The Fall of Adam

Teachings Concerning the The Fall of Adam The Importance of Studying the Fall Ezra Taft Benson (President) of our performance and also the performance of those over The Book of Mormon Saints knew that the plan of whom we preside to be sure that we are teaching the “great redemption must start with the account of the fall of Adam. In plan of the Eternal God” to the Saints. the words of Moroni, “By Adam came the fall of man. And Are we accepting and teaching what the revelations tell us because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ, . and about the Creation, Adam and the fall of man, and redemption because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man” from that fall through the atonement of Christ? Do we (Mormon 9:12). frequently review the crucial questions which Alma asks the Just as a man does not really desire food until he is hungry, members of the Church in the fifth chapter of Alma in the so he does not desire the salvation of Christ until he knows Book of Mormon? why he needs Christ. Do we understand and are we effective in teaching and No one adequately and properly knows why he needs preaching the Atonement? What personal meaning does the Christ until he understands and accepts the doctrine of the Lord’s suffering in Gethsemane and on Calvary have for each Fall and its effect upon all mankind. And no other book in the of us? world explains this vital doctrine nearly as well as the Book of W hat does redemption from the Fall mean to us? In the Mormon. words of Alma, do we “sing the song of redeeming love”? Brethren and sisters, we all need to take a careful inventory (Alma 5:26). (Ensign, May 1987, 85) Aspects of the Story of the Fall are Symbolic Bruce R. McConkie (Quorum of the Twelve) eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Moses 3:16–17.) Again As to the Fall itself we are told that the Lord planted “the the account is speaking figuratively. What is meant by tree of knowledge of good and evil” in the midst of the garden. partaking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and (Moses 3:9.) To Adam and Eve the command came: “Of evil is that our first parents complied with whatever laws were every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, But of the involved so that their bodies would change from their state of tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, paradisiacal immortality to a state of natural mortality. ( “Christ nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given and the Creation,” Ensign, June 1982, p. 15; emphasis added) unto thee; but, remember that I forbid it, for in the day thou The Condition of Adam and Eve in the Garden Joseph Fielding Smith (Quorum of Twelve - President) knowledge, of course. He could speak. He could converse. We find Adam in the Garden of Eden with the promise that There were many things he could be taught and was taught; he can live there, he can stay there, he can enjoy himself as but under the conditions in which he was living at that time it far as is possible under the conditions, as long as he wants was impossible for him to visualize or understand the power to, as long as he does not do something he is told not to do, of good and evil. He did not know what pain was. He did not and that is to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of know what sorrow was; and a thousand other things that have good and evil. He was told that in the day that he should eat come to us in this life that Adam did not know in the Garden of that fruit he should surely die. of Eden and could not understand and would not have known We find, then, Adam's status before the fall was: had he remained there. That was his status before the fall. 1. He was not subject to death. (Doctrines of Salvation 3 Vols. Ed. By Bruce R McCockie [1954-56], 1:107- 2. He was in the presence of God. He saw him just as you 108) see your fathers; was in his presence, and learned his language. Now if any of you are professors from our schools Bruce R. McConkie (Quorum of the Twelve) of language, and have an idea that language came as these Thus we learn that the initial creation was paradisiacal; theorists say, I am going to tell you that Adam had a perfect death and mortality had not yet entered the world. There was language, for he was taught the language of God. That was no mortal flesh upon the earth for any form of life. The the first language upon this earth. So much for those theories. Creation was past, but mortality as we know it lay ahead. All 3. He had no posterity. things had been created in a state of paradisiacal immortality. 4. He was without knowledge of good and evil. He had It was of this day that Lehi said: “And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained a commandment had been given to them, and they had forever, and had no end.” (2 Ne. 2:22.) If there is no death, all sufficient knowledge to name the beasts of the field as they things of necessity must continue to live everlastingly and came up before them; but as for the knowledge of good, they without end. had not got it, because they never had anything contrary to Continuing the divine commentary about the Creation, we good placed before them. read: “And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the We will bring up an example. For instance, suppose you ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and had never tasted anything that was sweet--never had the man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the sensation of sweetness--could you have any correct idea of first man also; nevertheless, all things were before created; the term sweetness? No. On the other hand, how could you but spiritually were they created and made according to my understand bitter if you never had tasted bitterness? Could word.” (Moses 3:7.) How filled with meaning are these words! you define the term to them who had experienced this The physical body of Adam is made from the dust of this sensation, or knew it? No. I will bring another example. earth, the very earth to which the Gods came down to form Take a man who had been perfectly blind from his infancy, him. His “spirit” enters his body, as Abraham expresses it. and never saw the least gleam of light--could you describe (See Abr. 5:7.) Man becomes a living, immortal soul; body colors to him? No. Would he know anything about red, blue, and spirit are joined together. He has been created violet, or yellow? No; you could not describe it to him by any “spiritually,” as all things were because there is as yet no way you might undertake. But by some process let his eyes mortality. Then comes the Fall; Adam falls; mortality and be opened, and let him gaze upon the sun beams that reflect procreation and death commence. Fallen man is mortal; he upon a watery cloud, producing the rainbow, where he would has mortal flesh; he is “the first flesh upon the earth.” And the see a variety of colors, he could then appreciate them for effects of his fall pass upon all created things. They fall in that himself; but tell him about colors when he is blind, he would they too become mortal. Death enters the world; mortality not know them from a piece of earthenware. So with Adam reigns; procreation commences; and the Lord’s great and previous to partaking of this fruit; good could not be described eternal purposes roll onward. to him, because he never had experienced the opposite. As Thus, “all things” were created as spirit entities in heaven; to undertaking to explain to him what evil was, you might as then “all things” were created in a paradisiacal state upon the well have undertaken to explain, to a being that never had, for earth; that is, “spiritually were they created,” for there was as one moment, had his eyes closed to the light, what darkness yet no death. They had spiritual bodies made of the elements is. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was placed there of the earth as distinguished from the mortal bodies they that man might gain certain information he never could have would receive after the Fall when death would enter the gained otherwise; by partaking of the forbidden fruit he scheme of things. Natural bodies are subject to the natural experienced misery, then he knew that he was once happy, death; spiritual bodies, being paradisiacal in nature, are not previously he could not comprehend what happiness meant, subject to death. Hence the need for a fall and the mortality what good was; but now he knows it by contrast, now he is and death that grows out of it. filled with sorrow and wretchedness, now he sees the Thus, as the interpolative exposition in the divine word difference between his former and present condition, and if by explains, “I, the Lord God, planted a garden eastward in any means he could be restored to his first position, he would Eden, and there I put the man whom I had formed.” (Moses be prepared to realize it, like the man that never had seen the 3:8.) Adam, our father, dwelt in the Garden of Eden.

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