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Innocence lost--fall of Mankind

by Wesley Pierce  
9/14/2011 / Bible Studies

Gen 1:1
1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Gen 1:26-27
26) Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Gen 2:7
7) the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Gen 2:15-17
15) The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
16) And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
17) but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

("free to eat from any tree in the garden" included the tree of life; originally they would not have died physically had they obeyed God)

Gen 2:22-25
22) Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23) The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."
24) For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
25) The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

(they were innocent and pure when first created)

Gen 3:1-5
1) Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2) The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
3) but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"
4) "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.
5) "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

(since there were no other human beings on earth, the unseen spirit of Satan was allowed to speak through the serpent, which Eve could see, with an appeal to ego/pride--their downfall)

Gen 3:6-8
6) When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
7) Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8) ...and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

(they failed the test of obedience God had allowed through Satan's temptation. God's spirit of innocence then left them, replaced instead by Satan's spirit of shame and fear when "their eyes were opened, and they hid from the LORD". Thus, the first-ever sin, or disobedience of God.

As a result their relationship with the Lord was separated; they became dead to God's inner spirit, and their physical bodies would also eventually die. Worst of all, their self-centered "infection" by Satan's spirit would be passed on to all human offspring, as each generation to come would find its own ways of disobeying God)

Gen 3:13-19
13) Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
14) So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
15) And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
16) To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
17) To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
18) It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19) By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

(it is obvious God regards our disobedience of Him more seriously than we human beings do...the consequences were enormous for every single person who would follow.

Death, weeds, difficulty supplying enough food, storms/bad weather, hail, drought, and disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, etc. can all likely be attributed to the random forces of nature God set into motion as a result, not only of Adam and Eve's curse, but Mankind's continuing errant ways ever since that first failure to obey) see entries below.

Gen 3:22-24
22) And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
23) So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
24) After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

(innocence had been lost; death would now reign over mankind...they no longer had access to the tree of life. The process of physical aging and death began instead, starting with the first generations of people living more than 900 years, then gradually winding down through time as they became more and more corrupted in God's eyes)

Gen 6:1-3
1) When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
2) the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
3) Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

(God warns us about being unequally yoked...see 2Cor 6:14-15. The "sons of God" most likely refers to Believers in God descended from Seth, Adam and Eve's godly son born after Abel was murdered, while the "daughters of men" are most likely the non-believers descended from ungodly Cain, who killed Abel...see Gen 4:25-26)

Gen 6:5-9
5) The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
6) The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
7) So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground,and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them."
8) But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
9) This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.

Gen 6:11-14
11) Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence.
12) God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
13) So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
14) So make for yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out."

Gen 6:22
22) Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

Gen 7:1
1) The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.

Gen 7:11-12
11) In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month- on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
12) And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

(water not only came down from the skies, but from below-ground springs as well)

Gen 7:21-23
21) Every living thing that moved on the earth perished--birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.
22) Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
23) Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

(this total corruption of the human race took approximately 1600 years from the time of Adam's creation to Noah's flood. The re-start after the flood would last only about 400 more years before Mankind once again became fully corrupted and spiritually dead.

This caused God to make a third attempt, following Adam and Noah, at gaining people's allegiance by calling Abraham and the nation of Israel to become God's "chosen people"; see Exo 19:5-6. That in turn would go back and forth from blessings to failure dozens of times over the next 2000 years during the Old Testament age, depending often on whether the nation's reigning king was godly or corrupt, with the citizens usually following his example.

God finally lost patience with the Israelites as well, because in the end their religious leaders--priests, pharisees, sanhedrin--became as ungodly as the bad kings had been, and were especially scolded by Jesus Christ himself, which gave them one of many reasons to crucify him. After Christ's resurrection from the dead, the nation was abandoned when God allowed the Romans to conquer the land and destroy the temple in 70 A.D.

Mankind then entered what will likely be the final phase of God's attempts to redeem the human race unto himself, sending forth the message of reconciliation through Christ to the rest of the world, starting with the original 12 Apostles and Paul, on down through other messengers as more countries became populated.

Now another 2000+ years have passed since the Lord came to this earth. One has to wonder how much longer God will continue waiting with this last dispensation of his grace known as the "times of the Gentiles"...see Eph 3:6.

The message of salvation in Christ has gone, or is now going, to every nation on earth. One day all bases will be covered; then it is probable God will no longer have a reason to keep on waiting, especially in view of the ever-increasing ungodliness displayed by people everywhere.

But how long before God puts an end to it, as in the days of Noah? Before his last bit of patience finally runs out? Nobody knows...see Mat 24:36. However, we can simply observe what is taking place with the current human race all over the world, as compared to what the Scriptures state our behavior should be like. Then use common sense to judge whether it seems more likely to be sooner--years/decades, or later--centuries)

2Pet 3:9
9) The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

(a message to all people for our own well-being: get serious, sober up, be prepared. The final destruction of planet earth will be by blazing fire, not cool water as in Noah's Time; see 2Pet 3:3-12. We can be sure it will not be pleasant for those who miss the call to be with God in the next life)


*Note: Researcher comments in parentheses added for clarification

*To see other articles from this collection, go to categories "Christian Living" and "Prayers" within Faithwriters.com pages

Wesley Pierce has been a student of the Bible for over 35 years, plus a student of being led and blessed, or taught and disciplined by the Lord's inner Spirit daily, as any sincere seeker experiences.

*Copyright 2011, all rights reserved

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