in the Garden of Eden, and frankly, it makes perfect sense. He made man and woman. They were naked. They were not ashamed. And boy, I expect they looked good to each other. And God did not hide in the bushes and watch. He went away. He left them entirely on their own, and he chose not to know and not to see what they were about to do. That could make sense, couldn’t it, of the events that took place here? I think it was Isaiah who made this comment. He said, God’s… arm is not shortened that he can’t reach you, his ear is not dull that he can’t hear you, or his eyes dim that he can’t see you, but your sins have separated between your God that he will not hear. Now, what he seems to be saying here is that there is a situation where God simply refuses to look at it. I can understand that. Things can become so bad. I mean, what are you going to do? Require God to be sitting there watching while they cut this guy’s head off, this news reporter over the Muslims did it? Does he have to watch that? Does God have to watch the gas chambers in a Nazi crematorium? Does he have to look at that? No, he doesn’t. He can make the choice to walk away from it and have nothing whatever to do with it. You know, one of the most sobering truths, in fact, it’s almost a terrifying truth that arises from the Genesis story is this. God made man free. You know, you almost need to go find yourself a quiet place, the back porch where you can stare out across, you know, landscaping and think about that for a while. What does it mean to say God made man free? Well, one thing is for certain, that if God made man free, then predestination, that’s the strictest kind of predestination, is not possible. Because as long as man has a choice, he can turn this way, he can turn that way. And you know, if a man is not free, then nothing makes sense. Not creation, not the fall, not redemption, none of it even plays. God gave man instructions and knowledge sufficient for the day, and he could have done it. And it seems pointless to blame Adam for our fallen state, if that’s where we are. When had we been in his shoes, we would surely have done exactly the same thing. In any case, early Christian theologians made certain assumptions about all this and then built on those assumptions. For example, the doctrine of original sin says, As St. Augustine interpreted, St. Paul provides that the fall caused a fundamental change in human nature. So that all the descendants of Adam are born in sin and can only be redeemed by divine grace. Sacrifice was the only means by which humanity could be redeemed after the fall. Jesus, who was without sin, died on the cross. He was the ultimate redemption for the sin of mankind. It was interesting to me that this explanation is a three-step process. You have the doctrine developed by Augustine, who interpreted Paul, who was interpreting Genesis. But we have just seen in Genesis that the change was in man’s environment, not in man himself. I don’t know about you, but this leaves me with some serious questions. For one thing, I’m pushed back into my teenage theology. Why am I considered a sinner when I haven’t even had a chance to sin? Here I am. I’ve popped out of the womb. I’m brand new in the world. Haven’t even circumcised me yet. My hair is barely on my head. I haven’t done anything except cry. And a crying for us is hungry. That’s not a sin. How can I be considered a sinner when I haven’t even had a chance to not sin? You know, in its extreme form, this led to infant baptism, which is pretty common, and even baptism of the unborn. You know, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how a very small error made, you know, 1900 years ago, then built upon with all the best intentions and some of the additional errors could end up leading a person way off the mark. They taught me in the Navy when I was learning how to shoot a rifle that the tiniest little nudge on the difference in the direction on the muzzle of the rifle could lead you way off 200 yards down the range. So it’s important that you be dead on. And you can easily see how a small mistake made 2,000 years ago could take us way off the mark as well. One might be advised, well advised, to keep it simple. Stay with me through this short break, and I’ll be right back.
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For a free CD of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled, Understanding the Fall. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free.
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1-888-BIBLE-44 That’s 1-888-242-5344 You know, you hardly need a doctrine of original sin to account for every man’s need of a Savior. And the fact that all have sinned, as Paul put it, can arise from the simple separation of man from God that occurred when Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden and away from the tree of life. It’s our isolation that dooms us, not a change in our nature. And there’s another simple fact followed to a logical conclusion that will clarify it. Adam and Eve disbelieved God and refused to obey God and sinned before the fall. There’s no need to postulate a change in human nature after the fall. All you need is the terrible freedom of man, followed by isolation from God, and you have explained the whole thing. Now, Paul has been invoked in this discussion, so we might as well take a look at what he had to say. His letter to the Romans explores his doctrine of salvation, of our redemption, and all that very, very thoroughly. You can take the fifth chapter as a case in point. I won’t be able to cover it all in this program, and I’ll let you read it for yourself. But he begins by saying, therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. By the way, I’m reading from the New Revised Standard Version today. Not only that, he said, but we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character, and character produces hope. Now, this is really interesting when you think the whole thing through, because, again, if all this stuff is written in advance, if hardcore predestination is true— What do you mean produce endurance and endurance producing character and character produces hope? That’s all done and written by God before you start. Just drift, fella. It isn’t going to make any difference what you do. He said hope doesn’t disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person. Somebody might do that. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In other words, we didn’t have to stop sinning before he would make his sacrifice for us. We were still doing it. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, we will be saved by his life. You know, this is a striking example of parallel structure, and it’s worth calling your attention to it. Here’s the way he put it. While we were still weak, Christ died for the ungodly. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While we were enemies, we were reconciled by the death of Christ. Now, he isn’t talking about three categories of people. In parallelism like this in the Bible, it is just three ways of saying precisely the same thing for the sake of emphasis. Babies are weak, but they aren’t ungodly, and they can’t be sinners because they haven’t started making any choices, and they certainly haven’t hardened themselves into becoming enemies of God. But the poor kids are born into a world that has, in the main, turned its back on God. What is God going to do about the kids who die too early to make any choices at all? Well, according to a complex argument in 1 Corinthians 7, they are made holy by one believing parent. Parallelism is an old feature of Hebrew literature, and this is a classic. It is three ways of saying the same thing for emphasis. If you watch for it when you’re reading the Psalms, it will help you understand some words you might not otherwise know. More than that, Paul said, “…we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all. Because, now right here we come across something I think that’s very important and draws a bright line for understanding this. Yeah, sin came into the world through a gateway. And that gateway was one man, the first sinner. And death followed along with it because he had to go out of the garden and he grew old and died and so have all the rest of us. He said death spread to all because, not because Adam sinned, except for the fact that we got isolated from God, but because all have sinned. Notice, death did not spread to all men because of Adam’s sin. It was because everybody sinned. I’ll have to let you read the rest of the fifth chapter of Romans yourself. Paul does not succeed in clearing the murky waters for us. The Romans themselves may have understood it more perfectly. One plain result of what is called the fall was the exile of man from the presence of God. And without God, there is no way we can get it right.
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