It is not often that we receive earth shattering information
through revelation; rather, we typically receive additional truth in our lives
in the form of little precious golden nuggets. I felt impressed this week by a
specific small nugget of truth that we talked about in class, which deals with
the nature of The Fall in the Garden of Eden.
In Moses 4:26 we read, “And Adam
called his wife’s name Eve, because
she was the mother of all living…” (Italics
added). Throughout the Book of Moses we constantly hear of Eve being referred
to as Adam’s wife. Within the Christian realm, people often think of Adam and
Eve’s partaking of the fruit as symbolic of sexual sin, and that the existence
and condition of the human race is a “byproduct” of fornication. How lucky are
we to have such a precious nugget of truth in the book of Moses that allows us
to know that such a bleak outlook on the nature of the human race is completely
false. Adam and Eve were married
(husband and wife) in the Garden of
Eden and therefore could not and did not commit any type of sexual sin. The partaking
of the fruit was a transgression against the Word of Wisdom, not a gross violation
of the Law of Chasity (see also James E. Talmage, “Jesus the Christ” Chapter 3,
Note #3).
Although this bit of knowledge
seems of minor importance in the gospel, the shift in the perspective that one
has of the human race is significant. Rather than viewing ourselves (and
others!) as the children of gross iniquity, we can more fully comprehend the
love that our first parents had for all of their posterity. They made the
sacrifice, that they didn’t fully comprehend, which would allow us to come into
this world. The lone and dreary world does not seem quite so lonely or dreary
knowing that we are so loved by our first parents and by Heavenly Father.
