Foundational Ideas: The Fall Affected Everything

When sin entered the world (Genesis 3), the fall affected everything. Too often, we think of the effect of the fall was that it resulted in Adam and Eve getting kicked out of the garden, but all of creation was affected by the fall. Humans began to sin, to act and think in ways that were opposed to the will and holiness of God. But it was not just behavior, not just thought, emotions were also affected. Though God created us with emotion, the fall led to poor expression of our emotions. Our relationships were also affected. Larry Crabb writes about the notion of relational sin.  How we engage in relationships with others is affected by our own fallenness and our own selfishness.  Even biology, even culture are affected by the fall.  Sinfulness infects everything. The only hope for the great reversal is Christ’s ongoing redemption. One of the books that most deeply affected me here was Neal Plantinga’s Not the Way It’sSupposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin.