Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof, VI:2

By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion, with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.

Adam and Eve were created righteous. They enjoyed full fellowship and communion with God. With one single subsequent exception, never was the relationship between God and man so harmonious.

Their disobedience ruined all of that. The wages of sin is death, both physical and spiritual death. God in his grace temporarily spared our first parents their physical death, but spiritually speaking they died instantly. They became sinners. Their entire being was affected, just as a drop of ink in a glass of pure water disperses to contaminate the whole. There is no island of righteousness, no part of man reserved apart from the effects of sin. Another term for this concept is total depravity. This is not to say that man is utterly depraved. He is not as bad as he could be; the fall did not make him into a demon. But the fall has nonetheless left him in a very sorry state.

Tomorrow: The origin of original sin.