Adam and Eve: The Degenerative Effects of the Fall — Life’s Imperfections Revealed (Mini-Series Episode Two)

This article explores how the Fall of Adam and Eve introduced corruption into the human body — making mortality, with all its pain, imperfection, and purpose — a necessary part of God’s plan.

Adam and Eve: The Degenerative Effects of The Fall-Corruptable Body (Mini Series Episode One) explores how the Fall of Adam and Eve introduced genetic decline and physical imperfection into the human family. Once immortal beings of Edenic bliss, their decision to partake of the forbidden fruit set in motion a chain of mortal consequences recorded in the Book of Genesis and affirmed in modern revelation.

As a result of their choice, humanity inherited bodies subject to weakness, disease, deformity, and death. From the first breath of mortality, every life sent to the blue globe called Earth bears the imprint of Eden’s exile. The dark side of the Fall is not just sin but suffering-a divine necessity woven into the fabric of the Plan of Salvation.

Suffering Is Not a Flaw in the Plan-It’s a Feature

Bad Things are Supposed to Happen

Research and science try to compensate for the failures and successes that come as natural consequences of the Fall of Adam and Eve — also known as mortal life. But in order to experience success, there must exist the possibility of failure. That tension is intentional. Sorrow, hardship, pain, and even death are not design flaws; they are essential features in the path to exaltation. Without the bitter, there can be no appreciation for the sweet.

The misconception many hold-that life on Earth was meant for ease and glory forever-leads some to disbelieve in God and even hate Eve for partaking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. These unfortunate souls do not have the whole story.

An ancient American prophet clarified the imperative role of both good and bad in God’s plan:

It must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so … righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must … be a compound in one. -2 Nephi 2:11

Bad things happen because they are part of the eternal plan of God — to help humanity experience everything necessary to become like Him. As unpleasant and even horrifying as mortality can be, it was always meant to be this way.

Murder, torture, war, disease, hate, and confusion are not proof of God’s absence. They are the context of our proving ground. Why? For the chance to become like God.

As Paul taught the early Saints in Rome:

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:*

• And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ-if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. -Romans 8:16–17 (KJV)

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory. -Romans 8:16–17 (New International Translation)

To inherit His glory, we must pass through His suffering.

The Heartachesof Christ: Why Disease and Pain Are Part of the Plan

What were the sufferings of Christ?

He paid the penalty for every violation against the commandments of God, committed by every human from the first to the last. His Atonement is retroactive, covering all penalties for sin — past, present, and future.

To share in God’s glory, all humanity must likewise endure the suffering of His Son. That doesn’t mean being nailed to a cross-it means humbly submitting to life on Earth without becoming bitter, hateful, or hard-hearted. It means following the example of Jesus Christ to return to God. Enduring in such a manner is also called bearing a cross.

Disease will happen whether people believe in God or not. Aside from making a covenant with God to live a life of love and service, the commitment to mortality applies to every human.

God wisely offers life to all of us to prepare us for eternity — as His heirs with Christ. Adam and Eve paved the way by introducing mortality into the world through the Fall.

King Benjamin, an ancient Nephite prophet, explained:

The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit,*

• and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord,*
• and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love,*
• willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him,*
• even as a child doth submit to his father. -Mosiah 3:19

Why is the natural man — or woman — an enemy to God? Because it comes instinctively to seek comfort, pleasure, and control at every turn. Jesus chose to endure pain and injustice because God the Father asked Him to. He submitted His will to God and sacrificed everything for the good of others.

To descend below all things, Jesus showed what it means to be “willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict.” Likewise, each person must endure a tailor-made trial. Suffering is individualized. Some suffer emotionally, others physically. Some bear loss, others betrayal. All will experience some form of Gethsemane.

Because Jesus endured the trial to suffer for the transgression Adam and Eve committed to bring about the human race, He made it possible for all others to have the option to endure their individual Gethsemane.

What does that mean?

It means sickness, disease, disability, rejection, trauma, and the thousand other natural consequences of a fallen world.

Elder Patrick Kearon reminds that “You have in fact already been rescued; Jesus has overcome the abuses of this world … to give you power to not only survive but one day, through Him, to overcome and even conquer … to completely rise above the pain, the misery, the anguish, and see them replaced by peace.” [1]

In other words, Christ suffered for our sins so that we would not have to suffer for them in addition to enduring the horrors life can bring. Suffering will occur to all, though some suffer more than others in one area and less in other areas. The key is to endure it well, so that suffering will not include the eternities.

Christ suffered for our sins so that we would not have to suffer eternally in addition to enduring the horrors life can bring. Life will include pain. But if we endure it well-by faith in Christ-we will not suffer in the eternities. As Jesus declared from the cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

After His resurrection, the Savior added this warning and promise:

I command you to repent-repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth,*

• and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore-how sore you know not,*
• how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.*
• For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;*
• But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;*
• Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain,*
• and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit-*
• and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink-*
• Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men. -Doctrine and Covenants 19:15–19

Because of Him, we do not have to suffer more than is necessary -but we must suffer enough to become like God.

Mortal Life Comes with Trials

Elements Betray: How Mortality Turned Creation Against Humanity

The elements that make up the human body will not always function properly for all people, because mortality is designed to lead to death. “For the wages of sin is death,” wrote the Apostle Paul (Romans 6:23).

Sin is not limited to violating the Ten Commandments; it also includes the innate human lack of godliness-the divine capacity to see truth from all angles and render perfectly righteous judgment.

The words of the prophet Alma:

For our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will also condemn us; and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence (Alma 12:14).

The pathos of the human mind convicts every soul who contemplates virtue or vice. The beast that is fed the most will grow the strongest. Sin burrows into the soul just as virtue does. Incorrect assumptions about others lead to conclusions that manifest in thoughts, words, and deeds-and these can bring sin into the individual.

All of creation obeys the laws God has decreed. Only the children of God possess the agency to resist those laws — and, therefore, the power to defy Him. Because of that sacred status and responsibility, humanity also bears severe consequences for failing to measure up.

Death is more dreadful than human imagination can fully comprehend. Some faith traditions teach that death destroys both body and soul into nonexistence.

But such a belief contradicts the eternal nature of human beings — children of an eternal God.

The soul cannot be destroyed. There are two deaths: one is the separation of the spirit from the body. The other is the eternal separation of the soul from the presence of God.

That second death casts its shadow even before mortality ends — through disease, body malfunction, and deformity.

The very elements that compose all living things on Earth do so for the benefit of humankind. But since Adam and Eve became mortal, life became temporary. And under divine decree, the elements now carry the conditions of physical death-not just for the body, but for all living things, including the Earth itself.

Elder David A. Bednar taught in 2012 during a Brigham Young University devotional:

As sons and daughters of God, we have inherited divine capacities from Him. But we presently live in a fallen world. The very elements out of which our bodies were created are by nature fallen and ever subject to the pull of sin, corruption, and death. Consequently, the Fall of Adam and its spiritual and temporal consequences affect us most directly through our physical bodies. And yet we are dual beings, for our spirit that is the eternal part of us is tabernacled in a physical body that is subject to the Fall. As Jesus emphasized to the Apostle Peter, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). [2]

Eventually, the elements will again honor the bodies of all people in a glorious resurrection that will converge with the establishment of an Edenic society after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Until then:

• The elements will falter.
• Cancers will grow.
• Viruses will attack.
• Bacteria will infect.

Next Article of the Adam and Eve Series

• Adam and Eve: Banished from Eden, Bound for Glory (Episode Seven) Banished but not forsaken — Adam and Eve walked away from Eden with hope in the plan of salvation. This was no fall from grace, but the first King and Queen’s exodus from heaven on Earth.

Previous Article in The Degenerative Effects of The Fall Mini Series

• Adam and Eve: The Degenerative Effects of The Fall — Corruptable Body (Mini Series Episode One) The effects of The Fall apply to all of humanity. Since Adam and Eve fell from immortality, all corruption grows more corrupt, and the elements cease to obey their original command more quickly.

Referenced Sources

• Elder Patrick Kearon He Is Risen with Healing in His Wings [1] We Can Be More Than Conquerors
• Elder David A. Bednar We Believe in Being Chaste [2]

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional. © 2019 Rodric Anthony Johnson

Originally published at https://discover.hubpages.com on October 9, 2025.