What the Bible says ♦ Past and future

The Fall

Accidents are common to happen on Earth. Depending on the impact they have and the extent of their consequences, often we consider them as disasters. Sometimes, a small action is enough to trigger a big disaster.

The greatest disaster in the Universe was caused by the first man, Adam. What apparently seemed to be an insignificant act of disobedience, proved to be the cause that brought a total disaster in the Universe, and especially for humankind.

When God created Adam and Eve, he created them with the right to willingly choose to obey him, or reject him. But God told them clearly that the decision is actually between life and death. “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’” (Genesis 2:16-17, NIV)

Obeying God means to live, and disobedience means death. And this death is a spiritual death, eternal and irreversible. And this is because the “knowledge of evil” ment breaking the relationship with God and establishing an eternal relationship with the source of evil: the Devil.

The Devil (or Satan) was once a powerful angel, created by God to have a high position in the angelic hierarchy. But because he wanted to be higher than God himself, Satan was punished by God alongside with the angels that followed him in his rebellion. The final punishment will come at the end of times, when Satan and his followers will be thrown into hell, which is a place of eternal pain and suffering.

When God created Adam and Eve, he didn’t want to create robots, but instead he wanted to create people that love God willingly. And the love for God is shown by obedience to his words. So, when Adam and Eve decided to disobey God and listen to Satan’s words, their relationship with God broke, and they died spiritually. The separation from God was eternal, and the binding with the Devil was also eternal. And this consequence is not only for Adam and Eve, but for all their descendants: for all humankind.

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12, NIV)

The fact that sin has entered the world has consequences for the entire Universe. The Bible teaches that at the end of times, the Earth and the entire Universe with all the stars will burn, and God will create new heavens and a new Earth, where God will live eternally with all the people who accepted his salvation.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (John 3:16-18, NIV)