Beginning of the End

Is God Too Severe?

Most people regard the tide of misery that flowed from the transgression of our first parents as too awful a consequence for so small a sin. But if they would look more deeply into this question, they might recognize their mistake. In His great mercy God did not give Adam a severe test. The very lightness of the prohibition made the sin exceedingly great. If some great test had been given to Adam, then those whose hearts incline to evil would have excused themselves by saying, “This is a trivial matter, and God is not so particular about little things.” BOE 20.8

Many who teach that the law of God is not binding upon us urge that it is impossible to obey its precepts. But if this were true, why did Adam suffer the penalty of transgression? The sin of our first parents brought guilt and sorrow upon the world, and had it not been for the goodness and mercy of God, would have plunged the race into hopeless despair. Let no one deceive themselves—“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). BOE 21.1

After their sin, Adam and Eve begged to remain in the home of their innocence and joy. They pledged that in the future they would yield strict obedience to God. But they were told that their nature had become depraved by sin. They had lessened their strength to resist evil. Now, in a state of conscious guilt, they would have less power to maintain their integrity. BOE 21.2

In sadness they said goodbye to their beautiful home and went out to dwell on the earth, where the curse of sin rested. The atmosphere was now subject to marked changes, and the Lord mercifully provided them with a garment of skins as a protection from the cold. BOE 21.3

As they witnessed the first signs of decay in the drooping flower and falling leaf, Adam and his companion mourned more deeply than people now mourn over their dead. When the beautiful trees dropped their leaves, the scene brought to mind the stern fact that death is the fate of every living thing. BOE 21.4

The Garden of Eden remained upon the earth long after its first inhabitants had become outcasts from its pleasant paths. But when the wickedness of Adam and Eve’s descendants determined their destruction by a flood of waters, the hand that had planted Eden withdrew it from the earth. When God finally sets all things right, when there shall be “a new heaven and a new earth,” it is to be restored, more gloriously beautiful than at the beginning (Revelation 21:1). BOE 21.5