the fall

¹Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate,
    and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.
²And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest;
    as with the slave, so with his master;
    as with the maid, so with her mistress;
as with the buyer, so with the seller;
    as with the lender, so with the borrower;
    as with the creditor, so with the debtor.
³The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered;
    for the Lord has spoken this word.

⁴The earth mourns and withers;
    the world languishes and withers;
    the highest people of the earth languish.
⁵The earth lies defiled
    under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed the laws,
    violated the statutes,
    broken the everlasting covenant.
⁶Therefore a curse devours the earth,
    and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched,
    and few men are left.
⁷The wine mourns,
    the vine languishes,
    all the merry-hearted sigh.
⁸The mirth of the tambourines is stilled,
    the noise of the jubilant has ceased,
    the mirth of the lyre is stilled.
⁹No more do they drink wine with singing;
    strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
¹⁰The wasted city is broken down;
    every house is shut up so that none can enter.
¹¹There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine;
    all joy has grown dark;
    the gladness of the earth is banished.
¹²Desolation is left in the city;
    the gates are battered into ruins.
¹³For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth
    among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
    as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done. – Isaiah 24:1-13 ESV

There are those who read a passage like Isaiah 24 and refuse to take its content literally. Its clear predictions of a day of coming destruction upon the entire earth are too difficult to accept so, they end up spiritualizing the message. Rather than taking the passage literally, they prefer to see it figuratively and interpret its message to be that of a time of spiritual decline on the earth. But in doing so, they rob the passage of its intended meaning and fail to recognize the extent of God’s anger against sin and the devastating influence it has had on His creation.

God has delivered a series of oracles against the nations. Now, He turns His attention to the earth itself. It too has become corrupted because of the fall. Paul wrote to the believers in Rome, telling them that God’s creation was longing for the day when it will be renewed and set free from the death and decay that mars it.

Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. – Romans 8:20-22 NLT

The earth has been corrupted by man’s sin. The entire universe created by God was impacted by man’s choice to rebel against the Creator’s commands. Adam and Eve listened to the lies of Satan and chose to disobey the will of God. And their decision had long-lasting implications.

“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree
    whose fruit I commanded you not to eat,
the ground is cursed because of you.
    All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.
It will grow thorns and thistles for you,
    though you will eat of its grains.
By the sweat of your brow
    will you have food to eat
until you return to the ground
    from which you were made.
For you were made from dust,
    and to dust you will return.” – Genesis 3:17-19 NLT

From that day, the earth and its inhabitants would experience the consequences of Adam and Eve’s decision to disobey God. Their sin, like a disease, spread to their descendants. It infected the future generations. And, rather than enjoying unbroken fellowship with God in the pristine atmosphere of the Garden, man was cast out of God’s presence, and doomed to live in a world that would no longer willingly submit to man’s dominion.

Before Adam and Eve decided to disobey God, they were given a clear mandate from God.

“Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened. – Genesis 1:28-30 NLT

But, because of sin, things changed – dramatically. Death entered the scene. Chaos replaced the peace of the Garden. The creatures of the earth developed an innate fear of man and an animosity toward one another. Rather than enjoying the peaceful existence the marked the Garden, animals began to devour one another. No longer satisfied with vegetation as its food source, the animal kingdom developed a taste for blood.

The signs of sin’s impact on the world are clear: Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, famines, fires, droughts, tornados, and hurricanes. These are the groanings mentioned by Paul in his letter to the believers in Rome. The world in damaged. It is not as God originally created it. In Genesis 1, after God had finished His work of creating the world, we read:

God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. – Genesis 1:31 ESV

But that is no longer the case. It is not good. It is flawed and marred because of the presence of sin. But the Isaiah passage clearly states that the day is coming when God will rectify the problem. But to do so, He will have to destroy what has been damaged. He will not simply put a bandaid on it. God will not renovate His broken world, He will recreate it. And the book of Isaiah warns of a day when God will destroy all that has been damaged by sin.

Look! The Lord is about to destroy the earth
and make it a vast wasteland. – Isaiah 24:1 NLT

The earth will be completely emptied and looted.
The Lord has spoken! – Isaiah 24:3 NLT

And Isaiah makes it clear why this will happen.

The earth suffers for the sins of its people,
for they have twisted God’s instructions,
violated his laws,
and broken his everlasting covenant. – Isaiah 24:5 NLT

We are responsible. Only man was created in God’s image, and our unique status as stewards of His creation makes us responsible for the sorry state of the world. And Isaiah pulls no punches when he reveals that, because our disobedience, “a curse consumes the earth” (Isaiah 24:6 NLT).

But long before God destroys the earth to recreate it, He will bring judgment upon the world. And He will use the earth to enact His judgment upon sinful mankind.

Its people must pay the price for their sin.
They are destroyed by fire,
    and only a few are left alive.
The grapevines waste away,
    and there is no new wine.
    All the merrymakers sigh and mourn. – Isaiah 24:6-7 NLT

The grapevines will dry up and no longer yield their fruit. And this single act of God’s judgment will have devastating implications.

Gone are the joys of wine and song;
alcoholic drink turns bitter in the mouth. – Isaiah 24:9 NLT

There will be no wine for use in celebrations. And the lack of wine will result in people hoarding it in their homes, causing others to break in and steal it. Wine, once associated with joy and gladness, will become hard to come by and, its unavailability will cast a dark cloud over the earth.

Joy has turned to gloom.
Gladness has been banished from the land. – Isaiah 24:11 NLT

At this very moment in time, things are not as they should be. The creative order is marred by sin. We live in a world dominated by chaos and confusion. But Isaiah warns that it is going to get worse, not better. While the people of Judah were hoping for better days, the prophet was letting them know that, apart from repentance on their part, nothing was going to improve the fallen condition of the world.

This passage lets us know that sin is far worse than most of us want to admit. Its impact is devastating, and God’s hatred of it is strong. A little less sin is not the solution God is looking for. Slightly improved behavior on the part of mankind is not going to fix the problem. Just as sinful man must be regenerated and renewed by God, so must the world be, and it will be.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. – 2 Peter 3:9-13 ESV

And in the final book of the Bible, the apostle John shares the vision he received that reveals the final consummation of all things.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” – Revelation 21:1-5 ESV

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned — for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. – Romans 5:12-14 ESV

As he continues to defend the doctrine of justification by faith, Paul uses an interesting comparison, contrasting the sin of Adam and the sacrificial death of Jesus. It was through Adam’s one act of unrighteousness that sin came into the world. While Eve was the first one to give in to the temptation of Satan and take the forbidden fruit, Adam was standing by her side and fully complicit and compliant. As the God-ordained head of his household, he was responsible to keep God’s commands and protect his family. It was to Adam that God had given the command regarding the tree. Eve had not yet been created. The book of Genesis records, “And the Lord commanded the man, saying, ‘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’” (Genesis 2:16-17 ESV). In the very next verse God decides to make woman. “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him’” (Genesis 2:18 ESV). So Adam was responsible for communication God’s command to Eve and ensuring that she adhered to it. But he failed. “So 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 to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her” (Genesis 3:6 ESV).

The result of Adam’s actions was death. Not immediate physical death, but spiritual death – separation from God. They became alienated and separated from God. They immediately experienced shame, attempting to cover their nakedness with leaves. They hid from God. And then they came under the punishment of God, as He brought on them curses related to their disobedience. God curse for Adam involved a life of labor accompanied by futility, ending in death. “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19 ESV). Rather than enjoying the fruit of the trees provided by God in the garden, they were cast from the garden and left to provide for themselves through hard work and effort. And their lives would end in death. Which is why Paul writes, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12 ESV). It was Adam’s sin (original sin) that brought death into the world. Paul is comparing the one act of Adam and its result with the one act of Jesus and its subsequent outcome. He contrasts Adam’s disobedience with Jesus’ obedience. The first brought death. The second brought life. Adam’s action brought separation from God. Jesus’ action brought reconciliation.

But Paul’s main point in these verses is that men had been dying (suffering the penalty for their sins) long before the law had been given to Moses – “for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law” (Romans 5:13 ESV). Mankind not only inherited death as a result of Adam’s disobedience, they inherited his sin nature. But their death was due to Adam’s sin, not their own. From God’s perspective, they sinned “in” Adam. The penalty for his sin was passed down to his descendants. So Paul states, “death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam” (Romans 5:14 ESV). Long before the law was given, men were sinning. They may not have sinned in the same way that Adam had, but they still faced the same penalty: death. They still experienced spiritual separation from God. Why? Because Adam “was a type of the one who was to come” (Romans 5:14 ESV).

Long before God gave the law to Moses, men died. All men knew death was inevitable. They just didn’t know why they had to die. They were unclear as to what death was and what purpose it existed. It was to be feared. It was to be avoided at all costs. But when God gave the law, it revealed the righteousness that God demanded of mankind. It provided a non-negotiable list of God’s requirements for what was necessary to escape the penalty of death. Man’s sin nature made it impossible for him to keep God’s law. So before the law was given, man sinned, in ignorance. After the law, man sinned, knowing, like Adam, exactly what God had commanded, but disobeying it anyway. But Paul will continue to built on this comparison, illustrating that God provided a way out. “The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins” (Romans 8:3 NLT). That is the gospel of God that Paul has been talking about. Adam’s disobedience brought death. Jesus’ obedience brought life. Death reigned, but God declared an end to sin’s control over us. Martin Luther summarizes Paul’s contrast quite succinctly.

Christ has become a Dispenser of righteousness to those who are of Him, though they have not earned any righteousness; for through the Cross He has secured (righteousness) for all men. The figure of Adam’s transgression is in us, for we die just as through we had sinned as he did. The figure of Christ is in us, for we live just as though we had fulfilled all righteousness as He did. – Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans

Devotionary

The Bible Made Accessible and Applicable

All Things New.

Death Reigned.