Statement of Faith #4-The Creation and Fall of Mankind

Official Assembly of God Statement of Faith #4-Man was created good and upright; for God said, "Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness." However, mankind, by voluntary transgression, fell and thereby incurred not only physical death but also spiritual death, which is separation from God.

This is probably one of the saddest and hardest lessons that we have covered in class so far. In fact it is the saddest lesson we will learn. In Genesis 1:27 the bible tells us that God created mankind in His own image. Something interesting is that after each day of creation, God said, "It is good." However, after He created Adam and Eve, God said, "It is very good." God was very pleased with what He had created. When He breathed life into Adam, He placed inside of mankind an inner self that shares some of God's characteristics- intelligence, will(the power of choice), morality(the knowledge of right and wrong) and sensitivity(the ability to love and be loved. Everything was good.

Then Adam and Eve chose to sin by breaking a rule God had given them in the garden. Gen 3:6 tells of how they took fruit from the one tree He had asked them not to eat from. This was what brought sin into the world, causing all of mankind to be forever affected by that choice. Romans 3:23 says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Since then man has experienced hard work, sorrow, sickness and physical death. In addition to that man has experienced spiritual death and a separation from God. Physical death refers to the death of the body while spiritual death refers to the death and separation from God of the spirit. It is the part of us that connects and communicates with God.

"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned." Romans 5:12

But, there is hope! We will learn about that in Lesson #5!