The Results Of Sin

THE RESULTS OF SIN
A surface reading of the passage seems to indicate that the Serpent initially told the truth. Their eyes WERE opened. They DID come to and experiential understanding of good and evil. And most importantly, they didn't die! Or did they?

If we may read between the lines, then let me suggest that a death did take place on that day. It was a spiritual death. Their ability to freely communicate with God was disrupted. This is seen in their reaction to the presence of God. 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. (Genesis 3:8). Have you ever walked into a room and turned on the lights and seen a big cockroach? What does it do? It scurries out of the light. It hates the light. It tries to hide from the light. Adam and Eve tried to do the same thing. And this is judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. (John 3:19-20).

It's easy to be dirty in the dark. It doesn't show. But put a bright light on dirt and everyone can see it. So it is with sin. Sin doesn't look so bad when you get away from the presence of the Lord. But when HE comes, sin looks awful. That is why pagans don't like to be around Christians. It makes them feel strangely uncomfortable.

Furthermore, there was also the beginnings of a physical death that would eventually come upon the human race as a result of Adam's sin. They did not die immediately, but their eventual death and decay was no less certain.

Finally, the human race would stand in danger of eternal death. Hell was not created for man. It was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). But when man became a follower of Satan in his rebellion against God, hell became man's ultimate destination.

We therefore can conclude that a number of things happened to Adam and Eve upon the eating of the forbidden fruit. Three deaths took place.

1. Spiritual Death. In describing the pre-regeneration experiences of the Ephesians, Paul says, You were dead in your trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). He goes on to say that there came a time when God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:4-5). Colossians 2:13 speaks similarly of when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions. This is why a new birth is necessary. Sin brings about a spiritual death and the solution is a spiritual rebirth.

2. Physical Death. The bodies of Adam and Eve began a process that would one day culminate in physical death. They did not die immediately, but their eventual physical death was now a certainty. This same curse of death was passed on to all of creation. It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment (Hebrews 9:27). This is evidently a reference to physical death.

3. Eternal Death.

Adam and Eve and all of their descendants became subject to the final judgment and to the resulting eternal death. Matthew 25:41 speaks of this eternal death as having been created for the devil and his angels. As mankind has become a follower of Satan in his rebellion against God, so Satan's destiny has become man's destiny. On four separate occasions the book of Revelation speaks of the “Second Death.” This is defined in Revelation 21:8 as that time when all sinners are placed into the Lake of Fire. The righteous, on the other hand, are said to be unaffected by the second death (Revelation 2:11; Revelation 20:6).

4. The Federal Effects of Sin: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned (Romans 5:12).

Having followed his wife into sin, Adam now became a sinful being, different than the way in which he had been created. Following God's natural laws, Adam's offspring would be “after his kind,” having a sinful nature and spiritually dead from birth. When Adam sinned, there was a sense in which all men are said to have sinned. He was acting as the official representative of the human race. Adam's sin was credited to all of his descendants. It did not matter that you had not yet been born. It did not matter that you had not yet been given to opportunity to sin. Adam sinned in your place. When Congress declared war on Japan in December 1941, most Americans did not have any say in the matter. They had taken no active part in that decision. This made no difference. The United States and all of its citizens were now at war with Japan. By the same token, when Adam sinned, he acted as the representative of the entire human race and officially declared war against God.

Notice that sin did not come by “one woman.” The woman was not the head of the human race. Man was responsible, even though it was the woman who first sinned. Why? Because man was the woman's head. The fact that he stood back and took a passive role in her temptation does not change his headship. What does Paul mean when he says that “all sinned”? He does not mean that all sinned individually. He means that all sinned in Adam. For until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. (Romans 5:13).

Paul has already demonstrated that sin and death always go together (Romans 3:23). Wherever you see one, you will also see the other. Satan always tries to divide them. “You shall not surely die.” And the world has always believed this lie. You cannot sin with impunity. If you sin, you will soon smell the odor of death.

Here he brings up another point. It is that sin existed without law even though, by strict definition, there is no sin without law. The syllogism goes like this:

Major Premise|Sin is imputed to the one who breaks God's Law.|
Minor Premise|There was a time when sin was in the world but when the Law had not been given.|
Conclusion|Sin was imputed some other way besides the breaking of God's Law - i.e., through the sin of Adam.|

It is impossible to sin when there are no commands to sin against. It is impossible to break the speed limit when there is no speed limit. Yet prior to the law, “sin was in the world.” How do we know that sin was in the world? Because death reigned. Those long genealogies in Genesis over which we normally skip contain a continuing refrain with each name mentioned: “And he died.”

Adam sinned and death entered. The result was that “all sinned.”|Death reigned
à|The Law was given to Moses at Mount Sinai.|

Sin is not imputed where there is no law (Romans 5:13 c). You cannot disobey God's law unless He has given a law. Anyone living after Adam but before Moses could not break any of God's laws because God had not given any laws. On the other hand, people continued to die during the period between Adam and Moses.

(Romans 5:13-14 prove the doctrine of imputation of sin presented in Romans 5:12.)

However, the penalty of death was not inflicted upon men because of their transgression of the Law. Therefore, the reason that death reigned from Adam to Moses was because of Adam's sin.

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. (Romans 5:14).

If sin always is accompanied by death, then how could death reign in the period from Adam to Moses if sin had not been legally imputed? It is because Adam's sin was imputed. We often ask, “What about the man in Africa who has never heard of God's law?” Paul goes one better by asking, “What about the man who lived before the Law where noone had heard of God's law?” The answer is found in the imputation of Adam's sin. Adam's sin was imputed to all of his descendants, even though they had not sinned in the same way that Adam had sinned. In this way. Adam was a type of Christ (“a type of Him who was to come” - Romans 5:14). Adam was a type of Christ in this respect - that he served as a federal head of many. He sinned. His actions were imputed to others.

Christ also served as the federal head of many. He performed a single act - dying upon the cross. Like Adam, the actions of Christ actions were imputed to others. Just as all are said to have sinned in Adam, in the eyes of the law, all who were identified with Christ were crucified with Him.