What on Earth Happened to God’s Creation?

In the previous post, Genesis 1 introduced what it means to be human. 

In contrast to God’s assessment that “it was very good” (1:31), Genesis 2-3 explains why the world now fails to exhibit that perfection. What caused this failure, and how does it impact our humanity, lives, and the creation?

Let’s find out what on Earth happened to God’s Creation and humanity.

God’s generosity and boundaries

Genesis 2 gives us more details about God’s good Creation—in particular, humans’ relationship with God and each other.

In Genesis 2:16-17, we hear God speaking. Please note two crucial elements of our relationship—God’s generosity and His boundaries: 

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

Our God is extravagantly generous, and yet we must acknowledge that every genuine relationship has a boundary or boundaries that define its existence and guard its integrity. Our relationship with God is no exception.

It began with God. He defined his relationship with Adam with a simple boundary in Genesis 2:16-17.

The fruit of one tree was reserved exclusively for God and God alone. The human was a human and not God. The ‘boundary’ drawn between the human and the fruit of that particular tree marked that distinction.

So, what happened? 

Stepping over the line

Genesis 3 relates the “story” of humans “stepping over the line” or transgressing when they did the one thing God told them not to do. 

As Bruce Waltke puts it, that act was: 

essentially a breach of trust, an illicit reach of unbelief, an assertion of autonomy. 

Immediately, humans began to experience the effects of the relationship they had broken—they were alienated from God. 

As for our relationships with other humans, the event in Genesis 3 set in motion all the discord and conflict we experience, including: 

• strife in marriage; 
• rivalry among brothers and sisters; 
• bitterness, slander, and greed;
• hate, violence, and abuse; 
• congenital defects and personality disorders;
• sickness, aging, and death. 

Each of us was born, and each of us will die—an unavoidable reality check for each of us.

As for our relationship with creation, life became hard and dangerous work. This relationship now offered blood, toil, tears, and sweat (to borrow a quote). Although it still provides food and other resources for life, it also unleashes destructive forces indiscriminately, such as:

• earthquakes and tsunamis, 
• typhoons and hurricanes, 
• famine and disease.

And yet, we still bear the image of God (Genesis 5:1; 9:6; James 3:9), although we are somehow diminished, and that image has become distorted, marred, corrupted by sin.

Theologians generally refer to the events and results of Genesis 3 as the Fall.

So, who are we now?

Who are we now?

For a partial answer to “Who are we now?” let’s look at Adam and his descendants in Genesis 5.

Adam’s descendants may have been taller or shorter, lighter or darker, more intelligent or less—BUT essentially no different than what Adam had become.

Here’s what we read in Genesis 5. 

This is the written account of Adam’s line.

When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them “man” [adam].

That verse reiterates the creation of humans in Genesis 1:27-28. Then we read:

When Adam had lived 30 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. … then he died.

That verse reveals the procreation of humans since Genesis 3. Note that Adam’s offspring bear his likeness and image.

This pattern repeats itself in every succeeding generation. The refrain for each of Adam’s descendants:

Seth … became the father of Enosh. … [and] then he died.

Enosh… became the father of Kenan. … [and] then he died.

The formula continues: X became the father of Y, and X died, and so on throughout history.

I think we get the point. Adam pro-created descendants just like himself—complete with the same image that was distorted, marred, corrupted by sin. Each of us is essentially born in the same condition as Adam—not as bad as we can be, but surely as bad off as we can be. 

Paul sums up this continuous pattern or state as being “in Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:22): 

For as in Adam all die, 

so in Christ all will be made alive. 

Later in this series, we will explore what “in Christ” means. 

So, based on what we have read and heard, if we are asked, “Who are we?” 

We respond honestly with: “We are the image of God, but that image is now distorted, marred, corrupted—we are somehow diminished—YET we yearn for the God in whose image we have been made.”

Where to from here?

God could have destroyed all this and started again,

Or perhaps he could have just walked away.

But he didn’t. Instead, He did something truly amazing and utterly unimaginable.

And that’s what we’ll look at in the next post.

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FORWARD TO the next post in this series

BACK TO What does it mean to be human?

Notes:

1. Generally, Gordon Wenham, “Original Sin in Genesis 1-11,” Churchman 104/4 (1990).
2. Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis, 70, notes, “The image is not erased after the Fall but continues seminally to every individual.”
3. Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 1986), 31.