The Fall of Adam

After the completion of the creation of the earth and of Adam and Eve, the first earthly couple lived in the Garden of Eden. This garden was a place of peace and tranquility. Adam and Eve were entirely innocent and had no knowledge of things beyond what God had told them. The instruction He gave them was to take care of the garden, eat the fruit of the trees, but not any fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They were also commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. This state of innocence meant that not only did Adam and Eve not know sorrow, sin, pain, or death; but they didn't know joy, happiness, goodness, or life. In other words, Adam and Eve could not progress at all. They had no opposition and although they had agency, they only had a very limited number of choices, and didn't always recognize them without guidance.

This so called guidance came to them soon enough. God allowed Satan to move about freely in the Garden as an essential part of His plan of salvation for His children. Satan, who came disguised as a serpent, tempted eve and she partook of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

This caused that she would immediately be cast out of the Garden of Eden and separated from the presence of God. This also meant that she would be separated from Adam, so he also partook of the fruit and they both fell together. The couple experienced a spiritual death by being separated from God and were also subjected to a physical death by becoming mortals with bodies of flesh and blood. They could now experience pain and sickness. They also began to gain understanding of good and evil. They were subjected to the adversary, but only after being given proper teaching by Heavenly Father. This way they could exercise their agency wisely. Another blessing that came from the fall of Adam and Eve is that they became able to have children, thus paving the way for every member of the human race to come to earth and get a body. This would not have been possible if Adam and Eve had not fallen.

Through the reasons stated, it is clear that the fall is an essential part of God's plan for us. He allowed for this to happen and structured the entire plan around it happening. We are now able to live here on this fallen earth where Satan ravages souls by tempting us to sin, and God allows for afflictions in mortality of every shape and size to come upon us. We may suffer from chronic illness, poverty, poor living conditions, abuse, neglect, war, loss of loved ones, or any other type of affliction brought about by being mortal or by other people's misuse of agency and some of us may suffer all of these things. We are also inevitably going to sin. No mortal that has ever lived on the earth to the age of accountability has ever escaped sin. We are all going to fall short of the mark of perfection solely based on the fact that we are living in a fallen state. This is a harrowing thought in and of itself. If we understand that God is perfectly just and also perfectly pure and clean, then we cannot expect to be allowed into His presence. Not only would this cause us filthy sinners an immense amount of guilt and anguish, but it would make God less than perfectly pure. Because of this nobody can return to live with Heavenly Father or ever expect to become like Him. But because God is perfectly wise and knows all things, He prepared for this poor performance on our part by offering us a mediator or a person to absolve us of the debt of sin we have to the laws of justice that God must enforce.

This mediator is of course Jesus Christ. It is only through His Atonement that any and all the effects of the fall of Adam can be negated. He overcame the physical death by loosing the bands that would have held our bodies separated from our spirits eternally. Those bonds are no longer efficacious and all men women children or creature will be resurrected or have their spirits reunited with their body in an immortal and perfect state like Adam and Eve experienced before the fall. All the problems that caused damage to our bodies in life will be fixed, even if we were bald or overweight we will be restored to a perfect physical state. That part of the fall has already been overcome for all of us whether we like it or not. We will all live again in immortality.

The second part of the fall was the spiritual death that is our separation from God. This part is much more difficult to obtain. Since this death is caused by sin that we bring upon ourselves, we must get rid of the sin to overcome the death. The only way to overcome and remove the effects of sin is through the only person who has ever lived and not sinned. Christ has the ability to stand before God as our representative and plead our case. He has not offended God and can stand in His presence. He only asks that we make adequate payments to Him to show that we have learned from our mistakes and can exercise our agency with wisdom. This process of learning and change is called repentance and is provided for us as a gift from our Savior, Jesus Christ.

I know that the fall of Adam, although not pleasant, is an essential part of our attainment of exaltation and eternal life which type of life is the same that God enjoys. It is only in and through Jesus Christ that all the devastating effects of the fall can be overcome. I am eternally indebted and sincerely grateful to Christ for paving the way for me so that I can attain all the gifts that the perfect plan of our Heavenly Father provides for us.