From the Garden to the Cross: How God’s Plan Reversed Our Fate
Every person, sinner and saint alike, has a force, a power, that pushes them toward sin, wrong attitudes, choices, and actions in life.
Though anyone can choose not to act on those impulses, the desires are still there. Where do those desires come from? They were forced on us by the first human occupant on earth, Adam. His disobedience toward God’s command opened him and his wife, Eve, toward the curse we all now experience in our lives today, thousands of years since both walked in the perfect garden provided by God. The disobedience of Eve first, and Adam second, occurred at a tree in the Garden. Out of thousands of trees made for beauty and thousands of trees made for fruit to be eaten, one tree was forbidden by God for them to eat. Their will could only be tested and proven to God—with a choice to go against Him. If they passed the test, they could be trusted to resist sin and remain in the Garden with Him.
Both failed the test. With multiplied thousands of “yes” trees and one “no” tree, they chose to eat the fruit of the “no” tree. Since we were in Adam at the time, we fell with him. Adam’s fall included us. We did not choose to be born into sin. Adam chose for us. The fall of mankind occurred at a tree.
Thousands of years later, another Man, Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, entered the human race and redeemed mankind from the curse Adam brought us into. He also did this at a tree—the cross.
The garden of life today is filled with trees of all kinds, promising us freedom, peace, love, and understanding from the fruits they bear. They are the trees of the various world religions, political parties and viewpoints, education, social fraternities, and humanitarian groups. The tree Jesus Christ died on is the only “yes” tree in a giant garden containing thousands of “no” trees. Adam was given a choice to say “no” to the one tree. We too are given a choice to say “yes” to the one tree and eat the fruit that can truly redeem us from the curse Adam led us into. God’s invitation is, “taste and see that the Lord is good ” (Psalm 34:8).
First Corinthians 15:22 says, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” Human reasoning says, “My good works, love, and compassion for others will allow me into heaven. I believe I have been better than most I know. So, God will see me for who I am.” No one will be judged as an individual before God, like a single stalk of wheat. Each will be seen as a limb attached to a tree—a dead tree or a living tree. Being born again removes you from the dead tree Adam and into the living tree Christ. You die to Adam and are reborn into Christ. You do not go to heaven or hell because of you and your good or bad works. You go to heaven or hell because of who you are attached to.
Life and Death! Choose Life
Out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst [middle] of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. …And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” [“dying you shall die”] (Genesis 2:9,16-17).
Both trees were in the middle of the Garden. If they were not next to each other, they were close. The invitation was to reject the one tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but eat from every other tree, which included the freedom to eat of the Tree of Life. We are not told they ever ate from it. God told Adam if he ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would die twice. The Hebrew says, “dying (present tense), you will die (future tense).”
The first death Adam and Eve experienced was instant spiritual death. The ever-present life of God in them was removed, and they were suddenly alone. The second death they experienced was progressive physical death. This death did not come for hundreds of years.
Two Sides of One Fruit
Both of the attributes of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil are rejected by God. This is important, because the usual question at this point is, But didn’t Adam and Eve already know and experience God’s goodness to them? The absolute answer to this question is “yes.” They did experience God’s display of good to them each day. Divine good was the only good they had ever known. But the good of this tree was not God’s good. It was Satan’s counterfeit to divine good— human good. Human good does not think it needs God’s help and substitutes its own values and answers to life’s problems.
After eating the fruit, the first thing they realized was they were naked. Without the ability to discern divine good, they covered themselves with their own idea, fig leaves. Fig leaves are a perfect example of human good, man’s thinking. They help for a moment, but they decay. God’s answer for them was divine thinking—long-lasting coats of animal skins. The coats also represent the work of Jesus to come, who would give His life for all man- kind. Animal skins could not be given without the shedding of blood. All religions, good works, and charities are human good (fig leaves) as opposed to divine good (animal skins) God provided for cover.
Enter the Nature of the Flesh
Once Adam and Eve ate from the tree, the fruit from the tree became the nature of the flesh in them and, ultimately, all mankind. Since all who were to be born were inside Adam, all died at one tree when they died. In other words, the nature of the flesh is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The two sides of the tree, human good and evil, are the two manifestations of the nature of the flesh in our own life. Human good may produce morality, but morality is no substitute for the divine good God is looking for in our life. When God sees morality, He sees us being produced. When God sees divine good from the indwelling Holy Spirit in us, He sees Himself being produced. The biggest enemy of true spirituality is the attempted imitation by our fallen nature to replicate God’s character. This is religion.
New Testament Titles for the Indwelling Fallen Nature
The Flesh (see Romans 8:12; 2 Corinthians 10:3). This title also gives the location of the nature in us—our bodies. We will cover this more later.
The Old Man (see Romans 6:6; Colossians 3:9). While the human spirit has been given new life by the indwelling Holy Spirit, the flesh remains the same. It is the one leftover of our old life. The old man, the flesh, will be gone at death and our body will be replaced with a resurrection body at the coming of Jesus for the Church.
Sin (singular) (see Romans 6:12; 1 John 1:8).
Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin [the nature of the flesh] entered the world, and death [spiritual death] through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned [when Adam sinned] (Romans 5:12).
We were in Adam when he sinned, so we sinned with him. This same analogy is used in Hebrews 7:9-10 of Levi being in Abraham when Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek, a type of Jesus and His New Testament priesthood. When Abraham bowed in reverence to the higher priesthood of Melchizedek, Levi, in Abraham, bowed also in homage to the higher order of Melchizedek and, thus, the order of the Lord Jesus.
The Flesh is Found in Our Flesh
The location of the nature of sin is our bodies, (thus the title, flesh). The name flesh does not always refer to the fallen nature we still carry from the fall of Adam; it can also just speak of our human body. But both the body and the nature in it carry the same title. This can be seen in the descriptions and definitions in the New Testament of the nature of sin, especially in the writings of Paul.
The fallen nature of Adam in the believer is called:
The body of sin (Romans 6:6)
Sin that reigns in your mortal bodies (Romans 6:12)
Do not present your members as instruments of sin (Romans 6:13)
Sinful passions work in our members (Romans 7:5)
The law of sin which is in my members (Romans 7:23)
This body of death (Romans 7:24)
Wars and fightings come from your desires that war in your members (James 4:1)
Since the nature of the flesh is in the body, it is present at our birth and departs at our physical death or at the rapture of the Church. At salvation, the spirit is born again, but the nature of sin, the flesh, remains in the body.
The key to walking in victory over the flesh and its temptations is to renew the mind through studying God’s Word. A renewed mind is the swing vote that can choose to walk in the Spirit or in the flesh. Our power to choose gave us eternal life (see Revelation 22:17). And it also gives us the power to become a disciple after our salvation and walk in daily victory (see Joshua 24:15).
