Read Genesis 3:1-24.

Introduction⤒🔗

A T.V. commercial once featured two men talking together at a poolside party. The other guests were milling around, engaged in their own conversation, ignoring the two men seated beside the pool. Amidst the chatter and laughter of the party, the conversation of these two gentlemen turned to the stock market. The one informed his companion of the latest advice he received from his broker; meanwhile, the party carried on around them, ignoring their interchange and leaving them to their own world of solitude.

When the first speaker finished reporting on his broker’s latest financial counsel, he asked his companion, “And who is your broker?”

The other replied, “My broker is E. F. Hutton, and E. F. Hutton says...

As soon as he announced the name of his broker as E. F. Hutton, the whole party came to an abrupt halt: the band stopped playing; every other conversation ceased in mid-sentence; and every ear was intently tuned in to what E. F. Hutton had to say. The commercial ended with the attention of every guest focused on this one gentleman who was wise enough to have E. F. Hutton as his broker: everybody—guests, waiters, band members—wanted to know what E. F. Hutton had to say. The announcer then broke the complete silence of anticipation with the closing remark, “When E. F. Hutton speaks, people listen.”

The spiritual equivalent of that commercial might be stated as follows: When the LORD God speaks, we had better listen. Our forebears, Adam and Eve, failed to heed the Word of God and, consequently, forfeited the divine blessing and incurred the divine curse for themselves and for the succeeding generations of their descendants.

As we study Genesis 3, let us give careful attention to its message: we must reverently heed the Word of God: paying attention to it, taking it seriously, believing it and obeying it; because to do otherwise results in dire consequences.

Reverently Heed God’s Word, rather than Listen to the Devil←⤒🔗

The serpent, (as he is employed by the devil), is described as being “more subtle than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made” (3:1). Note the words of Martin Luther in referring to the devil: his craft (i.e. his craftiness) and power are great; and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.

The first thing the devil does is seek to disorient Eve and throw her into confusion. The LORD’s command is very clear and straightforward: “From every tree of the garden you may freely eat; ¹⁷but you shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17). Note: With regard to “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and the whole matter of evil, the reader is referred to the brief appendix found at the conclusion of this present Bible study. With regard to the question, Was there any death before the Fall?, the reader is referred to the Appendix that accompanies this Bible study.

The LORD's commandment was very clear and straightforward, but the devil’s initial question to Eve is very vague and elusive: "Now the serpent said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’” (Gen. 3:1).

Next, the devil seeks to discredit God. He says to the woman: “You shall not surely die; ⁵for God knows that in the day you eat the fruit of that tree your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4-5). The devil implies that man is independent of God our Creator. According to the devil, God may declare that you will surely die as a consequence of disobeying His Word, but such is not the case. You have an existence that is independent from God, and God is not able to carry out His threat, He can’t touch you. But in contrast to the devil’s lie, we have the inspired testimony of the Apostle Paul, recorded in Acts 17:28, “in [God] we live and move and have our being.”

The devil’s false proportion, “you shall be like God,” is the heart of the human dilemma: The Christian struggles with the temptation to usurp the place of God, and he hates the fact that he seeks to attempt such an undertaking; the unbeliever embraces the temptation to usurp the place of God, and he hates the fact that he fails to achieve such an undertaking.

Now the devil proceeds to accuse God of seeking to deny man any personal self-fulfillment out of a divine selfishness and petty jealousy. God does not want you to become like Him: He does not want you to realize your potential, He does not want to share with you what He has: God is like a self-centered parent who does not want his child to ever grow up and have an independent life of his own. But contrast the devil’s insinuation with Genesis 2:16-17a,

¹⁶And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘From every tree of the garden you may freely eat; ^17abutyou shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The LORD God is willing to share His entire creation with man, but man must acknowledge that God his Creator is Lord and Master of all, and man must bow to that absolute lordship.

Having slandered God, and having portrayed Him as being both petty and impotent, the devil now invites Eve to indulge her desires: “the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired [or, coveted] as a means of making one wise” (Gen. 3:6a). Eve found the forbidden fruit to be desirable, attractive, and promising, holding the potential of introducing her to new vistas of experience and fulfillment and adventure.

The question may be asked, Where was Adam all this while? Genesis 3:6b indicates that Adam was right at his wife’s side, allowing her to dialogue with the serpent and following her into sin: “she took of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband with her [i.e. who was present with her], and he ate it.”

Whereas Eve sinned by commission, Adam had already sinned by omission. He had failed to be the guardian and protector of God’s garden (cp. Gen. 2:15); and he had failed to provide godly leadership for his wife. Adam had failed to discern or defend against the anomaly of an animal speaking, and speaking against the LORD God. According to Genesis 2:19-20, no animal was able to communicate with Adam on his level; but now in Genesis 3:1, here is the serpent communicating on a human level, and doing so in defiance of God.

Adam and Eve had both allowed themselves to be enticed and seduced by the words of the devil. The devil’s message is: Be your own boss, live your own life, become your own independent self. But they became slaves to sin and to the devil:

^1b...you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ²in which you once walked in accord with the course of this world, which is in accord with the ruling prince of the air, that is, the spirit who is now working in the sons of disobedience. Eph. 2:1b-2

The devil’s message: Think for yourself, live by your own standard, don’t submit to the Word of God. But by rejecting the Word of God Adam and Eve were accepting the word of the devil as the standard by which to make their choices and conduct their lives, and it led them on the road to perdition.

Reverently heed God’s Word, rather than listening to the devil. Your adversary, the devil, may well appear in the form of a bright, beautiful, fascinating serpent. But bear in mind that, no matter how beautiful and fascinating he may appear, you are dealing with a deadly poisonous snake:

⁴⁴...the devil was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature: for he is a liar, and the father of lies. Jn. 8:44

Reverently Heed God’s Word, because the LORD will Enforce His Word←⤒🔗

The relationships the LORD intended for mankind were tragically destroyed. The horizontal relationship between the man and the woman was now characterized by shame. Compare Genesis 3:7, which describes their condition after their sin, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves,” with Genesis 2:25, which describes their relationship before their sin, “they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” Furthermore, their relationship was now characterized by accusation, “the man said, ‘The woman whom you gave me to be with me, she gave me some of the fruit of the tree, and I ate"” (Gen. 3:12), and conflict, “To the woman [the LORD] said, ‘your desire shall be for your husband [i.e. to usurp his position of headship], but he shall rule over you"” (Gen. 3:16).

The vertical relationship between man and God was now characterized by alienation, guilt and fear: “they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and the man and his wife hid themselves among the trees of the garden from the presence of the LORD God” (Gen. 3:8). Here is the first recorded instance of man’s effort to shield himself from God by hiding behind nature; the last book of the Bible, Revelation, records man’s final futile effort to hide behind nature:

¹⁵Then the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the generals, and the wealthy, and the mighty, and every slave and free man, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. ¹⁶They say to the mountains and to the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, ¹⁷for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?'Rev. 6:15-17

Other such efforts on the part of man to shield himself from God by hiding behind nature include evolution, the attempt by man to push God out of His creation, putting nature in the place of God, and pantheism, the attempt by man to conceal God within nature, viewing God as part of nature.

Verses 8-10 become a preview of the last judgment: The LORD God comes visibly into the midst of His creation (vs. 8). The LORD summons man to appear before Him (vs. 9), and man is compelled to do so (vs. 10). The LORD systematically pronounces sentence against each of the offenders. Each one seeks to minimize his sin by passing on the blame to another: Adam to Eve and Eve to the serpent (vs. 12-14). But each one receives the due penalty for their sin: first the serpent, then Eve, and then Adam (vs. 14-19).

The sentence of death, which God had forewarned to be the punishment for disobedience, was enacted against the man. The man and his wife were banished from the blessed presence and fellowship of God, the LORD God drove the man out of Eden (vs. 23-24). Thus, the man was barred from life (vs. 22) and consigned to death (vs. 19). But note that on the first Judgment Day, as it occurred in the Garden of Eden, the sequence was banishment (vs. 23-24) followed by eventual death (vs. 19). Now the sequence is death immediately resulting in eternal banishment: “it is appointed for men once to die, and after this comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27). Note also the words of our Lord Jesus as He describes the judgment:

⁴¹Then shall he also say to those on the left hand, Depart from me—you who are cursed—into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴⁶And they shall go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal life. Matt. 25:41,46

By means of that first Judgment Day, the man was given a model and preview of what hell is like: banishment from the blessing of God and exposure to the righteous curse of God. But he was also given an opportunity to return to God and escape his final destiny in hell.

Let us reverently heed God’s Word, because the LORD will enforce His holy Word. The words of Numbers 23:19 apply to every word that the LORD has spoken: “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”

Reverently Heed God’s Word, because It Reveals the Only Way of Salvation←⤒🔗

The fact that the LORD banished Adam from the garden, preventing him from eating of the tree of life, was not only an act of judgment, it was also an act of mercy. If Adam, in his state of sin (his knowing evil), had eaten of the tree of life, he would have been locked into that cursed state forever.

The LORD further demonstrated His mercy and His desire for man’s salvation when He made a covering for Adam and his wife. Earlier, they had futilely sought to make their own covering, “they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves” (Gen. 3:7). But now the LORD, in His mercy, gives His divine provision, “the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments made of skins, and so he clothed them” (Gen. 3:21). It is a provision that required substitutionary sacrifice, compare Hebrews 9:22b and 1 Peter 1:18-19,

^22b...without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Heb. 9:22b

...you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ.1 Pet. 1:18-19

The LORD himself took the initiative to come and seek Adam: “the LORD God called to the man, and asked him, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen. 3:9). In the light of this divine seeking of man in his sin, note the way in which the Lord Jesus Christ describes His divine ministry, “the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Lk. 19:10).

The sentence of judgment the LORD pronounces upon the serpent contains for Adam the promise of the Savior: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall crush your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). Here is the promise of the incarnation: the Savior will be of the offspring of the woman. Here is the promise of salvation by the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ the Savior: the serpent shall bruise the Savior’s heel—in one sense, that was a deathblow, because a venomous serpent normally strikes his victim in the heel; but in another sense, that was a non-lethal blow, being only a blow to the heel and not to the head. Finally, here is the promise of complete victory and salvation: the Savior shall crush the serpent’s head, which is to inflict a fatal blow.

Adam recognized the LORD’s promise and believed it. This becomes evident from the name he now gives his wife. He previously had named her “woman” (Gen. 2:23), now he names her “Eve.” “Eve” means “life;” “she would become the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20). This is especially in reference to the divine promise stated in Genesis 3:15, that the Savior would come from the woman to give life to her and Adam and all their believing offspring.

Let us reverently heed God’s Word, because it reveals the only way of salvation,

¹Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest attention to the things that were heard, so that we do not drift away from them, ^3ahow shall we escape, if we disregard so great a salvation?Heb. 2:1-3a

Conclusion←⤒🔗

The message very dramatically conveyed by the T. V. commercial was, “When the broker E. F. Hutton speaks, people listen.” The spiritual equivalent of that commercial might be stated as follows: When the LORD our God speaks, we had better listen.

Discussion Questions←⤒🔗

1. Step by step, describe the serpent’s strategy for seducing Eve into an act of disobedience to God’s commandment. Can you identify with Eve, do you recognize the devil employing the same strategy against you?

¹Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, Indeed, has God said, You shall not eat from any tree of the garden? ²And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; ³but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, or else you will die. ⁴But the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die; ⁵for God knows that in the day you eat the fruit of that tree your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be like God, knowing good and evil. ⁶And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired as a means of making one wise, she took of its fruit, and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it. Gen. 3:1-6

2. Compare and contrast Eve’s sin with that of Adam. Do we tend to limit our view of sin to only the type of sin Eve committed? How does Adam’s sin reveal another dimension to our culpability before God? Are we often times more guilty of sinning like Adam, than like Eve?

3. How did our first parents’ disobedience affect all of mankind’s relationships? In what ways do you see these adverse effects of the Fall affecting your own relationship with God? With your spouse? With your fellow man?

4. According to Genesis 3:8, how did Adam and Eve seek to hide from God? See, also, Rev. 6:15-17 In what ways does sinful man seek to do the same as Adam and Eve and mankind as described in Revelation? Do you ever seek to hide from God; if so, how do you seek to do so? Can you ever do so successfully? See Gen. 3:8-10.

⁸Then they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and the man and his wife hid themselves among the trees of the garden from the presence of the LORD God. Gen. 3:8

¹⁵Then the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the generals, and the wealthy, and the mighty, and every slave and free man, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. ¹⁶They say to the mountains and to the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, ¹⁷for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?'Rev. 6:15-17

⁸Then they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and the man and his wife hid themselves among the trees of the garden from the presence of the LORD God. ⁹And the LORD God called to the man, and asked, Where are you? ¹⁰And the man said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself. Gen. 3:8-10

5. List the ways in which the LORD God demonstrated His mercy to Adam and Eve. How is the gospel poetically foretold in Genesis 3:15? Have you availed yourself of God’s mercy extended to you in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, the divine Savior sent by God the Father?

¹⁵And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall crush your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Gen. 3:15

Appendix A: Some Thoughts on the “Problem” of Evil←⤒🔗

It should be noted that Scripture does not speak of “the tree of the knowledge of good or evil;” rather, it speaks of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” It appears that good and evil are described as being coupled together, as opposed to being viewed as two distinct entities, independent of each other. This seems to suggest that evil is not an independent entity; it is, rather, the eternal converse of good. (Indeed, Good/goodness is not a created entity, it is an attribute of God; hence, it is eternal. Thus, evil may be viewed as its eternal converse.) By way of illustration: We should not represent good and evil as being two separate coins; rather, we should view them as being one coin with an obverse (head) and converse (tail) side (or, dimension).

In the case of the coin, the converse side has the potential of being revealed. That potential is actualized/realized by turning the coin over. In the case of the “coin” of good and evil, evil, likewise, has the potential of being actualized. The actualizing of evil is accomplished and manifested by means of a moral choice. But evil could never be actualized by God, because God is good and He cannot deny Himself.

In the case of the devil, God made a creature with the capacity for moral choice; (as with the attributes of good and evil, the moral choice of compliance with God’s will is inherently accompanied by the converse, the choice of non-compliance). It appears that God ordained for the devil to make the moral choice of non-compliance with the divine will, which would itself be the actualizing of evil. But, we would maintain, the Creator was able to ordain such an event, such a moral choice, without violating His own divine attribute of goodness and without abrogating the creature’s moral accountability.

He is able to do so because the distinction between the Creator and the creature is not merely one of degree, but of kind: The Creator is One whose scope of action far exceeds that with which He has endowed His creatures. One evident example of this is the biblical doctrine of creation ex nihilo. The fact that the Creator has brought into existence His vast creation, calling it into being, producing by His word what was not there before (cf. Psl. 33:6; Heb. 11:3), something that is inconceivable for man to even comprehend, let alone perform, is one example of this vast distinction between the Creator and the creature. Our Creator’s options for action are greater and much more far-reaching than those with which He has endowed His creatures. If we may phrase it like this, our Creator lives and acts in dimensions of reality and decision-making that afford Him alternatives and legitimate options that are beyond the experience of His creatures.

We may seek to express this distinction between the Creator and the creature by means of an illustration: Whereas a pick-up truck does not have the capacity to carry both a washing machine and a dryer at the same time, a trailer truck with a 55-foot box has ample capacity to carry both appliances and a lot more! It can do things the pick-up truck can’t.

Thus, one of the options at our Creator’s command is that of ordaining the devil to exercise the moral choice of non-compliance with the Creator’s will, which itself is an actualization of evil. Based on the Scripture’s description of the Creator’s moral attributes, we would conclude that one feature of this particular divine option is that its implementation neither violates the Creator’s attribute of goodness nor does it abrogate the creature’s moral accountability pertaining to the choice he makes.

Thus, when considering the matter of our Creator ordaining the actualization of evil, we must bear in mind the vast distinction between the Creator and the creature, and the fact that it is not only a matter of degree, but of kind—and all that that distinction entails. Furthermore, when we raise questions with regard to this mysterious subject, we must not lose sight of the fact that our Creator poses a question of His own, “Will you condemn me, so that you may be justified?” (Job 40:8b)

Why our Creator determined on such a course of action for His creation and for His creatures, is something we may learn on the day we stand before Him in His immediate presence. The Apostle Paul declares, “At present, I know [things] partially; but then I will know fully, just as I am fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12b). We must also humbly accept our LORD’s word, when Scripture declares, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever...” (Deut. 29:29a)

Romans 9:19-24, however, may provide some guidance to a greater understanding:

¹⁹You will say to me then, Why does he still find fault? for who has resisted his will? ²⁰But, indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me like this? ²¹Does not the potter have authority over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? ²²What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, ²³and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he had prepared beforehand for glory, ²⁴even us whom he called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

Note: The tense of the Greek verb, "fitted for destruction, “is ambiguous; it may also be translated, "vessels fit for destruction. “The ambiguity seems to be intentional, emphasizing the fact that God's judgment is not without just reason.

Let us take note of several of the main points being made in this passage of Scripture:

First, as the Creator, God has a sovereign right over His creatures (vs. 20-21.) Here we must again bear in mind the distinction between the Creator and the creature, and that this distinction is not merely one of degree, but of kind.

Second, God has chosen to reveal His righteous wrath against evil (vs. 22.)

Third, God has also chosen to reveal His glory, doing so in the display of His mercy (vs. 23-24.)

Earlier in this chapter, Scripture affirms the absolute righteousness of God our Creator, inquiring, “Is there unrighteousness with God?” and answering with a resounding, “God forbid!” (Rom. 9:14b)

Appendix B: Was There Animal Death Prior to The Fall?←⤒🔗

A Good Creation←↰⤒🔗

The basic question is this: Is nonhuman death a result of man’s Fall, or was it a normal feature of the Pre-Fall order consistent with the goodness of creation? Several exegetical and theological considerations suggest the latter view.

First, in the context of a poetic meditation on the creation period, Psalm 104 speaks of the predatory relationship between carnivorous animals and their prey: The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God (vs. 21). The immediate context in which this statement is imbedded speaks of the appointment of the moon and sun for seasons (vs. 19-23). When the sun goes down and it becomes dark, the predatory beasts creep about searching for food (vs. 20-21). In the morning when the sun rises, they lie down in their dens (vs. 22), and man goes forth to his labor until evening (vs. 23). This description of the nighttime hunting habits of beasts of prey is contextually embedded in a paragraph that refers to the creation week, clearly before the Fall. Verse 24 of Psalm 104 praises the LORD for His works of creation: O LORD, how many are your works! In wisdom you have made them all: The earth is full of your riches [or, creatures].

Psalm 104:21 states that the lions seek their food from God. Such provision is a testimony to the goodness of the Creator in caring for His creation. This theme is elaborated several verses later when the Psalmist praises God for His concern for His creatures: These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things (vs. 27-28). There is no suggestion in this text that we are to view the provision of prey for carnivorous beasts as anything but a blessing from the hand of a good Creator. It certainly is not pictured as an abnormality resulting from the entrance of sin into the world.¹

We humans can maintain a normal level of activity eating only fruit and vegetable products, but only for this simple reason: we possess the intellect and technology to process vegetable matter into high-calorie, highly nutritive, low-fiber form. The only option for large, active mammals in the wild is to eat herbivores, the one significant natural source of processed vegetable matter. They could not survive or thrive otherwise.

What about the “hunted” herbivores? They actually benefit, too. Carnivorous activity maximizes the quality of life for the herbivores as a whole. As game wardens will verify, a lack of carnivorous activity leads to the spread of disease, to starvation, and to genetic decline.²

While death and extinction from a human perspective seem horrible, they also bring certain benefits. For humanity to be provided with an abundance of limestone, marble, ozone, oxygen, water, top soil, coal, oil, gas, salt, phosphate, gypsum, etc., millions of generations of life would need to predate us. Because the physical realm changes with time, God apparently created different species at different times to suit the changing environment. For instance, only the most primitive and tiny forms of life could survive the eight-hour-per-day rotation period of early earth. Because highly advanced life requires a more delicately balanced set of characteristics for survival than primitive life, such life forms are much more vulnerable to extinction. But when such species became extinct, God created new ones, sometimes the same, and more often different, (according to environmental and ecological conditions and divine timing), to replace them.

What we can deduct from all this is that God created humanity at the end of the window of time for life on earth so that we can be blessed and equipped with the maximum possible resources.³

The Presence of Death and Pain in the Original Creation←↰⤒🔗

Death sustains the life of every animal. Eating, which makes animal life possible, requires the death of some other living thing. For example, when herbivores eat, plants or plant parts die. And, by the way, botanists did not originate the claim that plants experience life and death. The Bible said so first:

⁷...there is hope for a tree: if it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not cease. ⁸Its root may grow old in the ground, and its stump die in the soil; ⁹yet at the scent of water it will bud, and put forth shoots like a plant. Job 14:7-9

We may also note the words of our Lord Jesus recorded in John 12:24, I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed; but if it dies, it will produce much fruit. (Jn. 12:24)

To reject the reality of physical death among plants and animals before the creation of Adam and Eve defies both the scientific and the biblical data. Life can be reliably dated back to 3.86 billion years ago. And, unless God is a capricious trickster, which the Bible certainly denies, we can accept the testimony of billions of fossils throughout the last 3.5 billion years of geologic history. The existence of limestone, marble, coal, oil, gas, kerogen, peat, coral reefs, and guano deposits in great abundance on Earth tells of millions of generations of past life and death. Even the young-earth interpretation of Genesis 1 places the plants before the animals, and the animals before the humans, by a matter of days and hours. If any animal moved or ate, something else had to die.⁴

Furthermore, we should take note of the LORD God’s pronouncement to Eve in Genesis 3:16, “To the woman he said, I will greatly increase your pain in childbearing; with pain you shall give birth to children.” Part of the penalty and consequence of sin is that the woman’s pain in childbearing would be greatly multiplied. This implies the presence and experience of pain, at least to some degree, in the lives of Adam and Eve even before the Fall.

The Extent of Death in Romans 5:12←↰⤒🔗

Romans 5:12 says, “through one man sin entered the world, and death entered the world through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” If by “world” Paul intends to include the non­human sphere, one must be prepared to argue that sin entered the non-human sphere as well, for Paul argues that “sin entered the world, and death entered the world through sin.” Notice that Paul’s thought is restricted to human death on account of Adam’s sin. He rounds out the argument by saying, “and thus death spread to all men,” not to the entire cosmos inclusive of the non-human sphere. Paul narrows the referent of κοσµοs (world) by using the synonymous expression "all men" later in the same verse and again in verse 18. In Paul’s writings, as throughout the New Testament, κοσµοs most often refers to the world of humanity (e.g. Matthew 18:7; John 3:16; Romans 3:6,19; Romans 11:12; 2 Corinthians 5:19). The rare cases where the term refers specifically to the non­human realm of creation are identified by additional contextual factors, which are lacking in Romans 5:12. If anything, the context of Romans 5:12 exhibits an exclusive interest in the world of mankind.⁵

The Meaning of Romans 8:20-22←↰⤒🔗

²⁰...the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of decay and be brought into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. ²²We know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Rom. 8:20-22

The statements, “the creation was subjected to futility” and “the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of decay,” are referring to the operation of what we know as the Second Law of Thermodynamics—the law of entropy. The law of entropy is not a consequence of the Fall; it is, rather, a natural and necessary part of this present creation and has been in operation since the beginning.

Adam would have had no managing or tending to do at all before the Fall if the thermodynamic laws were not already in effect. Physical work of any kind—even eating and digesting food—involves the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law describes the process whereby food is converted to work energy or to movement of any kind. Adam and Eve surely ate and moved, talked and walked, before the Fall (see Genesis 2:16; 3:2-6).

Before man or any of the plants and animals were created, God made the stars and the sun (see Genesis 1:1-16). These heavenly bodies represent a near-perfect expression of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which can also be defined as the flow of heat from hot bodies to cold bodies. Stars radiate heat very efficiently. They rank among the most entropic (heat radiating) entities in the universe. Thus, Genesis implicitly affirms the operation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics before man’s fall.

Cosmological research goes so far as to demonstrate that unless the universe were extremely entropic and extremely homogenous, (meaning that entropy must be roughly the same everywhere in the cosmos), throughout the whole of its existence, physical life would not be possible. The cosmic entropy level stands as but one of the thirty-four features of the universe discovered so far that must be exquisitely fine-tuned for life’s chemical components even to exist. If the Second Law of Thermodynamics had not been in effect from the first moment of creation until now, the cosmos would be devoid of stars, planets, and moons. A cosmos without stars, planets, and moons is a cosmos without physical life.

When we consider that the Second Thermodynamic Law is essential for life’s existence, essential for eating and mobility and countless other activities, we see no reason to suggest that the law should be judged as bad. Thermodynamic laws were included when God declared His creation “very good” (Genesis 1:31).⁶

We should also take note of the fact that the Romans 8 passage describes the creation as groaning with “the pains of childbirth.” Thus, the groaning of the creation is not attributed to the curse pronounced against Adam because of his sin. On the contrary, it is the groaning that proceeds and anticipates the coming into being of new life—the fullness of life for which this present creation, together with the children of God, have been pre-destined.

The New Creation, Not Merely a Restoration of the Original←↰⤒🔗

Such passages as Isaiah 11:6-9 and Isaiah 65:25 describe the life and nature of the new creation:

⁶And the wolf shall live with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the goat; and the calf and the young lion and the yearling shall dwell together; and a little child shall lead them. ⁷And the cow and the bear shall feed together; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. ⁸And the infant shall play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child shall put his hand in the viper’s nest. ⁹They shall neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. Isa. 11:6-9

²⁵The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, declares the LORD. Isa. 65:25

These passages do not state, nor do they imply, that the new creation is merely a restoration of the original creation. On the contrary, especially in light of Romans 8:20-22, the new creation shall usher in new life—new life that shall be of an altogether higher order than the original.

We must assume that before the fall, Adam, (and with him the entire creation), enjoyed the prospect of eschatological advancement to greater glory, on condition that he passed the probationary test of not eating the forbidden fruit. Such an understanding of the eschatological potential of the creation is a forceful argument against assuming that we must picture the pre-fall condition of creation as the equivalent of the consummated, eschatological state.⁷

Had Adam resisted the temptation of the devil and thus proven himself faithful to the LORD his God, he would have ushered the entire creation into its final state of glorious consummation. Although Adam failed, the purposes of God for the creation are not thwarted: they shall be fully realized because of the faithful obedience of the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.