Before we can understand the salvation God purchased for us, we have to understand what went wrong and what exactly we are being rescued from. Let us take a quick journey back to the beginning.

In the beginning, God did not create a broken world. He created humanity in His image (Genesis 1:26–27), placed man in fellowship with Himself and looked upon everything He had made and declared it “very good” (Genesis 1:31). God did not create sin; neither was it part of God's original design; it entered a world that had been created good.

Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were spiritually alive to God, innocent of sin and able to enjoy His presence without guilt, fear or shame. They lived under God's good authority, possessed unhindered fellowship with Him, related openly with one another and exercised dominion over creation as His representatives. Genesis says they were both naked “and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25).

Their life also flowed from dependence upon God. Adam did not need redemption because he was not enslaved to sin. He did not need regeneration because he was not spiritually dead. He did not need reconciliation because he was not God's enemy. He did not need adoption in the redemptive sense because he already stood before God as His image. Luke traces Adam's genealogy and documents, “Adam, which was the son of God” (Luke 3:38).

He did not need sanctification because all was created good and sin had not yet entered the world. And although Adam had not yet entered the final, incorruptible glory later revealed in Christ, death itself had not yet gained dominion over humanity. Man stood upright before God, possessing life, fellowship, freedom, dignity, purpose and unhindered access to his Creator.

But something went terribly wrong.

Genesis 3 begins with an ominous introduction: “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.” The serpent was no ordinary character or reptile in the biblical story. Revelation identifies “that old serpent” as “the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world” (Revelation 12:9). Jesus describes him as “a murderer from the beginning” and “the father” of lies (John 8:44). His method has always involved deception—the distortion of what God has said.

This is precisely how the temptation began: “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Genesis 3:1).

Notice the distortion. God had not forbidden every tree. He had surrounded Adam and Eve with abundance and placed one boundary before them. Eve knew the instruction and replied, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it… lest ye die” (Genesis 3:2–3). They were not ignorant of God's word.

The serpent then directly contradicted it: “Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4–5).

At the heart of the temptation was a movement towards autonomy—the desire to live independently of God's authority, to determine good and evil for oneself. Satan presented God's boundary as restriction and independence as freedom. Adam and Eve believed the lie and exchanged dependence upon God for the promise of self-rule. The Fall did not begin with a juicy snack but a desire.

When we read the description, “the eyes of them both were opened”, it can almost sound as though their eyes had previously been closed and the serpent had simply told them the truth. But what followed was not enlightenment in the way he had suggested. Their eyes were opened, but they did not see more clearly; they now saw through the distortion sin had introduced.

What followed was shame, fear and hiding. Their eyes had been opened to evil through participation in it, while their hearts and minds became corrupted. Paul later warns, “As the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).

This is the nature of sin. Sin is not merely doing something socially unacceptable. It is rebellion against God, the violation of His will and the failure to reflect His glory. Scripture calls sin “the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4), while Paul says, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Sin therefore affects both what we do and what we are.

Through Adam, this corrupted condition entered the human race. Paul writes, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men” (Romans 5:12). Only one chapter after the Fall, Cain murders his brother Abel through envy. Death, the nature and the desire for sin were transferred into the human condition from parents to offspring by that first seed of corruption in their hearts. What entered in Genesis 3 immediately began producing fruit in Genesis 4.

This helps us understand the magnitude of the Fall. Sin did not simply add a few bad habits to otherwise unchanged human beings; it overturned the order in which humanity had been created to live.

Humanity did not cease to bear God's image after the Fall—Genesis 9:6 and James 3:9 still describe fallen human beings as made in God's likeness—but that image became terribly marred. Humanity was created to reflect God's character and rule under His authority; sin distorted that reflection.

Everything began to break.

This is why salvation has so many dimensions. One remedy could not adequately describe everything that sin had damaged.

Man lost fellowship with God. Adam, who had known God's presence without fear, now hid when he heard His voice (Genesis 3:8–10). Sin produced alienation. This is why salvation must include reconciliation. Paul says, “When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10).

Man also lost spiritual life. God had warned, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Physical death would follow, but spiritual separation appeared immediately. Humanity became “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). The answer is therefore not merely education or behavioural improvement. We need regeneration—new birth, new life from God. Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Sin also brought humanity into bondage. Jesus said, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:34). We therefore need redemption—liberation purchased at a price. Paul writes, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7).

Sin made us estranged from God's household. Salvation therefore goes beyond forgiveness. God brings those who were far away into His family. “Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). Adoption answers the loss of belonging.

Sin also corrupted our character. Even after being reconciled to God, the believer must increasingly be delivered from the patterns sin produced. This is sanctification—God progressively conforming His people to holiness. “This is the will of God, even your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3).

And finally, sin brought death and decay. God told Adam, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19). Salvation cannot therefore be complete while the grave still has the final word. We await glorification, when Christ “shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21).

This is why Jesus did not come merely to make bad people better. He came to answer the catastrophe Adam introduced. Paul deliberately places them side by side: “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

But a serious question remains. If sin has made humanity guilty before a holy God and by justice cast Adam and Eve out of the garden, how then can God forgive the guilty and still remain perfectly just? Sin cannot simply be ignored.

That is the question of atonement.

Continued…