Adam’s was not the original rebellion -- not in the sense of Eve only but in the context of the rebellious spirits in Heaven. Adam was not the first sinner. Eve's bite had preceded Adam's and there might have been a chance for Adam not to follow Eve in this sin. But that did not happen. Adam did eat. He ate with Eve and together they incurred the full weight of the words of warning God had given to them. But they did not die. At least not yet did they die.
It would have been a relief to Adam if he had died, right there in mid bite. It would probably have been a relief to Eve as well. If sin were accompanied by the immediate death that ended the opportunity to sin more or sin again, it would have been a relief. He did not die in the sense that at that moment of sin his life was required of him but Adam did die. He died the slow and agonizing death replete with guilt and shame and the constant re-enactment of his act and of his plight in his mind. Day after day it played out. First in the banishment of Adam and Eve from the garden that had been their delight and their downfall. Then in the labor that turned marriage from simple gift into burden and work. Then in the labor that brought for a child's voice amid Eve's cry of pain. Then in the labor that toiled against the ground, the insects, the weather, and the blight that fought against every seed put into the ground. Then in children who grew up to challenge instead of follow. Then in clans who divided up and competed for nearly everything. Finally in the threat of death that turned time into a precious commodity and made every ache or pain into a warning shot that today might be the day.
Worse, the death that would have been a relief if it had come at that moment turned Adam into an agent of death -- a murderer as well as one who had been murdered by the king of lies, enticed into the shadow from the light. Eve had been murdered by the devil and she had murdered Adam by taking him into her sin and when he made it his own she was relieved of the guilt or as much of its as she could be. This is what Jesus said. “He was a murderer from the beginning (ap’ arches)” (John 8:44). The sinners who live as the sons and daughters of the rebellion no longer imitate the God who made them but showed in their words and actions that they belonged to the devil. “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning (ap’ arches).” (1 John 3:8) Oh, it would have been so much easier if Adam had simply ceased to breathe and fell into a clump of bones and flesh in which the breath of life no longer lived. But that is not what happened.
Adam and Eve and all that were born of them through the ages and generations became sons of the devil until Christ released them and redeemed them. Only in Christ are the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve set free from death and free from the curse of being agents and instruments of that death upon others. It was not simply a rebellion that came with consequences but a mark on the soul of man. The Fall of man came not from an instant of death but from death occupying his very soul and the deception that lured Adam and Eve in came at a cost of their very selves. Only when another would come to wear their flesh and to live without this guilt and shame could redemption become possible. Only when Christ set free those marked for ownership of another, to live as an agent of death and murder, and under the shadow of death for themselves -- only then could salvation come to the dead. We did not need a Savior like we thought we imagined but someone who rescue us body and soul, setting us from from the dominion of one who is only death to the One who is only Life.
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