Sin robs all of us of the argument that God is obligated to do us good. Death and judgment is what we deserve. Grace is God’s unmerited favor shown toward us.

“Nondum considerasti, quanti ponderis sit peccatum!” wrote Anselm in his famous work on the incarnation, Cur Deus Homo. Translated, it means: “You have not considered how weighty sin is!” Low views of sin breed tepid views of the Gospel — views that the modern church is inclined to adopt. Salvation thus becomes a therapy of self-help rather than a deliverance from God’s wrath. Consequently, these opening chapters of Genesis are all the more counter-cultural in this postmodern age of ours. The opening chapters of Genesis depict for us a number of issues resulting from Adam and Eve’s rebellion in the garden.

First, and fundamentally, Adam’s relationship with God changed. In place of peace and communion came (on Adam’s side) the sense of shame and the culture of blame, and (on God’s side) inquisition, rebuke, and judgment (3:8–19).

Second, and equally important, Adam’s sin had an effect upon his posterity: he bore a son “in his own likeness” (5:3)—meaning more than just that Seth looked like Adam. Seth inherited the same propensity to sin as Adam now had. Adam’s disordered nature — lawless, egoistic, idol-forming—was now reflected in his son too. The sequence of Genesis 6:5–7 says it all: “man . . . man . . . man.” Without exception, the whole human race is sunk in sin, outwardly (“in the earth”), inwardly (“the thoughts of his heart”), without exception (“man” qua man), subject to God’s judgment of death. Thus Genesis has charted the progression of sin from Adam and Eve (3:1–24) to their offspring (4:1–6:7). The history of mankind from this point onward is one of rebellion against God without any period of respite (“continually”). In Adam all die (1 Cor. 15:22) and thereby incur God’s grief (Gen. 6:6) and liability to judgment (6:7). This is original sin that we all inherit, establishing the historical ground for Paul’s pastoral reflection: “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Rom. 8:7).