084. II. The Fall Of Man.
II. The Fall Of Man. For the present we need only a brief statement of the more open facts of the fall. The deeper questions of depravity and sin will receive their special treatment further on in our discussions.
1. Entering Into the Temptation.—The mental process through which Eve entered into the temptation is much more fully given than in the case of Adam. On a collocation of the temptation and the result, her own mental movement becomes obvious. The former we have already considered. The latter is seen in the new light in which the prohibited fruit appeared to her. Through the illusive coloring of the temptation it seemed beautiful to the eye, good for food, and desirable to make one wise. Through the impulse of the appetence thus begotten she took of the fruit, and did eat (Genesis 3:6). It was an open violation of the divine command.
She “gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” This is the sum of the account in the case of Adam (Genesis 3:6; Genesis 3:12; Genesis 3:17). Yet it is hardly to be thought that, without any hesitation or questioning, he at once accepted the fruit simply on the proffer of his wife. There may be omitted facts. Otherwise the entrance of Adam into the temptation is far stranger than that of Eve.
2. Penalty of the Sinning.—Death is the penal term of the probationary law, and signifies the punishment of disobedience to the divine command (Genesis 2:17). There is in the law no explanation of the penal term, and we must find its full meaning in a proper view of man as its subject, and in its subsequent use in Scripture. Nor should that primary sense be modified by any partial or provisory arrest of judgment upon the intervention of a redemptive economy. The announcement of such an economy preceded the judicial treatment of the primitive sin (Genesis 3:15).
There is a threefold sense in which man may be the subject of death, and also a corresponding meaning of the term in its Scripture use.
It is the clear sense of Scripture that perpetual life was the provisory heritage of man. Obedience would have secured his providential exemption from death. This was provided for and pledged in the tree of life—probably through a sacramental use of its fruit, rather than by any intrinsic virtue which it might possess. By the divine judgment, and by expulsion from the tree of life, penalty in the form of physical death was inflicted upon man (Genesis 3:19; Genesis 3:22-24). St. Paul confirms this sense of physical death in the original penalty of disobedience (Romans 5:12).
There is also a spiritual death in distinction from the spiritual life—such as man originally possessed (John 4:24; Romans 8:6; 1 John 3:14). This death is inseparably connected with sin, and must have been the immediate consequence of sin in Adam (Romans 8:2; Ephesians 2:1; Colossians 2:13). His spiritual life was fully realized only in union with the Holy Spirit. Sin was the severance of that union, with the consequence of spiritual death. Such was now the state of Adam and Eve. With the full execution of the penalty this death must have been utter. But it is reasonable to think that in this case, as in that of physical death, there was a partial arrest of judgment, or an instant gift of helping grace, through the redemptive mediation already instituted.
There is still a third sense of the penal term—that of eternal death. This is not the place for the discussion of the question concerning the ultimate doom of sin. Eternal death is the final penal allotment of the unsaved. Beyond this fact of penal allotment, it is rather the full intensity and perpetuity of spiritual death than a distinct form of death. In view of the nature of man as morally constituted and endowed with immortality, and in view of the final doom of sin as revealed in the Scriptures, the penal term in the probationary law meant eternal death.
3. Fall of the Race.—This question arises only incidentally in the present connection. The race is fallen and morally corrupt through the sin and fall of its progenitors. These consequences, however, must be interpreted in a sense consistent with determining facts in the case. But for the immediate intervention of a redemptive economy the penalty of death must have been promptly executed according to its own terms. This execution must have precluded the propagation and existence of the race. This preclusion as an actuality could not have been a penalty, because a never-existent race could not suffer a penalty. Hence the race was not liable to the original penalty in the same manner as its progenitors who transgressed the law; yet it is in a state of moral depravity and subject to death in consequence of their sin and fall. This is the sense of the Scriptures. The law of these results is for later treatment.