We often look at our circumstances and wonder to ourselves, "How did it come to this?" We retrace our past and seek for answers and perhaps there are none that we can get a handle on. We might try to blame others, but the result is the same, with or without the blame.
In tracts like this it is often stated that we are all sinners in need of salvation. Maybe you have asked, "How did it come to this?" Here we can trace our past through an official, infallible record and find the answer. That record is the Bible, God’s Word. It is His record of the origin of sin through our family tree.
God created man in His own image, that is, with intellect, emotion and will. He placed our very first ancestors, Adam and Eve, in a perfect environment (so, that is not the cause). Everything they could possibly need or want was freely available. There was only one restriction: one tree in the midst of the Garden of Eden was off limits. God said, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). That day they were separated from God until a remedy for their sin was provided.
That couple, and that consequence is in our family tree. The genetic fall-out is evident: "Wherefore, as by one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for [as evidenced by the fact] that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12). So it has come to this: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). We are all sinners by nature, and as a result we have all sinned by choice. We are guilty as charged because of what we are and by what we have done.
But, there is hope. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23). As in the Garden of Eden where animals were slain to provide coats of skins for a covering for Adam’s sin, so there has been blood shed as a remedy for our condition. ". . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures" (I Corinthians 15:3, 4).
One more complication must be noted, however: we are not automatically saved just because Christ died. We must personally accept Him as our own personal Savior. We do that by faith, by believing on Him, trusting Him, relying only upon His finished redemptive work on the cross of Calvary for our salvation and forgiveness. Otherwise we remain separated from God, dead in our sins, and hopeless in our condition. Here is how God says it: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36).
Now we know how it has come to this. We cannot change what was done in the Garden of Eden. But we can change the result by trusting Christ Who died for us, bearing our sin penalty. Trust Him today and eternal life is yours.