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Because of the Fall of Man, we live in a world plagued with many serious social, emotional, and spiritual issues. Throughout time, many individuals, from activists to authors and from politicians to doctors, have claimed to possess solutions to these problems. However, these manmade solutions, while occasionally providing temporary results, are all ultimately destined to fail because they cannot address humanity's root problem.
This critical problem, as detailed in the Scriptures, involves the spiritual anatomy of mankind. When God created the first man and woman as seen in Genesis, they possessed a constitution comprised of three parts: a body allowing them to interact with their environment, a soul enabling them to relate to each other, and a spirit connecting them to God. While Adam and Eve were sinless before God in this initial state, He gave them free will because He desired for them to worship Him by choice. Unfortunately, as Genesis 3 records, man ultimately chose to rebel, causing sin to plague the world, his thoughts, and even his very nature. As God warned in Genesis 2:17, the entire human race suffered immediate death, not in a physical sense, but in separation from God through the death of the human spirit.
This catastrophic event caused all mankind to inherit multiple consequences that the issues of today's fallen world are rooted in. Among these is the loss of perfection and goodness. After the Fall, Adam and Eve lost their perfection because their very natures were corrupted by sin. This sinful nature passed down to their descendants and, as Romans 3:23 states, caused all humanity to fall short of God's perfect glory. As Jesus' teachings in Matthew 5:21-22 and Mark 7:20-23 reveal, no amount of good works or abstinence from sinful behavior can recover humanity's original goodness because our minds our plagued with defiling thoughts and motives. Another major issue caused by the Fall is the radical change of authority in mankind's spiritual anatomy. Originally, God designed our spirit to establish His authority in us, with His perfect order having the spirit ruling over the body through the soul. However, with the introduction of sin, the spirit died, the soul took charge, and humanity no longer received God's perfect wisdom. Instead, mankind began to (and still does) rely on the limitations and folly of godless human reasoning, emotions, philosophy, and other intellectual products of the soul-life; all things which Proverbs warns against in chapter 3:5-6.
These radical changes to mankind's very being created detrimental issues with eternal implications. For example, men and women increasingly distanced themselves from their loving Creator. No longer having access to God's Spirit, the fruit of mankind's corrupted soul became apparent, listed in Galatians 5:19-21 as including immorality, murder, hatred, and idolatry. Many have and continue to make their own rules on right and wrong, often calling good evil and evil good as Isaiah 5:20 states. Furthermore, the Fall of Man left mankind with a completely unsolvable problem from a natural perspective: eternal condemnation. As previously stated, the Fall caused mankind to receive a sin-tainted nature, which, according to Romans 3:10, causes all humanity to be considered unrighteous and deserved of judgement in the eyes of our holy, righteous God. As previously stated, no amount of human goodness, wisdom, or religion can address this issue because these things neither bring people closer to God due to their dead spirits, nor do they cleanse them from the inner permeation of sin that makes all people equally corrupt. Thus, the Fall of Man left humanity in a spiritually helpless and corrupted state that has caused the world to be filled with serious emotional, spiritual, and social issues.
Thankfully, where mankind's devices have continually failed to address these problems and their source, God has provided the only perfect and eternal solution through His Son, Jesus Christ. Fortunately, we are not required to perform the impossible task of saving ourselves or fixing the world's problems in our own strength, for the Lord's love moved Him to provide a way to restore fellowship with Him, receive eternal life, and bring true change in our lives. As John 1:14 and 3:16 share, this love resulted in the Lord sending His Son Jesus, whose Incarnated form was both fully God and fully human, to this world to live a sinless life. On Earth, Jesus established the sole way of salvation and eternal life through a brutal sacrifice and miraculous resurrection that bore the entirety of humanity's sin, appeased His Father's righteous wrath, and conquered death. Through admitting our inability to save ourselves and accepting Jesus as our Savior, we receive a revived human spirit that allows us to not only worship, serve, and commune with our Creator, but also begin the process of receiving the perfect wisdom, humility, and love necessary to overcome sin, live Christlike lives, and share the life-changing love necessary to bring true change in the lives of others.
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