The Fall and The Curse = #1 The Fall
The Fall and The Curse = #1 The Fall
There is much confusion about these two (2) things, these two (2) events, and they are often spoken about as being the same thing, as having happened at the same time, but they are not the same, and they did not happen at the same time.
The Fall occurred when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit: Gen 3:6-7.
The Curse happened when God cursed his creation: Gen 3:14-19.
In this Blog I will write about “The Fall,” in the next about “The Curse.”
The term “The Fall” is the biggest misnomer in the universe! Misnomer means “mis-naming” something.
Man did not “fall,” man “died!”
God clearly said in Gen 2:17 “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Satan knew this, and lied to Eve: “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:” Gen 3:4
So did man die, or did man fall?
Jesus said that Satan is “the father of lies, and a murder from the beginning;” (Jhn 8:44). He murdered Adam and Eve with a lie! He did not trip them so that they fell, and therefore could get up again, he murdered them, Jesus said he murdered, and so they died, and we also died in them (Rom 5:15).
We should stop saying “The Fall of Man” and start saying “The Death of Man.”
So what are some of the immediate evidences that Adam and Eve died?
Their eyes were opened to their sin, shown in their trying to cover themselves and hid from God. A fundamental change had occurred: death not fall.
They were aware of their nakedness. Not that human nakedness was bad (Luther writes many pages about this in his commentary on Gen 1-5; https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48193 );
but they became aware of it and saw their vulnerability and exposure before the all seeing eye of God.
They did not want to meet with God any more, as had been their custom, meeting with him during the cool of the day. They were now afraid of God, they wanted no part of God.
They ran away and hid from God.
Adam turned on Eve; he threw her under the bus.
Adam blame shifted, blaming her for his sin.
Adam turned on God, and was mad at God.
Adam again blame shifted, and actually accused God of being the source of his sin: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” Gen 3:12
Do you do these things? Of course you do, we all do! They are evidences that we died in Adam, that the consequences of his sin have effected us, all of us, from baby in the womb on ward. As Robert Haldane, the Scottish Presbyterian of the 1800s says in his commentary on Romans (maybe the best commentary of Romans), and I paraphrase: the fact that babies die shows they too died in Adam; the whole human race, every individual, died in Adam.
Adam and Eve died in their entire being: in Body, Mind, Soul, and Spirit.
This is not a discussion on whether man is body and soul/spirit; or body and soul and spirit; and how the mind and desires etc. all fits together. I am using Body for physical, mind for thinking, soul for emotions, and spirit for that which never dies. Desires and affections function in all realms: we have physical desires, mental desires, emotional desires, and spiritual desires.
They died bodily: physical death entered the world. We sing “death and decay in all around I see.”
They died mentally: their thinking became all muddled. They thought they could hide from God; but what tree was big enough? What tree was far enough away? He see everything, everywhere! What leaf could cover them? What leaf can cover sin?
They died in their soul: emotionally. Adam turned on Eve; he became hostile toward her. Better she be blamed than I; better she suffer than I. They became estranged: one flesh, yes; one heart, no. And isn't it interesting that Eve said nothing; Adam tried 2 arguments to avoid blame, he blamed Eve and God; Eve says nothing. Is this not typical behavior of many men? As Luther said, “When people do wrong they either deny they did it at all, saying, "I did not do that," or they justify what they did saying, "What I did was not wrong.”
They died spiritually: They became alienated from God, they were not drawn to him, they ran away from him; they did not want to be with him. They were mad and hostile and opposed to God. They no longer thought like him, they no longer loved what he loved. They were tempted to “know evil,” and they got their wish: they saw evil. Before they had only seen good, now they saw evil, and it was within them, their own hearts were corrupt; they knew evil!
Their entire being was ruined with death, and this was passed on to their children; it was passed on to you and I.
Do you understand that you are truly a dead man walking! Inclined to do evil: first in your desires, which causes you to think about it, and then actions, which flow out of your thinking!
Adam is called “the son of God” (Luk 3:38), but Cain is called “of the wicked one” (1Jh 3:12).
The entire human race died in Adam (Rom 5:12-21). Starting with Cain, and going forward each and every person born (remember Adam and Eve were not born), was born “dead”, and that death manifested itself in sinful conduct, such that God summed up the mindset and all the conduct of the entire Pre-Flood population as:
“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Gen 6:5
What does he say about us today!
God is a loving Being: he loves righteousness and hates sin, and his hated of sin was such that “it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart,” saying to Noah, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” Gen 6:6-7
The truth of the verse: “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” Hab 1:13 is clearly seen in what God said to Noah.
He destroys the earth, he wipes away The Garden of Eden, and he kills everyone except Noah and his family; the godly line of Seth to Noah seems to have been a relatively small number of people.
If you do a Google search “Population of the Earth at the Time of the Flood,” you get figures from
4 Billion up to 5-17 Billion; it is a simple mathematically regression calculation. A lot of people and animals died, not to mention the vegetation that was buried; these are the fossils we find, and the oil and coal reserves we are now using as fuel.
But unlike physical death, where the body ceases to function and rots, the spirit of people continues to exist. The spirit of man is not annihilated; it becomes unable and unwilling to have communion with God, and it manifests that enmity as an active aversion to him, and willful sinning.
“The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” Psa 2:2-3
The “bands” and “cords” are The Law of God given to direct us; yes, to control our behavior, so that we do what is right, and not do what is wrong.
The Ten (10) Commandments are so clear: “Thou shalt not ...” yet we do it, we sin! You sin, and I sin.
On an individual level, we don't want anything to do with God. “No man seeks after God.” Rom 3:11
We run and hide, just like our father Adam!
“What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Rom 3:9-18
On a global level, “the whole world lies in the evil one.” 1Jh 5:18
The entire world system, mammon, and the power struggles on the international geo-political scenes, and the sensuality that has over whelmed the world, all have one controlling hand behind them, one motivating mind, that of Lucifer the devil.
He murdered Adam and Eve with a lie, “You will not surely die!” He continues to murder us with lies: God is a loving God, he understands your needs, your situation, do it, it is OK!
What caused this death? Was the fruit inherently bad? Did it have a “poison” in it? No. God could have given any other Law: Don't go to that place! Don't say this word! Don't make this hand motion!
It was the act of disobedience. “For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,” Rom 5:19
Disobedience is sin. We are commanded to obey, to disobey is active rebellion against God. Again, the Ten (10) Commandments are quite simple and clear. No one can claim ignorance. We disobey because we do not want to obey; we want to disobey; we want to do, what we want to do, and who has the right to tell us "NO!" Well actually God does have that right.
Our active, in his face disobedience is proof positive that we are spiritually died, and therefore at odds with him: his enemies!
“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” Eph 2:1-2
We were all born dead in trespasses and sins, children of disobedience; children of the disobedient one, the devil.
So Adam's death resulted from his disobedience, and the fact that we continue to disobey, shows we really are his children, dead sinners, alienated from God, true children of Adam. Have you ever looked at your sins in that way, that they testify to you that you are a dead sinner?
Dead, not fallen.
Have you ever asked yourself, “Why do I sin? Why don't I seek God? Why don't I read the bible and pray?”
The answer is actually very simple, dead people do not seek God! Think of Adam and Eve who ran away, and hid. Dead people do not see the working of God's kingdom (Jhn 3), they do not hear his voice (Jhn 10), they do not think about God (Rom 3) and they do not believe (Jhn 5).
You do not believe in order to get spiritual life, that is the wrong order of events; first God gives life and then you believe. This is called being born again; regeneration (re=again; generate=life) (being given life again). It is a work of God the Holy Spirit. He imparts life, spiritual life to dead sinners.
Read Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:1-9.
Your death in Adam can only be undone by God the Holy Spirit.
Do not believe the mis-nomer, we did not fall, we died!
3 March 2025