THE BEGINNING OF SIN

By Kevin Rutherford

 

The word sin means “to miss the mark.”  The mark we have failed to hit is God’s ultimate standard of righteousness.  That is, moral and obedient perfection.  Sin is a transgression of the Law of God (1 John 3:4).  When we do that which is contrary to what God desires, or when we fail to God what God requires we have sinned.  All of those who are capable of sin have sinned (Romans 3:9, 23).  We can now look all around and see the terrible effects of sin.  Violence and immorality abound and destroy.  There is no utopia or paradise here on this earth.  One cannot create perfect places for people with monasteries, convents, or communes.  Sin slips into communities, slides between cracks in the walls, and slithers into the hearts of every man and woman.  But where did this all begin?

It all began in a paradise.  A wonderful place called The Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8-15).  A loving God created a beautiful existence for the man and woman whom He cherished.  Eden was a place where all of man’s needs could be fulfilled, where man lived in innocence, and where God and man spoke directly to one another.  However, this paradise would not last.  God had clearly created man with free-will.  This is made evident by the fact that God gave man a simple command and the man had the ability to choose whether or not obey that command (Genesis 2:16, 17).  It was then inevitable that sooner or later man would exercise his free will to go against the Law of God.  To sin.

Genesis 3 records for us that dark occasion when the serpent, the devil, Satan, the fallen angel deceived Eve, the mother of all living.  God said don’t eat of the tree in the midst of the garden.  Satan said it was okay.  Eve ate, Eve sinned.  Eve offered, Adam sinned.  Sin had slipped into the perfect paradise of Eden and very quickly destroyed it.  Man’s relationship with God changed (Isaiah 59:1, 2; 1 John 1:3-7).  Man felt guilt and shame.  Man became dishonest as he sought to pass the blame for his sin on to others.  Man was kicked out of the Garden of Eden and thrust away from the tree of life.  That was the tree that would have enabled man to live forever.  Adam and Eve began dying from that day forward.  Now they, and all who would follow them (excepting Enoch and Elijah) would suffer death, because they committed sin (Romans 5:12).

Left to suffer in our own sins we would all face a bleak future of eternal death, an eternal separation from God (Revelation 21:8).  But the God who created man also loves man, and made it possible for man to be saved from his sins.  Jesus told us that the truth can make us free from our sins (John 8:31-36). The Word of God is truth (John 17:17).  What does the truth say about salvation from the eternal consequences of sin?  The truth tells us that there is power in the precious blood of Jesus Christ to take our sins away (Hebrews 9:22; Revelation 1:5).  Because we sinned, Christ died and shed His blood for the remission of our sins and the reconciliation of man to God (Matthew 26:28; Romans 5:6-11).

Sin began in the Garden of Eden, and sin still exists everywhere and all around us on this earth.  But God has given us hope for salvation from sin through the sacrifice of His dear Son (John 3:16).