The fall of our first parents

This week's questions

Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created? Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.

Question 13

What is sin? Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.

Question 14

What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created? The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created, was their eating the forbidden fruit.

Question 15

Question 12 said that God made a covenant of life with the first man (last week). With Question 13 the catechism turns to sin and misery, and tells how the man under that covenant fell; what his fall meant for all mankind comes in Questions 16 and 17 next week.

Able to stand, and able to fall

The last proof text of Question 13 says how the first man was made:

Only this have I found: I have discovered that God made mankind upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

Ecclesiastes 7:29

Man was made upright, but not yet fixed beyond falling. The Westminster Confession says that in his state of innocency he had freedom and power to will and do what pleases God, "but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it" WCF 9.2. The same chapter traces the will through four estates: innocence; sin, in which it has lost all ability to any spiritual good accompanying salvation 9.3; grace, in which it freely wills good yet still wills evil too 9.4; and glory, in which alone it is free to good alone 9.5. ‘Left to the freedom of their own will’ means that God did not hold them like puppets.

The serpent began with a question, whether God had really forbidden every tree in the garden (Genesis 3:1), and then a promise: "you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). The woman ate and gave to her husband, and they hid from the LORD among the trees (Genesis 3:6-8). When God called them to account, each had an answer:

And the man answered, “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied, “and I ate.”

Genesis 3:12-13

The Belgic Confession of the continental Reformed churches says of man that "being in honor, he understood it not, neither knew his excellency, but willfully subjected himself to sin", giving ear to the words of the devil Belgic Confession, Art. 14.

What sin is, and why a fruit

Question 14 names sin in two ways. ‘Want of conformity’ means not measuring up to God's law, in who we are as well as in what we do, down to the leaning of our nature. "Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin" (James 4:17). ‘Transgression’ is crossing the line God has drawn. In the proof text John defines sin in three words: "sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4). The Larger Catechism adds that the law in view is "any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature" Larger Catechism, Q. 24. That law is opened commandment by commandment in the catechism's second part, from Question 39.

When Question 15 calls the first sin ‘their eating the forbidden fruit’, it names no trifle. In one act were unbelief, trusting the serpent's word above God's; pride, judging good what God had forbidden; and the wish to be as God. Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa, looked back on stealing pears as a boy and confessed: "Nor cared I to enjoy what I stole, but joyed in the theft and sin itself" Augustine, Confessions 2.4.9. A few pears, like the garden's fruit, became a mirror of a heart that loves crossing the line for its own sake.

Christians read Genesis 3 in different ways. The catechism and the New Testament speak of Adam and Eve as the first parents of all: sin entered the world through one man (Romans 5:12), Adam was formed first (1 Timothy 2:13-14), and "From one man He made every nation of men" (Acts 17:26). Christians differ over how much of the telling is figurative; Is Genesis history? and The fall, in the Christian Doctrine course, take up that question and the science.

The fallen will has long been debated. The monk Pelagius, early in the fifth century, urged that by the nature God gave a person can keep the commandments Pelagius, Letter to Demetrias; in 418 the Council of Carthage condemned his teaching, confessing that Adam's sin passes to his offspring and that no one keeps the commandments without grace Council of Carthage, Canons on Pelagianism. Martin Luther and the Reformed churches carried on Augustine's teaching. In 1525 Luther answered Erasmus that in the matter of salvation the human will is bound by sin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, and the Westminster Confession says the same WCF 9.3. This does not mean that we choose nothing, but that without grace we cannot turn to God. See also What is sin?

To ponder this week

Is there a ‘small’ disobedience you excuse this week, and what does it show about whose word you trust? The first sin was one piece of fruit. If you find one, do not hide or blame; tell it plainly to the God who came looking for those who hid (Genesis 3:9). This is not a time to scold yourself but to come back to the Father who calls.

Practice