Adam’s Sin Was …

By Steve Preston
The story of Adam and Eve is one that even most non-Christians know. God formed man out of the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7) and woman from a rib of the man (vs. 22). God also gave them a garden to live in and commanded them that, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (vss. 16-17). However, the serpent deceived the woman by telling her that she would not die but that she would be like God (Genesis 3:1-5). Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and also gave to Adam to eat (vs. 6). Thus the fall of man had begun. This might well be the end of the story of Adam and Eve except a letter the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy.
In his first letter to Timothy, Paul is giving instructions to Timothy about how Christian men and women should conduct themselves. Part of those instructions were that women were “not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” (1 Timothy 2:12). One of the reasons for this was that “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (vs. 14). Both Adam and Eve were punished for their transgression. Since the Bible tells us that Adam’s sin was not about being deceived, what exactly was Adam’s sin?
Adam, as well as Eve, knew the commandment of God not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He knew the penalty was death, which is separation from God. Yet he chose to eat the fruit anyway. Perhaps he just decided that just eating one piece of the fruit would be okay. Perhaps he decided that his wife knew something he didn’t. Whatever his original reason for eating the fruit was, Adam deliberately disregarded the command of God, ate of the fruit, and made the situation worse by trying to hide his sin: “If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom…” (Job 31:33). In pronouncing judgment against the man, God 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” (Genesis 3:17). Adam sinned because he listened to his wife instead of God.
Jesus knew this problem (listening to the world instead of God) when He said, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Certainly our Heavenly Father expects us to take care of our families (1 Timothy 5:8) yet in doing so we are not to put them above our obligations to God (Matthew 6:33). In similar fashion, the apostles knew their responsibility towards God: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Do not let the world deceive you into disobeying God. Study His word and do what it says.

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