Gospel Conversations Reimagined: The True Story of the Whole World, The Fall

This series of posts seek to tell the true story of the whole world as it unfolds in the sixty-six- book canon of Scripture. Significantly, the true story is embedded in history, radically redefines our worldview and also provides meaning for your story and mine. God provides us with the metanarrative of Scripture that four key themes: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration/Recreation.

As I noted in a previous post, the triune God (the Father, Son, and Spirit) reigns as the sovereign king over all of creation—God is the subject of the TSWW. We also considered the God’s creative work that crescendos as he creates man and woman in his image or likeness. God created you and me to know and relate with him, with one another and within the world. We are meant to function as God’s “imagers” commissioned to fill and subdue the earth and to exercise dominion over every living thing. God places Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden and instructs them to be fruitful and multiply and to work and maintain the garden and forbids only one thing: “The tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen 2:15–16).

The Fall*

The creation story soon goes sideways when Adam and Eve choose autonomy from God and rebel against God’s one command and sets in motion a remarkable chain of events. The serpent tempts them to question God’s goodness and to doubt God’s authority. Adam and Eve were created to love God, but their choice fractures this relationship. They were created to love one another, but their choice taints their relationship and eventually their family; they were created to cultivate and create, to be fruitful and multiply, but their choice plunges them into conflict.

The cosmic effect of sin reverberates along the storyline of Scripture and makes it clear that sin is not isolated to a few individuals, or even to the majority of people, but permeates everyone and everything. The psalmist laments, “The Lord looks down from heaven on all the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (Ps 14:2–3). Psalm 143:2 confirm, “No one living is righteous.” The prophet Isaiah affirms that evil and injustice prevails because of sin (Isa 59:7–9, 12). Jeremiah declares, “The heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all else” (Jer 17:3). Eventually, the apostle Paul concludes, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). The universality of Adam’s sin extends to the entire created order that is now subjected to futility and in bondage to decay (Rom 8:20–21).

 Understanding and acknowledging the extent of sin and its far-reaching effects is one of the keys to unlocking the meaning of the TSWW—particularly in an age of secularization. The Bible teaches that sin—all evil and perversity the world over—is ultimately the result of humanity’s refusal to live under the rule and reign of God.

We continue see evidence of humankind’s aversion to and rebellion against God’s authority in our secularized, exclusively humanist culture today. At the same time, there is a blaring cry for morality—do you hear it? When humankind refuses to acknowledge God as Creator then measures for justice, rightness, safety and peace are relative and always in flux. Where do you see evidence of this rebellion—in the world around you and in your own heart?

 Next week’s post will consider the third key theme of the TSWW—Redemption—and will recognize Jesus Christ as the clue for understanding human history, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth … all things were created through him and for him” (Col 1:16).

*Portions of this post are taken from: Monaco, Cas. “Bill Bright’s Four Spiritual Laws Reimagined: A Narrative Approach to Meaningful Gospel Conversations for an American Twenty-first Century Secularized Context.” PhD Diss., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2020.