Lessons for Living from the Bible in Everyday English by Dennis Magee

After God had finished His creation, He created man, His crowning achievement. He created man in His image, and since God is spirit humans also are unique among all other creatures in having a soul. When Jesus, Himself God, came to earth He had a human body. He said if you have seen me you have seen the Father. And so, we also have the same physical appearance as God when He was in the flesh. God made man the steward of the rest of His creation, to be His representative and be responsible in caring for and enjoying the creation.

God created man to have an intellect vastly superior to any other creature, so that he could worship, glorify and enjoy God. He also gave man free will, the greatest demonstration of love and dignity that one being could bestow on another. And He placed man in a perfect garden, one that provided everything that he could ever need or want. Growing in the garden was the tree that bore the fruit of eternal life if man partook of it. God also placed in the garden a tree that bore the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil if man partook of it, but forbade man to eat of it or he would die. In giving man free will he also gave him the opportunity to obey or disobey Him.

Prior to man’s fall he had perfect fellowship with God. Although he was naked, he didn’t feel self-conscious because he was innocent and lacked knowledge of sin. But satan, also present in the garden, and who is known as the great deceiver, tricked man into believing he would not die if he ate of the fruit of that tree, and that he would be equal to God in knowledge of good and evil. As he tasted of the fruit, he saw that it was pleasing, and he then gained knowledge of sin. Ever since then man has had a strong desire for the things that are forbidden by God. Disobedience to God is in itself sin; if there is something we cannot have then we want it even more. At that time man lost his innocence and felt self-conscious over his nakedness. Although at the beginning God gave man a moral compass, now that he had knowledge of sin, he desired to sin. Although much of this Biblical account is likely allegorical, the truths it contains are timeless. As Paul says in Romans 8, “Before God’s law said thou shalt not covet, I didn’t know what it was to covet, but now that I am aware of that command, every covetous desire is awakened within me”. And so, since man’s fall from grace after exercising his free will to disobey God, man cannot not sin. The Bible shows man’s increase in moral depravity and delight in sin over time. From the beginning God said that the wages of sin is death, and forbade man access to the tree of eternal life. And this is why today there is death.

Although in the beginning man presided over a perfect creation, after the fall God subjected the creation to desolation. Whereas at the beginning everything man needed God provided, after the fall man needed to work in order for the earth to bring forth food. Moreover, God could no longer allow the depraved, sinful being that man became to preside over a perfect creation. So, the creation became imperfect, and every living thing eventually had to die. The forces of nature that cause pain and suffering, the hurricanes, earthquakes, pollution, sickness are all manifestation of a creation that also fell. God grieves at the suffering we’ve brought on ourselves, and is there to comfort us through prayer. As the Scriptures tell us, all of creation groans in anticipation of man to be reconciled to God and the creation restored. God’s word promises us that there will be a new heavens and new earth restored to the perfection that God intended from the beginning. At that time every believer who has faith in Christ will comprise a people, anxious to obey God, glorify Him and enjoy Him forever after we die.