After the Fall

"And the eyes of both of them were opened" (Gen. iii. 7). This was what Satan had promised and Adam and Eve had desired, but it was different from what they expected. Their eyes were opened in disillusion. They found themselves deceived, fooled, robbed of their most precious possession. Peace, tranquillity, enjoyment were gone; anxiety and bitter remorse had succeeded. They had not taken their place in the sinless sphere of lower creatures; that sphere was adequate for the animal world, but not for rational beings that had once been supernatural. Their natural faculties, sufficient for life in the lower sphere had they never been raised above it, were insufficient under the blighting influence of sin. There was little satisfaction in their new independence, for they now felt how necessary to their life was the dominion of God. First of all they were conscious of shame; their fearlessness and confidence were gone; they felt unfit to be seen by God or by one another. There was turmoil in their souls, an insurgence of the inferior and the animal against the higher and rational element. They had fallen under the degrading dominion of sense which had been their slave; for their mastery had been ensured by their subjection to God. So it always is. Sin promises much, but it is never really profitable. Its boasted revelations amount only to disillusion, disappointment, failure, and shame. Continue Reading.