Was Adam a real man? Part 4.

by Rick Brentlinger
(Pace, FL, USA)

Our question, Was Adam a real man, points us to other important questions. Was the fall of man in Genesis 3 a real event in time and space? Did the fall of Adam happen as the Bible describes it?

Consequences if we
reject the fall of Adam

1. If Adam was not a real man, if he is only the mythical literary representative of a human race which evolved over millions of years, then being a sinner is simply what it means to be human. In that view, humans are not descended from Adam (a mythical man cannot sire children), therefore whatever the Bible says about Adam, his fall and our inheritance of Adam's fallen nature is also literary myth.
   
   God doesn't judge us for having blood in our veins or fingers on our hand, for having brown eyes or black hair: that is part of being human. If in the same way, sin is just part of being human, everything in the Bible about sin and redemption is wrong.
   
   When evolutionists reject Adam as a real man and Adam's fall as a real event in time and space, they deny much of the Bible including God's plan of redemption through Jesus Christ. They must then invent an imaginary account of origins - evolution - and evangelize for evolution - instead of evangelizing lost folks to get them saved, Matthew 28:18-20. Here is what evolutionists often end up believing.
   
   a. There was no real historical Adam as described in Genesis.
   
   b. There was no real historical fall from sinless perfection to sinful lost condition as described in Genesis.
   
   c. There is no inherited sin for any human being since none of us are descended from Adam.
   
   d. If there is no sin, there is no alienation from God, no lost human condition requiring salvation.
   
   e. If there is no alienation from God, there is no need for an atonement for sin and a Savior.
   
   f. For evolutionists then, Jesus is at best, only a moral example.
   
   g. Some form of Universalism eventually replaces everything the Bible says about salvation.
   
   
2. If Adam was created a sinner, then God is a sinner because Adam was created in the image of God, Genesis 1:26-27.
   
   
3. If Adam represents what is true of every man, then we must reject what the Bible reveals in Genesis 3 about the fall of Adam.
   
   
4. If Adam is mythical, then the human race cannot be descended from him.
   
   
5. If Adam is mythical, then sin did not enter the world by Adam’s disobedience and the story of Adam's fall cannot possibly be true.
   
   
6. If there was no fall which caused Adam’s descendants to inherit a sin nature, then sin is simply another facet of what it means to be human.
   
   
7. If Adam’s disobedience did not result in sin and the fall of the human race, Genesis 3, then sin is something God created.
   
   
8. If sin is part of God’s creation, then there is nothing for which we need to be forgiven, nothing from which we need to be saved.
   
   Why should God forgive us for being what He created us to be, sinful human beings?
   
   
9. If humans have always been fallen, then creation has always been fallen. In plainer words, Bible rejecting christians who (a) refuse to believe the real historical Adam was created in perfect innocence in God’s image and (b) embrace evolution as God’s mechanism of creation, must believe (c) that God used the random selection of evolution to produce a sin-cursed world which was already fallen when He "created" it.
   
   
10. If humans have always been fallen, (Bible rejecting christians who embrace evolution do not believe an original sinless Adam created in the image of God ever existed on a perfect unfallen earth), what hope do we have of salvation?
    
    How can we trust God to redeem us now if He wasn’t capable of creating humans sinless on the first go-around?

No fall = No redemption

Bible rejecting modern christians still talk about the fall of Adam but they are quick to remind us it’s only a myth or they make up how and when the fall happened based on their evolutionary imagination while rejecting the biblical account of the fall. For them, Adam and the fall symbolize the fact that mankind is not now and never has been morally perfect. For them, there never was a fall as the Bible describes it.

If we reject the fall of Adam from pure and perfect innocence into rebellion, degradation and sin, then there is no redemption by Jesus Christ, there is no glorious gospel of Christ, there is no biblical Christianity because all of those flow from what the Bible says about the fall of Adam.

Against every other religion, biblical Christianity stands alone in viewing human sinfulness as the direct result of the fall of Adam, Genesis 3:1-7. Any Christianity which rejects the fall of Adam is not biblical Christianity.

The fall of Adam is the only explanation God gives for human sinfulness. Everyone who rejects God’s explanation is in spiritual darkness. Everyone who rejects the historicity of Adam and the biblical account of Adam's fall has rejected biblical Christianity.

Adam = all men = all are sinners
To be human is to be a sinner

Once evolutionary christians reject the truth of Adam’s fall, they have no rational basis to believe that God through the glorious gospel of Christ, 2 Corinthians 4:4, can restore human beings to innocence and sinless perfection.

Keep in mind, Bible rejecting christians don’t believe human beings ever were created sinlessly perfect in God’s image because they reject the Genesis account of creation and the fall of Adam.

The Bible contrasts Adam and Jesus, calling Adam the first man and calling Jesus the last Adam, 1 Cor 15:45. According to the Bible, the origin of sin is Adam’s rebellion against God, Genesis 3:1-7, which caused Adam to fall from grace.

“Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:"
(in Adam) Romans 5:12

Epidemic of Unbelief
Tsunami of sin

The modern epidemic of christian unbelief comes from rejecting what the Bible says about sin and the fall. In the mind of modern christians, sin is primarily a social offense, committing violence against others by judging them too harshly.

In the Bible however, sin is primarily rebellion against God and stubborn refusal to believe what God has revealed in the Bible. Once a professing christian rejects the Genesis account of Adam and creation, he has no coherent explanation for sin and no clear path to redemption.

The biblical view is that everyone descended from Adam, that all of us inherited our sin nature from Adam. Penal substitutionary atonement and justification by faith are God’s response to Adam’s fall.

Jesus coming to earth as a perfect man (second Adam, 1 Cor 15:45), dying in our place, as us for us, taking upon Himself God’s wrath against sin, Romans 1:16-18, is God's remedy for the sin that began with Adam. The Biblical account of sin and redemption makes perfect sense.

The consequences of rejecting the biblical fall of a real Adam are enormous. The entire Bible story is predicated on a real Adam, the first man, from whom all other humans are descended and Jesus as the last Adam, Who makes all things right and restores what we lost when the first Adam fell. Remember what the Bible says about itself.

"Thy word is true from the beginning:
and every one of thy righteous
judgments endureth for ever."
Psalm 119:160

Do you believe God's word
is true from the beginning?


FREE pdf
Where did Cain get his wife?

Was Adam a real man? Part 1.

Was Adam a real man? Part 2.

Was Adam a real man? Part 3.

Return to Sermons

Return to 101 Community

Return to
Gay Christian 101 Home Page


Michelangelo's painting is
in the public domain. Photo
courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.


This page revised June 14, 2014