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We are told that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." -- Genesis 1:1. The Bible informs us that our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ -- yes, they worked together according to the Scriptures -- invested Six Days in creating everything: From the Earth itself, to the Sun and the Moon, to the divisions of land and seas, to all land-based and water-based creatures. As we all know, last of all, as their crowning achievement, Father and Son made the first human pair. That is to say, Adam and Eve, as we can see by these two verses:

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."


We are told that Father and Son looked upon everything which they had created during those Six Days and "saw that it was good". Well, it was good for a while at least. Everything was just fine and dandy. I mean it was just totally hunky-dory. Now we do not know precisely when everything began to fall apart, because the Holy Bible doesn't exactly make it clear, insofar as the actual timeline is concerned. What we do know is that in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, God gave Adam and Eve one simple commandment, or law, as we see by the following two verses:

"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."


At this point in our story, we could easily diverge into a lot of different tangents, and ask a lot of very interesting questions. For example, was this commandment meant to serve as an intentional test of Adam and Eve's love, loyalty and obedience? Why did God do this if, being the all-knowing God that we believe Him to be, He already knew in advance that they were bound to fail such a simple test? Why create such a temptation and then say "But don't you dare touch it!"? If you have already read some of my other BBB articles, or have conducted your own Biblical research, then you probably know the answer to these questions already.

At any rate, some time after God had warned Adam and Eve to stay away from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", that vile serpent -- Satan -- presented himself to Eve, and tempted her with the forbidden tree and fruit. Eve knew full well the commandment which God had given to them. She knew the house rules, or Garden Rules. In fact, she even recited it to the Devil, as we see by the following verses:

"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."


Nevertheless, despite knowing full well that it was wrong to even be near that particular tree, dear Eve was simply unable to resist taking a bite out of that delicious fruit, whatever it was, after that crafty Father of Lies had spun his web of deception. Thus we continue to read the following sad lines in the Book of Genesis:

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."


Thousands of years later, the Apostle Paul would write the following lines in his various Epistles regarding this very same tragic incident:

"But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."


"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."


I am likewise reminded of something which Jesus said to the unbelieving Jews -- the Pharisees in this particular case -- while He was in the treasury in the temple in Jerusalem. You will find this incident mentioned in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John. Many of my readers are no doubt already familiar with this well-known verse:

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."


What I find rather interesting about this verse is that not only does the Lord outright say that the Devil is a liar, but He also says that Satan has been "a murderer from the beginning". Upon reading that verse, many of us immediately think of how Cain rose up against his brother Abel and slew him in a fit of rage and jealousy in Genesis chapter four. However, it just occurred to me that, in reality, this was not the Devil's first murderous act. You see, in a sense, he motivated Adam and Eve to commit an act of spiritual suicide when they partook of the forbidden fruit. Indirectly, Satan in fact murdered them! So let's continue.

Of course, from the very moment that Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit, they both realized that they had really blown it in a major way. While they probably were not fully aware of the negative repercussions which their rebellious and foolish actions would have on future generations, at the very least, they knew that they were in trouble. In fact, we are told that they were so fearful of retribution, once the Lord had discovered what they had done, that they tried to run from the Lord and hide themselves, as we can determine by the following group of verses:

"And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice 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 amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."


And there we have the very first Biblical example of what we today call passing the buck. "It was not my fault, Lord! It was the woman that YOU gave to me, Lord! She is really the one to blame! She made me eat it, Lord!" Of course, Eve did not want to accept the blame for their disobedience either, so she tried to blame their rebellion on the serpent. "It was that sneaky serpent, Lord! He beguiled me! He deceived me!"

Human nature just never changes, does it? Thousands of years later, and we're still doing the very same thing. If there's one thing which the Scriptures makes rather clear, it is the fact that despite our best efforts, and regardless of our ridiculously feeble attempts to do so, there is absolutely nothing which we can really hide from the face of the Lord. This Biblical truth becomes quite evident in the following group of verses. There are quite a few of them, but they all really focus in on this truth. God's Word is just so to the point, and sharp, as in Hebrews 4:12:

". . . behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out."


"For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings."


"For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me."


"O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee."


"Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance."


"The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good."


"Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD."


"He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him."


". . . Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick? For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad."


"For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known."


"If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin."


"Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do."


"But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.‭ For it is written, ‭As‭ I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.‭ So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.‭"


"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."


"Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead."


"And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works."


So as you can plainly see, trying to hide something from God is pretty much a pointless endeavor, and really an exercise in futility. It is much better to just humble ourselves and be honest with the Lord. At any rate, as some of the previous Scriptures point out, through their foolish act of disobeying God's very first commandment -- or law -- to stay away from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", and not partake of its fruit, Adam and Eve committed the very first sin. But exactly what is a sin? The Apostle John explains to us in a very straightforward manner in the following verse that sin is the transgression of God's Laws:

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law."


But what do those words "transgresseth" and "transgression" actually mean? According to Thayer's Greek English Lexicon, they are translated from the Koine Greek word "‭ἀνομία‭" -- which is pronounced "anomia" ‭ or "an-om-ee’-ah‭" -- which it defines in the following manner:

----- Begin Quote -----

1) the condition of without law
   1a) because ignorant of it
   1b) because of violating it
2) contempt and violation of law, iniquity, wickedness

----- End Quote -----

So sin basically means to live or behave outside of God's Laws. It means to violate God's Laws. In short, sinners are lawbreakers, because they break God's holy Laws. For that very reason, Adam and Eve became the very first sinners on the Earth the moment that they chose to eat of the forbidden fruit. Why? Because they violated God's commandment when He told them to not touch that particular tree, or eat of its fruit.

While this act of rebellion was apparently the first sin which was committed on the Earth by us humans, let me point out that it was obviously not the very first sin which had ever been committed. After all, by this point in time, we know that the Devil was already working in rebellion against God's order. In fact, while tempting Eve, that vile serpent basically accused God of being a liar. In so many words, the Devil was saying "Eve, there is something that God is hiding from you. There is something which He does not want you to know. Eve, ye shall be as gods!" And thus the trap was set!

However, if there is one thing we know from the Scriptures, it is that God is NOT a liar. He is a man of His word. What He says, He most certainly does. He keeps His promises every time. Again, this particular point is substantiated by Bible verses such as the following:

"God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"


"God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged."


"In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;"


"He is‭ the Rock, his work ‭is‭ perfect: for all his ways ‭are‭ judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right ‭is‭ he.‭"


"Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.‭"


"That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes.‭"


"And because I tell ‭you‭ the truth, ye believe me not.‭"


"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."


In contrast to the previous group of verses, in addition to John 8:44 which we already discussed, the following group of Scriptures also declare that it is we humans who often lie; particularly when it comes to the issues of Jesus Christ and sin. Rather than admit our guilt, rather than embrace Jesus Christ, we prefer to accuse God instead, and to even deceive ourselves, sad to say:

"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son."


"He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son."


"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us . . . If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."


You will recall that earlier in our discussion, we learned that God had warned Adam and Eve that "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." While Adam and Eve did not die in a physical sense that day, they did die in a spiritual sense, in that their wonderful communion with God had been broken. Many years later -- centuries, in fact -- they would die physical deaths as well. But that spiritual separation from God was reflected in the physical realm as well when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, as we see by the following set of verses:

"And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."


Clearly then, one of the by-products of our sins is that they separate us from God, and they set up this invisible wall between ourselves and our Creator. This point becomes very evident in the following group of verses:

"Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear."


"Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you."


As I pointed out earlier in this series, at first, Adam and Eve could not possibly have known the full gravity of their mistake. When they took that forbidden bite, it probably did not occur to them how their actions would affect all future generations of human beings upon the Earth. After all, at that point in time, Eve had not even given birth yet to Cain and Abel, or to Seth, or to any of their other children. And, yes, in case you are not aware of it, Adam and Eve did in fact have other children besides Cain and Abel, and Seth. This point is made clear in the following two verses which are found in Genesis chapter five:

"And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:"


While Adam and Eve may have at first been oblivious to the severity of their mistake, as the years passed, and they and their offspring tilled the land, and produced food through hard work and by the sweat of their brow, the horrible truth no doubt became more apparent to them. Having lived in the Garden of Eden where all they had to do was take care of it, what a contrast it must have been once they were cast out of that wonderful place. In fact, the Lord clearly warned them of what the future held in the following verses. I believe that what the Lord is saying here, is that dear Eve would conceive in sorrow, knowing ahead of time what a hard life awaited their children, and how much they would suffer, in comparison to the easy life which she and Adam had lived in the Garden of Eden:

"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."


Writing in retrospect, the Apostle Paul informs us that this is exactly how sin and death entered into the world, and how they were passed on to all human beings, as we can determine by the following set of verses. Please notice in particular how Paul states "even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." It is as if the Apostle is comparing sin and death to a genetic, inherited disease. In other words, even if you are not outright guilty yourself, nevertheless, sin and death claim you as well. There is no escaping them:

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come."


It is for that same reason that we find a number of similar verses throughout the Bible which likewise plainly declare that we are sinners who are born in sin, and that we have no righteousness of our own. Consider the following examples:

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me."


"For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not."


"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one . . . For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;"


"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."


"They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one."


Despite the Biblical truths which are so clearly expressed in the previous group of verses, there are so many people in the world today who still like to pat themselves on the back and say "Oh, I think that I am a good person. I have never committed any serious crimes. I think I am in pretty good standing with God." That is, if they even believe in God. My friends, even if you have never been caught committing what we might refer to as a major crime, the truth of the matter is that we all have our secret, dirty, little sins. Perhaps we can conceal them well from our friends and neighbors, but let us not forget this verse which I shared with you earlier:

"The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good."


Likewise, again, let us not forget the soul-searching words which the Apostle John wrote in his first Epistle:

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us . . . If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."


Quite frankly, to suggest that we can compare our standard of righteousness with God's high standard of righteousness, is quite ludicrous, to say the least. So, rather than pat ourselves on the back and proudly declare ourselves so good and righteous -- just like the Scribes and Pharisees of old who loved the praises of men -- what we all really need to do is adopt an attitude of sincere humility, as is clearly reflected in the following two verses:

"If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?"


"But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:"


Please go to part two for the continuation of this series.

⇒ Go To The Next Part . . .

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