Fall of Man
    n 1: (Judeo-Christian mythology) when Adam and Eve ate of the
         fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the
         Garden of Eden, God punished them by driving them out of
         the Garden of Eden and into the world where they would be
         subject to sickness and pain and eventual death

Fall of man
   an expression probably borrowed from the Apocryphal Book of
   Wisdom, to express the fact of the revolt of our first parents
   from God, and the consequent sin and misery in which they and
   all their posterity were involved.
   
     The history of the Fall is recorded in Gen. 2 and 3. That
   history is to be literally interpreted. It records facts which
   underlie the whole system of revealed truth. It is referred to
   by our Lord and his apostles not only as being true, but as
   furnishing the ground of all God's subsequent dispensations and
   dealings with the children of men. The record of Adam's
   temptation and fall must be taken as a true historical account,
   if we are to understand the Bible at all as a revelation of
   God's purpose of mercy.
   
     The effects of this first sin upon our first parents
   themselves were (1) "shame, a sense of degradation and
   pollution; (2) dread of the displeasure of God, or a sense of
   guilt, and the consequent desire to hide from his presence.
   These effects were unavoidable. They prove the loss not only of
   innocence but of original righteousness, and, with it, of the
   favour and fellowship of God. The state therefore to which Adam
   was reduced by his disobedience, so far as his subjective
   condition is concerned, was analogous to that of the fallen
   angels. He was entirely and absolutely ruined" (Hodge's
   Theology).
   
     But the unbelief and disobedience of our first parents brought
   not only on themselves this misery and ruin, it entailed also
   the same sad consequences on all their descendants. (1.) The
   guilt, i.e., liability to punishment, of that sin comes by
   imputation upon all men, because all were represented by Adam in
   the covenant of works (q.v.). (See IMPUTATION.)
   
     (2.) Hence, also, all his descendants inherit a corrupt
   nature. In all by nature there is an inherent and prevailing
   tendency to sin. This universal depravity is taught by universal
   experience. All men sin as soon as they are capable of moral
   actions. The testimony of the Scriptures to the same effect is
   most abundant (Rom. 1; 2; 3:1-19, etc.).
   
     (3.) This innate depravity is total: we are by nature "dead in
   trespasses and sins," and must be "born again" before we can
   enter into the kingdom (John 3:7, etc.).
   
     (4.) Resulting from this "corruption of our whole nature" is
   our absolute moral inability to change our nature or to obey the
   law of God.
   
     Commenting on John 9:3, Ryle well remarks: "A deep and
   instructive principle lies in these words. They surely throw
   some light on that great question, the origin of evil. God has
   thought fit to allow evil to exist in order that he may have a
   platform for showing his mercy, grace, and compassion. If man
   had never fallen there would have been no opportunity of showing
   divine mercy. But by permitting evil, mysterious as it seems,
   God's works of grace, mercy, and wisdom in saving sinners have
   been wonderfully manifested to all his creatures. The redeeming
   of the church of elect sinners is the means of 'showing to
   principalities and powers the manifold wisdom of God' (Eph.
   3:10). Without the Fall we should have known nothing of the
   Cross and the Gospel."
   
     On the monuments of Egypt are found representations of a deity
   in human form, piercing with a spear the head of a serpent. This
   is regarded as an illustration of the wide dissemination of the
   tradition of the Fall. The story of the "golden age," which
   gives place to the "iron age", the age of purity and innocence,
   which is followed by a time when man becomes a prey to sin and
   misery, as represented in the mythology of Greece and Rome, has
   also been regarded as a tradition of the Fall.