Am I Good?
What do you think? Are you a good person?
A common question people ask themselves is, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Is this question valid?
I have learned always to ask myself what the Bible says!
Before the fall of man
Genesis is the beginning of everything except God (Genesis 1:1 –in the beginning, God created heaven and earth). God created everything out of nothing, proving Him to be God, but we are not. God created man out of nothing, though we see in Chapter 2 of Genesis that man was created out of the dust; the dust was also created out of nothing. God created mankind in His own likeness and image, and He blessed them to be fruitful, increase in number, and rule over the rest of the creation (Genesis 1:26-28).
The goodness of all creation
Everything that God created was good. Most importantly, man is created in God’s likeness and image, which implies that man was created, resembling God’s character and His spirit. Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31 (“And God saw what He created was good”). So, we see man created as a good creature. He enjoyed perfect communion/fellowship with God as we see God speaking to Adam and giving him his responsibilities.
God’s warning to Adam!
It’s good to note that in Genesis 2:16-17 Adam was given the freedom to eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. For if they ate, they would certainly die! The nature of the death referred to here is spiritual (immediate separation from God) and physical death (though delayed).
The fall – Genesis 3:1-24
The sudden arrival of the speaking serpent presents a challenge to the human couple (Adam & Eve). Their choice to disregard God’s instructions is an act of willful rebellion which has terrible consequences for all creation. It’s clear, however, that evil entered the created world at some time after God’s “very good” creation was created. We see the serpent (devil) doubting what God said in Genesis 3:1: “...did God actually say...” as we do doubt what the word of God says in the Bible. The devil also ended up saying completely the opposite of what God said to Adam (Genesis 3:4): “You will certainly not die…” as we - men do what is completely opposite to God’s will. The word LORD, which is consistently used previously, is dropped from ‘LORD God’ by the serpent, thus diverting the woman’s attention from the relationship she has with the LORD. The woman gave in to the craftiness of the serpent (Genesis 3:6) by eating the forbidden fruit, which she later gave to her husband. In Genesis 3:8, the man hid along with his wife because they were naked. Man disobeyed and rebelled against God. What a sad story!!
What is the effect of the first sin?
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The relationship between God-mankind was destroyed (Genesis 3:6-7, 8, 23) In v.6, their eyes were opened, and they experientially knew their created goodness only as a memory and their moral evil as rebellion, which expressed itself in shame (v.7). They hid from the Lord God in the trees of the garden. (v.8) They were chased/banished away from the garden (v.23)
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The relationship between man and woman was destroyed (Genesis 3:12, 13) When God asked Adam whether they ate from the forbidden tree in v.11, the man said to God, “The woman you put here with me she gave me the fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the woman was asked by God in v.13, “What is this you have done?” the woman said, "The snake deceived me, and I ate". In short, we see a blame game. Their relationship was destroyed, and they started blaming one another. Where there is blame, there is no consensus, which is likely to cause chaos.
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The relationship between mankind and the world was destroyed (Genesis 3:17, 19) The ground was cursed. Through painful toil, you will eat food from it (world); by sweat, you will eat your food.
What does this mean?
We may summarize the representative character of Adam’s disobedience as follows: the test came not from created human nature (which was good) but from a demonic enemy; it involved deceit, which then blossomed into desire, which led to disobedience and thus to “death” (first spiritual, then physical). All mankind inherits the results of this action— guilt and sin—from conception.
The miseries we might experience—lost communion with God, pain, frustration, futility, death, and eternal damnation/condemnation—derive from this corruption of God’s good creation and show why we are at God’s mercy if there is to be a remedy.
