5. How did Adam and Eve disobey God and what was the consequence of their disobedience? Genesis 3:6-8.
NOTE: ‘The Lord did not place in Adam, fallen and disobedient, the confidence He placed in Adam loyal and true. The rewards of heaven are not granted to transgressors. The eyes of Adam and Eve were indeed opened, but to what? To see their own shame and ruin, to realise that the garments of heavenly light which had been their protection were no longer around them as their safeguard. Their eyes were opened to see that nakedness was the fruit of transgression. As they heard God in the garden, they hid themselves from Him; for they anticipated that which till their fall they had not known, the condemnation of God. God has declared that man’s only means of safety is entire obedience to all His words. We are not to make the experiment of testing the evil course, with all its results. This will bring weakness through disobedience. God’s plan was to give man clear-sightedness in all his work. There was to be co-operation between man and God. But this plan was greatly interfered with by Adam’s transgression. Satan led him to sin, and the Lord would not communicate with him after he had sinned as He did when he was without sin.’ Conflict & Courage, page 20.
6. Why did Adam’s sin separate God from man? Psalm 85:4. Consider Isaiah 59:2.
NOTE: ‘Adam and Eve persuaded themselves that in so small a matter as eating of the forbidden fruit there could not result such terrible consequences as God had declared. But this small matter was the transgression of God’s immutable and holy law, and it separated man from God and opened the floodgates of death and untold woe upon our world. Age after age there has gone up from our earth a continual cry of mourning, and the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain as a consequence of man’s disobedience. Heaven itself has felt the effects of his rebellion against God. Calvary stands as a memorial of the amazing sacrifice required to atone for the transgression of the divine law. Let us not regard sin as a trivial thing.’ Steps to Christ, page 33.