The Fruit of All Evil
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.
In Genesis 3:6 we read of the most significant decision in human history. After listening to Satan introduce the thought that God’s revelation could be wrong and that eating the forbidden fruit could have positive benefits, Eve began to question God herself. The combination of Satan’s influence and her own human reasoning proved deadly. The result was the first sin entering the human realm.
By rejecting God’s revelation and eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve sinned (1 John 3:4), brought upon themselves the penalty of death (Romans 6:23), rejected God’s government over their lives (Romans 1:28) and set mankind on a course of sin and separation from God (Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21).
Consider the results of Adam and Eve’s sin:
- They rejected God’s wise instruction to not eat the forbidden fruit.
- They accepted Satan’s faulty reasoning that humans can decide what is good and evil for themselves.
- They sinned against God and earned the death penalty.
We should also note that, contrary to the commonly believed doctrine of “original sin” (also known as “the fall of man”) human beings do not inherit sin from Adam at birth. Adam and Eve set human beings on the course of separation from God and sin—and all human beings (except Jesus Christ) have figuratively taken of the same fruit and sinned themselves (Romans 3:23).
It is the deadly combination of the deceptive influence of Satan the devil (Ephesians 2:1-2; Revelation 12:9) and a human nature that has a propensity toward selfishness and rebellion (Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 15:19; Romans 8:7) that has produced the evil that has come from humanity for the approximately 6,000 years since Adam and Eve’s first sin.
The apostle Paul warns us to learn an important lesson from the account of Adam and Eve’s first sin: “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” (2 Corinthians 11:3, emphasis added).
To learn more about why evil and suffering exist in today’s world, read “Why Does God Allow Evil and Suffering?”
Tomorrow on the Daily Bible Verse Blog: “Adam and Eve Hide From God.”
