I know that Muslims believe that Adam and Eve sinned against God, but that they afterwards repented and that their repentance was accepted – with the effect that everything came back to normal again, and the divine plan prescribed for Adam and Eve took its due course.
If that was the case, my friend, why were they punished? Why were they left to die? All Muslims accept that Adam and Eve were chased out of the Garden when they sinned. If Adam and Eve were forgiven and things returned to normal, why were they not allowed back into the Garden? They were never permitted to re-enter the Garden, nor has any subsequent member of the human race entered.
So I’d like to ask you: Why were you and I not born in paradise? Why do we die? Please read on to see the answer given in the holy Scriptures.
Adam - a federal headship!
The holy Scriptures tell us that when God first created the universe, He appointed one man to represent us in the Garden of Eden (ĚäÉ ÚĎä). The Hebrew name “Adam” means mankind. Adam was God’s perfect choice for you and me. Just as a federal government has a chief spokesman, or representative, who is the head of the nation, so Adam was the federal head of mankind. My relationship with God depends on my representative’s relationship with God. And so when Adam disobeyed, all mankind disobeyed! Sin (like poison) entered into our world and into human life. Think of it like a set of dominoes. You can stand them all up in a long line. But if the first one falls down, what will happen to the rest? They will all fall too. In the same way, when the first man fell, all the rest of humankind fell too. Adam’s fall was our fall. This is what Christians mean by “the inheritance of original sin”. When God punished Adam by taking away his original righteousness and causing him to die, we were all likewise punished – we all die too. The curse of the fall affects us all.
The Hadith on the concept of the inheritance of Adam’s sin
Again, for Christians the Qur'an and Hadith are not authoritative, but since Muslims draw their beliefs from these two sources I would like to remind them that the concept of the inheritance of the original sin is obviously present in the Hadith in which Adam explicitly bears responsibility for humanity’s exile from paradise:
“Allah’s apostle [Muhammad] said, ‘Adam and Moses met, and Moses said to Adam, “You are the one who made people miserable and turned them out of Paradise.”’” (Hadith, Bukhari, vol. 6, book 65, no. 4736).
This clearly teaches that the human race somehow shares in Adam’s exile.
Is it fair?
What have we seen so far? The consequence of Adam’s sin was death. Any serious thinker should come to the same conclusion. But if we look at Adam’s offspring (including ourselves) we find them suffering the same punishment of death as well. We are therefore faced with one of two conclusions:
1. Adam represented his descendants, in which case receiving a part of the punishment as one of those descendants is fair and just.
– or –
2. Adam did not represent his descendants, in which case the infliction of punishment for sin on those who had no part in his fall is a great evil and manifest injustice – and God Himself is unjust!
Let me put it simply. If I have nothing to do with Adam’s sin, then why should I share the consequence of his sin? Why was I not born in paradise? If I was born perfect (as Muslims believe), then, to be fair, God should have created me in paradise (as He did with Adam) and waited to see if I would disobey like Adam and Eve did. But He didn’t, did He? I wasn’t born in paradise!
The truth is that, as a result of what happened in the Garden of Eden, all of us are born with an insurmountable gap between us and God. We have all inherited Adam’s sin. This is why we were not born in paradise. The prophet David wrote, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Bible, Psalm 51:5). This is very true! Think about children. One of the first words little children pronounce is “no”! We all know their very early disobedience. Does anyone teach them how to be naughty? Do you think children need to be taught how to disobey? Of course not! Parents teach them good behaviour, but no-one needs to teach them naughtiness. By nature they know how to be naughty! It’s in them from birth. What the prophet David said is absolutely true – we are born in iniquity, and in sin our mothers conceived us!
God is holy and we are sinful, so we are cut off from Him. A prophet said, “Your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you.” (Bible, Isaiah 59:2) To sum it up we could say that you and I are justly due for the same punishment as Adam because we are as disobedient and fallen as he was!
What is the solution?
It is God’s solution! People want to have their own solutions, but we should always and only look at the solution that God has provided.
So much for the bad news about man: now for the good news. What did God do when Adam and Eve disobeyed? Did He destroy them? He could have done so. Did He say to them, “If you want to return to paradise then you must do more good deeds (ÍÓäÇĘ) than bad deeds (ÓíÂĘ)”? No, no! The remedy for their disobedience was not simply a good deed to cancel out a bad one.
So what was God’s remedy for sin and its consequence, death? We read in the Torah that after Adam and Eve sinned God gave a promise:
“So the Lord God said to the serpent: ‘Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.’” (Bible, Torah, Genesis 3:14-15)
Thank God that we not only find His holiness displayed here, but also His mercy. God’s words to Satan are called “the first good news.” What does God promise here? He promises a redeemer or deliverer – the seed of the woman (who is called “He”). This is a prophecy of a virgin birth. Notice that He doesn’t say the seed of the man and the woman, but the seed of the woman, full stop. In other words God said, “I am a holy God. I don’t tolerate sin. I had said that the consequence of sin is death. I cannot just ignore sin. I must deal with it. There is only one remedy for sin and death. It is through what a Person will one day do. This Person will not have a human father. He will come only from a woman.”
Now my dear friend, tell me: Who do you know in all of human history who was born only of a woman? Who, in all of human history, never had a human father? Yes, you have the right answer - only Jesus Christ! He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb. He is the fulfilment of God’s promise here.