The Curse

What if the fall did not happen?  What would the world look like if the Biblical account of Genesis 3 did not occur?  You know the story.  Once upon a time, in a garden called Eden lived a man and a woman.  These two individuals were given every conceivable blessing in their garden life.  However, they were also given one prohibition, they were not to eat the fruit from a certain tree which grew in the middle of the garden.  Unfortunately, the prohibited fruit proved too tempting, as they disobeyed their creator and ate.  The fallout was most tragic.  God, their creator educated them concerning a reality that they had already experienced.  After eating the forbidden fruit, everything for this man and woman immediately changed.  Nothing looked the same, tasted the same, or felt the same.  Long before God’s “punishment”, they felt punished.  

Now, I had always thought that the negative effects of the fall were instituted when Adam and Eve were, “called into the principle’s office”.  It was during this meeting that the dreaded “curse” was instantiated.  Yes, the curse was God’s way of punishing Adam and Eve for this disobedience.  However, what if this was not the case?  What if the curse had nothing to do with punishment?  What if the curse was actually one of God’s most profound gifts of grace?  What if the curse was actually God’s gracious means by which we would never forget about that day in the garden, when the first man and woman disobeyed God?  What if it was given by God so that we might never dismiss the reality of our fallen condition?  

So, I again ask, what would the world look like if the fall did not happen?  If we were not fallen, we would be in pristine condition.  In such a world, we would be born completely whole.  The most egregious sin would be the denial of our feelings and impulses.  Since our nature was not distorted by the fall, our basic instincts would be completely intact and trustworthy.  Nothing about our nature would need to be changed, just accentuated or even liberated.  Sin would be defined as the suppression of our passions.  Salvation, if such a term should rightly exist, would be expressed in statements such as, “this is my life”, “this is my body”, “I can be who I want to be,” “I can do what I want to do,” “I must embrace the person I feel I was born as.”  

Alas, this sounds very similar to my world.  In fact, dreadfully similar.  Strangely, the fall did occur.  The effects of the fall are a fact of reality.  So, how have we managed to create an existence that reflects an unspoiled world in the midst of our fallenness?  How have we managed to blithely ignore the reality of our brokenness?  

We have misunderstood the curse of God.  God cursed Adam and Eve so that they would never forget their fallen state, by reminding them daily that they were broken.  The curse was a painful wound which necessitated healing.  It reminding them that if Christ did not intervene and mend the wound, they would bleed-out on the table.  However, far from acknowledging the effects of the curse, we have not merely rejected it, but whole-heartedly embraced it.  “This is the way that I am, I’m not broken.  I’m me!”  Like the frog in the kettle who might suggest that the pot is not getting hotter, the outside world is simply getting cooler, we seem to believe our problems do not reside in us, rather it belongs to those things beyond us.  We have misconstrued the curse, and have become habitual skeptics, believing that it can never get better than this.  “I know I walk with a limp, experiencing intense pain with every step; but hey, this is the way I was born.”  “What can you expect?”  

The curse is not God’s punishment, it is His promise that we were made for more than our present pain.  We were made for His eternal blessing.  I am glad for a world with the curse, for without it we would never be aware of our brokenness, or realize God’s healing.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow.