In Genesis 3:1-7 is the account of Adam and Eve’s initial sin. The implications in our lives is immense. Let’s read the text and see what happened:
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
Right here, in 7 verses, is described the ongoing state of humanity. The first, and for us now, the most serious is that Adam and Eve ate of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and in essence ingested the seed of the tree since they ate the tree’s fruit. Thus they became sinners evidenced by their knowing ‘they knew they were naked’, when before they had been naked before God and knew it but were unashamed (Gen 2:25), and their response to their sin was ‘they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings’ to cover the result of their sin.
Why is their eating of the fruit of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ the most serious for us today? Because in Adam and Eve becoming sinners, a reference to their nature when before their nature was neutral-they were neither divine nor sinful but just humans created from the earth, their offspring would inherit their new sinful nature. This is how we, every human born since Adam and Eve sinned, are born sinners.
Have you ever wondered why all men everywhere die? Or why you don’t live forever? It’s because you are born a sinner. Have you ever known of a man born who did not die? All men are born sinners and as such are heirs of sin and the subsequent fruit which is death.
Hence Paul writes in Romans 6:23a: “The wages of sin is death….”
Man is an heir of sin and therefore death.
Views from an Evangelist 