The World's First Christians --Adam and Eve

Could Adam and Eve have lived forever in the security of the Garden of Eden and forgone the risks, the suffering, and death of mortality? Why did God create the world and put them in the Garden?

Many if not most of the modern evangelical, protestant and ancient Christian scholars, theologians, and philosophers have taught that the plan of God in creating the world was for humans to live in the Garden of Eden forever. These teachers assume that If Eve and Adam had not partaken of the forbidden fruit, they would have had children and resided there for eternity.  Did the human family miss its opportunity to live in a state of paradise without mortal suffering or death? The consensus of classical theologians has been that "The Fall" was a negative event for Adam's descendants and mankind was cursed.

As I have studied theology, and engaged in online conversations with Christian believers and teachers, I have heard this belief expressed many times. They tell me time and again that if Adam had not fallen we could all be living in the Garden of Eden in a state of eternal paradise. Most if not all seem to have the understanding that partaking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a serious mistake.

It is common for Christians to believe that Jesus was the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the world. If so, what does this mean? Is God's Love for us the reason this sacrifice was planned and implemented according to His foreknowledge?  If so and God is all powerful couldn't mortal suffering have been eliminated?

Here is the great contradiction of mainstream biblical teachers. Humans are just mere creatures whose lives only began at the time of their birth.   As such we are forced to live here and had no say in the matter.  Because of this teaching, we likewise cannot have free will as individuals because all moral lives must manifest the knowledge God has as to who is in heaven and who is in hell.

Under what circumstances can have true free.  It would be necesary for some part of our intelligent soul is co-eternal and not created by God.  Such would be the case if we lived with God before we were born, and this life is a step in God's eternal plan.  The other necessary part would be for us to have chosen to come here knowing part of the purpose was to endure suffering and in the end we are better off than when we started.

We have also learned that the reason Satan was cast out of heaven initially was for rejecting the plan that Jesus should be our Savior? He sought for God's power to save us some other way without us having the freedom of will and without sacrifice or atonement.

Does any Christian think the paradise in the Garden of Eden for unfallen immortal beings with Satan living there would be a better place than the heaven spoken of for those that have been redeemed by Jesus Christ? 

Without hesitation, most will say no, and most of the Christian world would agree with this conclusion and yet they also think The Fall was a mistake. There is obviously a conflict in reasoning. If Jesus was foreordained from before the foundation of the world, it only stands to reason that Adam and Ever were also foreordained to fall. Otherwise, there would have been no need for Jesus to be born to offer his sacrifice.  In other words, there would be no Christmas and no Easter.

Another question is whether or not Satan would be in any future heaven.  He was in the Garden of Eden and obviously in the presence of God in a previous time. Christians that I have spoken to that have any knowledge of scripture agree with the teaching that Satan had been cast out of heaven for his rebellion of some kind against God. Revelation 12: 8–9, and a few other references indicate this.

Where did Satan go when he was cast out of heaven?  We know that he ended up in the Garden of Eden. If God intended for Adam and Eve to remain in the Garden, why was Satan allowed to go there and to tempt them? Surely God had a purpose for allowing Satan there temporarily. The reason was to implement the fall according to principles of free will and agency. It was for Adam and Eve to choose of their own free will to undergo certain consequences and not to have them forced upon them.

If Adam and Eve had not fallen, they would have lived in the Garden of Eden forever, a lesser place than where God resides, even though he apparently visited them. The better place, the "many mansions", mentioned in the New Testament became accessible to Adam, Eve, and their posterity after their fall.  By redemption, through Jesus Christ, they gained a greater opportunity and Satan would eventually be banned forever from tempting mankind. There is, however, an eternal purpose and reason that we experience these trials for a time. 

This idea of the Fall being part of God's plan was not the general understanding taught by classical Christian theologians. These scholars and philosophers seem to not have recognized that without knowledge and opposition, it is impossible to have free will or the freedom to implement such a principle. 

In our pre-mortal life, Satan aka Lucifer, sought to eliminate the risk and suffering of mortality and to save us without the sacrifice, suffering, and death of Jesus Christ.  The scriptures are clear, there is only one way eternal salvation is granted, and that is through Jesus Christ.

It wasn't until Joseph Smith and teachings in the Book of Mormon appeared on the scene of religious discussion, that the importance of the doctrine of the fall, was taught to be a necessary part of God's plan for saving his children. Even an all-powerful Father could not save his children without the sacrifice of his perfect Son. 

Adam and Eve did not ruin God's plan, they were key participants in its implementation. Satan in his vanity was used to help save mankind when he thought he was disrupting the plan.  He was cast out of the Garden and has been bent on the destruction of mankind ever since. In spite of some unavoidable suffering caused by him, Jesus made it impossible for mankind to be eternally subjected to the devil. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

Some Christian philosophers did realize that the fall was necessary.  C. S. Lewis, even with limited biblical scripture on the subject, came to the same conclusion as the Book of Mormon: “Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity would have been, more glorious than any unfallen race now is.”  In other words, the Fall was a necessary step to bring about more glorious possibilities than could have ever existed in the Garden of Eden. That is the message of the Book of Mormon in direct opposition to the vast majority of Christian beliefs at Joseph Smith’s time.

Two key points of doctrine that are missing in the Bible but taught in the Book of Mormon are that Adam and Eve “would have had no children” in the Garden of Eden (2 Nephi 2: 23). and the other corrects the misunderstanding that Adam and Eve lived in a state of unparalleled bliss while in the Garden.  The Book of Mormon clarifies that they actually lived "in a state of innocence", meaning that they had limited knowledge, having no joy, for they knew no misery” (2 Nephi 2: 23).

If Adam and Eve had never left the Garden, they would have been without posterity and would have remained in a state of spiritual stagnation or neutrality. Only the Fall put them into a spiritual position of being dependent on Jesus Christ and this made possible their progress as well as for the rest of humankind.

The doctrine taught in the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 2, teaches: 

“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. 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 forever and had no end." 

"And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. “But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2: 22–25). 

The love of God our Father sent his Son Jesus Christ as His Only Begotten in the flesh to overcome all of the effects of the fall. Sin and death have been overcome. We can know and feel God's love through the power of the Holy Ghost. I have witnessed and felt it. 

Adam and Eve were this world's first Christians. They were the first to accept Jesus Christ and be spiritually begotten and adopted children of Christ. They gave us all the opportunity to seek the power and mercy of our Redeemer if we will choose it. Such is the testimony of all the prophets that have lived, both before, and after the Savior's mortal life.