THE NEED OF SALVATION | THE BEGINNING OF SIN

1. When and where and how did sin enter God's universe? Did God create sin? Did he create sinful beings?

a) Satan. God created beings that can love Him and serve Him because they want to. This is the same as saying He created beings that can hate Him and disobey Him, beings that are able to sin. For if these beings cannot sin, they would not be able to do anything else but obey. If they can choose to sin or to obey, some would choose to sin. And some did sin. The first one was Lucifer, or Satan.

b) Man. You can read the story of Adam's sin in Genesis 3. Perhaps you know it quite well, but you should think about the following points:

i) In the Garden of Eden everything was planned to make man happy. He could eat the fruit of the trees that had already been planted. He was ruler over all the animals. On the other hand, the Lord Jesus Christ who is also called the last Adam, was tempted after He had been in the wilderness for forty days without any food.

ii) Adam talked as a friend with God every day. There was only one thing he was told not to do. He was told not to eat any fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

iii) Adam was warned. God told him plainly that the very day he broke this command he would die. Adam knew what the results would be.

iv) When Satan wanted to tempt Adam to sin, he first went to Eve. He started by saying something that made her doubt God's goodness. Eve told the first lie. She told Satan that they could not touch the tree. God had only said not to eat any of its fruit. If they ate it, they would die.

v) Then Satan came right out and said they would not die. He promised Eve they would be like God and know good and evil. Eve was deceived and believed. Adam's sin was worse because he was not deceived, 1 Timothy 2:14.

vi) Was Satan's promise fulfilled? Of course Adam and Eve already knew the difference between good and evil. They knew this difference the moment God said to them. "You shall not." Now they knew evil because they themselves had done evil. There was some truth in what Satan said. God knows in His mind the difference between good and evil. He does not know evil by doing it, because everything He does is good.

vii) What about God's warning? God had said they would die the same day. Did this really happen?

viii) Adam was separated from God that very day. In a real sense this is death. And no doubt Adam's body started to die that very day when he refused to obey God. "The wages of sin is death." But what is sin?