I’ve really been looking forward to writing this post because the LDS viewpoint of the role Adam and Eve played on the earth can be rather different than is often taught by other denominations of Christianity.

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God presented the Plan of Salvation, created the earth, and chose Adam and Eve to be the first spirit children to be placed on the earth and set that plan in motion. We as a body of spirit children in heaven had agreed that we wanted to follow the Father’s plan and come down to earth and gain a body to be tested, and Adam and Eve were going to be the first to do so. They would be the earthly parents of all mortals. Who else would God choose for such an important task but two of his noblest children? In the premortal life Adam was known as Michael, the archangel. His wife, Eve, would forever be known as the “mother of all living.” They were given to each other because God decreed that it was not good that the man should be alone, and they were going to share their great responsibilities in the garden and throughout life. While living in the garden, for how long we don’t know, they were taught the principles of the gospel by God. They were married and sealed under the priesthood. They were like unto little children in their ability to sin, but they were not uneducated in the truthfulness of the gospel.

The Garden of Eden was paradise, filled with everything they could possibly desire. With one small caveat: the Book of Mormon teaches us that they could not have children. How were the rest of us going to get to the earth to be tested? They were alive both physically (they had physical bodies) and spiritually (they walked in the presence of God), and could not die. A change needed to happen for the Plan of Salvation to be set in motion.

God commanded them to have children. He said, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over … every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Moses 2:28). God told them they could freely eat of every tree in the garden except one, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Of that tree God said, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Moses 3:17).

This is where things can get confusing. He told them not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but they couldn’t have children until they did so. If they did eat, they would die. I had a professor at BYU once who explained it like this:

If they wanted to stay in the garden forever and live spiritually (walk in the presence of God), they should not eat of the fruit.

They were free to eat of any tree except the tree of knowledge of fruit and evil, if they chose to eat of that tree they would experience the consequences of their actions and suffer a spiritual death, and they would eventually suffer a physical death as well. The command wasn’t not to eat the fruit, it was not to remain in the garden if they ate of it.

Certainly Satan came and tempted Eve, in fact telling her the truth! He told her that eating the fruit would make her wise like unto her Father in Heaven. He assured her that she and Adam would not die (he was right,she certainly wouldn’t experience physical death right at that moment), but that they would “be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Moses 4:11). Eve made the hard choice, to eat the fruit and be cast from the garden. She took some fruit to Adam and asked him to make the same choice, for it was not good for man to be alone.

Once Adam and Even had partaken of the fruit, they were sent from the Garden. The physical condition of their bodies changed and they were able to have children. A Savior would come to make recompense for the sins of Adam and Even and the sins of their children. The Plan of Salvation could progress and Satan had not triumphed after all.

The prophet Lehi explained:

“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen [been cut off from the presence of God], but he would have remained in the Garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created. …

“And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.

“But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.

“Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:22–25).

We can look toward the actions of our first parents with gratitude for the choice they made to do the hard thing. They chose to leave the garden and suffer the pains of mortal life that we might live. The Fall was a necessary and intended step in the Plan.

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