“What is a crime?”
This is what my firstborn son, Leo asked. He is 6 years old and he apparently heard the word from a Pokemon song.
The night before, I studied the Bible with 2 men in my group and we read about Genesis 3:14-24. It was about how God decided the penalty for the first crime to be.
God cursed the serpent to be the least of all creatures.
God cursed the woman with painful labor in childbearing and with a desire for her husband – but instead of the husband having the same desire, it says that he will rule over the woman.
God cursed the earth so that it will make it difficult for man to work the soil before it would produce food to eat.
All these curses came from the first sin – the first crime.
We discussed about how painful these curses are just because of one point of disobedience and distrust in God. One person argued that if only Adam and Eve knew what the consequences would be, they would have not eaten of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.
We also argued about the gravity of the penalty for this one sin. It is too heavy and has affected the entire human race.
I tried to imagine it – that was the first sin. During that time, there was only one law – don’t eat from that tree. No other law was there which means no other crime can be made – because the consciousness of man during that time was bent only towards good.
So the fact that a consciousness bent towards good committed that one and only crime during that time – that is equivalent to the worst possible crime that can be committed.
If they couldn’t trust God – who they walked with face to face during that time – and trusted the serpent instead – a mere creation of God – then what else could make them trust God?
We may think lightly of that first sin because of the many, seemingly endless laws and crimes and consequential punishments we have nowadays – but during that time, that was THE SIN to commit. The one and only.
It is grave and it has brought death into the world and the body of men.
“but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” – Genesis 2:17
And we have been dying ever since. Designed to be eternal beings, not one man has gone on to live eternally.