The Curse?
It is said that God put a curse on man because he disobeyed God. I did a search for the word ‘curse’ In the third chapter of Genesis and the only two places that the word was actually used was where He cursed the serpent and then He cursed the ground. But He never directly uses the word curse with the man or with the woman.

This is what the result of the woman’s disobedience:

“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

But it doesn’t use the word cursed with her. He only “said” to the woman. Multiplying her conception: isn’t that what God commanded them in the very beginning? “…be fruitful and multiply”. That couldn’t hardly be considered a curse. Is sorrow and conception a curse? Sorrow is a part of life and conception is what God commanded them to do in the first place. And how about the fact that her desire would be to her husband? Maybe some people would consider this to be a curse, but not it wasn’t meant to be.

Sorrow is a part of life. If we didn’t know sorrow how would we know happiness? Sorrow as well as death are both a part of the Great Plan. I really can’t believe that when God created Man that He expected Man to live forever and never die. Why would the rest of creation go through the whole birth-live-death cycle and not man? The whole balance of nature relies on death is in some form to prevent over-population.

It seems to me that it’s always been part of God’s plan for the woman to desire her husband and for the man to be the head of the household. Paul taught that, didn’t he?

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife. (Eph 5)”

This shows that it was a part of the Great Plan from the very beginning for the man to rule over the woman and the woman’s desire was to be to her husband. If this was all a part of “the curse”, then why did Paul teach that this was God’s will? A curse is a very bad thing. Furthermore, Paul was always trying to free people from the “curse of the law” and taught freedom in Christ. If this was part of the curse, Paul certainly would have taught against it.

The result of man’s disobedience was:

“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;”

“Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;”

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Again here He didn’t curse Adam for his disobedience. Where would we be without the blessing of work? If Man never had to work he would have gotten lazy and spoiled and wicked. The gift of work to Man was obviously a blessing and a very important part of the Great Plan.

I looked up the definition of “for one’s sake” in the dictionary. The only meaning that makes any sense in this conotation is: “benefit or interest or purpose”. So in essense, what God is saying here is the ground is cursed for your benefit or in your interest or for your purpose.

It sounds like God wanted to make it work for man, almost like a punishment — his work would bring him sorrow, but with the work as a benifit or something for his good. And the end of all that work and sorrow is death. But is that really a curse?

For they (our fathers) verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. (Heb 12:10, 11)

It seems that Man’s work, which was also a form of chasening (since God, for Man’s benefit, added the thorns and thistles to give him sorrow in his work) was also a part of the plan that was actually for his benefit or in his interest which is something that was for the purpose of causing him to become better.

And the last part of the result of Man’s disobedience was that he had to die. I really believe that death was always a part of the plan. Ok. You’re going to tell me that it was because of Adam’s sin that death came to all men.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned (Rom 5:12)

That’s exactly right. But what I’m saying is that even this sin was a part of the Great Plan. God created Man. Did He not know that if the temptation was in front of him that he would fall into temptation? And did God think, when He created Adam that He would live forever? I can’t believe that. I think that the temptation was put here to make man stronger when he overcame it.

A God that is all knowing and has known from the very beginning exactly how everything would end, surely would know that Man would sin, and that because of his sin he would have to die. Even the serpent knew that before Eve ever took a bite of the forbidden fruit. I can’t believe for one minute that the serpent knew something that God didn’t know.

[The serpent:] “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

[God:] “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.”

This is before Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. Therefore, God did know that man would sin and that death would come to Man. This clearly shows, in my opinion, that death was a part of the Great Plan. God knew that Man would disobey and eat of the forbidden fruit, and he also knew what would happen if and when Man did so. God knew what would happen before it happened because He planned it to happen that way!

What’s more is if God knew that Adam would sin, then He certainly knew that all of Adam and Eve’s descendents would sin also. Fortunately, included in that Great Plan was the deliverance from sin that resulted in death and that was Christ.

Christ was a part of the Great Plan since the very creation of the world. He already knew Man would sin and He already knew beforehand how He would remedy the situation before it all happened.

“For then must he often have suffered since the foundation [creation] of the world: but now once in the end of the world [end of the age] (correctly translated: “age”) hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Heb 9:26

Who verily was foreordained (known beforehand) before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 1Pet 1:20

To me, it looks like though Adam and Eve did disobey God’s command, it was a part of the whole Plan from the very beginning. He knew that they would disobey. How could He not have?

All of these things were a part of the Great Plan since before Adam and Eve disobeyed: sorrow, death, multiplied conception, woman’s desire to the man, Man’s rule over woman and work. None of these things were caused by the “fall of Man” or because of “God’s curse” on Man because of his disobedience.

Even Man’s disobedience had to be a part of God’s plan since that’s the way God created man; He knew beforehand what Man would do; He set up all of the circumstances that made things happen the way things did; and seeing how things worked out all the ordinances that God placed on Man were actually for his good and to his benefit.

These things were all included in the Great Plan from the very beginning of creation. These all were merely the results of their disobedience which God already knew about before He created them — He even knew they would disobey, He planned it that way.

The Great Plan: Part 3

The Great Plan: Part 1