First Transgression Inexcusable, January 13

I made the earth, and created humankind upon it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. Isaiah 45:12, NRSV. Adam and Eve received knowledge through direct communion with God, and they learned of Him through His works. All created things, in their original perfection, were an expression of the thought of God. To Adam and Eve nature was teeming with divine wisdom. But by transgression the human family was cut off from learning of God through direct communion and, to a great degree, through His works.... Upon every page of the great volume of His created works may still be traced His handwriting. Nature still speaks of her Creator. Yet these revelations are partial and imperfect. And in our fallen state, with weakened powers and restricted vision, we are incapable of interpreting aright. We need the fuller revelation of Himself that God has given in His written word.—Education, 16, 17. All heaven took a deep and joyful interest in the creation of the world and of Adam and Eve. Human beings were a distinct order. They were made “in the image of God,” and it was the Creator’s design that they should populate the earth. They were to live in close communion with heaven, receiving and assimilating power from the great Source of power. Upheld by God, they were to live sinless lives. Satan determined to defeat God’s plan. We need not try to understand the motives that prompted the being next to Christ in the heavenly courts to bring envy and jealousy into the ranks of the angels. To many he communicated his disaffection, and there was war in heaven, which ended in the expulsion of Satan and his sympathizers. We need not puzzle our minds for a reason that Satan acted as he did. Could a reason be found, there would be excuse for sin. But there is no excuse. There is no reason human beings should travel over the same ground that Satan traveled.... After Satan was thrust from heaven, he determined to set up his kingdom on this earth. Through him sin entered the world, and death by sin. By listening to his misrepresentation of God, Adam fell from his high estate, and the floodgates of woe were opened upon our world. There is no excuse for Adam’s transgression. All his wants were generously supplied. He had need of nothing more. Only one prohibition was laid upon him.... This prohibition Satan used as a means of insinuating suggestions of evil.—Manuscript 97, 1901.