The darkest chapter in the Bible is the third chapter of Genesis. In this chapter, we are told about the fall of man. When man sinned against God in the Garden of Eden the greatest tragedy of all time occurred. God withdrew His Spirit from man’s spirit and man died spiritually. Spiritually dead, man no longer had communion with God, but was separated and cut off from his Creator.
In Genesis 2:17, God warned Adam that “in the day” he ate of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” he would “surely die.” Obviously, Adam did not die physically on the same day he sinned against God by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In fact, the Bible teaches us that Adam went on to live 930 years of physical life (Genesis 5:5). Nevertheless, Adam did die the same day he sinned against God and fell in the garden. He died spiritually, not physically.
Spiritually dead, Adam no longer had contact with the spiritual world nor communion with God. He was reduced to living his life by the five senses of his physical body and the information they provided him from the physical world. Since Adam chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he was left to process the information his five senses provided him from the physical world with nothing more than his own understanding. No longer able to live by God’s Word, but reduced to living by his own wit, fallen Adam was left to follow his head in place of his heart.
As if this sorry state of affairs was not bad enough, it was made even worse by the fact that Adam’s sin subjected his physical body, as well as the whole physical world, to corruption (Romans 8:19-23). Nothing was as it should be or as it was created to be anymore; everything was fallen. Consequently, man was left to live his life by the faulty information he received from a fallen world through the five senses of his fallen body, not to mention the fact that he had nothing to figure it all out with except his own corrupt mind.
This deplorable state of spiritual death has been the plight of all men ever since the sin of Adam. Yet, we haven’t suffered this fate merely because of Adam’s sin, but also because of our own. As the Apostle Paul teaches us in Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
This sad state of living spiritually dead to God by the faulty information of a fallen world received through the five senses of a fallen body and figured out with the understanding of a fallen mind is what the Bible calls “the flesh.” It is from this sad state, caused by both ours and Adam’s sin, that Christ came to save us.
Although our dire need of Christ’s salvation is made abundantly clear by the present consequences of our fallen condition, it becomes even more obvious when we consider the eternal outcome. According to the Bible, when one dies his body returns to dust (Genesis 3:19), his spirit returns to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7) and his soul goes to either heaven or hell (Revelation 6:9, James 5:20). If you go to heaven when you die your spirit returns to God intact with your soul to enjoy eternal communion with the Lord. If you go to hell, however, your spirit returns to God and your spiritless soul alone is confined to hell with no hope of ever communing with the Lord. This is the fearful eternal state of the spiritually dead, as well as the most solemn teaching in all of Scripture.
