THE FALL Weeds in the Garden JOHN VOOYS God, our Creator, gave us a wonderful world. However, this “Garden of Eden” isn’t as wonderful as it might be. Look around and you will see depleted fish stocks, shrinking forests and ruined landscapes. Men and women were made in the image of God, with the capacity for love, for relationships and for community. Yet we see hatred, broken families and nations at war. Something has gone terribly wrong. In the past, there was much talk about progress, everything and everyone evolving to a higher level of existence. Not many would say that today. So, what happened? Is it merely a matter of poor government policies or faulty economic theories? Could the problems be attributed to lack of educational opportunities for some, or racial misunderstanding in others? While these might well be factors, they are hardly the root cause. The Bible offers a more basic and convincing reason. It singles out people’s failure to live up to the Creator’s plan for their lives. They have “missed the mark”, so to speak. This is expressed in that old-fashioned word “sin”. One of the Bible’s sections, or “books”, Romans, states that all humans “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The beginning of this “fall into sin” is recorded in the same Bible book that tells of the creation of the world and humanity, Genesis. Except for one restriction, God had given the first humans access to all His world offered. But they disregarded God’s one prohibition. Instead, they allowed themselves to be influenced by an evil being called “the serpent” (Genesis 3:1). The last book in the Bible, Revelation, identifies this serpent as Satan the deceiver (Revelation 12:9). Disobeying God brought sin into the world. Ever since, humans have been treading that same path, and suffering the consequences. The book of Romans states, “In this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). Death is something God did not intend for His creation. Before sin came into the world, there was no deterioration of life, and no death for animals or humans. In evolutionary thinking, death is just part of the “cycle of life”. In this scheme, animals need to be killed in order to sustain “the balance of nature”. Yet, in the Bible’s way of thinking, death is an enemy! Thus, the world that we see is not how things were meant to be. All humans, by their disobedience to God’s standards, are like the first human beings, sinners. As a result, every area of our beautiful world is scarred. Sin has negatively impacted all aspects of human existence. Instead of loving God, we worship false gods or no gods at all. Instead of relating well to others, we argue, fight and destroy. Instead of really knowing ourselves, we have fears and struggle with self-worth. Instead of caring for our environment, we exhaust what we don’t pollute. It is sad to say, but the “Garden of Eden” that God intended for us is now choked with weeds. John Vooys is an instructor at Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, B.C.

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