Creation - Man in the Garden of Eden - The Fall. (GENESIS 1-3) Part 4

There are still other points of practical interest to be gathered up. The descent of all mankind from our first parents determines our spiritual relationship to Adam. In Adam all have sinned and fallen. But, on
the other hand, it also determines our spiritual relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, as the second Adam,
which rests on precisely the same grounds. For "as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also
bear the image of the heavenly," and "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." "For
as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made
righteous." The descent of all mankind from one common stock has in times past been questioned by
some, although Scripture expressly teaches that "He has made of one blood all nations, for to dwell on
the face of the earth." It is remarkable that this denial, which certainly never was shared by the most
competent men of science, has quite lately been, we may say, almost universally abandoned, and the
original unity of the human race in their common descent is now a generally accepted fact.
Here, moreover, we meet for the first time with that strange resemblance to revealed religion which
makes heathenism so like and yet so unlike the religion of the Old Testament. As in the soul of man we

see the ruins of what he had been before the fall, so in the legends and traditions of the various religions
of antiquity we recognize the echoes of what men had originally heard from the mouth of God. Not only
one race, but almost all nations, have in their traditions preserved some dim remembrance alike of an
originally happy and holy state, - a so-called golden age - in which the intercourse between heaven and
earth was unbroken, and of a subsequent sin and fall of mankind. And all nations also have cherished a
faint belief in some future return of this happy state, that is, in some kind of coming redemption, just as
in their inmost hearts all men have at least a faint longing for a Redeemer.
Meanwhile, this grand primeval promise, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent,"
would stand out as a beacon-light to all mankind on their way, burning brighter and brighter, first in the
promise to Shem, next in that to Abraham, then in the prophecy of Jacob, and so on through the types of
the Law to the promises of the Prophets, till in the fullness of time "the Sun of Righteousness" arose
"with healing under His wings!"