In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, and He created everything in them.
He created man in His image. He planted them in the garden of Eden to tend to it.
“The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Genesis 2:9 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/gen.2.9.NIV
From the beginning man has had free will, the ability to make a choice between one thing and another. The tree of life, offers eternity with God, while the tree of knowledge of good and evil, offers what is temporary and brings momentary pleasure, but it separates us from eternal life with God and invites the stain of sin.
Adam and Eve were perfect and without sin until they chose to know good and evil. In the bible when a man knew a woman, it was intimately. They became one flesh and therefore, they knew each other.
“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.””
Genesis 4:1 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/gen.4.1.NKJV
To know, means to experience. They had never experienced evil, or even the battle of having to fight against temptation to do evil vs good. I know what you’re thinking, “what does this have to with me? How does their sin fall onto me? They ate the fruit, not me.”
I would ask, do you experience temptation? And when you do, do you fall into that temptation? When we lie, steal, are lustful, wrathful, divisive, manipulative and many other things, we are sinning. Our own desires lead us away to be tempted and when we succumb to that temptation, we sin.
“Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”
James 1:13-15 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/jas.1.13-14.NKJV
Adam and Eve sinned when their desire to eat the fruit led them to be tempted and from temptation they sinned and from sin, they brought death into the world. We even see this through the birth of their first son Cain, who commits the first murder after he is led away to do so by the desires of his heart, birthed from envy and wrath.
Because Adam and Eve fell from grace they inherited sin nature, which would then be passed down generation after generation. Because of this we inherit the imperfection of flesh, human sin nature. But we are not condemned to remain in this condition forever.
God in His goodness, mercy and grace covered Adam and Eve‘s shame with the skin of an animal, which was symbolic of how he would cover our shame with the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, blood. The slaying of an animal to cover Adam and Eve was the first sacrifice we see done in the Bible.
“Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.”
Genesis 3:21 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/gen.3.21.NKJV
This is why when God calls the hebrews to be the nation He would reveal His glory to and fulfill his promise through, to restore mankind, he instills a sacrificial system for the sins of the people. He gives them His Word, He gives the law made of 613 commandments. He establishes his law through Moses, the people failed to keep in step with the law and so God, not a man that He should lie, kept His promise. A promise made even before Moses and the giving of the law. A promise made to Abraham.
God cuts a covenant with Abraham that foreshadows what would happen in the future regarding Him taking on the penalty of sin for the people. According to the Hebrew custom, when a covenant was made and animals were sacrificed for the establishment of the covenant they would create an isle our of the two halves of the animal carcasses and both parties would walk down the isle as an agreement that if one or the other didn’t comply with the terms of the covenant let them become like these slain animals. God did this for Abraham, putting Abraham in a deep sleep and God Himself walks down the aisle in the form of a torch and a smoking pot. He swore by Himself, and He indeed gave Abraham the promise, Isaac his son. He also did become as the slain animals for the sins of the world. He swore on Abrahams behalf as well, if Abraham and even Abraham’s descendants were unable to keep the covenant that God would become like the slain animals. Hence why he put Abraham in a deep sleep so that he wouldn’t walk down the isle because He knew Abraham’s descendants would not be able to keep their end of the bargain but God knew that he would. So God swore on behalf of himself because His words do not return void, but man is fallible. His plan was always to go to the cross and take on the penalty for sin for all people, so that all who would put their faith in Him would be saved.
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