Masculinity - The Fall of Man

 "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked." Genesis 3:7

The immediate response from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was separation from a union of God we cannot understand, but the first physical sign of that separation was awareness and shame. Because of that shame, "...they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths." (3:7b)

The Fall of Man in the garden is one that provides a keen insight on our state in the fallen world: We are now separated from God because of our sinful nature. We are now foreign to God, with whom we were created in His image. The order of creation was also greatly upset: We were created in His image to tend to His creation, and man was created first, then woman.

Men were given the ultimate responsibility to tend to and work the garden with women as a "suitable helper." Today, this kind of conversation gets interfered with by several things: our pride interferes with allowing God to be God; our sin interferes with true masculinity as designed by God in creation; and our relationship with women changed immediately.

The fact is Adam failed when Eve came to him with the fruit. He had simply failed to be there, tending God's creation, including Eve, when Satan came into the Garden. Then he led the charge to hide, go into denial and make excuses. We still fail today on many fronts as men of God. God responds quickly with a promise to resolve our now-foreign nature with Him: "I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." (3:15)

Ultimately, God will reconcile us through the suffering, death and resurrection of His Son, who overcomes sin, Satan and death. Until that time that Christ returns, we live in His grace and forgiveness for our failures and we receive strength to work toward a better relationship with God through His Spirit.  The problems we see today, and generations before and after us too have or will experience, are because of the fall.  God, however, has redeemed us and those generations before and who have yet to be who believe in His Son Jesus Christ.

We pray that as we focus on our true masculinity, we seek to put that into the perspective of a relationship with God, our Father, through our faith in His Son Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith.