The Effect of Adam and Eve’s Sin on the Human Race, Reaction Paper Example

The sin of Adam and Eve has had a lasting impact on the human race: because of it, all human beings are sinful and subject to death. The sinful state of Adam and Eve has been inherited by all people, along with the guilt for the trespass. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross paid the penalty for the sin of Adam and Eve and all the sins of the human race, allowing human beings to enjoy salvation and fellowship with God.

The serpent (Satan) convinced Adam and Eve to sin by breaking God’s commandment to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent’s words reveal what he was actually tempting them to do: “’You will certainly not die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”[1] The serpent, then, was not only telling Eve not to trust God: he was also telling Eve that she could be like God, that she could be equal with him.[2] In other words, Eve’s sin was pride, coupled with rebellion: by disobeying God, she was trying to become equal with him. As Bilezikian observes, Adam’s circumstances were a bit different, in that God had directly told Adam not to eat from the tree, yet Adam first stayed silent and then ate of the fruit that Eve offered him. This strongly suggests that he was just as enticed by the prospect of becoming equal with God as she was; moreover, the fact that he said and did nothing implies that he was waiting to see what would happen, letting her try the experiment first.[3]

Though Adam and Eve were both culpable in the Fall, there was an important distinction between them in terms of responsibility.[4] Precisely because Adam had received the command directly from God, while Eve had received it from Adam, it was Eve who was deceived, but Adam’s sin was greater.[5] As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11:3: “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.”[6] Eve was deceived and sinned, while Adam was not deceived and still sinned anyway. Consequently, it was Adam’s sin that brought death to the entire human race: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”[7] Paul was even more explicit in Romans 5:12: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned…”[8]

Death, then, is one of the major consequences of the Fall—specifically Adam’s sin: because Adam sinned, death now applies to all members of the human race.[9] However, it is not merely death that entered the human race because of Adam’s sin: as Romans 5:12 makes plain, death comes to all people because all are sinners. The scriptures are very clear on this point: Adam sinned, bringing sin and death into the human race; therefore, all humans are sinners and will die. As the Apostle Paul declares: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”[10] And again, three chapters later: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[11]

But there is an interpretive problem here: do all human beings die because of their own sin, or because of Adam’s, or because of both? Scripture is very clear that it is because of Adam’s sin that all humans are sinners and therefore subject to death, but how, exactly, does this happen? Down the ages, Christian theologians have articulated a number of different answers. As Erickson explains, a notable example is the fifth-century monk Pelagius, who taught that Adam’s sin was simply a bad influence: people sin because they have been influenced to sin by their cultures and societies, in a chain of causation going back to Adam.[12] Pelagius believed that people could exercise their free will to avoid sin, by choosing to obey God’s commands. By contrast, the Arminian position is that human beings are born with a corrupted and unrighteous nature, which we have inherited, ultimately, from Adam. Only by accepting God’s gift of salvation and the spiritual freedom that it brings can human beings enter into a right relation with God. However, Arminians believe that God does not hold all of humanity guilty for Adam’s sin, only for our own sins. For another position, Calvinism, the answer is that Adam’s sin is our own: not only have we inherited a corrupted nature from him, but we are also actually guilty of Adam’s sin.[13]

The scriptural evidence lends the most support to the Calvinist position, as Erickson explains: not only do all human beings sin because of the corrupted and sinful nature we have inherited from Adam, but we are also guilty of Adam’s sin.[14] In fact, this is essentially the only way to understand Romans 5:12-19: Paul is very clear that Adam’s sin resulted in both a sinful nature and death for all, and that Adam’s sin is imputed to all. In Erickson’s words: “The final clause in verse 12 tells us that we were involved in some way in Adam’s sin; it was in some sense also our sin.”[15] There are different ways of understanding this, too: Adam might be thought of as a sort of ‘federal head’ of the human race, so that his actions affect all of us, as if by contract.[16] However, another view is that of Adam as our ‘natural head’: we not only inherited our physical nature from him, but also our spiritual nature; consequently, Adam’s sin affected the spiritual nature that we ultimately inherited from him.[17] Erickson supports the second view, and I find his argument convincing in light of Romans 5:12-19: all of human nature is inherited from Adam, including sinfulness and guilt for Adam’s sin.[18]

However, as seen with many of these verses, the scriptures repeatedly proclaim and celebrate the saving work of Jesus Christ, which has delivered us from sin. Indeed, Paul goes to great pains to emphasize that as the ‘second Adam’ (Rom. 5:14), Christ’s gift of salvation by the grace of God was much, much greater than the sin and death brought by Adam: “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”[19] Not only was God’s grace greater by far than Adam’s sin, it was also greater by far than the results of that sin, as Paul declares in the very next verse: “Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.”[20] It is a message that is reiterated throughout the scriptures: we are in need of forgiveness from our sins, but God has provided the way. As 1 John 1:9 declares: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”[21]

However, as with the doctrine of original sin, Christian theologians have proposed a number of ideas about how, exactly, Christ’s atoning work allows us to enjoy salvation and a right relationship with God. As Grenz and Olson explained, beginning in the second century A.D. the idea arose that Christ’s sacrifice functioned as a kind of ransom, paid by God to the devil, to redeem us from bondage to the devil because of our sin.[22] However, ransom theory gave way to Anselm’s satisfaction theory, the idea that Christ’s sacrifice was made to appease God’s honor on account of the dishonor done him by sinful humans. For Anselm, humans were rebellious vassals of a divine Monarch; Christ’s death allowed us to enter into right relations with him again. Over time, this idea gave way to penal-substitution theory, which holds that by transgressing God’s laws, humans are criminals against God. Christ’s sacrifice “paid the penalty for our transgressions at the bar of divine justice.”[23] The idea that Christ paid the penalty for our sins is supported by many scriptures, including Romans 5:12-19, but also Isaiah 53:5, which states: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”[24]

The sin of Adam and Eve bequeathed to the human race a sinful, fallen nature, full of pride and rebellion against God. More specifically, the sin of Adam brought death to the human race, and with it condemnation for Adam’s transgression. All of humanity has inherited this sinful, fallen nature, and all are in need of salvation. But the wonderful, liberating truth is that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for Adam’s sin and for all sins on the cross. As a result, God’s free gift of salvation is open to all who are willing to believe. As Paul declares in Romans 8: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”[25] Through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, believers enjoy God’s blessings of salvation, forgiveness of sins, and fellowship with God. Adam brought us sin, death, and condemnation; Christ brought us grace, life, and salvation.

Bibliography

Bilezikian, Gilbert. Christianity 101: Your Guide to Eight Basic Christian Beliefs. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993.

Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology, 2^nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007.

Grenz, Stanley J., and Roger E. Olson. Who Needs Theology?: An Invitation to the Study of God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996.

[1] Gen. 3:4-5 (New International Version).

[2] Gilbert Bilezikian, Christianity 101: Your Guide to Eight Basic Christian Beliefs (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993), 129.

[3] Bilezikian, Christianity 101, 129-130.

[4] Bilezikian, Christianity 101, 130.

[5] Ibid.

[6] 2 Cor. 11:3 (New International Version).

[7] 1 Cor. 15:22 (New International Version); Bilezikian, Christianity 101, 130.

[8] Rom. 5:12 (New International Version).

[9] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007), 652.

[10] Rom. 3:23-24 (New International Version).

[11] Rom. 6:23 (New International Version).

[12] Erickson, Christian Theology, 649.

[13] Erickson, Christian Theology, 649-651.

[14] Erickson, Christian Theology, 653.

[15] Erickson, Christian Theology, 653-654.

[16] Erickson, Christian Theology, 654.

[17] Erickson, Christian Theology, 654.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Rom. 5:15 (New International Version).

[20] Rom. 5:16 (New International Version).

[21] 1 John 1:9 (New International Version).

[22] Stanley J. Grenz and Roger E. Olson, Who Needs Theology?: An Invitation to the Study of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 113.

[23] Grenz and Olson, Who Needs Theology?, 113-114.

[24] Isaiah 53:5 (New International Version).

[25] Rom. 8:1-2 (New International Version).