Restoring What Was Lost: Adam Gave Up His Inheritance (Part 1 of 16)

Series: Restoring What Was Lost, Part 1 of 16

Scripture Text: Genesis 3:17–19

This article inaugurates a journey through one of the most sweeping narratives in all of Scripture: the story of what humanity lost in the Garden of Eden and how Christ, through His redemptive work, restores every last portion of it. This series, Restoring What Was Lost, traces the arc of redemption from Genesis to Revelation, from the fall of Adam to the final victory of the Lamb. It all begins here, with a man, a garden, and a forfeited inheritance.

The Original Inheritance

When God created Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden, He gave him something extraordinary: dominion over all the earth. Genesis 1:28 records the mandate clearly: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (KJV).

This was not absolute ownership. It was stewardship, a tenant deed, so to speak. Adam was given management rights over the earth, but God retained ultimate ownership. To illustrate: in most of the world, property owners hold what is essentially a tenant deed. Property can be taxed, and owners are told what they can and cannot build on it. By contrast, an allodial deed, such as those held by certain royal estates, represents absolute ownership with no obligation to a superior authority.

Adam’s dominion was conditional. He was to manage and care for the earth as God’s representative. As the Psalmist declares, “The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s: but the earth hath he given to the children of men” (Psalm 115:16, KJV). And Leviticus 25:23 makes the underlying principle even clearer: “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.”

God placed Adam in the garden “to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). The dominion granted to him was real, but it was delegated authority, stewardship over God’s property, not sovereignty apart from God.

The Forfeiture

Then came the catastrophe. Adam’s disobedience, his deliberate choice to eat from the tree God had forbidden, brought a curse upon the ground and a loss of the dominion and harmony initially granted to him. Genesis 3:17–19 records God’s words to Adam: “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee” (KJV).

This was not a minor setback. It was a cosmic rupture. Through Adam’s rebellion, sin entered the world, and death by sin. Paul writes in Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” The whole of creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Adam’s choice (Romans 8:20–22).

Here is a critical point that sets the stage for the entire series: when Adam forfeited his stewardship through disobedience, the deed to the earth did not pass to Satan. Satan gained a measure of temporary, illegitimate control; he became the “god of this world” through deceit (2 Corinthians 4:4). But the deed itself reverted to the One who holds absolute ownership: God Himself. This is precisely what we see depicted in Revelation 5, where the title deed, the scroll sealed with seven seals, is in the right hand of Him who sits on the throne.

Satan is a squatter, not an owner. And squatters, as this series will demonstrate, get evicted.

The Promise of Redemption

Even in the darkest moment of human history, God did not leave Adam, or humanity, without hope. In the very pronouncement of judgment, God embedded a promise. Genesis 3:15 declares: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (KJV).

This is the protoevangelium, the first gospel. The seed of the woman would one day crush the serpent’s head. Every prophet and apostle after this moment looked forward to the fulfillment of this promise. And in Revelation 5, we see its culmination: the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and loose its seals (Revelation 5:5). The title deed is in God’s hand, and the Lamb, Christ, is the only One worthy to open it and reclaim the inheritance.

Peter reminds us of what this redemption cost: “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18–19, KJV).

Why This Matters

Understanding what Adam lost is essential to understanding what Christ restores. The inheritance was real. The forfeiture was devastating. And the redemption that follows, which we will trace through this entire series, is nothing less than the reclamation of everything that was taken.

This is not merely a theological abstraction. It is the story of the human inheritance. When Adam fell, all of humanity fell with him. When Christ rose, He rose to reclaim what had been forfeited. As Paul writes, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22, KJV).

In the weeks ahead, we will trace this story from the slavery of sin to Satan’s illegitimate rule, from Calvary’s finished work to the Lamb’s opening of the scroll, from the fulfillment of the Law to the Year of Jubilee, and finally to the new heaven and new earth where God makes all things new.

But it all starts here, with the recognition that something precious was lost, and that God, in His infinite wisdom and love, set in motion a plan to restore it.

The importance of obedience and faithful stewardship cannot be overstated. And the believer may take heart: the inheritance that Adam forfeited, Christ has reclaimed. Redemption is secure.

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This is Part 1 of the “Restoring What Was Lost” series by Dr. Peter J. Carter. Next week: “Adam Sold Humanity to Be the Slave of Sin.”