Separation

The main result of the fall of man in Eden was separation. Man was alienated from God, from himself, from his fellow man and from nature. Man's alienation is not a discovery of 20th century existentialism; it is the consequence of sin, as old as man. And this sin of man was not of a sexual character -as has been erroneously shown- but of a moral character: disobedience to God's command.

Adam and Eve's first reaction after sin was one of fear, of uneasiness, so they hid themselves from God's presence. Conscience began to do its work, even before they heard God looking for them in the garden. Since then, even if we try to silence that voice, it always makes itself heard in favor of God, plunging man into discontent, dissatisfaction and guilt.

Man outside the garden knows good, but cannot do it; and he knows evil, but cannot escape it. It is a dilemma that destabilizes and depresses him: it is the drama of man alienated from God. The picture of Romans 3:10-18 describes the man without God; while the picture of Romans 7:7-23 describes the believing man. One picture is almost as bleak as the other. Psychology and psychiatry have uselessly had to take on man's fallen condition in an attempt to mend what only God can remedy.

Sin produced the separation between Adam and Eve, by mutual accusation; between man and his brother, in the first dreadful fratricide; between the godly and the wicked, evident in the descendants of Cain and those of Seth; between father and son, represented by Noah and his son Ham; between one people and another, in the confusion of their tongues. Everything disintegrated and fled from its center; everything lost its equilibrium to move far away.

Nature, at first laid at the feet of man to serve him, and for man to rule over her, rose up against her master and overtook him. Thistles and thorns sprang up, and refused to give him the fruit for his sustenance. Later it will serve as an instrument of judgment for all corrupt mankind. Nature will only be restored to health when Christ reigns on earth. Then the opposites -the wolf and the lamb; the cow and the bear; the child and the asp- will unite in peace and concord, in a scene now without sin.

The last separation was the most serious of all and the one that ultimately brought reconciliation to all creation. The Son of God on the cross of Calvary cried out: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?". There, in that separation, the peace that had been broken returned, and the opposites were reunited. God recovers man and man returns to God. The explanation? Sin was taken away. For sin separates, but the cross of Christ reunites us.

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