Through the amazing transformation of salvation, God takes us out of Adam's lineage, re-births us in Christ, declares that He is our Father and that Jesus is our Brother, endues us with a new capacity and desire to communicate with Him, and blesses us—not only with a new identity as His children—but as joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Consider for a moment what it means to be in Adam. The gravity of this condition indicates the glory of being in Christ!

The bad news is that even as Believers, much to our chagrin as new people who have the laws of God inscribed upon the walls of our hearts, we manifest the same type behavior we demonstrated as lost folks. This is called walking after the flesh in the Bible. Simply stated, this means we reject God's wish in lieu of our own ways, the ways we forged via independence.

What is the point? Why the contrast? Why the command in the first place?

The purpose of God's command to Adam and Eve to not eat fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil had to do with establishing a choice for the first man and woman. Had God given no option for disobedience, there would be no meaning to Adam and Eve's obedience.

Were there no option for choosing wrong, there would be no value in choosing right. Were there no option to be independent of God, there would be no value in being in submission to God. Were there no risk in being separated from God, there would be no satisfaction in His fellowship. Were there no warning of death due to eating the fruit, there would be no celebration of life by walking and talking with Him in the garden.

In colloquial terms, Adam and Eve made the first declaration of independence and in so doing, each declared themselves god, god with a little "g". In so doing, not only did they demonstrate that all sin is conceived by independence, but they bequeathed to their descendants death and separation from God. As the Bible states, all men died in Adam.

Just as God is an independent and omnipotent ruler—"Here oh Israel, the Lord your God is one God"—so independent man seeks independence and power in order to assert dominion over his destiny. As God is, Adam and Eve desired to be in and of themselves. The bad news is that rebels beget rebels, and rebels we are, just like our forefather.