I want to tell you a story. This story is a love story. It is the greatest love story that has ever been written. It is a story about how much God loves the world and how He wants to have a relationship with everyone. “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.” (1 John 3:1) This is a story of redemption.
“To understand this great story we must start at the beginning. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day.” (Genesis 1:1-5) God created the earth for us. He created a place where we could live. Then He made man. “Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” (Genesis 1:26) Man was originally made for authority. He was created and fashioned for dominion. Man was given rulership over the earth. This granting of authority and dominion over the earth to man was a bona fide gift. God gave the dominion of the entire earth to man. It was his to do with as he should decide to do. God did not give the earth to man with certain strings attached. What man did with that dominion and authority was his own responsibility. If man fumbled the ball, God would not step in and forcibly repossess His gift. It was a bona fide gift.
“The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.” (Genesis 3:6-7)
If you don’t understand the fall, you cannot understand why Jesus came to earth and what His mission was. This scripture is so important in understanding both the Old Testament and the New Testament. This scripture is the basics of the entire Bible. The Bible is a story of the failure of man and his relationship with God. The act of eating the fruit of the tree was not the sin. The sin was their disobedience to God. God told them not to eat the fruit but they did it anyway. Because of their sin death came into the world. We say all the time that if Adam and Eve had not sinned we would not have the problems we have today. If it had not been Adam and Eve, it would have been someone else. Humans are constructed that they must believe something; if they don’t believe the truth, then they will eventually believe lies. When we believe the lies, we will suffer the consequences of rejecting God’s truth. First Eve took the fruit and ate it, and then she took the fruit to her husband and he ate it, so both of them disobeyed the Lord. Eve was deceived, but Adam sinned willfully with his eyes wide open. Paul tells us this in Romans. God sees Adam as the head of the human race and it was his responsibility to rule over the world and his family. He failed at his responsibility. Just as we men today have failed to accept our responsibility. We men are the head of our family and it is our responsibility to train and guide the people in our family. When we fail at this, we see the consequences. The sin of Adam and Eve is the bad news, but Jesus Christ brings us the Good News. We will continue this wonderful story in part 2.