The consequences for Adam and Eve were immediate. The moment they ate of that fruit, they started to die. Mortality entered into them, and so all of a sudden the word "death" now enters into the human scene, and it's directly attributable to sin. But it's not just death. It's violence. It's catastrophe. It's the existence of carnivores and viruses. It's the problem of mosquitoes and murder. All that we see around us bears testimony to the effects, the devastating effects, of human sin and God's judgment upon that sin. It's cosmic. There are hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes. There are lightning flashes and all kinds of things that take place in the created order that are testimony to, as Paul writes in Romans 8, creation groaning.
You know, what we see in Genesis 3 is a very straightforward and honest presentation of the consequences of sin. But, you know, there are Christians who read Genesis 3 and think that's all there is. But you come to read the totality of Scripture, you come, for instance, to the last chapters of the book of Revelation, and you come to understand that the wrath of God poured out upon sin is going to make Genesis 3 look like just an introduction. This is what makes our salvation so important, so precious to us, is that our salvation is not just being saved, it's being saved from something. It's being saved from the wrath to come, from the just consequences of our sin. And not only do we need to be redeemed, but as the book of Revelation makes clear, so does creation itself. That's why it speaks of a new heaven and a new earth. The consequences of sin are not just the fact that it rains on the just and the unjust, and we have death in our bodies, and a need for salvation. It's that every part of this created order is now waiting for a consummation, a judgment, and a perfection that only Christ can bring.
Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world.