What About Adam?

In the Garden of Eden the serpent tempted Eve. His approach was to first undercut her position by asking, "Did God really say ...?" (Gen 3:1) and then offering an outright contradiction of what God did say (Gen 3:4-5). The text says that the trick worked and Eve "took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate" (Gen 3:6). Now, Scripture is clear about what went wrong with Eve. "The woman was deceived and became a transgressor" (1 Tim 2:14). Satan tricked her. But ... what about Adam?

The story says that Adam was with her. Did he actually hear what was going on? When Eve answered, "God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die,'" did he not think to correct the error? (God never said that touching it would kill you.) When the serpent contradicted God, did Adam not intervene? When his wife started checking out the fruit appreciatively, was he not concerned? And why, for pity sake, did he take the fruit from her and eat it? The Bible suggests that Eve was deceived, but the implication is that Adam was not. He walked into this with eyes wide open. Hers was an error of deceit; his was open rebellion.

I don't know what went wrong with Adam. Maybe he didn't want to cross his wife. "Come on, Adam, eat with me! Don't leave me hanging here." "Yes, dear." Maybe he didn't much care what God had to say at that moment; his wife was his god. Maybe it was a guy thing. "No woman is going to show me up. If she can do it, so can I." Any number of possibilities exist and guessing at them would be ... guessing.

Here's what we do know. The Bible indicates that Adam, not Eve, was the doorway for sin to enter our world (Rom 5:12-19; 1 Cor 15:21-22). God holds Adam responsible for the universal problem of sin in our world. The other thing that is absolutely clear is that there was a tremendous breakdown in the man, Adam, in carrying out his God-given responsibilities. How? Well, it was to Adam that God said (mind you, said), "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Gen 2:16-17). There is no record of God repeating that to Eve, so she must have received the information from Adam. He was tasked with "Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen 1:28) and they did not. He was tasked with subduing the world (Gen 1:28) and they did not. He was made first and was the head (1 Tim 2:14; 1 Cor 11:3) and he failed to carry out the responsibilities of that role. Let's face it; Adam blew it. Big time.

Here's my point. Adam bears the blame for the sin condition of all subsequent humans (except Christ) because he failed to carry out his God-given responsibilities. He didn't stand in defense of his wife. He didn't stand in opposition to an attack on God. Instead of opposing sin, he condoned and furthered it. And, guys, we are so ready to do the same. We fail to love our wives as Christ loved the Church, giving Himself up for her (Eph 5:25), and we fail to sanctify her by the washing of the Word (Eph 5:26) and we fail to love her as we love ourselves. We do not stand ready to answer her questions (1 Cor 14:35) and we do not honor her as a joint heir (1 Peter 3:7). We might be willing to complain about her lack of obedience (Eph 5:22-24,33; 1 Peter 3:1), but we don't stand ready to defend her or support her or comfort her. Instead, we are often perfectly willing to give in to her rather than call her to something better. Adam abrogated his God-given responsibilities and the result was sin and death for the rest of humanity. What is the result of our abrogating ours?

We have clear instructions on our God-given responsibilities. Let's not let serpents or pride or laziness or inactivity or lack of faith or just simple sinfulness prevent us from acting on them. Don't be that kind of Adam.