God’s Word for You
Genesis 3:1 Part 3 The fall, and the fall
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, September 7, 2026
3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
We continue to meditate on this passage. Here we consider (3) The time of the fall of the angels and the fall of man. I would not spend any time on this question except that I have found over the years that this is a very commonly asked question.
It would be nice for us to dream or imagine that our first parents, Adam and Eve, enjoyed months or years of bliss in the Garden, holding hands, walking fearlessly among the animals which held no danger but only companionship and play for them. They would pluck their meals from the trees, and drink from the fabulous River of Eden, and each week Adam would remind them of God’s law and promise to them, and they would sing a hymn or renew their marriage poem. But it doesn’t seem likely that through all of that bliss they would have held off from beginning their family, and the one thing we can say most definitely about their first child, Cain, is that he was not born without sin. Therefore, our parents fell before Cain was conceived.
The fall of the wicked angels and Satan happened before the fall of Adam and Eve, but someone might wonder, first, just when did the evil angels fall, and then how long was it before Adam and Eve were tempted and then fell?
The soonest moment for the fall of the wicked angels would be just after the Lord declared everything to be “very good,” which happened toward the end of the sixth day (Genesis 1:31). So even though God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, it could conceivably have been that already on the seventh day, sin was committed by Satan, who then swept down a certain large number of other angels along with him (perhaps hinted at by Revelation 12:4). As one of the oldest Church Fathers said, “They put on great arrogance and became high-minded and abandoned the truth” (Shepherd of Hermas, Hs 8,9,1).
Another factor that might be considered is how much time elapsed between the fall of Satan and the temptation of Eve. I do not see any reason why there would be any amount of time at all between these events. Jesus calls Satan “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44) and so perhaps the earliest date is the most correct one we can assume.
Finally, there is no definite answer to be had for any of these questions to be adopted as the only correct answer. But we can learn an important truth here: Adam and Eve were indeed tempted, and did indeed fall, far sooner than we might expect. Their time in the Garden of Eden was brief.
Don’t we all experience this each time we are tempted? Things are peaceful, things seem to be stable in our lives, and then our feet “rush into sin” (Proverbs 1:16). We think we know just how lost we can get by past experience and shame, how far we have wandered from God, but then the ancient serpent finds entirely new highways for us to make us run further and further from the truth.
Satan did not tempt the man and woman with sex, or theft, or covetousness, or power, or glory for themselves. As we see and as we will meditate on next, he tempted them by inviting them to question the word of God.
Luther teaches us: “No one can escape temptations as long as we live in the flesh and have the devil prowling about us. We can’t help but suffer tribulations, and even be entangled in them, but we pray here that we may not fall into them and be overwhelmed by them” (Large Catechism, Lord’s Prayer, Sixth Petition §106).
This is why we must constantly concern ourselves with the word of God. We should not be deceived into thinking we must read it as if it is a novel, from page 1 to page 2000, straight through. Read a Gospel, then read a few Psalms. Read one of Paul’s letters, then a column of Proverbs, and perhaps a Prophet, or part of a prophet, and then back to the New Testament once again. Or better still, if you’re not certain how to begin, then into the Catechism with you! Let it guide you through the important doctrines passage by passage, and remind you to put your faith in Jesus alone. In Jesus there is forgiveness for all of our sins. In Jesus there is help against every temptation.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.