We took a step back in the first talk to look at the creation, where the universe has come from. The clear message of the Biblical account is that it was all God’s work. It should be no surprise, then, to learn that the Bible teaches that humans too were created by God.

In the Genesis account, humans were not just created like any other creature, but as the pinnacle of creation, enjoying a special position. They were commanded to rule creation, but not alone. Their relationship with God meant that they were to rule under Him, because they were rulers within His kingdom, the one He had created.

A perfect world broken

But the perfect world God had created was broken by the rebellion of those very rulers. Adam and Eve rebelled against God’s right to rule them, disobeying his commands. Later in the Bible, Paul talks about the effects of this in the book of Romans, and they can be clearly seen from what follows in Genesis. Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise, and prevented from enjoying the perfect relationship with God for which they had been created. Later on, the terrible effects of their sin are seen as death enters the world, shown by the long list of those who die.

“How is this relevant to us?”, we may ask. The effects of Adam and Eve’s rebellion was to affect the whole of creation; we see this from the curses that are brought by God as a result of disobedience. They could be under no illusion that their disobedience to God had gone unpunished. Paul says in Romans that “the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23). We have already seen how death resulted in the Genesis account, but the Bible is clear that people in any age who turn away from God cannot enjoy a relationship with him.

This is what we mean when Christians talk about sin. Not simply misbehaviour—or even “naughty” things as the word has come to mean in the media. Even world figures like Mother Theresa, who we think of as ‘good’ people, have missed the target. Someone like Hitler and Mother Theresa are really in the same category. Even though they've missed the mark by different amounts, they've still missed, and that's the shocking reality about the sin that separates us from God.