Upon Themselves

After such an appeal, a response had to be made. The “will” must now either accept or reject this accusation against God. There is no neutral ground. Eve must decide either to be for or against God. “God said” and, “the serpent said,” and they said opposite things.

Eve responded by listening to Satan’s voice instead of God’s. She believed in the devil’s lie instead of God’s truth. Eve, deceived through the serpent’s craftiness, ate the forbidden fruit.

2 Corinthians 11:3

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Adam also responded. Instead of listening to God, he listened to Eve’s voice. Through his “affections,” he was enticed by Eve, and he too ate the forbidden fruit. God had given the command to Adam. His eating of the fruit was a deliberate transgression of the divine law.

Genesis 3:6

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant 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.

Genesis 3:17

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.

Adam and Eve did possess the God-given right to will and the power to will Godward. They exercised their right to will and they chose to will Satanward. The moment they made this choice, they stepped outside the circle of God’s will and into the realm of self-will. They dethroned God and enthroned self. This one-act, this one choice, this one decision, was sin. Satan triumphed, sin entered, ruin followed.

Sin penetrated and entered into the innermost part of Adam’s being, the spirit, the meeting place of God and man. With what result? The very result God had predicted — death.

V. BEING DEADENED

Our human spirit was deadened by the fall. Ephesians 2 says that we were dead in our offenses and sins (vv. 1, 5a). This death was not in man’s physical body or in his psychological being. Due to the fall, man was deadened in his spirit. This means that his spirit lost its function. The deadness of man’s spirit, which pervaded his entire being, caused him to lose the function that enabled him to contact God.  “Basic Lessons on Life” by Witness Lee

Ephesians 2:1

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins

Ephesians 2:5a

…even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)

To understand the magnitude of sin, we must know the meaning of death.

What is death?

“The scientific definition of death helps us to perceive his meaning. It is as follows, ‘Death is the falling out of correspondence with environment.’ The following illustration will help to better understand the subject. Here is an eye of a human being, apparently able to see any object placed before it; the objects of nature, bathed- in the bright sunshine surround it, but there is no response from the eye. It does not see; for the optic nerve is severed. It is dead to the beauty before it.

“Here is a person whose ears are completely deafened. Birds are singing, bells are ringing, voices speaking, but those ears do not respond to the sound waves that are carrying melody to other ears which are open to receive the same. They are dead to sounds.

“Upon the very day of Adam and Eve’s disobedience sin severed the delicate intuitive knowledge of God in like spirit of Adam and Eve. They failed to respond to Him who was their Environing Presence. They were dead to God . . . the death process established in the spirit of our first parents was quickly manifested throughout the whole of the inner man and after a time the possibility of dissolution of the body, which had been held in abeyance while man remained obedient and dependent before the Fall, became an actuality.” “God’s Plan of Redemption” by Mary McDonough (p. 33).

Death in its twofold aspect, spiritual, the separation of the human spirit of man from the divine Spirit of God, and physical, the separation of the spirit and the body of man, came by sin. There was a grain of truth mixed with the serpent’s lie.

Genesis 3:7

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

Genesis 3:8

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Yes, their eyes were opened, but to what? Their own nakedness. Yes, they both acquired knowledge, but of what? Their own sin and shame. Yes, they came into a new self-consciousness, but in that one act of sin, they lost God-consciousness.

Their newly acquired knowledge produced a sense of shame that they considered themselves unacceptable for God’s presence and therefore, they became afraid to meet Him. The evening hour of fellowship with God was stripped of all its sweetness and satisfaction by the sense of shame and sin. An eager response to God was changed into seeking refuge from God. Sin separated man from God. Separation from God, who is Life, is death.

Even though more remote, physical death was the certain result of sin. Adam’s judgment included the curse of physical death.

Genesis 3:19

In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”

The day Adam sinned, the seed of physical death was in his body and finally reaped its harvest in full.

Genesis 5:5

So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.

Therefore, God’s sentence of death, both spiritual and physical, was imposed as a result of sin. 

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Next: The Effect of Adam and Eve’s Sin on the Human Race

Heavenly Father, thank You for revealing to us the truth regarding the source of sin and death.

In Him,

Marion