The fall of man in the Garden of Eden was our attempt at unity with God. The garden was perfect. No sin, no shame, only bliss and unity with God. Even though Adam walked with God, he could not help but to rebel. There was only one thing God told Adam he may not do.
Genesis 2:16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 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.
God could have left the tree out of the garden, out of the reach of Adam. He could have kept the tempter from them. Satan did not work outside the will of God for satan himself is an instrument of God. God placed the tree there and He let satan in. All this because God had a Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
1 Peter 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
The fall was the ultimate plan. It was the way that Jesus would obtain glory for the Father. He was the remedy. He was not plan B.
Some would say I would not have eaten of the tree. Adam did eat. He ate without a fallen sinful countenance. He had one temptation. We are inundated with temptation from every angle all day long. We live in a world of sin. We would rebel just as Adam did. The fall was no surprise. It was the will of God that there be a fallen people for His Son to redeem.
Psalm 115:3 But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.
The garden was mankind’s attempt at the temptation in the wilderness. In Matthew 4 we see Christ’s attempt at the same temptation. We see Christ do what we could not. We see Him stand in our place and do for us what we could not. All that He did was as our substitute. It was not just His death, but it was His life as well. He died to take away sin, but He lived to establish righteousness. He lived unto the righteousness of God. We must understand one very important concept in scripture. God has chosen representation as a means to identify people. What I mean by this is that God chose for Adam to represent a group of people. He likewise chose Christ to represent a people. As a representative, the actions of the representor are attributed to the group that he or she represents. God chose for Adam, not Eve, to represent mankind as a whole. When Adam fell, the whole of humanity fell.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
When it states above in Romans 3:23 all have sinned, that was referring to the fall. We all fell equally in the transgression that Adam committed. The effects of his fall are then passed on to all that he would represent. The fall passed to all humanity. Likewise, Christ would also come as a representative. All that He would represent would be affected by His actions in the same way of representation. Read ahead in Romans 5:12-19 to see this. We will now look at what has occurred to mankind as a result of the fall of our representative. When Adam fell, we all fell. Adam fell out of fellowship with God and therefore we all fell out of fellowship with God.