Theological Term of the Week

fall (of man)
Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden to God’s command that they not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—a rebellious act that resulted in God’s curse upon Adam, Eve and all their offspring.

• From scripture:

  Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

   He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 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.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

  8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

  14 The Lord God said to the serpent,

  “Because you have done this,
  cursed are you above all livestock
  and above all beasts of the field;
  on your belly you shall go,
  and dust you shall eat
  all the days of your life.
  15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
  and between your offspring and her offspring;
  he shall bruise your head,
  and you shall bruise his heel.”

  16 To the woman he said,

  “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
  in pain you shall bring forth children.
  Your desire shall be for your husband,
  and he shall rule over you.”

  17 And to Adam he said,

  “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.”

  20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

  22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3 ESV)

• From The Belgic Confession Article 14:

  We believe that God created man from the dust of the earth and made and formed him in his image and likeness—good, just, and holy; able by his own will to conform in all things to the will of God.

  But when he was in honor he did not understand it and did not recognize his excellence. But he subjected himself willingly to sin and consequently to death and the curse, lending his ear to the word of the devil.

  For he transgressed the commandment of life, which he had received, and by his sin he separated himself from God, who was his true life, having corrupted his entire nature.

  So he made himself guilty and subject to physical and spiritual death, having become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways. He lost all his excellent gifts which he had received from God, and he retained none of them except for small traces which are enough to make him inexcusable.

• From ESV Study Bible, Biblical Doctrine: An Overview:

  Sin entered the human race in the Garden of Eden through an attack of Satan, who led Adam and Eve to doubt God’s word and trust their own ability to discern good and evil (Genesis 3). Sometime prior to this, Satan (a fallen angel) must himself have rebelled against God and become evil, though Scripture does not say much about that event. Satan’s strategy was to bring disorder to the created order by approaching Eve and getting her to lead her husband away from God. Adam, so it appears, allowed his wife to be deceived by failing to take up his God-ordained responsibility to lead and protect her. Satan then questioned God’s goodness, wisdom, and care for Adam and Eve by suggesting that God was a miserly legalist in his prohibition of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan then simply lied, saying, “you will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4). Such deception and rebellion against God stem from a failure to trust him and be satisfied with him and his commands and arrangements. Satan and our first parents demanded autonomy and rejected God’s authority, and this has been the source and shape of human sin ever since. Unbelief, pride, and selfishness lead us to think we know better than God and to try to put ourselves in his place. All people, in their fallen condition, are indeed “lovers of self … rather than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 2:3, 4).

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof: 

  The first sin of man was a typical sin, that is, a sin in which the real essence of sin clearly reveals itself. The essence of that sin lay in the fact that Adam placed himself in opposition to God, that he refused to subject his will to the will of God, to have God determine the course of his life; and that he actively attempted to take the matter out of God’s hand, and to determine the future for himself. Man, who had absolutely no claim on God … cut loose from God and acted as if he possesed certain rights as over against God. The idea that the commands of God was really an infringement on the rights of man seems to have been present already in the mind of Eve, when, in answer to the question of Satan, she added the words, “Neither shall ye touch it, ” Gen. 3:3. She evidently wanted to stress the fact that the command had been rather unreasonable. Starting from the pre-supposition that he had certain rights as over against God, man allowed the new center, which he found in himself, to operate against his Maker. This explains his desire to be like God and his doubt of the good intention of God in giving the command. Naturally different elements can be distinguished in his first sin. In the intellect it revealed itself as unbelief and pride, in the will, as the desire to be like God, and in the affections, as an unholy satisfaction in eating the forbidden fruit.

Learn more:

1. Tim Challies: Fall
2. Theopedia: The Fall
3. J. I. Packer: The Fall
4. GotQuestions.org: How did the Fall affect humanity?
   
5. Bob Deffinbaugh: The Fall of Man in God’s Perfect Plan 
6. J. Gresham Machen: The Fall of Man
7. A. A. Hodge: Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof
8. S. Lewis Johnson: The Fall of Man (mp3) 

Related terms:

• federal head
• original sin
• sin

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