Fall: Death Is the Result of Sin

Yet, from the very beginning, God was graciously warning humans about the deadly consequences of doing things their own way, doubting the goodness of the One who made them in His image. He told them it would lead to this phenomenon they had not yet experienced: death.

“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).

God’s abundant provision in the garden was sure. And so was the punishment for not believing in it. Though Adam and Eve did not immediately die after eating the fruit, death immediately became possible and prevalent. In fact, to cover over the sudden shame of Adam and Eve’s nakedness, some of the animals Adam named had to die.

The deadly consequences of their sin didn’t just result in the first animal deaths. Their sin escorted Adam, Eve, and all their descendants out of the garden, out of the presence of the tree of life, and into a world that is “passing away” (1 John 2:17). This same reality is now true for each of us: “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin . . . so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). And Psalm 51:5 says we are each now born “in iniquity.”

Because of sin, Adam and Eve would not only one day experience physical death, but they instantly tasted spiritual death. In this world, sin always leads to some form of death: the death of a relationship, the death of a dream, or the death of a body that was once called “very good.”

“For the wages of sin is death,” Romans 6:23 tells us, “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” See how God and sin are pitted against one another, just like life and death? If the holy God is the creator and sustainer of life, then sin causes death by separating us from that life-giving source.

Death is the outcome of sin and the endpoint of life in a fallen world, all of it tinged by these dual realities. But death does not have the final word.