Most of the time, I don’t think too seriously about Adam and Eve. I mean, all the funny pictures of them covered in leaves, eating the apple, does not beg for a serious tone. Especially when you add a talking snake to the picture, you have the makings of a fun Disney movie (now that they have cool computer animation the snake wouldn’t look too cheesy). I worry however, that I can end up treating the whole story like a myth, which would land me squarely in the boisterous, liberal crowd who also doubts half the Bible is true. Ummm, not where I want to be. In today’s post, we will focus on the disasterous consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin and how it impacts our topic of why Christians suffer.
After confronting Adam and Eve, God spells out clearly the judgments (usually called “curses” when relating to the fall of man) that man so richly deserves for his rebellion against God. The judgments in Genesis 3:14-24 are: 1) humbling of Satan (14); 2) enmity between man and Satan (15); 3) pain in childbearing (16); 4) broken husband/wife relationships (16); 5) curse of thorns and toil in work (17-18); 6) physical death (19); and finally 7) being kicked out of the garden (22-24). This means that for all of us after Adam, we are born into a world with spiritual warfare and demons, pain and childbearing complications, marital strife, nature working against us, death, and a broken relationship with God.
We don’t get to choose to avoid these things, and they are a result of both Adam’s sin and our sin from Adam (Romans 5). As such, they are from specific sins we all do, however in a sense, they are from sin in general (cumulative effect). Let me give you examples. When my father has to work extremely hard as a farmer to battle weeds, drought, or blight, it is mainly due to the fact that he was born into a fallen world. Of course, there are Biblical examples of God using drought or blight as a specific judgment, but most of the time, weeds are just weeds. They afflict everyone, and have become “normal”. Everyone dies. Yes, we die because sin is in the world (Romans 6:23), but it is not a “specific” judgment like Ananias and Saphira dropping dead on the spot (Acts 5). We think of death as “normal”, but we Christians must remember that death is not normal at all. Adam and Eve had eternal life until they sinned.
All of creation was tainted by the fall and sin. Paul describes this in Romans 8:19-20, “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it”. I like the translations that say, “creation groans” in verse 19, because it gives us the full emotion of the situation of how the fall affected our world. Tsunamis, earthquakes, cancer, birth defects, and death in all it’s forms are all part of the “futility” that Paul is speaking of. So, when Christians suffer from earthquakes or famines, it is not necessarily the case that God is “disciplining” them or that it is “spiritual warfare”. Most of the time, it is simply that we as Christians are not immune to the effects of the fall. We too are plagued by the curse on this world.
As I searched for answers about our baby dying, I eventually felt that the effects of the fall were what caused it to happen. Of course, I know God can stop the effects of the fall happening at any time. Elijah going straight from life to afterlife is a radical example, as is the raising of Lazarus. Much of the time however, God doesn’t reverse the effects of the fall. We can’t blame Him, because as Paul says in Romans 1 and 5, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Adam and Eve sinned, but so did we, and in doing so, our sin together with Adam’s brought the judgment of the curses. When will it all end? Paul already told us in Romans 8, “the revealing of the sons of God” and when you read on in the passage, the second coming is when the curses of the fall will be lifted. We will finally have a “new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17) and be restored back to the garden relationship with God.
Sometimes, I wish God would hurry up and end this all. If Jesus returned today, the new heavens and earth would be here, and we could say goodbye to cancer, hurricanes, and death. One verse has challenged me in my feelings about this. In 2 Peter, Peter is addressing false teachers and scoffers who say that the world will never end. Here is Peter’s response in 3:9, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” The moment God ends the world is the moment all non-believers go to Hell. Is my suffering in this fallen world worth the opportunity for one more person to spend eternity in heaven?
The Bible Nerd 