The Fall

Intro

Good morning, would you please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 3.

We are continuing our series on the first 11 chapters of Genesis entitled “In the Beginning”.

Where we are discovering what God reveals about Himself,

his creation,

and the foundational events that begin the story of salvation.

Over the last six weeks we have been going through the creation story,

first looking at the broad picture of God’s miraculous creation of the heavens,

the earth, and all that is in them.

Then we focused in on God’s creation of the first man and woman,

and their marriage in the beautiful Garden of Eden.

But as we have been going through the creation story,

there’s been a sort of elephant in the room, hasn’t there?

Even when we’ve seen God declare, over and over again,

that his creation is good, even very good,

we know that in our own experience everything is not very good.

We know that there is something actually very wrong with it all.

And we experience this wrongness every day of our lives;

in our bodies, in our society, in our relationships with each other,

and in our relationship with God.

That wrongness is sin; wickedness, evil.

And we learn about sin’s origin in mankind,

and a lot about how it operates in our passage this morning, Genesis 3.

We will be looking at the whole chapter in our time together,

but I will begin by reading just vv. 1-6.

Genesis 3:1-6

Exposition

The Serpent (v. 1)

Our passage begins by introducing us to a new being in the garden,

We read in v. 1.

Genesis 3:1 ESV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman…

Serpent

Now here, we have a problem.

Right at the beginning of the Bible, the third chapter in, we have a talking snake, or serpent.

Which to many people smells like mythology.

I was actually confronted with this when I was visiting a high school philosophy class a few years ago.

The student asked, “do you really believe that there were talking animals, like there are in the Bible?”

I asked her: “how many people are there in the world? she said, “around 8 billion.”

I said, “well there are only two talking animals in the Bible,

the serpent in Genesis 3 and Balaam’s donkey in Numbers 22.”

What’s easier to believe in: two talking animals in the Biblical worldview, or 8 billion?”

Now that was a joke, but it does expose the fact that we don’t associate language with animal kind,

and so it demonstrates that mankind is no mere animal.

But what are we dealing with here with the serpent?

Seraph

There has actually been a lot of scholarly work done with the Hebrew word for serpent here in Genesis three.

Without going into detail there are linguistic and thematic links between the Hebrew word that is translated serpent “na-has”,

and the angelic beings called Seraphim, whom we see in the throne room of God in Isaiah 6.

There are actually several strong links between the Seraphs and serpents that Bible scholars have discovered.

There’s a great video on youtube by the christian apologist Wes Huff from Apologetics Canada where he explores these.

The video is called “Was Satan a talking snake?”.

It covers a bunch of stuff I’m sure a lot of you would find interesting,

but we just don’t have time to cover this morning.

Dragon

But we see elsewhere in the Bible that this serpent was in fact an angelic being,

and not just any angelic being - but Satan, the devil himself.

In Revelation 12:9 we read that,

Revelation 12:9 ESV

“And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”

So Satan, an angelic being, was the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

And this serpent strikes up a conversation with the woman Eve,

who is not yet named in the passage.

And he questions the one rule,

the one prohibition, that God gave to mankind in the garden of Eden.

One Rule

We read this rule back in Genesis 2:16-17

Genesis 2:16–17 ESV

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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.”

Now how many of you wish you had just one rule to follow?

And this rule is easy, “don’t eat the fruit of one tree.”

I recognize some things are harder not to eat than others,

but this is fruit, not a chocolate bar.

This seems easy, but the process through which the Serpent tempts eve to disobey God,

teaches us a lot about the nature of sin,

Temptation (vv. 1-6)

Questioning God

You can see the subtlety in the serpent’s approach as he begins to question God’s words in v. 1,

Genesis 3:1–3 ESV

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 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.’ ”

Legalism?

Eve responds rightly to the serpent by quoting from God’s command.

This is something that we see Jesus do when he has his own confrontation with Satan in the wilderness in the gospels.

Now, there are some who like to make a big deal that Eve added “ and neither shall you touch it,” to the word’s of Gods command.

I’m not convinced that this is an example of legalism or adding to the word of God, that some people make it out to be.

Nevertheless Eve gives her initial response to the Serpent’s questioning of God’s word.

But the serpent goes further in what he says next in vv. 4-5. It says,

Genesis 3:4–5 ESV

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will 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.”

Point 1: Sin is Desirable

This takes me to my first point this morning and that is this:

Sin is Desirable

If sin were not at some level something desirable we wouldn’t likely struggle with it so much.

But sin is a struggle because it plays on our desires.

That doesn’t mean that all of our desires are necessarily bad,

but we fall into sin when we seek to pursue our desires in opposition to what God commands.

We see this in the temptation of Eve.

Now there are two ways that Eve could have taken the serpent’s words here in vv. 4-5,

that she would be “like God, knowing good and evil”.

She could have taken them to mean that by eating the fruit she could become a goddess herself,

this is just straight up idolatry and self-worship.

I don’t believe thats the case here.

Eve is still in a state of innocence, and for her to have an idolatrous thought about herself would be sin in and of itself,

before she had eaten the fruit.

But another way she could have been tempted is with her desire to grow in wisdom.

This is a good desire, but if it is fulfilled by rebelling against God by eating the fruit, that makes it sin.

I believe this is what we are seeing here, it’s even stated explicitly in v. 6.

That she saw the fruit “was to be desired to make one wise”.

But we see several ways we are tempted demonstrated in v. 6, it says:

Genesis 3:6 ESV

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.

Good for Food (Appetites)

First of all she sees that the fruit looked “good for food”.

This is one common way we are tempted.

Through our appetites. Those physical desires that we have.

The ancients used the stomach to represent the seat of our appetites.

And appetites includes all physical motivations, including the sexual appetite, so it’s not just food.

But here Eve sees that the fruit looked good to eat, demonstrating a temptation of the stomach.

Delight to the Eyes (Emotions)

Secondly Eve notices that the fruit was a delight to eyes,

it looked beautiful, and it brought about delight in her heart.

This is another way we are tempted.

Through our emotions. The emotional desires that we have.

The heart represents the seat of our emotions.

You can genuinely delight in and desire something that you shouldn’t have,

somebody else’s spouse, or their belongings.

And you can have a genuine emotional attachment to that which is evil.

Jeremiah 17:9 says,

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

That’s the opposite of what we so often hear from Disney movies, “follow your heart.”

Desired for Wisdom (Mind)

Finally, Eve sees that “the tree was to be desired to make one wise”.

This is a temptation of the mind.

The desire to know or to experience something forbidden.

I know that as a younger man I have fallen into sin myself because I just wanted to know what it was like.

This promise of hidden knowledge was at the heart of the Serpent’s deception.

That Eve would not die, but her eyes would be opened, becoming like God in knowing good and evil.

And so Eve took the fruit and ate it,

and her husband Adam who was with her, ate it too.

Both of them giving into temptation,

both of them breaking God’s one rule for them,

in order to fulfill their desires.

Because sin is desirable.

Defining Good and Evil

This is something important for us to understand:

That our desires are not the measuring line for right and wrong.

Your will is not king.

God is King and his will, his law, is the measure for what is righteousness and sinful,

what is good and what is evil.

We do not get to define or redefine good and evil based on our desires.

No Authority

First of all, we do not have the authority.

If mankind, either individually or collectively, gets to define good and evil for themselves,

then there really is no objective morality. It is all subjective.

You couldn’t anything wrong or evil because its all just a matter of opinion,

which means nothing.

Except there is such a thing as evil.

There are many things that when we see them we cant help but say, “That is wrong, that is Evil!”

This was another conversation I had in the grade 12 philosophy class.

A student who called himself an atheist said that there was no such thing as good or evil.

And so I pressed him on it.

I asked him, “was what Hitler and the Nazi’s did evil?”

And you could see the tension in his face,

but in order to be consistent with his worldview he said, “No”.

Then the whole class went “ooooooh.”

So he tried to recover, “Well, it was evil, but not for him.”

Do you hear how foolish that sounds?

We do not have the authority to define good and evil for ourselves.

God is the lawgiver,

the law to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil came from him,

as did every other moral law.

We have no authority to define morality for ourselves based on our desires,

because only God has that authority.

Corrupted Desires

Secondly, we cannot define morality based on our desires,

because since Adam and eve have sinned,

our desires themselves have been corrupted.

James 1:14-15 says,

James 1:14–15 ESV

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.

Our society for a long time has attempted to operate on the basis that we can define what is good based on our desires,

to them the will is king.

Just one clear example of this is the sexual ethic in our culture.

In the Christian faith that we receive from the scriptures,

the moral boundary for sex is that it is reserved for the covenant relationship of a loving marriage, between a man and a woman.

But sexual ethics in our society revolve around one word, “consent”.

Anything goes as long as it is consensual.

This comes out of a belief that your will, your desires, are king.

And this has led to the steep and slippery slope of the degradation of modern sexual ethics.

Where nothing is taboo, the basest perversions are accepted as normal.

And the bodies and souls of those who pursue them are wounded by degeneracy.

It destroys people.

Point 2: Sin is Defiling

This takes me to my second point this morning.

2. Sin is Defiling

To defile something is to corrupt it’s purity,

to make something unclean or to contaminate it.

That’s what sin does to God’s image bearers, and it affects everything.

And we see the corrupting effects of sin on both Adam and Eve immediately after they eat the fruit.

Sin Leads to… (vv. 7-13)

Shame

Something that we were told in Genesis 2:25 is that,

Genesis 2:25 ESV

“The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

But after eating the fruit, we read in v. 7 that,

Genesis 3:7–8 ESV

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.”

In the loss of their innocence they felt shame for the first time,

and realized they were both naked.

So they tried to cover up their shame themselves with fig leaves.

Sin leads to shame, we can try to ignore it, we can try to cover it up,

but shame is what sin leads to in its defiling of a person.

Broken Relationship with God

In vv. 8-10 we read,

Genesis 3:8–10 ESV

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. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

This demonstrates another defiling aspect of sin,

that sin leads to a broken relationship with God.

When God created the man and the woman,

he intended to have a perfect relationship with his creatures.

I love the idea of God walking in the garden of Eden enjoying the cool of the day.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to walk beside him and enjoy his presence in the living room of his creation.

Adam and Eve got to experience that.

But due to the defilement and shame of sin, they now hid themselves from the Lord.

Maybe your like me and you know exactly how this feels.

When we fall into sin, we all have this tendency to avoid God and his presence.

We avoid him, though he is the only one who can help us.

The defilement of sin leads to a broken relationship with God.

Broken Relationships with Each Other

But sin doesn’t just ruin our relationship with God vertically,

it ruins our relationships with each other horizontally.

We see this demonstrated when God confronts Adam and eve for their sin.

God speaks to Adam first,

since he is the head of his household he is responsible to God for the spiritual condition of his family.

So God says, to Adam,

Genesis 3:11–12 ESV

“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

Im sure that made for a very awkward drive home.

When confronted for his sin Adam blamed, not just his wife,

but God for giving her to him.

The defilement of sin corrupts our relationships with each other,

Adam in his cowardice tried to shift the blame for his sin onto his wife,

but Eve didn’t take responsibility for her actions either.

In v. 13 it says,

Genesis 3:13 ESV

“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.’”

The defilement of sin turned this majestic King and Queen of God’s creation,

into cowering self-serving creatures.

The Curse (vv. 14-19)

And so God brings a curse onto each of them for their sin.

And the curse effects all who will come after them,

bringing about temporal consequences for sin to all mankind.

We read in vv. 16-18

Genesis 3:16 ESV

To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

Genesis 3:17–18 ESV

And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

Death

But then God ends the curse with this in v. 19,

Genesis 3:19 ESV

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Here God speaks about the death that was promised,

if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam would work the ground until he is in the ground.

Point 3: Sin is Deadly

This takes me to my third point this morning, and that is this:

3. Sin is Deadly

Adam and Eve, and all who came after them,

including you and me,

would one day die because of sin.

Romans 5:12 tells us that,

Romans 5:12 ESV

“sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—”

But we would experience more than mere physical death.

Jesus spoke about it as hell, a place of “eternal punishment”, (Matthew 25:46)

an “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” and for “all whose name is not written in the book of life.”

Guys, this is why I’m not at all interested in shying away from calling out the sins common to our time.

even when it makes people feel uncomfortable.

Because sin is so serious!

Though it might be desirable,

sin will defile your body and soul in this life,

and drag you to hell after it.

Sin will destroy you, it will destroy your loved ones,

it is destroying our society.

Churches, and pastors who soft pedal sin will have to answer to God for their unfaithful flattery.

Sin needs to be called out, it needs to be exposed,

because it is so serious.

But the most wonderful thing of all is that there is rescue from it.

God in his love and grace promises to deal with our sin.

The Grace of God (vv. 20-21)

God showed his love and grace to Adam and Eve in vv. 20-21 of our passage.

Genesis 3:20–21 ESV

The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

Rather than the Man and the Woman dying for their sin,

God killed one of the beasts of the field and clothed them with the animal skins.

This covered their shame temporarily, but God promised to one day deal with sin forever.

Gospel: Sin is Dealt With

The Curse to the Serpent (vv. 14 - 15)

You may have noticed that I skipped over God’s curse on the Serpent.

We read it in v. 14 ,

Genesis 3:14 ESV

The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

This curse is not just about a snake being forced to crawl on his belly,

but it has a spiritual significance to it,

Satan is cursed to wander the earth.

Which is something he talks about doing in the book of Job; “Going to and fro on the earth.”

But theres something else here:

God tells Satan he will eat the dust all the days of his life.

We’ve seen that word dust before in our passage.

When God told Adam, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

It’s like what the Apostle Peter writes about sin and the devil,

1 Peter 5:8 ESV

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

The Proto-Evangelion

But the most important part of God’s words to the Serpent are in v. 15, where God says,

Genesis 3:15 ESV

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

This statement has historically been known as the Proto-evangelion,

the First Gospel.

This is a prophecy that kicks off the story of redemption that fills up the rest of the Bible.

The offspring of the Woman will bruise (some translations say “crush”) the serpent’s head.

And the offspring of the serpent will bruise his heal.

This prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus.

Who was killed by the offspring of the serpent.

Jesus identified these offspring as the unbelieving Jews;

the scribes and the pharisees and the temple rulers.

In John 8:44 Jesus says to them:

John 8:44 ESV

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Though Jesus was killed by the offspring of the serpent,

he rose from the dead three days later,

and in his death burial and resurrection he defeated the power of sin, death, and Satan.

Sin

Through his death on the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for our sin.

As the prophet Isaiah says, “on him was laid the inequity of us all”

Jesus took your sin and my sin on himself as he hung on the cross, and it died with him.

Jesus was better than Adam,

though he was without sin, he took responsibility for rescuing us from our sin.

Freeing us from enslavement to sin in this life, and the punishment of sin in eternity.

Death

Through his resurrection, Jesus defeated the power of death.

When he walked out of that grave on the third day, Christ reversed the curse,

So that if we are in him we have the sure hope of our own resurrection when he returns.

As 1 Corinthians 15:22 says,

1 Corinthians 15:22 ESV

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive

Satan

And Satan’s time is ending.

As Revelation 20 tells us, the devil and those who follow him will be cast into the lake of fire, forever.

His head will be crushed.

All that went wrong in Genesis 3, is dealt with by Jesus.

Application & Conclusion

This is the event that kicks off God’s story of redemption.

Because mankind fell into the temptation of the devil and sinned,

all of us who have come after Adam and Eve are under the curse of sin.

But God promised that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head.

Invitation

Through Jesus’ death and resurrection he has won for us salvation and eternal life,

reversing what what corrupted by Adam and Eve.

How we receive that salvation is Repentance and faith.

If you have not received that salvation from sin and death,

I want to plead with you to turn to Jesus.

Pursuing your own desires will never fulfill you,

but will leave you empty and defiled in this life,

and facing hell for eternity in the next.

Repent and believe in Jesus Christ for your salvation.

His kindness, grace and love are far better than anything you could experience pursuing your own desires.

Believers

For we who are in Christ,

lets take sin seriously.

Lets take it seriously in our own lives, in the life of this church, and in the lives of others.

Let’s not give into our desires, but be on our guard, walking by the spirit in holiness and obedience.

Lets also warn others of the dangers of sin;

warning others against being defiled and destroyed by it.

Let’s not be cowards in calling sin, “sin”.

It’s not nice to soft pedal sin, because sin destroys people.

Lets warn people about it’s destructive power

And especially telling them about how Jesus dealt with it.

Lets take sin seriously.

Jesus did,

He took it seriously enough to die for our sins.

We ought to take it seriously too.

Prayer

English Standard Version Psalm 103

1  Bless the LORD, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless his holy name!

2  Bless the LORD, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits,

3  who forgives all our iniquity,

who heals all our diseases,

4  who redeems our lives from the pit,

who crowns us with steadfast love and mercy,

5  who satisfies us with good

so that our youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

English Standard Version Psalm 103

8  You o LORD is merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

9  You will not always chide,

nor will he keep your anger forever.

10  You do not deal with us according to our sins,

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

11  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear you;

12  as far as the east is from the west,

so far do you remove our transgressions from us.

13  As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.