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Did Adam and Eve Die Lost?
By Frances Swaggart
This topic, which resurfaces again and again, has really opened my eyes to the fact that there are a lot of people out there who need to believe that, regardless of Adam and Eve’s sin, they still made heaven based solely on God’s great love and mercy. They need to believe this, we suppose, so they can apply this same hope to their own lives.
While it gives us no pleasure to say this, we do believe the answer is yes, they did die lost. We see no evidence in the Word of God that Adam and Eve ever repented of their sin, and you simply cannot receive God’s forgiveness without asking for it.
Yes, God is a God of love and mercy, but we also know from His Word that it’s His will for all to come to repentance. II Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
The goodness of God—something Adam and Eve were very familiar with—is designed to lead men to repentance. If it doesn’t, then it’s not God’s fault, but the fault of those with a rebellious heart.
Still, I’ve had preachers as well as proponents of the false doctrine of eternal security claim that Adam and Eve were, in fact, forgiven by God and saved. Some of them write me and, in condescending tones, say, “Remember, Frances, Adam and Eve were not born, they were created by God.”
Ok, but when we look at Jeremiah 1:5 where God said, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee,” that word formed in the Hebrew is the exact same Hebrew word used to describe God as he formed Adam with His hands. So to say that Adam was formed and we were not is incorrect. Adam was formed by God, and so were we.
Whether you agree on that point or not, there is still the fact that Adam and Eve had a free will with which to choose, and they did choose—they chose to sin.
Another verse waved in our face on this topic is Genesis 3:21, which states, “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” To our surprise, many people we’ve heard from equate the Lord’s provision of these animal skins with the cleansing or forgiveness of Adam and Eve’s sin. We don’t see it that way.
The skins were to cover their nakedness, that’s it. When God created Adam and Eve, He did not create them to wear clothes. They were enswathed in the light of God’s glory—the Shekinah glory—clothed in the righteousness of God. But the moment they sinned, Adam and Eve lost that righteousness, and their nakedness was revealed. God came down and killed two animals to provide clothing for them. In the killing of those animals, we believe God was laying out the long-term plan of the redemption of man through the sacrificial system, which would come later in the giving of the law.
Another point of contention: When God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, we’ve been told, “That doesn’t mean that they were expelled forever, and that doesn’t mean that they were not saved and or didn’t make heaven. Just because God expelled them from the garden, doesn’t mean they could not get forgiveness.”
That’s correct. Adam and Eve being banished from the garden did not preclude them from repenting of their sin and receiving forgiveness, but again, there is no evidence that they ever did repent.
And that’s our main point: The Bible is silent on whether Adam and Eve ever repented. Why is that? A repentant, forgiven, and restored Adam and Eve would have been a wonderful testimony of God’s grace, mercy, and love, as are so many other testimonies that are recorded in the Bible.
How many of us, after falling short, have read David’s words in Psalm 51, repenting along with him, “Have mercy upon me, O God … For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.” Or when we’ve failed the Lord, how many of us, like Peter after he denied the Lord three times, went out and wept bitterly?
But when Adam and Eve sinned there is no such response; they chose to hide and blame. You don’t see them in Scripture expressing any kind of sorrow for their sin or, more surprisingly, for the loss of their fellowship with God—and these two had the tremendous opportunity to walk and talk with God, communing with Him daily in the garden.
More evidence missing from the account of Adam and Eve is faith. In Genesis 3 and 4, we see Eve’s faith faltering. Remember, she had heard the Lord say to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). So when Cain was born, and Eve said, “I have gotten a man from the LORD,” she thought Cain was the redeemer, but after realizing he wasn’t, her hopes were dashed and her faith damaged. By the time Eve had Abel (whose name means “vanity”), she was either in the process of losing her faith or had already lost it.
Hebrews 11 is the faith “hall of fame,” and that faith is tied into the belief of the Old Testament patriarchs and a redeemer to come. The fact that the list of those who lived “by faith” begins with Abel and not Adam makes a strong statement. And Jesus Himself uses a similar starting point in Matthew 23:35 when He said, “from the blood of righteous Abel.”
Again, the greatest testimony of God’s grace would have been Adam and Eve accepting responsibility for their actions and repenting and, had they done that, surely the Lord would have trumpeted it on the pages of His Word. It would have been a tremendous testimony to anyone that no matter how far in sin you go, you can come back—if you ask. Unfortunately, we don’t see in Scripture that Adam and Eve ever asked. Listen to what the Bible doesn’t say, folks, because its silence can speak volumes.
When they fell, Adam and Eve quickly lost perspective. They did not understand the magnitude of their deception or the degree of their lostness. Their fallen condition was far worse than they had imagined. Unredeemed man is in the same condition.
In Genesis 3:9 when the Lord called to Adam and asked, “Where art thou?” it was the question of all questions. The Lord knew exactly where Adam was, but He wanted Adam to know where He was. Luther said, “Unless God helps and calls the sinner, he will forever flee God, try to excuse his sin by lies, and add one wrong to another until he ends in blasphemy and despair.”
Sadly, Adam and Eve lost their way, and they remained lost by their own choice. Anyone who goes to hell goes there because they choose to; it’s not because God sends them to hell. By rejecting the provision of God in His Son, they choose, of their own free will, to go to hell, and those are the only people who are going to be in hell.
God went over and above and did everything He possibly could to give every person a way of escape so that no one would have to die lost. And He’s still calling to any and all who are lost, “Where art thou?”
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