The Fall of the World

The story of how sin entered the world and brought death with it is told in the early chapters of Genesis, but the Bible returns to this account over and over again. The account of the creation of the world in Genesis ends with this point:

 

"And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day."                       (James 1:15)                                                                                                                                                           

When God had made the creation, and before mankind had sinned, the world was very good. There was no death and no suffering; they had not yet come into the world. This is the world as God made it. God’s intention is to bring the world back to this state again, good and full of people who understand God.

 

But God gave mankind a rule of behaviour, and mankind broke that rule. Breaking God’s rules is sin, and sin leads to death.

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…"                 (Romans 5:12)

 

The sin of mankind caused God to make a change in the world. The world was cursed with suffering and death, and as a result all things die.

 

The root cause of all suffering in the world is sin. We die because we sin. However, it is not because of a particular sin that we die, but because the whole world is cursed with sin as a general matter. The important point here is that sin acts indirectly. We live in a world that is cursed by sin, and it is this that causes death. This is why a sinless person like Jesus could die. This means that before the world can be set right there needs to be a means by which God can forgive sin and hence remove its curse from the earth.