Genesis 3:1-23

The fall of man

Introduction

As we are continuing to walk through the book of Genesis, we have seen a couple of things. First off, we saw how there was nothing but God and then God created. We saw all that God created, and then we saw one thing that he created differently than everything else, man. While everything else was created by God by his speaking it into being, Man was formed by God, in the image of God. God actually breathed life into Man and he gave him a Soul. He then gave man a helper, Woman. With the creation of man and woman, he also created Marriage. Marriage was created by God to complete both man and woman and to fill the world with Godly children who worship God. God also put man to work. Work is a part of the job God man. he was to work in the garden and keep it.

Everything that God had made was good. Everything that God had made was doing what he crated it to be. But that is not what we see in the world today? Today things do not work like they should. Things break down. Animals kill each other. Some plants are harmful to humans. People are allergic to some foods. People are horrible to each other. There is injustice in the world. There is terror in this world.

So what happened? How did we get to this in our world? Well this week we are going to see how all of this happend and how all of this became such a mess.

Let’s look at this together this morning.

Genesis 3:1-24

When temptation comes

Right away we are introduced to a new character in the garden, a serpent. We are told that the serpent was more crafty than all the other beasts of the field. Now that word crafty is interesting. It means subtle in its actions. In other words it hid it’s true purpose by its actions.

Now we see that the serpent spoke to Eve. Now today if you or I were standing in a field and a snake came up to us and started to speak to us, what would we think? It would be quite strange to us because animals do not speak at all. But this did not seem to surprise Eve at all. Now why would that be? Well we are not told that the animals spoke in the garden and maybe they could communicate before the fall, but Eve was brand new to the garden and so she did not know anything different. So the serpent speaks to her. We are not told here that this is Satan in the form of the serpent, but we do know that he is going to speak against the Word and Commands of the Lord. Later in the scripture, Satan is described as the ancient serpent called the devil or Satan (Rev 12:9).

But it is not really that important that the serpent was speaking, it was more important what it was actually saying. The serpent began with Did God actually say.......This is actually the beginning of every sin, doubting what God says. When we doubt what God says about what we are to do or not to do, it can lead us to go against what God says. The serpent understands this and he is going to use it to get Eve to question what God actually said. So asks, did God actually say that you are not to eat from any tree in the garden? Satan immediately twists God’s word. God said you can eat from any tree in the garden but the tree of the knowledge of good and Evil. But Satan does what many people what to do, make God’s word more restrictive and more legalistic. He focuses on the negative of God’s restriction, not the fact of all the other things in the garden that they could eat. He is setting up Eve to question the fact that how dare God withhold anything from them. Adam and Eve did not fully understand that God’s prohibition of this one tree was for their protection, not to keep them from anything good.

So the serpent begins to undermine the Word of God with Eve. This command was given to Adam before Eve’s creation and so he seemed to have passed this information on to Eve. Maybe the Serpent thought it might be easier to trick Eve because she had not gotten that information from God himself, but rather from Adam and she might be more willing to question God.

Eve responds to the accusation of the serpent with the truth. No, God did not say what you are saying. God said that we can eat of anything in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it. Now notice, Eve did something else that we see happen through human history, she added to the word of God. God just told them to not eat of the tree, Eve says that God said that you must not touch it either. This is human nature to add on things that you must do or must not do in order to be in obedience to God.

Then she also undervalues what God says after that. She says or you will die. But that is not what God said, he said you will surely die! She did not fully understand what that meant, so she generalized what God had been specific about.

What is Satan’s response? Well he changes his tactic and now he just deny God’s word completely by saying, You will not surely die. Satan goes from questioning God’s Word to out right denying God’s Word. He is calling God a liar. He is denying the fact that sin has a punishment and that punishment is death. He is saying that God will not punish sin at all! He is saying that it is not a serious thing to not listen to God.

So instead, now Satan gives a reason to Eve to actually go ahead and sin. He says, God does not want you to eat of the tree because he knows that when you do, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Satan gives a half truth here. If they eat of the tree, they will know good and evil beacuse they will have chosen evil. Up to this point they did not know what evil is. Satan is attacking what God had done for man. Everything God had done for man was for his good, Satan has questioned all of that. He is saying that God did not act in the interest of man at all but to harm him.

Sin enters the world

Genesis 3:6

So here we see that the temptation of the serpent had an effect on Eve. She saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food. She saw that it was pleasing to the eye. Then she saw that it was desired for gaining wisdom. She only saw what she wanted to see about it. She did not trust God and what he said about it. She wanted it more than she wanted to be obedient to God. So she took it and she at it. We we do not listen to God’s word or when we just disregard what it says, we are open to temptation and to sin. When we fail to see that what God is doing is good, and when we think we know what is best, we are open to be ing tempted and open to sin. These are all things that Eve Did and it lead to her sin. She disobeyed God because she thought that she understood what was really going on and that this is something that she needed and deserved. She doubted God and lost faith in what he said, so she ate the fruit.

Not only did Eve it it, but then she gave it to her husband to eat as well. Now notice, that Adam was with her. This means that he was there during the entire exchange with the serpent and he never stepped in and stopped what what was happening. He knew exactly what God had said because God had spoken it directly too him. But instead he stood by and let his wife deal with this alone. He overlooked his job of protecting his wife from the serpent. He lover looked his job as his wifes shepherd and spiritual leader. He should have stepped in and pointed her to God, but he did not. In fact he took the fruit and ate it too. When we approve of things that others do that God says is wrong, it will not be long and we find ourselves right there with them doing something God says we are not to do.

The affects of Sin

Genesis 3:7-13

The first thing taht we see that has affected Adam and Eve is the fact that they suddenly felt shame over their physical bodies. Before the fall we are told that Adam and Eve were naked and had no shame. But now they have sinned and they have become aware that they are naked and they now feel shame. So they swed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. They tried to fix things through their own efforts.

But guilt was not the only thing that they felt. They felt guilt as well. They knew that they had disobeyed God. So they hid from God in the garden. In fact, God came to the garden and he asked them Where are you? God knew what had happened. God knew where they were. This question was for their sake. It was a question of why are you hiding from me your creator? He is giving them the opportunity to confess their sin against him. They have the opportunity to come forward and tell him what they did and what they are feeling because of it. They are afraid that they are going to die right then and there, and that is something they do not even truly understand at this point. So when God asks them the qusttion, Adam says that he was afraid when he heard God in the garden because he was naked. Then God says who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree I told you not to eat?

And what do they do? Do they confess what they have done? Well not exactly, they do what their human nature tells them to do, blame others for our own sins. Adam begins by saying that the woman gave it to him to eat, but he does not really blame the woman as much as be blames God. He says the woman who you gave me.

Eve speaks to God and says, well it is the serpents fault. he came into the garden and he tricked me into eating of the tree. This is like a young child who you have been teaching about the Bible using it when they get caught in sin, the devil made me do it excuse. We try to blame others for our sin, but the reality is we choose our sin. We rejcet God because we want to be God and say what is right for us over what God says. We Sin because we want to be God.

Judgments of Sin

Genesis 3:14-19

So what does God do about all of this? He is the creator and he is the judge. So he passes judgment upon man. The first one that he addresses is the serpent. He tells the serpent because he has done this, he is cursed to crawl upon his belly for his entire life. Not only that, how he gains food will change. God says you will eat dust all the days of your life. The symbol of death, dust, became what the serpent would eat. He would eat things in the dust, not that dust would be his meal.

The next part of the judgment will be what is called the first promise of the messiah in the scripture, called proto-evangelium. He tells the serpent that he will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring. He will crush your head and you will strike his heal. Now this is interesting because this is a promise of the Messiah. The seed of woman is not existent in any one except for Mary. The heal being struck speaks to the crucifixion. And the head being crushed speaks to Jesus utter defeat of Sin, death, and Satan once and for all. The New Testament writers understood this. Paul talks about it in Galatians 3:16 and again in Romans 16:20.

But other things will change as well. Paul tells the woman that he will increase your pains in childbearing. Life still comes in the light of the fall, but it comes with pain. it is a reminder of sin and the trouble that Eve brought into the world by her actions. But that is not the only thing, God tells the woman that their will be trouble between her and her husband as well.

Based on what this says and what we see in the world, we can interpret this passage to meant that a woman would desire to dominate the relationship with her husband, but God declared that man would rule as head. This does not mean she is the slave, but it means that the head of the house is responsible for her and what she does. He is to protect her and care for her with all that he has. But she will want to usurp that authority, but that is not God’s design.

Finally we have Adam’s curse. First he tells Adam that there is repercussions for listening to his wife and disobeying His commandment. He was the head of Eve, and he was responsible for what occured there. He chose to listen to her and to reject God, so now there is a punishment with that. He says that the ground is now cursed and now it is going to take a lot of work to gain food from it. There will be weeds in the field that you cannot eat and steel the nutruents from the good plants. There is now a reeping and harvesting in seasons. There are now things that will attack the plants and the fruit. Work will now be difficult. It will take a lot of work, just to make food.

The final thing is that man will work until they die. They came from dust and from dust they will return. Yes death. God was not joking when he said that man would die, but it is not just physical death, but a spiritual death that is promised because of sin.

Leaving the garden

Genesis 3:20-24

The first thing that we see happen is that Adam gives the woman a name. Before the fall she was woman, after the fall she is Eve because she will be the mother of all. Adam understood that Children will come and maybe he even understood that from those children one would come and set it all right.

Then God went and he provide garments of skin for Adam and his wife. Their sin cause them to feel shame. Their sin caused the death of an animal in order to cover them. This is a symbol of the need for the shedding of innocent blood to cover the sins of man. God gave grace to them in spite of their sin. he solved the problem of nakedness.

Finally God does one more thing. He kicks man out of the garden of Eden. He recognizes that man now knows good from evil. Before the fall, man only knew good. Now he knows evil and chooses it. Man is no longer like God in the fact that he is not innocent, he is a sinner and now must die. So God wanted to keep him from eating from the tree of life and he kicked them out of the garden and set an angel there to keep them from ever coming back to the garden.

How then shall we live?

What about us today?

What doe we view about God’s Word?

Every sin begins when we think we know better than what God has said.

Do we read God’s Word to know what God even says to us?

If we want to stand up under temptation we must understand Satan’s deceptions that he uses.