There are two chief messages in the Adam and Eve story. The first is that humans pay a very high price for disobeying God. It is wrong to use free will and reason against God's commands, as Adam and Eve find to their lasting regret when they are lured by Satan into eating the forbidden fruit that gives them the knowledge of good and evil.

The second and more important message behind the story is that God is in charge and in control. Satan, knowing he cannot win against God in direct battle (he tried and lost before the poem begins), decides he will strike a killing blow against God in a devious and underhanded way: he will corrupt and ruin God's crowning glory, his beloved humans. Satan succeeds in orchestrating the fall of humankind and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, severing their direct relationship to God. However, little does he know that he has been an agent of God's plan all along. His corrupting of Adam and Eve was arranged by God as part of his design to bring redemption to humans and the merging of heaven and earth through Jesus Christ. God achieves two goals through Satan: the redemption of humankind and the punishment of Satan, who will be in eternal anguish after he realizes he was a tool for doing good for his archenemy.