“Say, Pastor…?” 

Features: Bible Questions & Answers
                with Dr. Fred C. Shoemaker

Question: Over what key issue did sin first enter into the creation?

February, 2003

On December 26, 2002, a religious group called the Raelians announced to the world in a press conference that they had successfully cloned the first human being. This news was immediately sent around the world and the key debate was over its authenticity and its propriety.  Soon thereafter, it became apparent that this “news” was simply a massive publicity-seeking hoax by the Raelians.  However, it brings up one key truth about humanity in general: the human urge to play God.  It was this urge in the Garden of Eden that brought to the contaminating effects of sin to the human race.

The first quality that we learn about God in the Bible is that He, and He alone, is the Creator of all things.  The first words in the Bible proclaim, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1, NASB)  The first humans created, Adam and Eve, lived in a perfect, sinless world.  They were made naturally immortal and had a face-to-face relationship with God.  God only placed one restriction upon them: they were forbidden to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Even in the Garden of Eden, God had placed a clear line to distinguish the creature from the Creator.  But the serpent enticed the woman to eat from the forbidden tree, emphasizing “that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” in the creation (Genesis 3:1-6, NASB).

After Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree, several changes immediately come upon them.  They realized that they were naked; they began to quarrel; and they lost their previous face-to-face relationship with God (Genesis 3:7-13, NASB).  And from that moment onward, they had lost their natural immorality due to their sin (Romans 6:23).  God would not allow sin or sinners to become immortal.  So that Adam and Eve would not eat from the tree of life and live forever, God drove them out from the Garden of Eden, stationing cherubim to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24).

Since that time all of creation on earth has lived with the effects of having the knowledge of good and evil.  Whether it was Adam and Eve’s desire to become like God, or the Raelians announcement that they could create new life (a prerogative that only the Creator God has), the human race has had to battle death, disease, suffering, war, pandemics like AIDS, terrorism, and the constant threat of a nuclear holocaust.  This was never God’s original plan, but He gave all humanity the choice of either following Him or rejecting His commands.

The great battle that Satan wages in all of us is to reject God as our Creator and to turn our worship upon ourselves or false gods (Romans 1:20-25).  For if we reject Him as our Creator, we cannot also keep Him as our Lord and Savior.  It’s all a package deal.  We need to be like the Psalmist who stresses, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork…By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth (Psalm 19:1; 33:6, NKJV).