Much confusion exists in the world today because God’s people have misunderstood man’s first sin. Most people believe that Adam sinned because he ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Because of this they have actively shunned God’s primary purpose in men’s lives… that men learn to discern good and evil and choose the good. But, it was not the fruit of the tree itself that was sinful. Adam sinned by disobeying God’s specific command to him. In other words the first sin was rebellion against God, not the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

It was for the sin of rebellion that Saul and his family lost the Kingdom of Israel.  God, through Samuel the prophet, ordered Saul to destroy the nation of Amalek. He said, “Now go and strike Amalek and ^(A)devote to destruction^[a] all that they have. Do not spare them, ^(B)but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” (1 Samuel 15:3) Scripture records, however, “Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves^[a] and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction.” (1 Samuel 15:9) Rather than obey God, Saul decided to keep the best for himself.

Immediately thereafter Samuel confronted Saul with his disobedience and Saul attempted to justify himself saying that the best of Amalek’s cattle would be sacrificed as an offering to the LORD,

²² And Samuel said,

This, too, was Adam’s sin. He “rejected the word of the LORD” by choosing his will instead of God’s. Man’s first sin, therefore, was rebellion against God by disobeying his specific word.

Man’s sin, however, is associated with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and because of this many Christians malign that tree and call it evil. Did God put an evil tree in the garden of Eden? Did God command Adam not to eat of that tree because it was evil?

Jesus said, “For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.” (Mark 3:35 KJV) The will of God is that men will voluntarily do his will. So, in the beginning his will, of course, was that Adam would obey his word, not disobey it. God willed Adam to obey him. The amazing thing, though, and a truth which is almost universally overlooked is that God planned for Adam to sin. How so? God prohibited Adam from doing one thing and one thing only. He forbade Adam to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And Adam would have obeyed God too, except that something tempted him to eat of it. God himself provided a tempter in the form of a “beast.” Concerning it the Word says, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Genesis 3:1 KJV) The English Standard Version uses the word “crafty” instead of “subtil” to describe this beast.

God made the serpent, Adam didn’t. God made the serpent cunning, subtil, and crafty, not Adam. And then God allowed the beast direct access to Eve, Adam’s wife. This proves that God planned for Adam to sin. For example, if I want my young children to stay away from knives (think Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil), then, first, I do not place them alone in a room with knives. Second, I do not put a bully in the room to tempt them to cut themselves with the knives even if I am so ignorant as to place them in harm’s way. I am not calling God “ignorant;” I am saying that God knew what he was doing and that he intended to happen exactly what did happen.

Now, concerning Eve the Scripture says, “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” (1 Timothy 2:14 KJ2000) Eve, being deceived by the serpent, disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit. Immediately after she ate she gave some fruit to her husband and he ate it too. But, why did he eat it? He was not the one deceived. This means that when he ate, he willfully disobeyed God. Why?

I believe the answer to this question lies in a mysterious verse which occurs even before Adam’s sin. Remember that God put Adam to sleep, took one of his ribs, and fashioned Eve from Adam’s own flesh and bone. Upon seeing her Adam exclaimed, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Genesis 2:23 KJV) Then the next verse, the mystery verse, says, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Adam’s mother and father were the “us” who said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:26) After his father and mother made his wife they prophesied saying, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

The Bible says that Adam was with his wife when she ate from the forbidden tree. He probably even heard the serpent tempting her and thought to himself, “No way. There’s no way we’re going to eat what God said not to eat.” Then, horror of horrors, he suddenly sees Eve snatch the fruit from the tree and bite into it. “Oh no!” he cries to himself. “Now my wife will die (whatever that meant to him). Now I must leave my mother and father (God) so that I can remain joined to my wife. I must eat the fruit and enter into death, just as she has.” And he did. Adam willfully sinned by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree and he suffered death for it. This means he willingly laid down his life for his wife. This is why Adam truly is a “type of Christ.” The question now is “Why did God require Adam to sin?”