LESSON FIVE

THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MAN'S FALL

Scripture Reading: Gen. 3:1-8; Rom. 5:12, 14-16; 7:14b, 17-18, 20-21; Eph. 2:1, 5a; 4:18; 1 Cor. 15:22a

OUTLINE

1. Not only:
1. Transgressing against God's commandment—Rom. 5:14b.
2. Falling under God's condemnation—Rom. 5:16b.
3. Estranging man from God—Gen. 3:8; Eph. 4:18.
4. Spoiling man from fulfilling God's purpose:
1. Expressing God in His image.
2. Representing God with His dominion.
2. But also:
1. Receiving Satan's evil thought, feeling, and will into the inward parts of man's soul—Gen. 3:1, 4-5.
2. Taking the tree of knowledge into the members of man's body—Gen. 3:6:
1. Man's body being transmuted into flesh—Rom. 7:18a.
2. Satan becoming sin within man—Rom. 7:14b, 17, 20.
3. Sin acting as evil in man—Rom. 7:21.
3. Deadening man's spirit—Eph. 2:1, 5a.
4. Letting sin enter into man—Rom. 5:12a.
5. Making man the victim of death—Rom. 5:12b, 14a; 1 Cor. 15:22a.

Focus:Through man's fall Satan's personality became one with man's soul, and he was taken into man's body to be sin working as evil in man's fleshly members.

In the previous lesson we saw Satan's plot to spoil man. In this lesson we want to see the real significance of man's fall. Among most Christians the understanding of man's fall is altogether inadequate. For this lesson we need to read the verses in the scripture reading attentively, slowly, and carefully so that we can be impressed with these portions of the Word.