Seeing the joy God had in creating Adam and Eve and in sharing his very life with them, a life that the evil one had lost, he wanted to deprive this first adopted son and daughter of the very gift they now had, which he could never have again. The test was to see if by a half truth he could get them to fall into the same trap he fell into--wanting to be more than they were, wanting to be equal to God. Knowing only the reality of good in the environment of the idyllic garden,  Eve was not prepared to experience the reality of evil, which also existed in the world.

Evil existed outside of Adam and Eve before the test, but once they followed the same path of the evil one seeking self fulfillment rather than giving themselves totally to God, they experienced the effects of evil within them. What was good, their own bodies, they now saw the need to cover. Being free to walk in the presence of God with whom they were at peace before the test, after they sinned, they felt the compulsion to hide from God. Having lost their sharing in God’s life and love because they chose not to love in return, they felt alienated from God. Their sin affected their relationship to each other and to all of creation. Each accused another for what happened. Work became unbearable, because it would be at the sweat of the brow and child bearing would be labor intensive.

This original sin was the beginning of the sin of all human beings, except Jesus and Mary. Listen to Paul in his letter to the Romans: “All men have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23) “...(T)hrough one man sin entered the world and with sin death, death thus coming to all men inasmuch as all sinned....(B)y the offense of the one man all died....(T)he sentence followed upon one offense and brought condemnation...(D)eath began its reign through one man because of his offense...(T)rough one man’s disobedience all became sinners...”(Rom 5:12, 15, 17, 19). (To be continued)