Question:   Dear Greg,

            Is it true that all of the sickness, environmental decay, broken homes, alcoholism, poverty, crime, etc. is a direct and specific result of God’s curse of Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit (i.e. the “fall”)?

            Is it also true that after we accept Jesus Christ and become Christians that these ailments such as sickness, poverty, pain in childbirth, broken homes, etc. can be removed by simply accepting Christ?  Did Christ’s death make these things null and void?

            David

Answer:  Dear David,

            Sin entered the world through Adam (Romans 5:12) and life through Jesus Christ.  So, yes, because of the “fall” (some prefer to all it “the crash”) all humanity lives in sin.  Our nature is a sinful nature.  We are sinners and the works of sin dominate our history, culture and reality.

            When we become Christians we become new men and women in Christ—positionally, theologically and in divine reality.  But practically we continue to live in this body (called a tent by Paul) of sin, so there is a battle waged between the new life that Christ lives in us and our flesh.  Christian women still experience pain in childbirth—as do non-believers.  Christians are spiritually healed by the blood of Christ and forgiven—but many Christians who are spiritually healed are not physically delivered from illnesses and ailments.  Death befalls all humans—Christians and non-Christians.  To suggest that Christians will no longer be human is of course ludicrous and defies all evidence.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht