Tackling Tradition 61: When Did Sin Enter The World?

According to Traci Coston…

One detail in the Genesis story that many people miss is this: Sin did not enter the world the moment Eve ate the fruit.

It entered when Adam did.

By the time the serpent appeared in the garden, sin was already present in creation—in Satan himself, who had rebelled against God and was now deceiving humanity. But it had not yet entered the human race or corrupted the world under Adam’s authority.

When the serpent spoke to Eve, she was deceived. She actually believed what the serpent was telling her. We can even see confusion about God’s command in the way she repeats it: “God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” — Genesis 3:3

But God never said anything about touching the tree. The original command was simply not to eat it: “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” — Genesis 2:17

That command had been given directly to Adam before Eve was even created, so Eve most likely received the instruction second-hand from Adam. Scripture also makes something very important clear about the difference between the two of them:

Eve believed the serpent’s lie. But “Adam was not deceived.” —1 Timothy 2:14

Paul was not giving Adam a pat on the back foe not being deceived. He knew exactly what God had said. Yet when Eve handed him the fruit, he ate anyway, meaning he was *intentionally* rebelling against God which is far worse. 

The Bible never says sin entered the world through Eve. It says: 

“Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin.”— Romans 5:12

Adam had been given authority and dominion over the earth. When he knowingly rebelled against God’s command, sin and death entered the human race and the world under his authority.

This is why the Bible calls Jesus the “last Adam.”

The first Adam brought sin and death into the world. The last Adam came to defeat them.

By way of reply…

 No, that’s not what the text teaches. 

Eve ate the fruit, & she sinned. She sinned first, thus in that sense, sin entered the world through **her,** & while the text of Genesis doesn’t state it, she most likely heard the command  first hand from God.  Why? The phenomenon we call Divinr Silence is an artifact of the Fall, not the Prelapsarian Estate.  Romans 2 is clear that the Law is written on all our hearts & that included Eve’s.  She was beguiled, but she knew what she was doing.  She sinned first, ergo, sin entered the created order through her. 

In context, in Romans 5, Paul is comparing & contrasting Christ & Adam.   In a one to many act, Reconciliation entered the world through Christ. 

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:10–11, ESV).

Paul’s soteriology turns on union with Christ & imputation of our sin(s) to Him via the crucifixion & in His death.  Thus reconciliation entered the world evangelically. 

Via union with Adam & his single act of disobedience in the garden, sin entered the world via the imputation of Adam’s sin to us, after which we have all been created in a fallen estate (except Yeshua, who had no biological human father), 

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

You’re using the text as a prooftext that Adam sinned first.   That’s not what it means.  It’s referring to the imputation of Adam’s sin to us.    Eve sinned first, & Adam followed, but of those 2 his sin is the one to many act of disobedience that was imputed to us just as Christ’s one to many act was later in history imputed to us.