The Merciful God

Introduction

As we finished last week, we had looked at the first peak in the mountain chain and firmly saw an image of a Good God who had CREATED everything and was COMMUNICATING with man whom He had created in His image. Adam’s work is fulfilling and fascinating. He enjoys the companionship of his wife and the company of God. When he is hungry, he reaches up and picks his food from the trees. His whole life is one of blessing and joy. That’s the picture at the end of Genesis 2.

By the end of Genesis 3, everything has changed, and Adam finds himself struggling to make a life in a very different world. The man and the woman are now outside the place where God blessed them. They are excluded from this paradise called Eden, with no way back. They are away from the Tree of Life and find themselves in a wilderness where all kinds of wild animals threaten, and where they must work to get their food. They experience pain and fear and guilt. Something has gone terribly wrong. Genesis 3 tells us the story.[i] And as we study this chapter we get a glimpse of the God who interacts with these rebels by showing Mercy.

Rebellion against the Creator (Gen 3:1-7)

Evil rebelled (Isaiah 14:12-14)

Isaiah 14:12–14 ESV:2016

12 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! 13 You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’

Evil personified as “the Satan”, Day Star, Lucifer

False gods personified as Serpent

“The snake was universally feared throughout the ANE and symbolized sovereignty, life, fertility, wisdom, chaos, and death… Snakes in Mesopotamia appeared as cultic symbols on pottery and bronze castings… Egyptian pharaohs wore headgear with an erect cobra in front, signifying divine power and protection. The snake, however, is also symbolic of death and chaos, evident in Marduk’s victory over the sea serpent Tiamat and Re’s subjugation of the evil Apep. The Canaanites borrowed the serpent symbol from the Hyksos and used it to represent the divine power of life.”[ii]

The serpent is created, he is not equal to Creator.

Evil was prowling for accomplices

Both of the first humans chose to align with evil.

2. Rebellion deserves to be cursed (Gen 3:14-17)

Some will point out that the Serpent was right, that Adam and Eve did not die the day they ate.

Judgment delayed is not judgment averted.

Ever since the garden, Satan has been espousing the lie that “God will not judge evil.

But I beg to differ. At the moment they ate they immediately moved from a “life experience” to a “death life.”

Satan’s statement is partially true and totally false. Eve WOULD be able to identify evil, but that is not a good thing! She would no longer live in the innocence that God intended.

Romans 16:19 ESV:2016

19 For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.

Here is a freebie for all our students at no additional charge: You don’t need to sample sin to know it is a bad thing! drunkenness, cheating, vandalism, theft, drugs, sexual sin are NOT behaviors that you need to do in order to know they should be avoided. You do NOT need to “sow your wild oats” before living wisely!!

A week ago our friend Reece broke his pelvis. I don’t need to experience a broken bone to know, I don’t want it. I don’t need to experience cancer to know I don’t want it.

ii. She WOULD enter a death existence.

In the movie The Green Mile a deathrow inmate is brought to the prison where the movie is set. From the first time the corrections officers meet John Coffey, his end is already determined as illustrated in this scene…

c. At the moment that they chose to align with evil, a great gulf was imposed between God and man. Life as they had known it came to an abrupt end. You can’t un-ring a bell.

3. Rebels are banished from God’s presence (Gen 3:24)

Genesis 3:24 ESV:2016

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

This is the first display of God’s mercy. Man has aligned himself with evil and is now experience an earthly existence that is cursed and separated from God.

Some speculate that If Adam or Eve were then to eat of the Tree of Life, they would be eternally stuck in this cursed condition.

But in an amazing act of love and protection, God established a barrier between the first couple and this Tree of Life to protect them from eternal separation. God has a plan of redemption that is first hinted in 3:15 and will be completely unveiled in Christ Himself.

Transition: So far we have seen human rebellion and due consequence, but this series is about how God reveals Himself. How does God inject Himself into our consequences?

A Merciful Deflection of the Curse (Gen 3:14-19)

1. Evil (personified in the serpent) is Cursed. (Gen 3:14, 15b)

a. A curse is “to invoke destruction upon a person, place or thing” according to Dictionary.com. So when God curses the serpent, He was announcing that evil would not stand. Satan would not have the last word.[iii]

b. Proto-euangelion (First Gospel)

This is the reference in the movie “The Passion of the Christ” where Satan is tempting Jesus to avoid the cross and the snake slithers out from Satan’s robe. As the snake approached Christ, He stands, stomps on the head, killing the temptation and surrendering to the Father’s will.

2. We presently battle with evil (Gen 3:15a, 16)

a. This is not talking about Women hating snakes (although there is perfect reason to do so!)

b. Remember in the ANE snakes represented evil, chaos and false gods. Enmity between evil and the descendants of Eve (us) is our existence. Struggle is our reality!!

Romans 7:18–19 ESV:2016

18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

c. The Woman’s descendants would have a life marked by pain and human relationships would include struggle. (Gen 3:16)

· This same pair of verbs (desire and rule) appear in Gen 4:7 in the account of Cain and Able. To paraphrase what it says there “you will desire to sin, but you must rule over it.”

· The same situation remains today – we desire to sin. The question is, “Will it rule over you? Or will you rule over it?”

When man’s rebellion creates a situation where we now have a knowledge of good and evil, and we become aware that we cannot return to the good that God intended, He promises that evil will one day be defeated.

3. God turns to the man (Gen 3:17)

a. Adam knows he is guilty (Gen 3:10)

b. Adam hears God curse the serpent

c. God turns to Adam and says “because of your disobedience, cursed…(pause)…is the ground because of you” (Gen 3:17)

d. YHWH’s justice will always deal with sin. It is too serious to ignore.

We readily admit the horizontal existence of evil. Rape, murder, mass-shootings, Ponzi schemes, abuse. Much of this wickedness is described as horrific and sick.

But what about the vertical reality? Are these acts only painful to fellow humans? This can be the conclusion if we only focus on mental health and social justice.

But what does this evil say about the individual’s opinion of God? In the case of Jihad, there is a misunderstanding that their god will reward the behavior. In most cases, it is example of idolatry where a person has dethroned God and somehow concluded there is no consequence to the evil.

Evil in Genesis 3 & 4 teaches that placing our desires in first place yields consequences.

Gen 3:18-19 are in place to remind us that disobedience has consequences and demands justice.

e. YHWH’s mercy provides a way for man to avoid the full weight of that punishment.

The earth was innocent, but it bore the curse

Jesus was pure, but He bore the full penalty of sin (Galatians 3:13)

Transition: We can read these verses and find ourselves in the story. But I want us to pay attention to what we learn about God in the way He is involved with these characters.

Conclusion:

How does God respond to rebellion? Today’s snapshot of God reveals that He is just AND merciful.

How does He respond to my (and your) sin? By mercifully sending His perfect Son to bear the punishment of sinful rebels.

1 Peter 3:18 ESV:2016

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

Man’s problem is that we are aware of our evil, we battle with evil, and we cannot return to the paradise that our good, Creator God intended.

When Jesus died, the temple veil that kept mankind out of the most holy place was mercifully ripped by God from top to bottom (Mt 27:51) indicating that access became available.

John 1:12 ESV:2016

12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,

What we cannot do, God’s mercy offers to us.

Our response is that each of us must acknowledge and Turn from our sin (what the Bible calls repentance) and Trust (what the Bible calls belief) that what Jesus did was for me and reverses all the guilt that separates me from God.

We now gather around the Lord’s Table to celebrate His mercy applied to the justice we deserve.

[i] Colin S. Smith, Unlocking the Bible Story, vol. 1 (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 2002), 31.

[ii] Willem VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), 85.

[iii] Adaptation of Colin S. Smith, Unlocking the Bible Story, vol. 1 (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 2002), 36.