To really understand how we all got here, what it really means to be “born again,” and why there is so much death and destruction in the world we live in – you have to go back to the very beginning to the Adam and Eve story as told to us in the Bible.
Adam To truly understand our roots and beginnings as Christians, we have to fully understand exactly what had occurred in this story. I will go ahead and break the story of Adam and Eve down under the following captions.
Creation of Adam and Eve
On Day 6 after creating the land animals, God created Adam from dust then breathed life into him (Genesis 2:7). From the beginning, unlike animals (and angels), human beings were a mixture of physical and spiritual attributes. This made Adam fundamentally different from all the animals that God created, which is why none of them were suitable as companions for Adam. Naming the animals was a great object lesson for Adam to show him that he needed someone like himself, not animals. Up until now in the creation account, every time God saw something, it was good, but for the first time, God sees something that isn’t good—Adam is alone. Creation is incomplete. This doesn’t mean that God didn’t foresee the need for a companion for Adam; it just means that now, when Adam realizes his need, God is going to do something about it.
Life in the Garden of Eden
We’re not told specifically that Adam and Eve could not or did not eat of the Tree of Life that was in the midst of the garden. But it would seem that the fruit of this tree was a feast for Adam and Eve would enjoy once they passed the test of obedience represented in the forbidden tree. (Revelation 2:7) speaks of eating of the tree of life being granted to those who “overcome” or “conquer.” Clearly, Adam and Eve did not overcome temptation.
What did Adam and Eve look like
Many picture books make Adam and Eve blonde and fair-skinned, but when we consider that they were the ancestors of everyone who ever lived, it’s easy to see that they probably did not look like that. Instead, they had to have a combination of genes that could give rise to all the traits that we see in human beings today (except a few that arose through mutation in localized areas post-Babel)—from very dark Africans to very pale Norwegians,
So most likely Adam and Eve had middle-brown skin, hair, and brown eyes. Just like the parents of the ‘two-tone twins’, they would have had the potential to have offspring both darker and lighter than themselves.
The End of the Story
Is this the end of the story about Adam and Eve? Did God expel Adam and Eve from the garden without providing a way for them to repair their relationship with Him? How can what you believe about Adam and Eve affect your life today? If you believe that Adam and Eve were created by God and disobeyed Him, bringing sin into this world, does that make you a sinner? If so, how does that change your view of yourself? Of God? Of your relationship with God? These are vital questions to explore as they lead to the ultimate questions of life.
My mother, (May God bless her soul, now that she has passed away), believed that there was no bad apple, and that they were cast out from the garden of Eden by God, for having sex! So, I said, “No Mom! They were cast out for eating the forbidden apple, that would give them the knowledge of good and evil, even though they were warned by God not to! I continued to say that, “They had sex after both of them were cast out, with the knowledge of good and evil!”