DWoG 6 Mankind's condition after the fall

Today, we are going to talk about what happened to mankind and the world after the Great Fall in Genesis 3.



Remember we said that God is a Community of Love – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? God created mankind to share in this Community of Love. As the Almighty Father, He created mankind in His own image and breathed His divine Spirit into them, enabling mankind to live abundantly as true children of God.



With the Fall of mankind, everything changed. When mankind used their free will to benefit themselves at the cost of God’s honour, they brought shame on themselves. They lost their close connection with God and were cut off from the fullness of life found only in Him. The image of God within them was tainted with selfish pride and hatred – mankind became tainted with sin, obscuring God's image in them.



Mankind’s free will was wounded and tainted by sin, making it impossible for them to naturally will the good of others, God, or nature. Adam and Eve's descendants and all of creation could not escape the curse of sin brought into the world. This is what Christians call original sin – Adam and Eve’s selfish, dishonouring actions that led to the cursed state of our world. Their wrong choices led to chaos and death, as recounted in Genesis 3-11.



In Genesis, we read that Cain, Adam and Eve’s first son, killed his brother Abel out of jealousy. Mankind became so corrupt that God decided to send a flood to wipe out mankind. But even after the flood, mankind continued to turn away from God and became more corrupt. In their pride, they tried to make a name for themselves by building the Tower of Babel. God punished them by confusing their language.



These stories show that being cut off from God and the Garden of Eden wounded mankind so deeply that they died spiritually and began dying physically. Romans 5:12 states, “…just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…”



Romans 1 describes mankind's fallen state as shameful and perverse, driven by lusts and immoral desires, creating false gods instead of aligning with the One True Triune God. Romans 1:29-31 describes mankind as filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are envious, murderous, deceitful, malicious, gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, boastful, inventing ways of doing evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.



After the Fall, finding a righteous person in creation became difficult. Psalm 143:2 says no one living is righteous before God. Psalm 51:5 acknowledges that we are sinners from birth.



What a shameful and devastating situation mankind has fallen into. But there is hope. God is Love and always wills the good of others. In His goodness, God chose to bind Himself to mankind. Despite mankind turning away, God refused to abandon them. Instead, He sent rescue missions. The first was during the Great Flood that we find in Genesis 6 to 9. God chose Noah and his family to build an ark, taking a pair of every animal and bird to protect them during the flood. Afterward, God established a covenant with Noah and his descendants, promising never to wipe out all of creation with a flood again, symbolised by the rainbow.



The second rescue mission involved Abraham and his descendants, the nation of Israel. God established His covenant with Abraham and Israel, showing His great missionary plan – a salvation plan to realign mankind and nature with Himself and bring mankind back into His divine nature and Community of Love.



This covenant plan is described in 2 Peter 1:4 as bringing together God and mankind, leading to mankind participating in the divine nature of God. This echoes Adam and Eve sharing in God in the Garden of Eden. God’s plan is the recreation of all.



God’s commitment to reorient creation led Him to become a Man – Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary. In Jesus Christ, God united His divine nature with human nature, beginning the restoration of creation to full glory and everlasting life. This is the foundation for hope in our broken world. This is why Christians confess in the Nicene Creed:



“I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through Him all things were made.

I believe that for us men and for our salvation He, the Son of God, came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the virgin Mary, and became man;

I believe that for our sake He, Jesus, the Son of God, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, He suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.”



We will discuss God’s salvation plan in more detail in another session.