Sermon Tone Analysis

The Fall and the First Covenant

I wanted to begin all of this by discussing the topic that I will be speaking on for the duration of this summer.

At first I was thinking of taking a look at the miracles Jesus performs in the gospels, and later considered doing a walk through of the names and titles of God he is given in the Bible.

In the end I decided to talk about the covenants that God has made throughout Scripture, and I believe that all of these point towards what my main focus is, and that is What God has revealed to us about himself.

Quite often, concerning God and his actions, I hear people use phrases such as, “his ways are beyond me or who am I to know?” and other similar statements that indicate that God deals with us in unpredictable or mysterious ways.

While I would definitely agree that God’s ways are not our way’s, and that his thoughts are not our thoughts, I would also encourage us to remember that God would not act in any way that is inconsistent with His character, and what he has shown us in Scripture.

In all things, from the person of Jesus Christ, to the names he has given, to the Covenants he has made in times past, I believe that each of these helps to paint a picture of the God we serve, his relationship with humanity, and his expectations of how we ought to deal with one another.

This is why, after researching and prayer, I decided that it would be worthwhile to look into the covenants that God has made in the Bible, providing the context for them, as well as the lessons that God is teaching us in these moments.

Before I begin today's message I wanted to offer a bit of caution concerning how to interpret these covenants in Scripture, specifically the ones in the old testament.

While parallels may be drawn between the Church and the Children of Israel, it is not so simple to assume that all instances of God’s covenants with Israel are meant to be claimed by Christians today.

We do not live in the same culture or system that Israel did, nor are we held to all the same mandates that they were concerning dress, diet, religious observances, and the like.

The New covenant in Christ is transformative of many of these old Covenants, and is the one that I would encourage those of us who call ourselves Christians to live by.

The Covenants found in the old testament are still good indicators of God’s agency and purpose for the world, but many of them serve as foreshadowings of Christ’s ultimate work in the Gospels.

It is because of this that I will be ending this study with a discussion on the New Covenant, and specifically the Sermon on the Mount, as I am of the opinion that it presents a very important image of Christ’s desires for his followers.

With that I will begin in prayer...”may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight Oh, Lord, our rock and our redeemer.”

Amen.

We will be beginning in Genesis chapter three if you would turn there.

For those of you who maybe haven't read through this in a while, takes place after the Creation of the World, as well as the specific scene concerning the creation of mankind: Adam from the dust, and Eve from his rib.

It is in the following chapter that we get the account of the Fall, mankind not being long-destined for the Garden.

If the first two chapters are like an artist painting a masterpiece, each stroke an effort to create a perfect work, and the painting then presented in its completed form, then the third chapter is the coffee that is spilled across its surface staining and obscuring the work.

But God did not abandon us in our ruined state, fearful and ashamed, rather even then, he set in motion to repair the stain, painting over it with the blood of his own Son, and seeking to restore the perfection that it once held.

This event set in motion the whole redemptive arc of scripture, the hope of which we now live in anticipation of.

The New Testament is not lacking in its references to this passage either, marks this as the entrance of sin into the picture, and it being common to all mankind.

, make reference to Christ as the correction to the sin of Adam.

And warns us that even today we are still prone to deception and division.

So we see that this passage is the catalyst for redemption and proof that from the beginning, our struggle against ourselves and against our sinful nature was not in vain.

With this, let us look at the passage.

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 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 middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’

” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not 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 loincloths for themselves.

8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, 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 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 from 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 from 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 tricked me, and I ate.” 14 The LORD God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

cursed are you among all animals

and among all wild creatures;

upon your belly you shall go,

and dust you shall eat

all the days of your life.

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

he will strike your head,

and you will strike his heel.”

16 To the woman he said,

“I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;

in pain you shall bring forth children,

yet your desire shall be for your husband,

and he shall rule over you.”

17 And to the man he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,

and have eaten of the tree

about which I commanded you,

‘You shall not eat of it,’

cursed is the ground because of you;

in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;

and you shall eat the plants of the field.

19 By the sweat of your face

you shall eat bread

until you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken;

you are dust,

and to dust you shall return.”

20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

21 And the LORD God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.

22 Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

24 He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis Chapter three is the first chapter that doesn’t begin with God (1, Creation; 2, Rest) but rather it gives us a description of a member creation a serpent, one that was notable for its craftiness and deceit.

In the ancient world, serpents are noted throughout many stories as being associated with both death, wisdom, and deceit something that can be seen very clearly in this passage.

This serpent begins by trying to deceive Eve as to God’s intentions for forbidding them to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

There is an importance to this, first of all mankind hasn’t yet eaten the fruit so they wouldn’t be the ones to tempt themselves, and secondly, it comes to them in the Garden, in the midst of paradise where all is ordained.

This demonstrates that whatever the Serpents plans for division and destruction, from the very beginning he was still within God’s plans for his creation.

There was no extraterrestrial that came down and started interfering with God’s creation beyond his control.

When God looked down and declared that what he made was good, this included the serpent, the tree, and even mankind who was destined to fall.

Another point of note is the method he uses to convince Eve, his half truths and twisting lies are meant to cast suspicion on God, and on his authority and care for herself and Adam.

When Satan attempts to overthrow God in Heaven, he leads the angels in open rebellion against God, but in this passage, he takes a subtler, more patient approach than trying to openly insight Eve against God.

He is leading her to doubt God’s motives and desires, to put her own fears about God’s intentions in place of God himself.

“Would God be afraid of me becoming like him?

Would he lie to me about my death?

Could something that seems this good really be such a bad choice?”

Many of the questions that arise from this kind of thinking result from our subjecting the ways of God to human understanding, and this is precisely what the serpent encourages by his questions.

God created the world as an understandable and knowable place, where systems of math, science, and logic are able to consistently achieve there goals by predicting outcomes.

But the God of the Universe, the God who ordained the order of these systems is beyond their ability to explain, constrain, or predict.

The first sin that begins to creep up is pride, assuming that our limited human scope could comprehend or supersede the will of God.

This leads us to feelings of doubt, fear, and paranoia that can cause us to wander from God’s will of our own accord, presuming our self-interest is better for our own wellbeing.

Atkinson, D. (1990).

The Message of : The Dawn of Creation.

(J. A. Motyer & D. Tidball, Eds.) (p.

81).

England: Inter-Varsity Press.

There is another tactic that the serpent employs, he catches Eve alone, away from Adam.

We see in the previous passages how Eve was made as a companion, so that Adam wouldn’t be alone.

This loneliness, is the one thing God pronounces “Not Good” in his creation.

Here we see that the Serpent is exploiting this, who does Eve have to rely on here, her helper and companion is elsewhere and the serpent is starting to make sense.

Concerning the identity of the Serpent, in Satan is referred to as that Old Serpent, David Atkinson makes the point, “The voice of temptation does not come as the voice of evil.

If Satan is present in the story of , he is wearing a careful mask.

He is hidden in the ordinariness and the everydayness of a creature in the Garden.”