The Fall

The sad story of the Fall of Man is too painful to comprehend, but examine and understand the ‘Fall’, we must!  For therein lies our hope for a turn-around to fullness of life.

The tree and its fruit was surely a topic of regular conversation for Adam and Eve, since Eve was thorough on every aspect of the command of God - not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

Every time they discussed the tree and all that it represented, it should have sent them into a deeper measure of worshipful awe of the Creator.  Sadly, the story reveals that this was not to be.  There seems to be an ebbing away from a passionate love relationship with God to a mere obedience of Him out of fear of the consequences.  God created Man so that God and Man could be in a deep, passionate, love relationship with each other.  Man’s obedience to God was to be an expression of his love for God. 

The story discloses to us that there was an emotion, bordering on resentment, welling up within Man towards God.  God never told them not to touch the tree, but the manner in which this incorrectness is added in their response to the serpent, reveals a heart that seemed ready to rebel against God.  Should they not have been strong, firm and accurate in their response to the serpent?

Why was it ‘their’ response and not just Eve’s, to the serpent?  The fact is, Adam was there, throughout the conversation between Eve and the serpent. This was not a dialogue, as it appears, but a trio-logue, except that one party was a silent participant.  

Why would Adam be silent during this most crucial conversation concerning Life and Death for all of creation? The answer is too heart-breaking.  He was a participant of the gradual change of heart towards God.  He too was bent on rebellion.  The fact that Adam remained silent during this conversation reveals a plot to provide a way out for him, if this objective to eat the fruit, should all go wrong; which was proved later!

Does it surprise us then, that they ate the fruit?

Eating the fruit sealed the Fall of Man.  Till the time of actual disobedience, there was still hope of coming back to God, renewing their relationship with the Creator and growing into His likeness on a daily basis.  At the Fall, Man died.  It was finished. 

There was now a separation between Man and God, which no one could bridge.  God alone had to save Man, who was doomed.