Have you ever thought about what kind of world we would have today if Adam and Eve had not sinned? I have been thinking about that for a while, because that subject will be the focus of my next novel. My working title is A Better Place. I think it will take me a long time to write, since it is so hard to imagine a world in which sin does not dominant. What do you think it would be like? Would it be a boring world where everything is easy? I don’t think so; I think it would still be a world full of challenges.
God gave Adam and Eve the responsibility to fill the earth and subdue it. They were to rule over every living creature. Adam was specifically called to work in the Garden of Eden and to protect it. God also brought the animals to Adam to see what Adam would name them. I imagine Adam studied the animals before he named them. Think of all Adam and Eve had to learn to fulfill all their responsibilities. They were to do all these things in the context of a close relationship with God.
Before they sinned, Eve and Adam were in a state of innocence. How would their character have changed over time if they continued to live in constant fellowship with God? I imagine they would have grown from the state of simple innocence to a state of godliness. They would have become more and more like God; sadly, their sins cut them off from closeness with God. Biblical teaching about the church may serve as a model for the character development that God had planned from the beginning. Consider the challenge to God’s people presented by this passage from Colossians.
Colossians 3:9-14
9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him — 11 a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all. 12 So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. 14 Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. NASU
When we rise from the waters of baptism, our sins have been washed away. We begin a new life empowered by the Holy Spirit without enslavement to our sins, and in this sense, we are innocent like Adam and Eve were in the beginning. As we begin our new life, we must realize that it is truly only the beginning. We are free to have close fellowship with God which helps us journey from innocence to godliness. Imagine many thousands of years after Adam and Eve what kind of social, economic, and political world would have developed if our first parents had obeyed God. Imagining the world Adam and Eve should have built may help us imagine a world that we can still build as we walk with God.
I would love to get your thoughts about what this world might have been like. Let me know in the comments or send me a message.