Our Relationship with Adam and Eve

Physically, we are connected to Adam and Eve because we are their descendants.  We bear the consequences of their disobedience to God.  Sin, suffering and death entered into human life through them (Genesis 3:16-19).   When Adam sinned against God, sin entered the world.  Since we are Adam’s descendants and flesh like him and he was the representative of all humanity in the Garden, we suffer the consequences of his disobedience.  “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).  “In Adam, we all die” (I Corinthians 15:22).  Thus, what happened to Adam happens to us, too.   

God is not judging us guilty of something that we didn’t do.  That would be unjust.  The fact that sin happened has changed the world around us.  The consequences of that change affect us negatively. 

In the sacrificial death of Jesus of Nazareth and his powerful resurrection from the grave, God reverses the effects of sin and death for those who accept Jesus and submit to him as Savior and Lord.  The Apostle Paul compares God’s grace given through Jesus with the condemnation that resulted from Adam’s fall into sin:  

. . .the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.  17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 

18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. . . .  so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:15-21) 

Paul further compared the consequences of Adam’s disobedience with that of Jesus’ obedience to God: “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). 

Because we are flesh like Adam, we die physically.  But God reverses the ultimate effects of death for those who believe in Jesus.  They will be bodily resurrected like he was to share in the benefits of his glorious and powerful resurrection.  Believers “await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself “ (Philippians 3:20-21).  “We are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (I John 3:2). 

Creation was also affected by the sin of Adam and Eve.  God said to Adam,  

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
    and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”  

Adam’s sin which brought “death, decay and passing away” affected the rest of creation.  The Apostle Paul explained it like this: 

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:18-22)  

Some seven hundred years before Jesus came to earth the prophet Isaiah spoke of the time when God would bring about a “new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22).  The Apostle Peter taught that Jesus has gone into heaven and will return and restore all things:  “Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets” (Acts 3:21).  In his second letter, Peter described the return of the Lord and made reference to the “new heavens and a new earth”: 

. . .the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies] will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 

11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:10-13)