Disobedience Caused Us to Fall from God’s Grace

Genesis 2:16-17; 3:1-7

From the beginning God’s plan for man included the principle of work. Man’s   first task was of ruling over and caring for the rest of God’s creation. Then God gave him the responsibility to tend and keep the garden that He had prepared for man and placed him in. His command to Adam was “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat (2:16); but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (2:17).”

Scripture gives no indication as to how long Adam and Eve were naked and without shame. However, in Genesis 3:1-6 Satan, disguised as a serpent, targeted Eve and came to tempt her. He questioned God’s Word (v.1) – the Truth and nothing but the Truth. He was “the most cunning of all the beasts of the field that the Lord God had made.” (3:1a). Satan blatantly called God a liar, denying God’s Word (v.4), telling the woman, “You will not surely die” as God had declared in 2:17.  There’s no shame in Satan’s game. Whatever fiery darts he can hurl our way, he will if it causes us to accept his lies and reject God’s Truth (v.5). He’s a deceiver and a liar and will get into our mind, disputing the word of God. Our mind is very important as creatures made in the image of God. What’s Satan doing? He’s creating doubt to get us to accept him over our all-knowing and loving Father. “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

^“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant, literally a desirable thing, to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate (v.6). Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” (v.7). Disobedience is yielding to temptation, and our first parents disobeyed God’s command, falling  from grace, causing us all to be born sinners.