If we are intrinsically fallen and structurally flawed from the moment of our creation, then what hope is there that we will be any different in the future? There would be none. But Scripture denies this possibility because the problem of sin is moral, and not ontological, which means that we can become what we once were.

Any sane person knows that there is something wrong with us. No one can honestly examine history, let alone their own lives, without being struck by the extent to which we as a human race have “missed the mark” and not lived up to our ideals. Reinhold Niebuhr keenly observed that “the doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.”[1] The “human condition” has been the subject of countless books, films, and plays, as people have wrestled with the reality of good and evil. One of my favorites is “The Lord of the Rings” as Tolkien explores the insidious power of the ring and the evil that lurks in every heart.

But although everyone admits that there is something wrong with us, we do not explain the “human condition” in the same way. Why? Because one’s explanation of the human condition is worldview dependent. Yet from a Christian perspective, despite the diversity of worldviews, all non-Christian views explain the human problem in a similar way: the human condition is the result of a “structural” or “metaphysical” defect, not the result of our “moral” rebellion against God. And the main reason why is because of their common rejection of Scripture’s affirmation of God, creation, and specifically an historical Adam and fall. This is also why all non-Christian views end up not sufficiently grasping the true and serious nature of the human problem. This in turn inevitably leads them to underestimate the radical solution necessary to solve the problem, namely, the incarnation of the divine Son and his work to redeem, restore, and reconcile us to God and to destroy the power of sin in our hearts and lives. For this reason, all non-Christian explanations of the human condition and its solution are ultimately denials of reality.

The Significance of Genesis 3 for Theological Anthropology

Scripture’s explanation of the desperate nature of the human condition is directly dependent on Genesis 1–3, and especially chapter 3. Yet in our day there is probably no text of Scripture that is more scoffed at than Genesis 3. After all, what are to make of “talking serpents,” “forbidden fruit,” and “naked people?” Is this not the stuff of legend and myth? After all, have we not read Charles Darwin, who supposedly undermined our naïve understanding of this text? In our day, John Haught reflects this sentiment when he asserts: “Evolutionary science . . . has rendered the assumption of an original cosmic perfection, one allegedly debauched by a temporally ‘original sin,’ obsolete and unbelievable.”[2] Or, Paul Ricoeur states something similar: “The harm that has been done to souls, during the centuries of Christianity, first by the literal interpretation of the story of Adam, and then by the confusion of this myth, treated as history, with later speculations, principally Augustinian, about original sin, will never be adequately told.”[3]

But is this actually the case? I cannot delve into the numerous arguments against evolutionary theory, although there are many.[4] But the truth of the matter is that evolution’s grand metanarrative that seeks to explain God, self, and the world is a myth of gigantic proportions. For starters, evolutionary theory can’t account for ultimate origins, design, meaning, truth, rationality, moral norms, and human dignity, let alone what is wrong with us.

This is why Genesis 3 can’t be dismissed so easily. In fact, in contrast to the mindset of our day, I contend that there is probably no text of Scripture that is more significant for our grasp of the true nature of our problem and the rationale for the Bible’s redemptive story than Genesis 3. As Herman Bavinck astutely notes, without the Bible’s account of the fall “this world is inexplicable.”[5] As such, Genesis 3 is crucial in describing how, in history, sin and death came into the human race, and how the desperate nature of human depravity is the condition of all people (Rom. 3:23). Furthermore, Genesis 3 reminds us that our situation is so awful that only God can remedy it, if he so chooses to do so, which thankfully he has done. Indeed, apart from Genesis 3, we have no explanation of how humans were created “very good” (Gen. 1:31) but are now in their present state: abnormal, fallen, and cursed. Genesis 3 alone gives us the only true explanation of our problem along with the Bible’s glorious solution in our Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from it, all explanations of the human condition are superficial, inadequate, and in the end, yield no rationale ground to think that our condition ultimately can ever be remedied.

In what follows, I will offer five reasons why Genesis 3 is crucial for understanding the nature of our human problem over against non-Christian views. In so doing, we will discover how Genesis 3 is foundational for Christian theology and for our understanding of why we need a Redeemer to rescue us from our desperate plight. It is not to be ignored.

Reasons why Genesis 3 is Foundational for Understanding Sin and Salvation

1. No Other Explanation for Humanity’s Fallen Sinful Condition

Genesis 3 alone describes how the entrance of sin and evil came into the world and the desperate nature of the human condition. Mark it well: Scripture and Christian theology take sin and evil very seriously, and both are explained in Genesis 3. The opening chapters of the Bible remind us of how God created humans unique as his “image and likeness” (Gen 1:26), morally upright, and in right relationship with him and with one another. Yet these same chapters also remind us how quickly we went from this “very good” (Gen. 1:31) and “no shame” (Gen. 2:25) situation to being exiled from Eden. Apart from Genesis 3, we have no explanation of why humans are both significant and now fallen, corrupt, under God’s wrath, judgment, and the sentence of death (Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:1–3). Genesis 3 is the only place in Scripture that describes how, why, and when this occurred in the human realm.

2. No Other Explanation for Sin’s Universality

Genesis 3 alone explains why our now fallen, abnormal condition is universal. In Scripture, Adam is not only the first biological man that all humans descend from; he is also chosen by God to be the covenant head of all humanity, and thus our representative before God. By creation, Adam was created morally upright and able to obey God and thus to be confirmed in righteousness due to God’s covenant promise. Yet, sadly and tragically, by his one act of disobedience, Adam not only incurred God’s wrath and judgment for his own sin; he also acted on the behalf of all humans. As the covenant head of humanity, God imputed Adam’s guilt to all of his descendants, which also has resulted in our corruption and abnormality (Rom. 5:12–21; Eph. 2:1–3). For this reason, Paul can say that all humans, without exception (other than our Lord Jesus), “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Apart from Genesis 3 and Adam’s disobedient action as our covenant head, there is no way to explain the universality of sin and evil in us and in the world, which alone explains what we see around us and experience daily.

3. No Other Explanation For Why Sin is Not Essential to Humanity

In contrast to all non-Christian worldviews and sub-Christian views that deny the historicity of Adam and the fall, Genesis 3 refuses to equate finitude/creatureliness with sin. The significance of this point is momentous, so let’s develop it a bit more to grasp its full importance.

Scripture presents Adam as the first man of history, and his fall as an historical event. This means that sin and evil are not part of God’s original creation. All that God created—including humans—was created good and morally upright (Gen. 1:31). Sin and evil, then, were introduced into the world by Adam’s moral rebellion against God. Or, to employ older language, sin/evil and its consequences are “accidental rather than essential to being human, a point that Scripture reinforces both in terms of the goodness of the original creation and the promise of glorification.”[6] As such, Scripture doesn’t equate our creatureliness with our sin/fallenness.

But in order to make this distinction, it requires a historical Adam and fall as taught by Genesis 3. However, if Adam and his fall didn’t occur in history, then we have to equate God’s creation of us with our sin/fallenness; humans simply were created the way we presently are. Thus, we would have to conclude that our sin is bound up with our creation and that sin is more of a structural/metaphysical problem than a moral/ethical one. In other words, without a clear distinction between Adam’s creation and fall in history, sin is not accidental to us but essential or intrinsic to what it means to be human.

The implication of such a view is both disastrous and destructive of the entire teaching of Scripture, which I will note below. But thankfully Scripture doesn’t teach that God created Adam structurally flawed so that what we presently are is what we have always been. As Andrew Leslie rightly reminds us: “[T]here is nothing inevitable about our God-given natures, no inherent design flaw, no hairline fracture, let alone any fatalistic divine determination, that would make our fall physically necessary or unpreventable, and therein somehow excusable.”[7] If this were not the case, then our human problem would be comparable to the ill-fated Ford Pinto—a car that came off its 1971 assembly line structurally flawed.

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