05. Immediate Consequences of the Fall
CHAPTER V Immediate Consequences of the Fall Now conscience wakes despair That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory Of what he was, what is, and what to be- Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue. -Milton.
Though the full force of the penalty for Adam’s disobedience was not meted out at once, unmistakable consequences of his sin immediately appeared. Adam, as we have before learned, was created in the image and likeness of God. So long as he retained this state of holiness, he would have, on account of the likeness of his nature to the holiness and love of God, perfect fellowship with his Creator. That Adam and Eve had lost the divine image of moral purity and had thereby disqualified themselves for correspondence with God appears from their attitude toward the presence of God. "And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou ? and he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself " (Genesis 3:8-10) . The pointing out by the sacred writer that Adam and his wife hid themselves and that they experienced fear and shame is certainly the basis of a reasonable inference that before their sin they acted differently. Immediate consequences of the fall, then, were a state of moral being that prompted them to hide from the presence of God and a fear of the holiness of God, whose divine image they had now lost.
Passing over God’s curse upon the serpent, the multiplication of woman’s sorrow in conception, the cursing of the ground for man’s sake, and the sending of physical death, all of which were ultimate consequences of the fall, we notice as the second in importance of the immediate consequences of the fall, that God drove man out of the Garden of Eden to prevent him from partaking of the tree of life. To Adam and Eve the subjective and immediate consequences of the fall were; (1) loss of the divine image and likeness of God; (2) deprivation of association with God on account of guilt; and (3) loss of access to the tree of life, resulting eventually in physical death.