God created Adam and Eve in a state that at least one of my former professors called, “unconfirmed creature holiness.” God placed them in a nearly perfect environment (remember that Lucifer was there) and gave them one simple command to obey:

¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.  ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷ 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.” ¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” ¹⁹ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²² And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” ²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” Genesis 2:15-25 (ESV)

As I said in the original post, dispensations are a specific period of time in which God deals with humans in a specific way. And, HE does so to teach us a specific lesson. What then is the lesson of this first of the seven dispensations?

Even in a perfect environment and with no history of sinful behavior, humans will rebel against God! Tens of thousands of people have argued over the years about that which we CANNOT KNOW… i.e., “why” God allowed Adam and Eve to sin. But, we DO KNOW that while HE DID ALLOW them to sin, HE did not compel – or even tempt – them to sin!

¹³ “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴ But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. ¹⁵ Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James 1:13-15

 One of the great, and inescapable, mysteries of sin is that while God is not the Author of sin, HE did create at least two kinds of creatures that are capable of sinning against Him: angels and human beings. The existence of evil is the source of much anti-God sentiment in the world and much confusion and debate among believers.

God did create angels with the capacity to sin, and some of them did sin! Cf. Isaiah 14; Ezekiel 28. He also created humans with the capacity to sin, and all of us sin!                      Cf. Romans 3:10

 Adam surely represented us perfectly when he sinned against the commandment of God! And, as RC Sproul says in one of his sermons, the fact that we do not like God judging us to be guilty because of Adam’s sin proves how well Adam did, in fact, represent us! If any other human had been in Adam’s place, they would have done exactly what Adam did! All humans are sinners by nature, by desire, and by continual practice! So much so that even if we lived in a perfect environment with no previous history of rebellion against God, when God gave us a command, we would rebel against the commandment and the One who gave it!

So here is the first lesson: we are sinners! Thankfully, God is a Savior! Cf. Isaiah 45:22; Luke 19:10

Once Adam and Eve had sinned, God took the life of an innocent animal and made a covering for their sin. In the same way, 4,000 years later God allowed sinful men to take the life of His Only Begotten Son Jesus to make an “atonement” or “covering” for the sins of sinful humans who would repent of our sins and believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord! Cf. John 1:11-12; 3:16, 36; Romans 10:9-13; 2^nd Corinthians 5:21

Next time (as the Lord allows): Dispensation #2 – Conscience!