Sin in
So far as we
have been investigating Genesis we have learned some key concepts. We have learned that God is the Creator of
all things and through his creation he expresses his infinite goodness, glory
and worth. We have learned that mankind
is created as the image of God to rule over his creation and reflect his
glory. We have learned that mankind was
created to dwell in a perfect paradise of intimate fellowship with God, harmony
with mankind and peaceful rule over creation.
This week, we take a look at chapter 3 of Genesis, the account of this
perfect creation and communion with God has been horribly altered. Does anyone here like horror stories? I remember one of my first encounters with a
horror story. I was in the fifth grade
and was on a class camping trip. Our
science teacher, Mr. Webster, told us the story of “the hand”. All I remember is this man had a severed hand
in a box and one night it crept out of the box to get revenge on its
owner. At just the right moment Mr.
Webster through a fake hand into the middle of the group and screamed. We all jumped out of our skin. Horror stories can be entertaining but there
is one horror story that beats all the rest and it isn’t fiction. The title of
the message today is “sin in paradise: a horror story”. Chapter
3 introduces us, for the first time in the bible, the horror of sin. And believe me, horror is the right word, for
there is nothing more horrible for the image bearers of God than to experience
sin and its effects. This is the horror
story of all horror stories and even worse, it is real and we are in the story
ourselves.
You may ask,
“Why focus on the negative, why take time to teach on something so
depressing?” Well, believe me, I take no
joy in preaching a message on sin. And
neither do I think God takes any pleasure in focusing on sin. Yet, the bible explains and illustrates the
reality of sin from start to finish. It
doesn’t do this to be morbid, but to be realistic. And even better than that, there is a greater
reality we must know about, the reality of grace. But grace means nothing to us unless we first
understand sin.
Now, I know
we all are intimately acquainted with sin. It is the universal human condition
and we all experience it. The problem
isn’t lack of experience on our part. The problem is denial of the experience. And in that denial, we have worked ourselves
into a condition of ignorance towards sin and its workings and as a result we
suffer for this. What I want to do today,
as we look at Genesis 3 verses 1 to 13 is to explain the origins and workings
of sin and than spend some time talking about its cure. So let’s pray for God’s presence and blessing
and then we’ll read this section. Let’s
pray.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than
any other beast of the field that the Lord
God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat
of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent,
“We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said,
‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden,
neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said
to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when
you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good
and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to
make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her
husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were
opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves loincloths. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of
the Lord God among the trees of
the garden. 9 But the Lord
God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he
said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was
naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were
naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12
The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit
of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have
done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Genesis 3:1-13
(ESV)
What a sad
sad day this was. The original paradise
, the royal garden of Eden intended as the seat of man’s dominion over creation
and his communion with God has been marred by his sin and he has plunged the
human race into countless miseries and horrors.
This was nearly the worst day in all of human history. There is one worse, the day Christ died, also
the greatest day. On this day mankind
sinned doing the very worst and most insane thing that could ever be done,
rebelling against the perfectly good and infinitely glorious Creator of all in
whom is infinite bliss, infinite joy, infinite wisdom, infinite goodness and
infinite holiness. Adam’s sin here is
like the sin of a beloved husband and father turned addict who sells all he has
even his wife and children for a passing feeling. Actually, Adam’s sin here is just like you
and me. And that is a really important
point as we examine this section, that we don’t think, “What a dope Adam was,
and what a jerk to ruin everything for us.”
You see, Adam was the best mankind could ever offer. He was sinless and uncorrupted. Adam and Eve knew no pressing circumstances,
no trying hardships, no suffering, no depravations, no indwelling sin. And as our representative heads, with Adam as
our representative perfect human, still failed and plunged us all into misery,
just as any of us would have done. We,
all in Adam, sinned along with him and thus now bear the consequences of his
sin in our very nature. For, the book of
Genesis goes on to illustrate in vivid detail the universal sinfulness of all
of Adam’s descendents. So with this in mind, let’s take a look at this passage
in detail.
”1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that
the Lord God had made.” Genesis
3:1 (ESV) . We have a new character on the scene here, the
serpent. Notice the progression here in
this story. God had created the animals
first than had placed the man as ruler over them all. Subsequent to that he had created a helper
fitting to him, Eve. So God’s created
order is Man, than his wife under his caring leadership, than the animals and
the rest of creation under their rulership.
In this passage we see everything turned upside down. Here we have an animal leading the woman who
than leads her husband. Something is
wrong here from the get-go. This isn’t
just any animal but the serpent. And this
isn’t just an innocent animal but the manifestation of another key bible
character, Satan, an inferior enemy of God and the opposer of man, called that
old serpent in Rev. 12:9. Now, we don’t
have time now to get into much detail about Satan but the testimony of
scripture teaches us that he was a great angel who fell because of the lie of
his pride and was cast with his legion of subordinate angels from heaven. You can read about this in Revelation 12,
Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. And now,
through the agency of a snake, he confronts Eve.
Now it is
interesting that in this interaction the serpent never does anything physically
to coerce Eve. His chief weapon is a lie
and his chief method is deception. That has not changed. What does he say to Eve? Right, “Did
God really say?” But what else
does he say? “You shall not eat of any tree in
the garden.” Did God ever say
that? No. So what is the serpent doing
here? He is deceiving Eve by casting
doubt on the character of God. He is
using a seemingly innocent question to get Eve to doubt the goodness of
God. He is suggesting that God is some
sort of stingy despot who gets his jollies from restricting mankind from any
sort of enjoyment. But, he has placed
Adam and Eve in an incredible garden with every type of tree that is pleasant
to look at and good for food and said, “eat and enjoy to your hearts
content!” He has given them everything
they could ever need and he himself walks with them in the midst of this garden. There is only one requirement, that they
abide by his word and not partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil - only one reasonable command among a paradise of perfect joy. Yet, Satan insinuates that God is stingy and
strict, heaping unreasonable burdens on his creation.
Isn’t that
the same today? Isn’t a chief accusation
against God that he is a killjoy? Don’t’
we rebel against his holy ways because we just want to have a little fun? And don’t we often think we are somehow more
godly if we ourselves are killjoys and dour sober fuddy duddys? Are not both of these sinful reactions to the
true God of infinite holy pleasure and joy?
God is no killjoy but a God of infinite generosity, grace, patience,
kindness and joy. What is your God
like? Is he closer to the generous God
of Genesis 1 and 2 or the stingy God of Satan’s lie?
So Satan’s
strategy is to cast doubt on God’s character – always the root of temptation
and sin. Our sin always has to do most
fundamentally with what we think of God.
A.W. Tozer has said “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the
most important thing about us.” [1]
If we doubt God’s goodness we will sin.
If we believe God at his word, that he is perfectly good, we will walk
in goodness ourselves.
Now, Eve
replies fairly well. She says they can
eat of the fruit of the trees but not of the one in the middle of the
garden. But she adds something to what
God says at this point. She says,
“neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” It seems that she is already losing the battle
of faith here. She has added to God’s
requirement. Now you can’t even touch
the fruit. God forbade them to eat it,
not touch it. Eve has added to God’s
word, just as serious as taking away from it.
For either one distorts the word of God and thus the truth of God. This was the sin of the Pharisees. They thought they were being extra holy by
adding a plethora of commands to the word of God to serve as an extra insurance
against disobeying the word. The result
was that they were the ones who caught the brunt of the Savior’s wrath, not the
irreligious. May we not add or take away
from the word of God. We will seek to
make suitable application from his word but may we never seek to embellish his
truth and holy requirements and thus find ourselves distorting the truth and in
danger of sinning against God.
The serpent
continues with a direct refutation of what God says and a bold accusation
against God’s character. He says, “You
shall not surely die. For God knows that
when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil.” Wow, this brings
things to a new height of deception and ugliness. Satan now sees he has Eve backpedaling and so
he goes for the deathblow. He directly refutes
God’s word and God’s character. He in a
sense says, “Eve, why are you believing God.
He is just some old-fashioned egotistical miser. He set this whole thing up to keep you from
realizing your full potential. He just
made up that whole death thing to keep you in your place. This fruit will enlighten you to the point of
becoming like God himself. If you want
out of this tyrants grasp than act now and eat this wonderful fruit.” Have you ever heard that sort of stuff? Maybe not from a serpent or even from Satan
but from the world or your own sinful heart?
The sad thing is that Eve and Adam and we all fail to see that this
option only holds broken promises and heartache and destruction. [Illus] The alternative to having God as the
center of all things, as the determiner of truth, as the only ultimate revealer
of good and evil, as the ultimate ruler and God or the universe, the only
alternative to this is to set ourselves up as the same. And if you choose this you are truly
deceived. Now, it never seems like that,
at least not at first. But eventually,
truth has a way of working itself out.
Eventually, the ridiculous lie that we can be our own gods and determine
truth, good and evil on our own ensnares us and chews us up and spits us
out. Even Satan himself fell to the same
deception of pride, idolatry and doubt.
And he has been cast from heaven already awaiting an irrevocable judgment
of eternal fire along with all his demons, yet he rages on, a lunatic of pride
and lies and doubt, believing his own deception. How about you? How do you follow this path of
deception? Is there any area in your
life where you are acting contrary to the word of God thinking you can somehow
benefit yourself or others with your own independent plans of what is best for
you and those around you? Repent before
it is too late.
Well, now
back to Eve. She has succumbed to the
lie. Doubt is in full bloom in her
mind. Next, we see her desires in
action. She sees that it is good for
food, she likes how it looks and she is intrigued by its potential for
self-determined wisdom. The doubt has
now been followed by desire. What we
believe naturally influences what we feel about things. The puritans called this our affections, that
is what we feel about something, what we truly desire and want to do. So Eve’s faith was affected and her
affections naturally flow with this. She
starts to think, “yah, this would be good.
I’m pretty excited about the prospects of eating this fruit.” At this point she is fully hooked and Satan
is reeling her in. She has only to
actually eat the fruit, a foregone conclusion at this point.
Now, I
realize this encounter was unique in history here. You or I will probably never encounter
something quite like what Eve did. But,
Eve’s experience is indicative of the workings of sin in all of us. Remember, it begins with doubt. Paul says in
Romans "For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin."
(Romans 14:23b, ESV) Doubt than influences our desires. Just like in James 1 "But each person is tempted
when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has
conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth
death." (James 1:14-15, ESV) So doubt, than desires than the natural
outcome of these, disobedience in heart and action. You see, you want what you believe is best
and you always act according to what you want most. You and I are compelled in this way at all
times, in sin or in obedience. This is
the inescapable world of choice and our wills.
Let me illustrate. Say there are two
brothers, both happily married with loving wives, healthy children and good
jobs and friends. Both are tempted by
another woman say in the workplace. One
succumbs and destroys his family, the other doesn’t. Why not?
Well, I submit that one brother considered the beauty of an attractive
woman and the thrill of adultery, even though brief, of greater worth than his
wife, his kids and his reputation. The
other brother considered the happiness of his wife, his children and his
friends of more worth to him than a passing thrill. So he didn’t let the temptation overcome
him. He didn’t let desire drown him in
regrettable behavior. For both men it
started with what they valued most, than what they desired most than what they
did. This is how it was for Eve, this is
how it works for us. So the big question
this morning is “what do you believe is most worthy and best?” Or, to help you answer that, “What do you
truly most want?” Your life is an
undeniable testimony to this. There is
no deceiving anybody in the long run, so it is better to stop pretending to be
holy or whatever now and come clean. You
see, there is a solution. We’ll get into
that a bit later but let me encourage you now to be brutally honest with
yourself on this and find help, for it is close at hand. What do you believe is best, want most and
live to get? Eve believed a lie, wanted
a lie and then took it and gave some to her husband, who by the way must have
been watching in passive approval the whole time, having abdicated himself his
God-ordained call to obey and lead. They
doubted, they desired and now they disobeyed.
What were the
results? Oh boy, they were
disastrous. What evil was done that
day. What a tragic day. God have mercy on us. Satan promised them their eyes would be
opened and they would be like God, knowing good and evil. Well, their eyes were opened and they knew
good and evil on their own in a sense, enough to see that they were naked. Now why is that a big deal? What does the text mean by implying that is somehow
bad? Well, this wasn’t a sudden
awareness of their anatomy at this point.
They already knew that they didn’t have clothes on. But previous to this they were unashamed of
their state. Now, there is a shame
attached to their nakedness. I don’t believe
that is because God or the bible has a negative view of the human body. What is going on here is that their utter
weakness, complete poverty and thorough vulnerability of life without God has
been exposed. Before, they were under
the protective covering and security of their creator. Now, in their rebellion they have stepped out
of that protective covering and are exposed.
They are far from truly knowing good and evil and far from being
anything like God. They are shown to be
quite the contrary. This is why in
Revelation 3:17 Jesus can say to the church at
Adam and Eve
know this and they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. And you know what, mankind has been sewing
fig leaves together ever since. There is
not a single human being who doesn’t know his desperate state apart from God
and not a single human being who is not making some self effort to cover their vulnerability
with a façade or religious works or bravado or some comforting idol. It is the human condition to realize our
nakedness and seek to cover it up. Now,
don’t get me wrong, the road back to
And our text
shows that. In verse 8 God arrives on
the scene. They hear him in the garden
for his usual fellowship stroll with Adam and Eve. Adam in Eve hide in a panic behind some
trees. Now, God calls to them. “Where
are you?” Even though he is master of all creation and knew absolutely
where Adam was he calls for him. He
takes the initiative to pursue Adam, even in his rebellion. God could have wiped away Adam and Eve in an
instant and eliminated the whole universe in a word. But instead, he walks through the garden
calling, “where are you?”. And he
continues to walk the earth calling out to sons of Adam and daughters of Eve,
“Where are you?” Where are you? Where are you? We must answer him.
And so Adam
does. Hear we have the first blame
shifting incident in history. After God
confronts him about eating the forbidden fruit Adam says, “The woman whom you
gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” And
we’ve been doing it ever since, almost automatically. If you have had little kids you know what I’m
talking about. It is amazing in all the
things we need to teach our kids one thing we don’t need to do is to teach them
to blame shift nor to lie. They
inherited this ability from Adam. Eve isn’t any better, for she blames the
snake. And we are off to the races in
regards to sin.
Now, the rest
of the bible is a clear testimony that we have inherited this sinful nature,
this natural state of rebellion against God from Adam and Eve and as a result
we all choose to follow through according to our nature and live lives of sin
and rebellion against God. Now, there
are all types of sin. Some of us have
engaged in the blatant obvious open sin that we all can so easily identify. For a matter of fact, those who fall prey to
the sin of self-righteousness love to point out these types of sins in
others. Some of us major in the subtle
sins. We may have learned to avoid the
obvious ones that bring public shame and quick punishment but we are masters at
the subtle sins. Sins like
unthankfulness, pride, independence, self-righteousness, complaining or
gossip. These sins are more hidden and
more acceptable. Often Christians are
expert at these subtle types of sins. If
we are not careful we can be full of great evils while thinking that we are
pretty holy people. We all alike are
born with a sinful nature and practice sinning regularly. But, God has provided a cure, for the
unbeliever and believer alike – Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ came to perfectly obey the father and never sin. He came as the one to voluntarily and
lovingly bear the sins of many, even you, to bear them to the place of justice,
the cross, where God executed perfect justice on sin by condemning sin in
Christ, putting him to death on the cross.
Thus paying the penalty for his people’s sin and fulfilling all
righteousness. He now offers to us
complete forgiveness for all the sins committed as
And it
doesn’t end there. He gives his children
his Holy Spirit to give us a new nature that now strives against that Adamic
nature and longs to love and obey God and serve others. Thank God for the power
of the new birth. Now, by the power of
the Holy Spirit, according to the new life in Jesus, we are to put off the old
Adamic ways and live in newness of life in Christ. We are to recognize the deceitful workings of
sin and kill them with gospel truth and grace and the power of the Holy
Spirit. There is a cure for this
haunting reality of sin we all experience.
Jesus Christ has come to pay the penalty of sin, to break the power of
sin and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and his many means of grace, to
eliminate the presence of sin.
Sin is a
horror story and we are living in it.
But there is a better more powerful story, the true story of Christ, and
through faith in Christ we can forever escape the horror of sin. Let’s pray.