Exactly what was the nature of the sin of our first parents?  Eve first sinned when she disobeyed God’s unspoken command that she love God and Adam.  She disobeyed God when she refused to call Adam to rebuke the tempter.  By refusing to call was that she became immediately a creature of darkness, totally depraved, and inclined to all evil.  It was not so that she merely tended to sin but did not until she took of the fruit.  She was already plunged into corruption when she at the very out-set did not call Adam.

Now the question arises, what part did Satan have in this first sin of Eve?  He is the father of lies.  He lied to Eve before she lied.  So it was he that must have sinned concerning Adam first and must have lied about Adam as the head of the human race and as the husband of Eve.  We know that Satan did not say “you need not talk to Adam about this.”  If he had, it would be obvious that the lie was taken over by Eve from Satan, the father of lies.

However, Satan did lie about Adam but not in his speech directly.  Adam was with Eve when Satan addressed Eve.  Satan by addressing Eve, lied to Eve about Adam’s relationship to her.  She immediately likes the lie about and forthwith in the whole discussion about the tree she too acted the lie; Adam is not the head, Adam is not her husband, Adam is not a person present.  She lied in threefold social relationship but Satan did it first.

Now the problem is, if Adam was present then he fell simultaneously with Eve for he did not make one protest concerning Satan’s and Eve’s conduct and speech.  His silence showed consent.  This is not true, for he consented to nothing at first.  He was not busy so much with what they said as with what they did to him.  And he was persecuted and suffered while they treated him as though he was Adam she sinned in both her relationship to Adam.  He was the head of the whole human race and if she had acknowledged this she would certainly have called him. Also he was he husband and in this social relationship she sinned.  The result of her sin not there.  It is thought that Adam should have rebuked Eve.  This would have done no good at all for as soon as Eve sinned her condition was hopeless as far as Adam was concerned.  Only Christ could save her.  Adam could not save anyone.

There were three things Adam could do.  One was to stay there and eventually Eve would have killed him.  The second would be to flee from Eve and from sin.  In his case sin was localized to the person of Eve so that by separating himself from her presence he would also flee sin.  The last choice would be to join Eve in her sin against him.  The he chose to do.

How is it that Adam chose Eve and sin?  Always when one is faced with making a judgment and a choice the past experienced of that person do influence the mind and will.  Adam’s past experiences were different from Eve’s on two counts.  Adam received the command concerning the tree directly from God and Eve did not.  Also, Adam lived the first days of his life in absolute social solitude and Eve did not.  He knew what it was to be along.  He valued the presence of another person.  God exactly wanted Adam to have this experience.  He did not create Eve as an afterthought or after making an observation.  God waited with the creation of Eve with a view to glorifying His own Son.  That past experience of loneliness was an important factor in the choice that Adam made.

Rev. Ophoff writes in his Old Testament History page 61 “she should have… allowed her husband, who must have been present, to set the tempter straight.”  I, too, believe Adam was present.  The first sin of our parents was a social sin.