The Fall – A Love Story

But the Lord God called out to the man, “Where are you?”

The Fall of Adam and Eve hardly seems like a love story. We have been taught to think of it as merely a defiant act on the party of Eve and then Adam. But their decisions that follow the initial transgression were most likely driven by their emotional and romantic attachment to each other. God’s call above begins this love story.

First, we need to understand what is meant by God’s decision to create us in His image. What separates us from every other creature on the planet? One might say our ability to create things, but most creatures create things like dams, nests, dens, etc. The ability to reason isn’t exclusive to humans either, as many creatures can work out problems. The three attributes that seem to stand out as exclusive to mankind are: our spiritual nature, which makes it possible to have a relationship with God; our ability to love; and free will, which permits us to make decisions based solely on right, wrong and what is loving.

God in love created Eve for Adam, who was lonely, because God recognized that Adam yearned for a human companion. Scripture states that God created Eve from one of Adam’s ribs, but the word ‘rib’ in Hebrew suggests an entire side rather than a small portion of Adam. It seems that Adam and Eve were created equal, and there was no need for one to be over the other at all. A

Regarding their free will decision to defy God, it doesn’t appear to matter which of them elected to transgress first. Once one of them had erred, the other was faced with the decision to share the fate of their mate, or be alone. Adam could have made an effort to stop Eve, for scripture states that he was present at the moment she acted. But, he did not. Once Eve had committed to sin, Adam chose to lay down his life to remain with her no matter what the outcome. They had been told that they would surely die. What Adam did was an act of human love, and I suspect that Eve would have done the same to remain with Adam.

The most inspiring part of this love story is that God being omniscient knew, from the moment that He created Adam and later Eve,  that they would sin.  God The Father and God The Son already knew how they would offer mankind a path to redemption through faith

A glimpse of this path to redemption prophetically began with the shedding of blood  to provide Adam and Eve a covering made of skins. Abraham later obediently sacrificing his only son, and Isaac obediently submitting to that sacrifice are a pictures of God the Father, and Jesus Christ the sacrificial Lamb of God. 

God planned from the beginning to prove the depths off His love toward us through the sacrifice of His one and only son, Jesus, as our sacrificial lamb, and Jesus’ willingness to obediently submit to that end in our stead. As Jesus explained, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (Matt. 15:13) The fall then is the beginning of the greatest love story ever told, and that love story continues as our loving Father continues to call out to us,

“Where are you?”