08 - The Fall-Paradise 2010

“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”—Gen 2:1-3

Last time we saw that God’s crowning creation was mankind. Special time, attention, and focus were paid to God’s creative act of man “in His own image.”

All the rest of creation had begun with the words, “let there be.” But with man God said, “Let us make.” Prior to man’s creation, something was brought forth out of nothing by the creative word of God. But man was created from the ground.

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”—2:7

“Formed” is from the Hebrew word used to describe a potter shaping a pot out of clay. The hand of God literally fashioned man!

Once again, the Bible utterly contradicts the teaching of evolution. From beginning to end in the creation story, everything is ascribed to direct acts of God no less than forty-six times. And the creation of the human body is especially shown to be a result of God’s direct creative activity.

Upon creating man, God gave to him:

A place to dwell

Man’s first home was the beautiful garden of Eden. His final home will be a city. Of this beautiful garden, John Phillips writes:

“When Adam first opened his eyes to the light of day he looked out upon a scene of matchless beauty and tranquility. The fields were emerald green, hedgerows ablaze with blossoms, the atmosphere laden with the fragrance of flowers, the forests ringing with joyous song. Strolling through his vast estates, Adam could pause to see a wolf play tag with a lamb, could stop to romp with a jungle lion or to inhale the perfume of the most perfect rose that ever gladdened the eyes of man. He could pause to pick a plum, to prop a burdened vine, to plant a peach tree, to gaze with awe and wonder at the tree of life.

He might also wander by way of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil standing silent, mysterious, alone—the only tree forbidden to him in all his boundless domains.

The second thing God gave to Adam was:

Something to do

Adam was given a specific task.

“Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it.”—2: 15

Adam was to be a gardener and a guardian. God gave him a sense of responsibility, a challenging occupation, something meaningful and worthwhile to do. And God’s will for man has not changed. We were made to accomplish something, to have a task, a goal, a purpose in life. Productive work is of God. There is no worse hell than idleness.

And Adam was also given a sacred trust.

“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”—2: 16-17

God gave to Adam total freedom on the one hand, and one solitary prohibition on the other. He was given all things richly to enjoy. One thing and one thing only was reserved for God.

A choice was placed before Adam, a necessary choice. For Adam could not have been a moral, accountable being without such power to choose. Without choice he would have been a mere automaton, a puppet on a string.

God did not make a mechanical man; He made a moral man.

Once the right to decide was invested in Adam, he became a moral being, but with that right there was always the possibility that his power of choice would be abused.

And finally, God gave to Adam:

A companion to walk with

First we see that:

God foresaw Adam’s desire and need:

“And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”—2: 18

We see in the Garden that the joining of a man with a woman was God’s intent and plan. The whole idea of marriage originated with Him. Therefore He placed within man a need to have that desire fulfilled, and He also undertook to meet that need.

Adam’s desire was fostered by God:

“Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.”—2: 19-20

As Adam named all of the creatures, he made the simple observation that all of them had a mate. He, on the other hand, had none. God deliberately awakened in Adam a sense of need, an awareness that he hungered for human companionship, and above all that he needed and wanted a wife.

SPIRITUAL NUGGET: God never awakens a desire that He cannot and will not satisfy in His own good time and way.

Adam’s desire was fulfilled by God

Matthew Henry beautifully states that the woman was taken from Adam’s side—not from his head to rule over him, not from his feet to be trampled on, but from his side to be equal with him, from under his arm to be protected, from close to his heart to be loved.

The creation of woman was attested by Jesus Christ Himself:

“And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female…’—Matt. 19:4

The Bible teaches that woman, rather than being taken from the dust of the ground, was formed out of the rib of the man.

“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.” 2:21-22

God performed the first wedding ceremony

Adam opened his eyes at last to gaze into the face of the woman God had created especially for him. “And Adam said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be one flesh.’”

This was Adam’s wedding vow. And so the Bible describes the world’s earliest wedding. It took place in Paradise. It was planned by God. It embodied the highest and holiest of ideals. It set forth the absolute of a man and a woman marrying in the presence of God. If its ideals seem too high for us, it is surely because we have strayed so far from Adam’s garden home.

The Fall—Paradise Lost

The Bible says that after this, God rested. Not because He was tired, but because His work of creation was finished.

Moses later used the concluding day of the creation week to introduce the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week during which all Israelites were to abstain from work in order to devote themselves completely to God. (see Ex. 20: 8-11)

But soon that rest would be interrupted by a cosmic catastrophe, a universal tragedy—the fall of man into sin.

Contrary to the popular idea that man is on the way up, that he is continually evolving into a better place, he is not. He is a creature who has suffered from a devastating fall. His basic nature is not good but evil; all his innermost being has been disorientated by sin. No Bible passage makes this clearer than Prov. 16:25:

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”

Man is so turned around, so affected by the fall that what looks right to him actually leads to death!

The Bible confronts us with this truth at the very outset and keeps it before us throughout its entirety—man is by nature a fallen being and a sinner. No person can ever properly understand human nature who fails to take into account the most basic of all the laws of human nature—the law of sin.

The Bible reveals, however, that sin did not begin on earth; it began in heaven. The mystery of iniquity did not originate within the heart of a human being. It began in the heart of the Archangel, Lucifer.

According to Ezekiel 28:12, Lucifer was, next to God, the most brilliant being in the universe, possessed of the highest of all created intelligences. At some point in pre-creation history he rebelled against God, which is described by Isaiah:

12 “How you are fallen from heaven,       O Lucifer, son of the morning!       How you are cut down to the ground,       You who weakened the nations!       For you have said in your heart:       ‘I will ascend into heaven,       I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;       I will also sit on the mount of the congregation       On the farthest sides of the north;       I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,      I will be like the Most High.’      Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,      To the lowest depths of the Pit.”—14:12-15

Jesus testified that He witnessed Satan’s judgment and rejection from heaven:

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”—Luke 10:18

Now a fallen creature, Satan retains his wisdom but it is a wisdom warped, bent and twisted by sin. And he is now, has always been and always will be the avowed enemy of God and of God’s people.

Therefore, sin entered the Garden of Eden full grown, introduced there by Satan disguised as a serpent. Three chapters into the Bible the Serpent first appears. Three chapters from the end of the Bible he is seen for the last time. The results of his work are seen on every page in-between.

The tragedy begins in Gen. 3:1

“Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman…”

Subtle means wise. The being that approached Eve was more than a match for her, except for one thing—Eve had the Word of God. With that Word to guide her, she was more than a match for her foe. All of the craft and superior intelligence of her foe would have availed nothing had Eve simply clung to the Word of God and said, “Thus says the Lord.”

Satan’s mode of attack was to Eve’s intellect based on subtlety.

It had been God’s intention that leadership should be invested in Adam. Eve was created second, not first. She was not made for headship; but for “heart-ship.” Her innermost center of rule was her heart. Adam, on the other hand, was made to rule; his innermost center of rule was his intellect.

This is not to say that the male is smarter than the female. It means that the man is primarily intellect/logic driven, while the woman is primarily heart/emotion driven.

Satan twisted God’s order in attacking the woman first with an argument about right and wrong. He thoroughly deceived her and plunged the race into ruin.

“For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”—1 Tim 2:13-14

“But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”—1 Cor. 11:3

Satan opened the discussion with a 3-fold doubt—all three of which were a direct attack against the Word of God, Eve’s only defense.

He first challenged the authorship of God’s Word.

“Has God said?” “How do you know it’s the Word of God? How do you know God said it? After all you weren’t even there when that Word was given.”

In her reply, Eve misquoted God’s Word, showing a carelessness that must have greatly and encouraged her foe. Then having questioned the authorship of the Word of God, and hence its authority,

The devil next challenged its accuracy.

“Yea, has God said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” “How do you know that is an accurate rendering of what was originally said? How do you know something has not been lost in transmission?”

And finally, the Devil attacked…

The acceptability of God’s Word.

God’s demands often conflict with our own desires. Satan knew this and directed Eve’s gaze to the forbidden tree. He made her see how good it was for food, now pleasant it was to the eyes, how much to be desired to make one wise. He persuaded her to act in independence of God, to be “mature,” to “do her own thing.”

Having begun with doubt, Satan followed with a denial. “You won’t die,” he said. This was a flat contradiction to what God has said. “In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.”

The whole temptation hinged on belief—whose report would Eve believe?

Interestingly, in salvation, God brings the soul back to that very point of departure and insists on belief in God’s Word of promise.

Satan followed up the doubt and the denial with a delusion: “You will be as gods, knowing good and evil,” he said. The word “gods” is Elohim. “You shall be as God Himself,” promised a lying devil.

Satan was putting into Eve’s mind the same deluded thought that had once entered his own mind, and that had transformed him from the anointed cherub to the devil. Eve fell, believing that eating the forbidden fruit would open her eyes to vast wisdom. She would dazzle her husband with newfound knowledge. On the heels of doubt, denial and delusion, Eve ate what was forbidden and fell.

Next Time: The Appeal to Adam’s Emotions