Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5: Lesson 11

Moses 4:5–32; 5:1–15, Part 1

“The Eyes of Them Both Were Opened”

Whether we realize it or not, the Fall of Adam and Eve directly affects all of us each day. In fact, without it, we would not have even been born. This lesson is intended to help students understand the effects of the Fall in Heavenly Father’s plan and in their own lives.

Student preparation: Invite students to memorize the doctrinal mastery passage 2 Nephi 2:25 and to ask a parent or Church leader what it means to them.

Possible Learning Activities

Good or bad?

To begin the lesson, help students think of how some difficult things can be blessings in God’s plan. One way to do this is to use the following scale. You might choose to show pictures that depict the words students will be ranking.

• On a scale of 1–10 (1 = bad, 10 = good), how do you think most people would rank the following things?

Hard work

Trials

Sorrow

Death

• Viewing these from the eternal perspective of Heavenly Father’s plan, would you rank any of these differently? If so, why?

Consider displaying an image of Adam and Eve like the one at the beginning of this lesson. You may want to leave it up for the remainder of the lesson.

Many of the hardships we face in life come as a result of a choice made by our first parents, Adam and Eve.

• How do you think many people would rank the Fall of Adam and Eve on the scale of 1–10? Why?

Ponder how well you understand the Fall of Adam and Eve and its significance in your life. Answer the following questions in your study journal:

• Do you feel the Fall was good or bad?

• How can your understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ affect your answer?

As you study Moses 4–5 today, seek inspiration from the Holy Ghost to help you better understand the Fall of Adam and Eve. The Holy Ghost can help you see that the Fall was part of Heavenly Father’s plan to help us progress and become more like Him.

The effects of the Fall

Invite students to summarize what they know about the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Adam and Eve. If they need help, invite them to search 2 Nephi 2:22–23; Moses 3:16–17; 4:6–12, looking for details. You could also summarize by showing the Old Testament Scripture Stories video “Adam and Eve” (1:53), located on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

Then help students learn about the effects of the Fall on Adam, Eve, and their posterity. To help students organize what they learn, provide them with paper and display the following instructions. You could invite students to work together in pairs to complete this activity. (Note: Lesson 21: “Assess Your Learning 1” suggests that students refer to the pamphlets they create in this activity to help them explain the effects of the Fall.)

Consider limiting the amount of time students take in creating their pamphlets so they will have time to experience the rest of the lesson.

To help you organize what you learn about the Fall, create a pamphlet using the following instructions. Imagine you will use this pamphlet to teach others about the Fall and why it was essential in Heavenly Father’s plan. Be creative in personalizing your pamphlet.

1. Fold the paper in half. Create a cover page with a title such as “The Fall in Heavenly Father’s Plan.” Add a drawing or picture that reminds you of the Fall, such as a fruit tree or a piece of fruit.

2. Inside the pamphlet, title the left page “Effects of the Fall.”

3. Study Moses 4:13–16, 22–25, 28–29; 5:1–4. List or draw pictures of the effects of the Fall on God’s children. Include in your pamphlet the verses where you learned about each effect.

After sufficient time, invite a few students to share their pamphlets with the class. Invite students to add to their pamphlets anything they missed.

Be sure students list that Adam and Eve and their posterity would now:

1. Feel unprepared to be in God’s presence (Moses 4:13–16).

2. Be able to have children (Moses 4:22; 5:2–3).

3. Experience sorrow, pain, and difficulty (Moses 4:22–24).

4. Need to work hard to live (Moses 4:25; 5:1–3).

5. Know good from evil (Moses 4:28).

6. Physically die (Moses 4:25).

7. Be separated from God’s presence (spiritual death) (Moses 5:4).

Explain that separation from God is called “spiritual death”—something we all experience.

Ponder how specific effects of the Fall can help us progress toward “immortality and eternal life” (Moses 1:39).

• How does God allowing Adam and Eve to fall show His wisdom and love for His children?

Ponder which effects of the Fall you find most difficult in your life.

Explain to students that they will finish their pamphlets during the next lesson as they study about the Savior’s role in overcoming the negative effects of the Fall.

The essential role of the Fall

The Book of Mormon prophet Lehi explained the significance of the Fall.

Study 2 Nephi 2:22–25, looking for why the Fall was a good thing.

• What did you learn about the Fall?

Students may mention a number of truths, but make sure they understand that the Fall was essential to our progression in Heavenly Father’s plan.

You may also want to help your students see that Heavenly Father enabled Adam and Eve and their posterity to experience joy through the Fall. Invite them to write “joy” on their pamphlet under “Effects of the Fall.” Consider asking if any of your students can recite 2 Nephi 2:25 from memory.

President Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained why the Fall is essential in our lives:

The Fall was an essential part of Heavenly Father’s divine plan. Without it no mortal children would have been born to Adam and Eve, and there would have been no human family to experience opposition and growth, moral agency, and the joy of resurrection, redemption, and eternal life. (Christ and the New Covenant: The Messianic Message of the Book of Mormon [1997], 207)

Look back at the “Effects of the Fall” page in your pamphlet.

• How has your eternal progress been positively influenced because of the Fall?

• Which of the effects of the Fall do we need to be rescued from?

Help students understand that, among other things, we cannot rescue ourselves from physical death or spiritual death.

Read the first sentence in 2 Nephi 2:26, looking for good news for all of God’s children.

• What did you find?

Inform students that the next lesson will focus on the role of the Messiah in redeeming us from the negative effects of the Fall.

Invite students to recall the ranking activity from the beginning of the lesson. Ask them how they would now rank the Fall of Adam and Eve on a scale of 1–10. Students could then explain to their neighbor why the Fall was a good thing and how it affects their lives and their progress in Heavenly Father’s plan.

Consider closing with your testimony of Heavenly Father’s wisdom and love for us, which He demonstrated by sending His Son to redeem us from the Fall.

(Remind students to keep their pamphlets—or turn them in to you—so they can finish creating them in the next lesson.)

Additional Resources

Did Adam and Eve sin when they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) taught:

What did Adam do? The very thing the Lord wanted him to do. … Did Adam sin when he partook of the forbidden fruit? … No, he did not!

… Now this is the way I interpret [Moses 3:16–17]: The Lord said to Adam, here is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you want to stay here, then you cannot eat of that fruit. If you want to stay here, then I forbid you to eat it. But you may act for yourself, and you may eat of it if you want to. And if you eat it, you will die.

I see a great difference between transgressing the law and committing a sin. (“Fall—Atonement—Resurrection—Sacrament,” in Charge to Religious Educators, 3rd ed. [1994], 124)

President Dallin H. Oaks of the First Presidency explained:

It was Eve who first transgressed the limits of Eden in order to initiate the conditions of mortality. Her act, whatever its nature, was formally a transgression but eternally a glorious necessity to open the doorway toward eternal life. Adam showed his wisdom by doing the same. And thus Eve and “Adam fell that men might be” (2 Nephi 2:25).

Some Christians condemn Eve for her act, concluding that she and her daughters are somehow flawed by it. Not the Latter-day Saints! Informed by revelation, we celebrate Eve’s act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode called the Fall. (“The Great Plan of Happiness,” Ensign, Nov. 1993, 73)

Why could Adam and Eve not bear children while in the Garden of Eden?

President Dallin H. Oaks of the First Presidency said:

When Adam and Eve received the first commandment, they were in a transitional state, no longer in the spirit world but with physical bodies not yet subject to death and not yet capable of procreation. They could not fulfill the Father’s first commandment [to multiply and replenish the earth] without transgressing the barrier between the bliss of the Garden of Eden and the terrible trials and wonderful opportunities of mortal life. (“The Great Plan of Happiness,” Ensign, Nov. 1993, 72–73)

Moses 4:22. What does it mean that Adam was to “rule over” Eve?

Elder Bruce C. Hafen and Sister Marie K. Hafen explained:

The concept of interdependent, equal partners is well-grounded in the doctrine of the restored gospel. …

Genesis 3:16 states that Adam is to “rule over” Eve, but this doesn’t make Adam a dictator. … Also, over in “rule over” uses the Hebrew bet, which means ruling with, not ruling over. If a man does exercise “dominion … in any degree of unrighteousness” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:37; emphasis added), God terminates that man’s authority. (“Crossing Thresholds and Becoming Equal Partners,” Ensign, Aug. 2007, 26, 27)

Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Sister Ruth Lybbert Renlund explained:

[A righteous husband] will seek to minister; he will acknowledge error and seek forgiveness; he will be quick to offer praise; he will be considerate of family members’ preferences; he will feel the great weight of responsibility to provide “the necessities of life and protection” for his family; he will treat his wife with the utmost respect and deference. … He will bless his family. (The Melchizedek Priesthood: Understanding the Doctrine, Living the Principles [2018], 23)

Supplemental Learning Activities

The plan of salvation

It may be helpful for students to see the Fall within the context of Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation. Consider displaying the following graphic, which you may have used in Lesson 2: “The Plan of Salvation,” while students discuss the following questions as a class or in small groups.

Ask students the following questions:

• What do you know about each part of Heavenly Father’s plan shown in this diagram?

• What is the Savior’s role in each part?

• Where would you place the Fall of Adam and Eve on this diagram?

Read Moses 4:6, looking for Satan’s intentions in tempting Eve to eat the fruit.

• What were Satan’s intentions? What did he not fully understand?

• How did Heavenly Father help His children progress by allowing Adam and Eve to eat the fruit?

Alternative way to summarize the account of the Fall

This activity is meant to help the students provide a quick summary of the events leading up to the Fall. Write the following words on the board: Commanded, Tree, Choose, Satan, Fruit, Die, Eat, Wise, Fig Leaves.

Invite students to explain the account of the Fall to their neighbor using some or all of the words on the board. After students explain the Fall, invite them to briefly review Moses 3:16–17 and 4:6–12, looking for any additional details they could add or that could correct their understanding. Have them share with each other details they learned from the verses.