God, Man, Sin, and Redemption Introduced in Genesis and Explained by Paul – Part 3
August 9, 2025
by Dennis Christian
Part 3
(As drawn from the pages of Holy Scripture)
Table of Contents
Part 1 – Overview
Before Creation
God’s decision to create man
God’s purpose required man to be made in His image
The foreseen sin of man an obstacle to God’s purpose for creating him
God’s predetermined solution (the Cross) to the obstacle
Part 2 – Creation
Creation’s beginning:
Creation completes with the addition of man
Possible interpretations
Part 3 – After creation – the first humans
God’s purposes for creation were ready to be fulfilled:
The commandment, which exposed mankind’s vulnerability to sin, Adam and Eve (the Fall):
Paul’s exposition on the Law from Romans 7:
Sin’s impact on creation, mankind:
Paul’s exposition on the Fall from Romans 5 and 8
Part 4 – God’s predetermined plan to rescue sinful man begins, unfolding over time
God’s love for Adam and Eve (mankind) despite their sin
God wants to walk with man, but few will
Enoch, a descendant of Adam’s son Seth, was one of the few.
God’s grief over mankind’s rampant sin
Noah and the Flood
God selects a family, which will become a nation, through whom the Messiah will come:
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: God’s chosen people Israel
Joseph a type of the Future Messiah
Israel grows to the size of a nation
Moses and the Exodus, Moses and the Law
Joshua leads the Hebrews into the promised land (Canaan)
The Battle of Jericho
Canaan is divided among the twelve tribes of Israel
Israel ruled by Judges
Saul becomes the first king of Israel
David, slayer of Goliath then becoming a mighty king
Solomon and the peak of Israel’s earthly strength, wealth, and glory
Israel’s failures, but God’s faithfulness
Part 5 – Jesus (the Messiah) comes:
The ministry of Jesus
The Cross – the pinnacle event of the history of God and man
What the cross did for mankind
How the cross did it
Man’s required response: Spiritual rebirth through repentance and faith
God’s fulfillment of promises to both Jew and gentile – united now as one people, the role of His chosen people fulfilled
God’s purpose for creating mankind fulfilled for believers
Part 6 – Jesus’ future 2nd coming and the end times
Uncertainties of the end time events
The rapture and great tribulation
The Day of the Lord
Judgment
The end state(s) of mankind and all creation
Part 3
After Creation – the first humans
- God’s purposes for creation were ready to be fulfilled: God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and was ready to enjoy a caring, loving relationship with them. He had provided food for them in the garden – various fruit trees. God said they could eat from any of the trees except one.
- The commandment, which exposed mankind’s sin, Adam and Eve (the Fall): Before the mutual loving relationship between God and man could get started, Adam and Eve[i] Satan through the serpent used God’s commandment (His law) to expose human vulnerability to sin. He tempted them to break God’s commandment not to eat from the forbidden tree. He pointed out how good the fruit of the tree looked and that surely their loving God would not cause them to die for eating it. He tempted them through their appetite and tempted them to doubt God’s word. The next day God confronted Adam and Eve, and they confessed they had disobeyed and eaten the forbidden fruit. From Genesis 3:1-13
Paul’s exposition on the Law from Romans 7: Paul expounds on the truth that the Law (God’s commandments) exposes sinfulness. He argues that without the Law there is no violation. While Paul is referring generally to the Law of Moses, the principle is the same for a single law or commandment. It was God’s commandment to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that exposed the vulnerability to sin in the first people – Adam and Eve. Paul says, “for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” Romans 7:11 and, “ Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.” Romans 7:13. Theologian N. T. Wright adds, “When the Torah arrived in Israel, Israel acted out on a grand scale the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden.” “In Romans 5:12 to 8:4, Paul refers to sin as a power: it is sin on steroids.” “The commandment was given: in the garden it was “You shall not eat of the tree;” in the Torah, it was “You shall not covet.” In each case, sin seized on the commandment as its golden opportunity.” The Day the Revolution Began, pg 284
Comment: Sin as a force? Evil? Yes! And who is behind evil? Satan and his forces, the tempting of Eve in the garden a clear example.
Sin’s impact on creation and mankind: Sin had now entered and tainted God’s “very good” creation, and the consequences were severe:
To the serpent God said, “Because you have done this,
Cursed are you more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you will go,
And dust you will eat
All the days of your life;
15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall [d]bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.” Genesis 3:14-15
Comment: The serpent went from being a beautiful animal to lowly snake.
To the woman God said, “I will greatly multiply
Your pain [e]in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16
Comment: The woman had three consequences: pain in childbirth, desire for her husband, and submission to her husband.
And to Adam God said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In [f]toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the [g]plants of the field;
19 By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:17-19
Comment: Adam’s sin resulted in four consequences: (1) The ground was cursed producing thorns and thistles and requiring man’s toil to grow food, (2) Adam (mankind) would have to work by the sweat of his brow to obtain food, (3) Adam (all mankind) would die, and (4) Access to the Garden of Eden and the tree of life was sealed off.
God also said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.” Genesis 3:22-24
Comment: This was an act of mercy to keep sinful man from eating from the tree of life and living forever in a sinful state.
Paul’s exposition on the Fall from Romans 5 and 8: In Romans 5, Paul is comparing and contrasting the effects of two men on humanity: Adam and Jesus. In Romans 8, Paul expounds on the curse on creation resulting from Adam’s sin. Romans 5:12, 18b-19, “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, even so through one act of righteousness [n]there resulted justification of life to all men. 19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”
Comment 1: Just as sin began with one man Adam and spread to all mankind, righteousness for all mankind is available through one man Jesus Christ.
Comment 2: An important question arises here on which believers disagree: Was it an added consequence of the Fall that mankind from thence forward would be changed to have a greater propensity to sin? Many believers think so. That is, Adam and Eve did not have such a vulnerability at first, only after they sinned, and it was a consequence of the Fall. I disagree. That consequence is not in the Genesis account of the consequences of the Fall. That Adam and Eve as created could and did sin meant they had the potential to sin from the beginning. Like us, they were susceptible to temptation and sin’s power, and the commandment gave Satan the opportunity to tempt them. God made them perfect and innocent and did not want them to sin. But because He gave them free will, they had the freedom to sin when tempted and they did.
So, I submit all of us are just like Adam and Eve as created. We inherit their created vulnerability to sin, and, like them, we become sinners when we commit our first sin. Adam and Eve are a picture of us all. That is Paul’s meaning in Romans 5:12 when he says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world [it started with the first one of us], and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” We sinned like Adam the first man did, and thus we die like Adam as a consequence of, not Adam’s sin, but our own sin.
Christians have termed man’s propensity to sin as his “sin nature”. But, is that the best term for our vulnerability to sin? That term is not in scripture. Why would it not be? Because, if you believe as I that man as created had the vulnerability to sin and that an increased sin nature was not added as another consequence of the Fall, then if you say we were created with a sin nature, you are accusing God of being involved in our sin. That would be blasphemous. Though God gave the commandment that exposed man’s vulnerability to sin, God is not an author of sin. He made us innocent, but gave us free will. When we sin, it is our choice, not God’s. If God chose for us, we would not sin. I’m not sure if we need a term for our propensity or vulnerability to sin, but “free-will vulnerability to sin (FWVS)” might fit.
Romans 8:18-23, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, [i]in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
Comment: This scripture is meant to give suffering Christians perspective about their sufferings. Like the groanings of creation itself, which are temporary, so are the sufferings of believers. Four times Paul refers to creation describing it as “anxiously longing”, “eagerly waiting”, “subjected to futility”, and “groaning and suffering the pains of childbirth.”
Most understand Paul as referring to the curse on the ground resulting from Adam’s sin. It could also be referring to the nature of the physical universe as we have come to understand it. Well before man was added to creation some 300,000 years ago, creation existed (scientific evidence showing God began creation approximately 13.8 billion years ago) and was a violent place with stars exploding and predatory animals killing and eating their prey. By contrast, God’s future, new creation will be peaceful with the lion lying down by the lamb.
If Paul is referring to the curse of the Fall, then he is expounding on the nature of the Genesis curse. The straightforward reading of Genesis seems to say that Adam and all mankind to follow would have to cultivate, by the sweat of his brow, a ground now infected with thorns and thistles. Man’s easy life in the garden was over. Paul is expounding the curse description as creation now subjected to futility, groaning and anxiously waiting for the relief of the coming new creation. This is new information from God through Paul about the curse. Though Paul was likely alluding to the curse, the other explanation (that well before man existed creation was a violent place) is also true. Thus, I submit that creation’s suffering and groaning are due to both reasons – the nature of this present world from the beginning then added to by the curse of mankind’s sin.
What now: The perfect harmony desired between God and mankind was now marred by sin. God was not surprised, but now the thrust of His relationship with mankind was to carry out God’s plan to rescue man from his sin. From here forward scripture points to the day when the Messiah (God the Son) comes to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth and to suffer and die for mankind.
Next: Part 4 – God’s predetermined plan to rescue sinful man begins, unfolding over time
[i] Were Adam and Eve real people or representative of the first real people? Does it matter? I think not. The truth is either way, God created them as the first humans, God wanted fellowship but they sinned, and God caused consequences for their sin that were passed down form them.
