Man’s Function after the Fall

We have previously expounded on the fall of the man. It is critical that we understand what happened as a result of man’s fall; with this, we can in turn understand the details of man’s redemption. If man didn’t fall, then we would never have needed to be redeemed and ransomed. The disobedience and fall of man was accompanied by fundamental changes in the first man’s nature.

We must point out here that after man’s disobedience, man started to function in a different way! Man became self-conscious as Gen3:7 shows. This type of consciousness didn’t originate from God rather it originated from man’s choice to scorn God’s will. Afterwards, man needed to hear God speak in the physical realm (vs.8&9). Man hid from God’s presence (vs.8); prior to this man had lived in the consciousness of his location in God. Fear came into existence (vs.10) and God is not the origin of fear (2Tim.1:7). Also we see Adam get self-inspired decisions as he changed his bone of bone’s name from woman to Eve (vs.20); while these may to us seem so casual, it actually is not. Previously, the man had functioned based on his relationship with God, after the fall, man functioned based on self-will and self-knowledge. Now why was man’s function altered as a result of the fall?

Things That Happened As A Result of Man’s fall

As a result of the man’s disobedience, sin came into the world (Rom.5:12). Yes, the devil was a sinner from the beginning, but sin didn’t enter into the world via the devil. The custodian of the world was Adam; by choosing to become a subject of the devil, Adam became the channel and means for sin to enter into the world. Here we must understand that with sin came a separation from God’s life – death. So death does not mean vanishing out of existence, rather it means being cut off and separated from life. Death is defined by the absence of life. Via man’s fall, death came (1Cor.15:21) and death spread to all creation that had been made subject to Adam (Rom.8:20). Creation which God made as good and placed under the authority of Adam became subject to destruction & corruption as a result of man’s subjection to sin. So when you see the ‘natural’ disasters today, don’t casually say: ‘it is an act of God!’ rather understand that as a result of man’s choice, nature and created things are no more as they were created by God.

So you may say: ‘and how does this all relate to me?’ Well consider the example of the tree which we earlier used, the root-stem and branch analogy. If the root-stem is good, a bad branch can be cured, but if the root-stem is compromised, a good branch on the tree is actually just a living-dead. The same way with Adam, when Adam fell he was separated from the life of God. He died the very day he disobeyed (Gen.2:17), yet we know that in the body Adam lived another 930 years before death of his body. Now this is what happened: when Adam disobeyed, his spirit was cut off from associating with God. In his spirit he no more enjoyed the fellowship with God. This was death; Adam was separated from the life and light of God. It was a spiritual separation. So he needed his senses to hear God! God had to do something physical to communicate with man after the fall. Via the knowledge of good and evil, man became sense (in a way you may say brain) – ruled. 

Man needed to see to believe, there was the need for empirical evidence and proper computation to express ideas and thoughts to man. God became mysterious to man, because God does not act based on the senses. I like putting it this way: ‘God does not obey Newton’s third law of motion’ i.e. God does not react based on an action. With man’s fall, the ways of God became both a mystery and senseless to man. You see God does not live inside the time realm as man does. God functions from the eternal realm (Isaiah57:15a). In our spirit – born of God – we are able to relate with God and His realm as 1Cor14:2 explains. On the day Adam disobeyed, he died to God spiritually. It however took 930 years for the death of his body. James explains what the death of the body means (James2:26). It involves the spirit leaving the body. This is where we now understand what we mentioned earlier in Gen.2:17, where God said if Adam were to disobey: ‘…dying thou shall die’. So we may see what God said to Adam this way: ‘…in dying spiritually, you will physically die’. 

It is of utmost importance to understand that Adam died the day he disobeyed; his spirit only left his body 930 years afterwards. Adam was for all humanity the stem from whom we were all to proceed. As soon as he disobeyed, the changes that happened to him became applicable to all men that were to come through him. So for Adam and God, it was not an issue of a sinful deed, rather it was the result of the sinful deed. It became impossible for Adam who could no longer in fellowship in his inner-most being with God to give rise to progeny that would fellowship with God in the spirit. So as Eve became the mother of all humanity (Gen.3:20), all who came through her line had to look like fallen Adam as we see in Seth’s account (Gen.5:3). Adam after the fall became the reference point for all man. After the fall, Adam was still a spirit who had a soul and who lived in a body, however, his spirit no more had God’s life, he had become a sense ruled person and his body had become subject to death (i.e. his body could no longer act as an eternal vessel for his spirit).

Our whole story was told to start to enlighten us all on why when Jesus saves, He saves man completely: saves man as a spirit, saves his soul and saves man’s body (1Thess.5:23). You see when our parents give birth to us, in God’s sight (since our parents trace back to Adam), we are born as humans without God’s true life! John explains in John1:13 that such pro-creation is based on blood and man’s will. Paul calls such birth, giving birth to the living dead in Romans5. On the other hand, when God gives birth to us, our spirits comes alive to God as Jesus explains in John3:6. After our birth by God, our soul/mind starts the journey of salvation of the soul (1Peter1:9; Col.3:10) and this is executed by the Word of God transforming our minds as Rom.12:2 says! The ransoming of our body only comes about at rapture (Rom.8:23; 1Cor.15:51-53), when Jesus will transform our lowly bodies to become like His own glorious body (Philip.3:21)!

So my dear friends, if you are willing to listen: God didn’t give you a brain to use as the primary means of living your life, rather God’s will is that you will reign over your soul and body from your spirit. God’s intent is that by the union and communion of your spirit with Him, you will rule over the transformation of your mind and the careful treatment of your body as God’s own house.

Watch out for our concluding aspect on the series: ‘Man’ in the next couple of weeks as we delve into The Redemption of Man!!!