Lessons from Adam and Eve #5: Spiritual Warfare

The war that began at Eden when Satan deceived Eve is a war that the people of God continue to wage.  A great victory has already been won by Jesus Christ.  Satan is defeated, and our personal victory is assured if we fix our eyes on the captain of our salvation.   For God’s people to go on to perfection (maturity), they must recognize a spiritual dimension in which a war is waged for their soul (cf. 1 Peter 2:11).   That war began in Eden when Satan confronted Adam and Eve to question God and test His word.   We discover that as part of Satan’s deception, his lies often include elements of truth but never all the truth.    Once sin entered the world through the influence of Satan, we saw that the consequence of their choice was death.  That was the unchanged law before and after the fall.   Paul stated it many years later when he writes, “The wages of sin is death.”   Another element that remained the same after the fall is their power to choose.   Spiritual warfare could not exist without it.   The temptation to sin can be resisted, and sin averted. But once sin has been committed, the consequences are always the same.  It is the inevitable law established from the very beginning.   Now, for those of us in Christ, Paul reminds us, “there is no condemnation” (Romans 8:1).  Now, only one violation of law (sin) would produce death, the unrepentant high-handed sin of departing from our first love (Rev. ).  Eden offers some interesting parallels.  For example, though we do not know how long Adam and Eve were in Eden, they represent the same sequence of growth and discovery as Abraham experienced (Romans 4) or as Paul experienced from birth (Romans 7: 9-11).  “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.  And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.   For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.” Paul was born a Jew.  Children were taught the law from a babe.  The only time Paul was alive apart from the law was when he was a child.  Law existed just as it did with Adam and Eve, but both experienced the same thing  (2) Both were made fully aware of the commandments after making one bad choice.   In this way, the commandment “came.”  It was always there, but it came to them, personally, as soon as they sinned.  Similarly, when Adam and Eve sinned, they knew they were naked. Shame replaced innocence and the compelling need to hide replaced open communication.  Using Paul’s language in Romans 7, “sin became exceeding sinful” (Rom. 7:13).  This sets the stage to help us appreciate the beauty of the gospel.