3 Ways Man’s Fall Poisoned You (and God’s Antidote)

I don’t think that I was more than three years old when I scared my parents by getting into some poison.

Somehow I’d gotten into a cupboard when no one was looking. (Three year olds tend to do that.) I’d opened a bottle of ant poison and had it on my hands and face.

They were taking no chances. My folks rushed me to the hospital ER and had my stomach pumped or gave me some antidote. Thankfully, I’m still here to tell the story.

I don’t remember them saying anything about punishing me for getting into the poison. Maybe they did. But that was not their main concern. They were concerned for preserving my life.

So what’s my point? The seriousness of man’s fall wasn’t merely a matter of disobeying God’s command outwardly, but of receiving something deadly inwardly—a kind of “poison” that could kill them.

That poisonous element of sin damaged our perfect, God-created faculties, making us useless in fulfilling God’s purpose  until we’re recovered by the “antidote” of God’s complete salvation.

So in this post we’ll assess the poisonous affect caused by man’s fall and consider God’s antidote.

Here are three ways man’s fall poisoned you 

Not only did we come under God’s righteous judgment due to our sin, but all three parts of our being–spirit, soul, and body–were affected by man’s fall in sin.

Your spirit was deadened—Eph. 2:1-2

Read what Paul said in Ephesians 2:1-2:

“And you, though dead in your offenses and sins, in which you once walked according to the age of this world…”

“Dead in offenses and sins”  means that it was not just a matter of outwardly disobeying God and being forgiven by Him. Rather, the issue of man’s sin was that our spirit became deadened, that is, it lost its function.

Note 2 on Ephesians 2:1 in the Recovery Version says,

“Dead refers to the deadness of our spirit, which pervaded our entire being and caused us to lose the function that enables us to contact God.”

In a previous post, “What is the Function of Your Spirit?”, I pointed out that your spirit was created to enable you to contact God, receive God and have fellowship with God.

However, after the fall, man’s spirit was deadened, losing its original function of contacting and receiving God. (The only part of our human spirit that was preserved was our conscience which enables God’s Spirit to convict us–John 16:7-8.)

The good news is that God made a provision for us. Eph 2:5 continues by saying,

“Even when we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ…”

When Christ was “made alive”–resurrected–we were “made alive together with Him.”  However, we don’t experience this fact, until we believe in the Lord Jesus and are reborn of His Spirit in our spirit (John 3:6).

Even then, the fact of our being “made alive together with Christ” might not be that real to us until we open our mouth and confess that “Jesus is Lord” strongly from the depth of our being, our spirit.

Try it.  Cry out to the Lord from deep within, from your spirit. When you declare, “Jesus is Lord!”—you’re saved!  You’re enlivened. You’re in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3b) and your spirit is reborn, or regenerated. Just say,

“Lord Jesus! O Lord, thank you for dying for my sins and resurrecting from the dead. When You were resurrected, I was made a alive together with You! Lord, remind me and strengthen me to use my spirit to contact You all the time.”

Daily we need to practice to lift our spirit out of any form of deadness by exercising our spirit in calling on the Lord, praying, praising the Lord, and singing to Him. This hymn applies this point.

 Your soul was ruined—Eph. 4:17-18 

 In Ephesians 4:17-18, Paul charges us,

“…that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance which is in them…”

These verses point to the poisonous damage to our soul from man’s fall. The soul was contaminated due to receiving the Devil’s thought and word (Gen. 3:1-7).

All three parts of our soul—mind, emotion and will—suffered the damaging affects of sin. As a result of the fall, our mind became darkened toward God. Our emotion, instead of loving God, loves other things. Our will became rebellious, choosing to act independently from God.

Even after we believe in the Lord Jesus, our soul still remains under some affect of that poisonous element.

However, by daily contacting the Lord in His Word by means of prayer, you’ll receive God’s antidote. Your soul will be inwardly renewed by the operation of God’s Spirit of life. You may want to try the practical  help in this post to enjoy more renewing from God’s Word.

Your body was corrupted—Rom. 7:18, 20, 24

Finally, as a result of eating the tree of knowledge, man’s body was corrupted with Satan’s element and became the “flesh of sin” (Rom. 8:3). By that debilitating poison of sin man was disabled from doing God’s will.

In Romans 7:18, 20 and 24 Paul says,

“For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, nothing good dwells…But if what I do not will, this I do, it is no longer I that work it out but sin that dwells in me…Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?”

In Roman 8, we can see how God applies the antidote, by our cooperation with His Spirit of life (v.2). In this way, He gradually imparts His divine life into all three parts of your being–spirit, soul and body (vv. 10, 6, 11).

However, in this post,  my point is to impress you with the “Physician’s bleak prognosis” on your sin-damaged fallen being. Hopeless!   This should stop you from  trying to fix yourself and release you to open to His “antidote” to your hopeless condition. You’ll be willing to receive  His continual transfusions that will change all your death into life eternal!

If you’ve been freed by seeing the hopelessness of your fallen being and opened to the Lord  to enjoy His subjective saving in the divine life, please share it in a comment.

 References and Further Reading:

• For a more complete coverage of the subject of this post, I’d highly recommend reading the Life-study of Genesis, Message 18, by Witness Lee.
• For more practical help on how your spirit, soul and body can be preserved  by God, you may want to read  another post,  “How Your Spirit, Soul and Body Can Be Wholly Sanctified by God.”
• Here are a couple of hymns that strengthen the point of this post:
  • In a low dungeon, hope we had none
  • Born of my father, descended from Adam
• Photo Credit: Morguefile