As most people know, Adam and Eve were the first man and woman on this earth.  They had good points and bad points of their lives that we must all be aware of so that we can learn from them.  We will study some history and spiritual lessons based on their lives.

​

What do we know about Adam and Eve?  Well, here are some highlights of their lives:

 

God used 6 days to make the earth, all of its animals, and all of its plants were completed by the end of the sixth day.  On the seventh day, God rested from all of His labors in the creation (Genesis 2:2).  On this sixth day, God made Adam and Eve.  God made the plants and animals before He made Adam and Eve. However, God gave them dominion over all of these things anyway.  This means that God put Adam in charge of the earth and the things within it.  God gave Adam very simple rules to live by.  These rules are called a “covenant.”  God said to Adam and Eve, “…I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.” (Genesis 1:29-30 New International Version).

                                       

As you can see, God made man and the animals vegetarians at first.  God provided a lot of food for them.  God still provides everything that we need today to live (James 1:17; Matthew 6:33).

 

God gave Adam and Eve some more rules.  God said, “16…You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:16-17 New International Version). As you can see, God told them they could eat of every type of tree in the Garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

​

Another rule God put in place for Adam was that he had to do his job.  His job was to take care of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15).

​

God created Adam from the dust of the earth.  He took him and formed his body.  Then, God breathed life into Adam to make him spring to life (Genesis 2:7)!

​

God put Adam and Eve in a paradise on earth called “The Garden of Eden.”  It had two trees that Adam and Eve could not eat from.  One of the trees was the tree of life, which would make one live forever.  The other tree is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:8-10).  As you know, God told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God knew that it would bring spiritual harm to them if they did so.  That spiritual harm would be spiritual death to them.

 

So, God’s advice is always used to prevent us from making mistakes.  This is why we must study our Bibles so we know how to make the right decisions to keep us away from spiritual death.  We have to get used to studying our Bible every day.  This is something God commands us to do (2 Peter 1:5).

                                       

Spiritual death is a separation from God (Isaiah 59:2; 1 Peter 3:12).  It means to not have a peaceful friendship and bond with God anymore, because we have betrayed Him through our own selfishness.

                                       

When we sin, we are under the sentence of spiritual death and we must repent (i.e. change), confess our fault to God, and ask for His forgiveness, to be brought back to spiritual life (Ephesians 2:1; Acts 8:22; 1 John 1:7-10).   Remember, spiritual life is the opposite of spiritual death.  It means to have that peaceful relationship with God restored and to be saved again.  If we do not change, then heaven will not be our home!

                                     

Also, instead of a tree of life in the Garden of Eden, faithfulness to Jesus gives us eternal life.  This means that if all Christians continue to believe and obey Jesus until the end of their lives, they will go to heaven and be joyful evermore (Revelation 2:10)!

 

God created Eve from Adam’s rib. She was made to keep Adam from being lonely. She also was made to help him with the work God has assigned him to do (Genesis 2:18-25).  With the creation of Adam and Eve, God also created the first marriage (Genesis 2:24).

 

God is pleased when we marry just like He is pleased when we obey Him in all things. God says, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4 New International Version).  As you can see, God wants us to not have sex unless we are married.  Also, He does not want any cheating when we are married outside of our marriage.  He has also designed marriage to be between a man and woman only.

​

As you can see, things were going well for Adam and Eve until we come to Genesis 3.  In this chapter, the tempter arrived in the form of a snake and started spreading lies to fool Eve.

​

While Eve was at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Satan said, “4…You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5 New International Version).  Satan was lying, because God said they would die as we studied earlier.  This is what Satan does.  He tries to create doubt over God’s Word.  This is often the first stage of disobedience.  We stop believing in what God says so that Satan can start to persuade us to do evil.  God cannot lie (Titus 1:2).  It is Satan who is the liar.  Always believe God and not the lies of Satan.  The lies of Satan always results in spiritual death. 

                                         

There are three weapons Satan uses against us.  They are called the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16).  The lust of the flesh are sins related to the body, such as premarital sex.  The lust of the eyes is to be materialistic.

                                       

Satan was using the pride of life, which means to make someone conceited.  This is what Satan was using against Eve.  Eve should have never desired to be on the same level as God.  No matter how smart we become, we will never be as wise as God (Isaiah 55:8-9).  He created us, so He must be smarter than us!  Please keep this in mind so you always stay humble.

​

 We see some bad things begin to occur when Eve was at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil while talking to Satan.  The Bible says, “6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves” (Genesis 3:6-7 New International Version).

                                         

Eve made the mistake of not thinking about what God wanted.  Instead, she started to become selfish and rebellious.

   The devil beat her with the lust of the flesh, because Eve began to want to eat the fruit from the tree when she was not supposed to.  The devil beat her with the lust of the eyes, because the fruit became very pretty to her.  The devil beat her with the pride of life, because she started to desire to be as smart as God!  So Eve became selfish and ate of the fruit.

                                     

Satan does the same thing to us.  If one trick does not work, he will try a different trick. The key is to say “no” each time.

​

Also, Eve could have survived these temptations with Satan if she would have fled from the tree. We learn that the more we hang around bad influences the easier it becomes to be evil (1 Corinthians 15:33).  When people start acting evil around us, it is best to get away from them before we fall for their persuasion as Eve did!

​

Now, we have talked about Eve, but what about Adam?  Was He wrong? The Bible shows us that Adam was talked into eating of the forbidden fruit by Eve (Genesis 3:6).  This is not good, because God does not allow us to use peer pressure as an excuse for doing wrong.  This is why we must be a leader instead of a follower.  Adam became a follower, when he should have been the leader instead.  Adam knew what he was doing was wrong, but allowed Eve to talk him into doing something he knew was wrong.  The key to being righteous is to resist Satan.  If Satan hears enough “no” answers coming from us, he will eventually run away from us (James 4:7).  Although Eve may have continued to pressure Adam to eat of the fruit, she would have had no choice but to give up on the asking when she realized that Adam would not budge into doing what was wrong. However, Adam was not that strong and ate of the fruit just like Eve did.  Now, the devil has won against both of them!

​

The Bible also talks about an after effect that happened to Adam and Eve when they rebelled against God by eating of the forbidden fruit.  The Bible says their eyes were opened (Genesis 3:7).  This is not good.  This means they began to understand the difference between good and evil.  They had lost their innocence.  This happens to us the first time we engage in sinful activities such as premarital sex, drugs, pornography, and alcohol to name only a few things.  When we know the sinful pleasures of this world, it is harder to resist them.  Always keep in mind, it is easier to resist things you have not experienced instead of things we have experienced!  Thus, it is always better to never let curiosity move us to do things that will tempt us for years to come!  Adam and Eve’s life became harder to be pleasing to God after their rebellion and so does our lives when we experiment with sinful activities.

​

Moving on, after the rebellion of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God laid down the punishments for the snake, Adam, and Eve.  God started with the snake and punished him, because he allowed Satan to use him. The Bible says, “14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:14-15 New International Version).  

 

As you can see, God cursed the snake to have to crawl on his belly in order to move around and to eat dust.  God also talks to Satan inside of the snake to let Satan know He would be sending Jesus into the world to crush his head.

​

As you know, this is a Messianic prophecy that we have already studied.  Jesus will certainly and completely throw Satan in Hell for eternity at His Second Coming (Matthew 25:31-46).

​

Moving forward to God’s punishment of Eve, God said, “…I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16 New International Version).   As you can see, God made labor a very painful process for the woman. This was a part of her punishment for disobedience.  Furthermore, she would always have a strong desire for her husband even through the marriage situation would continue to cause labor pains!  Even more, her husband would be her leader in the home.

​

Moving forward to Adam’s punishment from God, God said to Him, “17...Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:17-19 New International Version).

​

As you can see, God put several punishments on Adam for yielding to the peer pressure applied by Eve and eating of the forbidden fruit.  No longer would his gathering of food be so easy.  Before he sinned, all he had to do was pick fruit from the trees and eat it.  Not much effort was necessary to provide for his needs.  However, God changed him into a farmer instead.  He would now have to plant seeds and farm the ground instead.  This would become hard work for him.  Not only was the work going to be hard, because of the labor he had to put in to feed himself and his family, it would also be hard because some of the plants would fight him back.  If you notice, some types of bushes, flowers, and other plants have thorns on them.  This is their defense to keep you from disturbing them!  Now, Adam would have to deal with these prickly plants and get cut while pulling them up to eat them!  Lastly, he would have to experience physical death as well.  As with all humans, starting with Adam, we must all experience death (Hebrews 9:27).

 

To wrap up this lesson regarding Adam and Eve, we must answer the question, “What did we learn as Christians today from them?”  First, we learned that God will punish us in this life or the one to come for our disobedience to Him.  He can punish us in this life to bring us back to sanity.  That is, he can put us through suffering to wake us back up and make us change from our evil ways (Hebrews 12).  He can also punish us eternally for not repenting (i.e. changing) before we died (Matthew 7:21; 25:31-46).  Furthermore, we cannot allow people to influence us to do wrong.  We must be individuals and stand up for God even when loved ones try to convince us to do wrong.  God does not accept the excuse of peer pressure to let us off the hook of punishment.  God wants us to not only believe in Him, but obey Him to be saved and pleasing to Him!

​

- Anthony L. Norwood