Genesis 3:9-13 - Why did Adam do it?

SCRIPTURE Genesis 3:9-13
But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" And he said, "I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I ate."

COMMENT
Why did Adam do it?

The sin that Adam commits is a sin of pride and disobedience.
Why would an upright and unfallen man succumb to pride and disobey a command when he seemed to have everything.

He was the man who had everything!

It was interesting to me in analysing the problem to notice in Judaism there is really no doctrine of original sin, there is really no claim being made to have found the answer the question “Why did he sin?”

They could not grasp the stories ultimate meaning anywhere in the Old Testament. It is revealed only in the life and death of the resurrected Jesus.

It is almost as though we couldn’t understand the question of the Old Covenant and the fall of Adam until the New Covenant came and Jesus as the New Adam did what Adam should have done and undid what Adam did. So Jesus not only cured the illness, He diagnosed it.
Before that it was undiagnosed, a mystery illness.

Adam is in bliss, living in paradise and when he finds Eve he is in a state of marital ecstasy. What more could Adam want?

In a certain sense Adam couldn’t want anything more than that. But the problem is God did!

God created man in a natural paradise but He didn’t create us for it.
He created us for supernatural blessedness with God.
We have the advantage of hindsight, that even though this was earthly paradise, it was penultimate. It was second to last.

It might have been all that Adam would have ever wanted, but God was calling Adam to something more.
Heaven is not Plan B, it was the goal from the beginning that Adam was made for.

It was more than an obediential taste test - a test of “will he or won’t he” eat the apple.
It is really a test of Faith, Hope and Love.


Source: Scott Hahn
Professor of Scripture and Theology at Franciscan University, Steubenville USA
Book and/or Audio Interview on: First Comes Love