How Man Fell

7/16/2011

Man was created to focus on God, to know him, to bring glory and honor to Him. But what happened? We turned inward, focused on ourself and our desires, and as a result began to believe wrong things about ourself and our relationship to God. We began to have an erroneous understanding of who God is. The Creator/creature distinction was partially obliterated. We began to think that our selfish desires were more important than God’s desires. And with the freedom that we had as creatures made in the image of God, we set our will against God’s will and disobeyed Him.

It’s too late to stop Adam and Eve from abusing their freedom, but what lesson can we learn from them? We need to learn that we must constantly resist the enemy’s attempt to get us to turn inward, to focus on what we want instead of what God wants. When we start to become self-centered, we begin to think that we know how to run our life better than God does. It becomes easy to sin when we are not continually seeking to keep our mind, will, and emotions directed toward God.

29 Comments

Troy Burns

12/6/2011 02:07:07 am

You know Dr. Bird, the most amazing thing to me is that man was created with the specific privilege and priority of knowing God. My mind turns to the importance Paul places on knowing God in Phil. 3 and I cannot help be muse: Knowing God is our greatest privilege and our most dire need. Praise God that we all have a High Priest who made the way that we by faith may know Him and be renewed in His image!

Darnell Wilson.

12/19/2012 03:46:32 am

I think it's interesting that Satan's downfall began with an inward look to himself that culminated in a desire for his own glory over and above God's (Isaiah 14:12-15). The desire to glorify something is universal, every people throughout history has created a "god" of some kind. I think the "god we see most throughout history is Self.

Joshua Fox

12/7/2011 12:29:08 am

We just came off of an Advent Sunday with the theme of Expectation. We looked at, in relation to the Christmas story, how Jesus failed some people because of the expectation they had of Him. They expected a King to take over the Romans and begin to rule. What they got instead was One who portrayed Himself as a Suffering Servant (as seen prophesied by in Isaiah 53) who would take on our sin, so He could rule in our hearts as King. Your blog reminds me how the Fall of man has skewed our expectations of God in that because we understand Him wrongly, then we become disappointed many times in our expectations of Him. But thank God He wants us to know Him, experience Him in relationship, and set aright the expectations we have of who He really is!

Nate Kennedy

12/12/2011 03:16:24 am

I really like your statement, "We began to think that our selfish desires were more important than God’s desires." This brings life into perspective, doesn't it? God is above us all as sovereign Lord of all, so why shouldn't His desires take priority? Plus, what He wants is going to be better for us anyway. We see here a perfect harmony between sovereignty and love.

In response to Joshua Fox's comment regarding the Romans, I guess the Jews misunderstood the prophecy. They were right in that Jesus was going to set them free, but sin was so much greater of an enemy than the Romans ever could be.

Great post, Dr. Bird!

Art Perkins link

5/1/2012 02:32:23 am

Very good! No matter our journey in grace we must continue to focus on God rather than ourselves. God has called us to surrender and only through surrender can one focus on Him.

Derrick Trent

5/5/2012 12:58:43 am

Your last statement about it being easy to sin when we do not keep our mind, will, and emotions directed toward God is right on. Only by understanding that God is God, and that we are his creation, can we relate to God in a right way and avoid the self-centeredness that you described.

Anonymous

11/6/2012 11:52:46 am

In the last paragraph it said, "We need to learn that we must constantly resist the enemy’s attempt to get us to turn inward, to focus on what we want instead of what God wants." If it is true that, for man, choices are inescapable, and the basis for making certain choices is the result of a personal desire for 'x' over alternatives ('y' or 'z'), is it not also true that man cannot escape self interested choices? That one cannot do or choose "what God wants" without self-interest being present?

If it is true that self-interested choices are inescapable, what qualification should be made to the statement, "One should not do what he wants, but what God wants" since choosing to do what God wants is what he wants?

Yoshi Koike

11/7/2012 12:33:31 pm

God created humans in the image of Himself. That is why we desire the infinity and absolute like Him. But we humans are limited creation of God. Many people try to get something forever with science or technology, but it is impossible dream for humans forever. We should know who makes us dreaming it. It is same person who corrupted Adam and Eve in the garden.

Thomas R

11/8/2012 07:37:33 am

Adam and Eve's sin have had an unending impact on us who have lived after. Not only has their sin effected our life, but in a way it has had a positive impact for Christians. Sure, it would have been better if they had never sinned at all, but the fact of the matter is that the act of eating the fruit, which boils down to disobedience, has shown us the immense consequences for disobeying God.

Chad Bladen

11/8/2012 10:54:52 am

Our ancestors were the most intelligent of us all the closest to God that any but a handful have been and the most perfect in any way possible. It is with this in mind that we may begin to truly understand that persuasive power the devil has over humans. It is only by God's help that we stand any chance of preventing the same deception in our lives which overtook Eve.

Kent

11/8/2012 12:23:30 pm

I agree with what Thomas had to say. Although the results of sin are devastating and horrific, it is an amazing thing to look at the grace of God and see how much love He has for us. He loved us enough to give us choice, the freedom to choose Him or our own selfish desires. He does not force us to Him, but through His character and endless examples of love, it is never a chore or a grudge to come into His loving embrace.

Mike King link

12/9/2012 10:31:57 pm

Man fell due to Adam's sin. Unfortunately, this is can be a stumbling block for many unsaved souls. They argue that they should not have to suffer the result of Adam's sin. Is this fair all mankind should suffer the sin nature? Possibly not, but I am sure I would have failed miserably if I were in Adam's place. I am sure all of mankind would have failed as well so God is justified in his punishment.

Chris Adams link

12/14/2012 12:42:05 am

Very Good Article! This is so true! I am glad that while we inhereted that depravity we can still live victorious through Christ!

Darnell Wilson

12/19/2012 03:54:05 am

It's a frightening reminder of the power of sin that our parents Adam and Eve, who were brilliant and without flaw could not see past Satan's lie, and for thousands of years after people around the World have not seen past the lie. But what is even more amazing is the power of God to prevail over sin, death and the Devil.

Thomas R

4/21/2013 02:09:02 pm

Spot on my man. It is incredible that in the big scheme of things, one fruit wasn't that big of a deal, but yet throw self-centeredness or self seeking pleasure into the mix and everything can become a big deal.

All God wanted then was total obedience and He asks no different now.

Maricka H

4/17/2013 10:17:48 am

Very sobering article. It is so easy to give in to Satan's tempting to turn to our own selfish desires. May God help us to keep our eyes set on Him so that our desires will line up with His, so that when we are making choices, we seek His mind for the situation, and follow it. I am thankful His working in our lives that, when we are surrendered to His will and ask Him align us with His plan, He can change our desires to follow Him.

Andrew Lamicela

4/26/2013 05:16:29 am

It is interesting to note that at the Fall, man not only began to do wrong things, but also began to believe wrong things about God and himself. Adam and Eve thought that true fulfillment could be found outside God’s will, and they acted on this deception, bringing sin into the world. Because we live in this fallen world, we must be diligent not only to do the right things, but also to believe the right things about God and our relationship to him—one more reason to study theology.

Tim McKnight

2/24/2014 12:40:46 am

The opposite of self-centeredness is complete reliance on another. I have occasionally experienced the power and complete freedom when I've turned it all over to God. I can think of two short sermons I preached a few years back (I am not a preacher). For one, I had prepared ad nauseum, as is my way, and it fell absolutely flat. For the other sermon, I had virtually no time to prepare and was under stress because of an emergency medical condition suffered by my wife. That sermon was powerful, and I heard things coming out of my mouth that I didn't know were there. I know those were the words the Holy Spirit put there. I cannot always put God in the driver's seat, but when I do I can relax and know that He is doing it and not me.

Abraham Kurnia

12/16/2014 01:38:51 am

I agree with your statement that we are created to focus on God. We suppose to use our free will to do His will in our life. Unfortunately, people now days think that human being is not a depraved creature. Majority believe that basically everyone has a good will within them. In fact, apart of God's grace, we are nothing but sinful creation who against His will.

Rachel Langstaff

1/8/2015 01:34:56 am

At the root of sin is selfishness; the desire to please self more than God (Isaiah 53:6a: "All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way"). I believe, like Dr. Bird said in this article, that the reason for this is that we have believed lies about ourselves, about God, and about our relationship with Him. In order to become victorious over selfishness and sin is to speak truth to ourselves and to replace the lie with the truth. The truth is that we are no longer slaves to sin (Rom 6:6) and we must no longer continue in sin (Rom 6:1-2a).

Chuck Chapman

1/23/2015 02:00:05 am

I like when you wrote "We turned inward, focused on ourself and our desires, and as a result began to believe wrong things about ourself and our relationship to God. We began to have an erroneous understanding of who God is. The Creator/creature distinction was partially obliterated. We began to think that our selfish desires were more important than God’s desires" This statement summarizers perfectly and vividly what happens to us because of the fall.

Very good job painting a relatable , mental picture in my mind

matthew potter

4/14/2015 08:42:06 am

i think one of the things that always sticks out to me that Ken Ham has pointed out was the first sin was because of the attack on Gods Word. Satan told man that God didnt really mean what he said, and to me this is how Satan still attacks! Thanks for this blog post and reminder Dr. Bird.

Ruth Katikala

12/6/2015 10:05:43 pm

As Christian, when people talk about fall, we never care. Most people have been hearing the same information for year. But people never recognize that we always do same mistake. We know the Adam fell and sin came to the world, God came and gave his life. we should keep ourselves holy and pure. This is good article to remember and to read every day and to know that , we need God.

Amy Martin

11/28/2016 08:36:47 am

"Man was created to focus on God, to know him, to bring glory and honor to Him." This is the purpose of man, and it's exactly what the serpent attacked in the Garden of Eden. He attacked Adam and Eve's view of God, lying and telling them that God was not what they believed Him to be.
Today Satan is still deceiving us by distorting our view of God. If we really see God as He is (even a glimpse is sufficient!) we will realize that He is the source of all joy and purpose in life and we will only have peace when we are loving Him with all our heart.
Satan also lies by telling us that following God is a dismal, stale and unhappy drudgery of self-denial. This is completely false! Yes, there is an extent to which we must deny our flesh, but this is not the focus of our faith at all. True Christianity is the only source of real life!

Samuel Cramer

12/4/2018 05:22:40 pm

Your assertion of the necessity of constantly being on guard and resisting the enemy's attempts to get us to be selfish and think on what we want instead of what God wants for us is something that is very important. If we allow ourselves to turn inward and focus on ourselves at all it does become very easy to fall away from our faith and allow ourselves to gradually turn away from God and eventually find ourselves far away from Him.

Megan W.

12/4/2018 08:14:39 pm

I find it interesting that the very thing that caused Adam and Eve to fall is the same message is the loudest message of today. Our culture is so obsessed with pleasing ourselves, and getting what we want, but that is not how God intended for things to be.

Nathan Blackwell

5/16/2019 06:38:48 pm

Thanks be to God that the good news comes from outside of ourselves, for salvation is a gift from God which we can be certain of when we are lost in navel-gazing!

Dwight

12/18/2019 01:56:17 pm

The point behind this post is one that we all often forget. When we start to turn inward, we start pulling away from God's will which is disobedience. Many of us have found ourselves in this exact situation. We ask ourselves, "how did I get here?" Well, the natural draw to satisfy our own desires leaves us with the need to daily seek God's will to avoid ending up in this pitfall. Staying in a place of continued seeking of God is the key to this whole theme.

George Rynearson

7/2/2023 06:14:56 pm

You stated that "it is was too late to stop Adam and Eve from abusing their freedom". I think another lesson that we need to take away from this is that our sin / disobedience has lasting consequence that can affect generations to come.

How Man Fell

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