What Does It Mean That We Live in a Fallen World?
“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” Genesis 1:31
One of the essential beliefs of the Reformed faith is the centrality of the grace of God to us in Jesus Christ. What does the word “grace” mean? It is often described as God’s unmerited favor. Protestant Reformer Martin Luther described it as God’s favor and goodwill toward us, which, said Luther, he “cherishes in himself and by reason of which he is inclined to pour into us Christ and the Spirit as his gifts.” God’s grace is that his basic heart and attitude toward us is goodwill. He loves us and desires to bestow good things on us.
The created world is one indication of God’s favor toward us. At times, people have wondered if material things were the source of evil. They suggested that the material world was evil, bad, and corrupt. The secret to the spiritual life was to disdain and avoid the material in order to give priority to the spiritual. We see this attitude in the mystical traditions around the world that see denial of the body as the pathway to enlightenment. Christianity has always rejected this dualism, however. It is not the world that is the source of evil. The Bible clearly states that the created order is good. Why is it good? It is good because God created it. All that God makes is good. That includes humans and all the created order. In fact, the first chapters of Genesis see human beings as the height of creation. Nothing else in all creation is made in the image and likeness of God.
Why then do we see such disorder in the world? The biblical answer is that sin and evil entered God’s good creation with the fall of Adam and Eve. This is a great mystery. We ask why Adam and Eve fell from grace so easily. We wonder where the serpent came from in the first place and why God allowed him to tempt the humans. It seems to us that it would have been better if God had not placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden at all. Certainly, God must have known how easily Adam and Eve would be tempted. Should he not have warned them more strictly? Theologians have wrestled with these kinds of questions through the centuries. In the end, however, they do not change the situation in which we find ourselves. We live in a fallen world in which sin has brought disorder into all aspects of life. Now all things are subject to misery and evil.
Where does the fault lie for such a situation? Some might wish to blame God, but God is not the author of evil in any form. We are the problem. The present disorder in the world is not God’s doing but rather a result of humanity’s free, sinful rebellion against God’s will. Adam and Eve fell because they believed the serpent rather than God. They fell because it seemed good to them to be “like God.” They had a perfect life but wanted more. In the end, their sin brought about the great disorder we see in the world today. Lest we blame them excessively, however, we must confess that we would have done the same. We would not have been more successful in resisting the devil. The evidence of this is that we cannot resist him today. We too fall prey to temptation and sin.
Humanity’s fall into sin begins the great story which is at the heart of the Bible. It is the account of God’s marvelous redemptive work. This work of redemption reveals just how gracious and good God is, but it will take the entirety of the Bible to reveal.