“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made: and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. For He spake and it was done, He commanded and it stood fast.” Psalms 33:6, 9
God created the earth perfect and beautiful. There was perfect peace and harmony. Then God said “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion… over all the earth.” Genesis 1:26. Man was to bear God’s image, both in outward resemblance and in character. The Spirit of Prophecy states that Adam was the Son of God even though he was formed from the dust. Adam’s nature was in harmony with the will of the Father. He was in perfect obedience to the will of God. He placed the first pair, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden. Here they had everything they needed and wanted. How beautiful it must have been!
In the Spirit of Prophecy we read, “The creation was now complete. The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. Eden bloomed on Earth. Adam and Eve had free access to the tree of life. No taint of sin or shadow of death marred the fair creation.” –Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 47
Adam and Eve, though created innocent and holy, were not placed beyond the possibility of disobedience or wrong doing. God gave Adam and Eve the freedom of choice. He wants no forced obedience. God desires the service of love that springs from appreciation of His character. If God wouldn’t have given Adam and Eve the freedom of choice, they would have been like robots.
There was one, though, who saw this as an opportunity; he lost no time in deceiving Eve. She believed the words of Satan and disbelieved the words of God, and this was what led to her fall. Now she was Satan’s agent; she quickly sought Adam and he also disobeyed.
This one insignificant act was the beginning of the end. Their sin opened the door to sadness, sorrow, pain, and eventually death. Their love and peace was gone, and in its place they felt a sense of sin, a dread for the future. Adam reproached Eve for leaving his side and allowing herself to be deceived by the serpent. This was probably their first argument.
“And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” Genesis 3:12. Can you imagine Eve’s shame and guilt as she heard Adam cast blame on her? These were her first feelings of sorrow and pain. Then God said to her, “unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Genesis 3:16. “In the Creation God had made her the equal of Adam. Had they remained obedient to God – in harmony with His great law of love – they would ever have been in harmony with each other; but sin had brought discord, and now their union could be maintained and harmony preserved only by submission on the part of the one or the other. Eve had been the first in transgression. It was by her solicitation that Adam sinned, and she was now placed in subjection to her husband.” –Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 58.
“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed [is] the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.” Genesis 3:17-19
They now saw the true character of their sin and its consequences. Eve had been perfectly happy in her Eden home but now she would be subject to disappointment, grief, and pain. The Spirit of Prophecy says that their sin opened the floodgates of woe upon the world. In the moment of temptation, who can know the terrible consequences that will result from one wrong step?
So, Adam and Eve were banished from Eden. Their new life of sorrow began. I think that it is safe to say that Eve was the first woman to suffer different types of pain: physical pain, emotional pain, and spiritual anguish. She felt the sorrow and grief of having to leave the beautiful Eden to never return. Eve felt the difference in the atmosphere, once mild and uniform in temperature. When they witnessed the first drooping flower and falling leaf, they mourned deeply. For the first time in her life, she felt spiritual anguish. Eve felt the sorrow and pain that only comes from sin. She felt the need of forgiveness. She felt the separation from God. Adam and Eve had been in close communion with God in Eden and now they were far away from Him.
To Eve was given the pain of childbirth. With pain was she to bring forth her children into the world. “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.” John 16:21. How wise is the Bible! This is very true. I remember when I had my own children. All the pain and the tears are wiped away and forgotten once that baby that has been so longed for is held. Once you look into those eyes, once you hold those tiny hands, you forget everything else! What joy she must have felt as she saw her children grow. But her happiness would soon turn to disappointment, sorrow, grief, and anguish. When Adam and Eve left Eden, the thought of dying was horrifying. They were both brought to the reality of death in their own family when Cain, their first born son, became the murderer of his brother. I am sure Eve was filled with deep remorse for her sin. She was doubly bereaved that day in the death of Abel and in the rejection of Cain. She was bowed down with terrible anguish. She lost both her sons in one day. One was dead and the other had become a vagabond, a fugitive. Cain would leave to begin his life elsewhere, away from his parents and away from God.
Adam and Eve witnessed the fall of Cain. He lived only to harden his heart, to encourage rebellion against God, and to become the father of an awful line of sinners. We can see Eve’s great pain of loss as she bore Seth. The Bible does not say how long after the death of Abel, Seth was born, but we can read in Genesis 4:25 that Eve was still thinking of Abel. “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew.”
In the book Patriarchs and Prophets we read that for nearly a thousand years Adam lived and saw the results of sin. We do not know how long Eve lived but she must have lived a long time also. So they saw the consequence their sin brought to their children and children’s children, to the “ninth generation.”
Today we see such pain everywhere we turn. We hear of famines, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, and pestilences; all these cause pain to the inhabitants of this earth.
Once a friend of mine asked me, “Why does God allow so much pain and sorrow?” She was telling me her story. Her sister had been murdered by her husband and soon afterwards, two months later in fact, her mother passed away of a heart attack. Her father was living in Malaysia and she was left alone. She had a brother but he was very difficult to live with and so she was desolate. It was then she asked me, “Why does God allow these things to happen? Why so much pain and suffering?” I briefly explained to her that, from the beginning, good and evil existed, yet God did not want any of this suffering to befall His creation. But because of this evil, sin entered the world and we live with the consequences.
God is love. In His mercy, He gave us a free will to choose to obey Him because we love Him. “But this thing commanded I them, saying Obey my voice, and I will be your God: and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.” Jeremiah 7:23. AMEN
Sesciah Newby