Genesis 3:1-24 The Fall of the House of Man

The Fall, the Gospel, and the Shape of Genesis 3

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service. This is a message from the series, Beginning with God, Walking Through the Book of Genesis, by pastor of teaching and vision, Don Filcic.

If you'd like to learn more about Recast or access our sermon archive, please visit us at recastchurch .com. Here's Pastor Don.

Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filcic. I'm the lead pastor here. And we're going to go ahead and get started. So if you could find your seats, that would be great. Appreciate all the chatter. And hopefully, you guys were safe on the roads.

On the way in.

No accidents or anything, right?

Good.

Take advantage of the worship folder that you received when you walked in, just some different announcements and activities and things that are going on. You can take advantage of that. You also received a connection card when you walked in.

There's a place for you to put prayer requests on there, your information. Update any information that you have on there for the office. We do pray for the prayer requests that are put on the back of this every week as a leadership.

There's also a place for you to just interact with us, tell us what you like, what you don't like, what's going on in your lives, that kind of stuff. If you turn that into the black box back here and it's your first time with us and you turn one of those in, then I'd ask you to please also take one of the coffee mugs that's on the desk back there.

It's just our way of saying thank you. Glad that you chose to come together and worship with us this morning. And then also, you received an offering envelope. Those also go in the black box back here.

We don't pass an offering plate here. We don't want anybody to feel pressure. Oh, no, the plate is here. I have to give something. We want it to be between you and God. But that envelope is made available for you.

You can put it in the black box if you choose. Also, there's a place to recycle these right next to that. If you're not going to use this this week, please just recycle it and we can reuse it next week.

Why Genesis 3 Matters for the Whole Story of Sin and Redemption

With those announcements out of the way, I want to jump into Genesis chapter 3, just kind of an introduction to my message. I like to get our minds thinking about that before the band comes and leads us in worship.

And so kind of figure out where are we going this morning. And I just want to point out to you that many of you know, many of you have read Genesis 3 before. Have you read it before? Raise your hand if you've read Genesis chapter 3.

So you kind of know where we're going this morning. Genesis 1, creation. Genesis 2, zeroing in on the creation of the man and the woman. Genesis 3, bad things are going to happen, right? Do we know that?

You already knew that. We really start the service standing on the edge of a cliff, OK? And we have an opportunity to stand on the edge of the cliff and look at the pathway that winds down and plunges down the sides into darkness.

You see, the last two weeks we saw God create a very good earth. We've seen God caring for us and creating a great habitat. He shaped and formed the man. He created abundance and blessing in a paradise for that man.

He gave to mankind all of the trees of the garden except for one. And he created the first community in the context of marital relationships between the first two humans. But last week, we also know that the very first prohibition had been given, that he told them, you can eat from this abundance.

I've given you this amazing garden with all these trees, and you can eat from all of them. I called it the forest of permission with the tree of prohibition. So you had one tree that you couldn't eat from, and God had blessed mankind with all of this abundance.

Hey, all of this is available to you, save this one tree. And there was this first law. And we talked about God as director having the right to declare law, having the right to tell us what to do and what not to do.

And in this case, he only excluded one thing from the man and the woman. He said, don't eat from that one tree. So coming into chapter 3, we have seen God completely engaged and delighting in His creation.

He's been like a father in a maternity ward, I said last week. And He's doting on His children, and He's delighting in them, and He is blessing them. We see nothing but good up to this point from the hand of God.

Would you agree with me on that? Genesis 1, Genesis chapter 2, showing the very nature of our God as good and caring and loving. He's been like a father, but there's no way around it. This text this morning is going to take a dark turn.

And sometimes it's only in truly plumbing the depths of the darkness that we realize how bright and beautiful and glorious and amazing is the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Only when we really understand how dark things really get that we really recognize how bright and glorious and beautiful is the good news that God sent His Son to save us.

Are you getting what I'm saying? I think that that happens both in a big picture, like we're looking at here. We're looking at the fall of humanity. But if we personalize this to some degree, we ought to be reflecting some on our own personal fall.

Because have we fallen? Have we sinned? Have we broken the commands of God? Have we rebelled as individuals?

Yes.

So none of us can point to Adam and say, well, that was his problem. That's a problem that we all share. And something that we, if you see another human, you can know one thing for certain about that human.

They're sinful. That's one thing that we know for certain. All of us are broken because of what we're going to read here. And yet, in understanding that darkness, coming face to face with the darkness of a fallen human, we actually see the glory of Jesus Christ.

Now, this may not ultimately be the most upbeat sermon you've ever encountered. But the fall of humanity into sin is a reality that I will not avoid for the sake of our comfort. So we plunge ahead into the darkness.

So let's take a hike down the cliff into the vision of rebellion and open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 3. If you take out the paper copy that's in the seat back in front of you, you can turn to page 2 and find exactly where we're at.

And I say this every week, but we have given away a lot of Bibles since we first started. And we want you to have that Bible if you don't own a copy. So take that paperback one home with you. We've got a box full of those in the back room to replace the ones that are taken this week.

Follow along in Genesis chapter 3 as we read the entirety of this chapter together this morning, the very words of God to us. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

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.

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. 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.

Then the eyes of both were opened. And they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord 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. And he said, 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 who you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate.

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 shall you eat. Dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

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. To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing.

In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. 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. 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. The man called his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us and knowing good and evil.

Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 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.

Let's pray. Father, we come to a text this morning that plunges this very good creation into darkness and decay and destruction and corruption. And Father, as we reflect on the actions of Adam and Eve, I think we can all relate to them in many ways.

We see ourselves in rebellion against you regularly and routinely. And we need grace and mercy and forgiveness and we need something to remedy this broken situation that we have. And I rejoice that even in this dark text, there are glimmers of hope.

There are signs that you have not given up the pursuit of your people, but you have chosen, even back then, you had chosen to put a plan in motion for redemption and for reconciliation and restoration.

I thank you that even as dark as things can get, that you are a God who comes in and can transform and change dark and dire circumstances where there seems to be no hope and you can bring about restoration.

Father, I pray that as we sing songs of worship and praise to you, that they would flow out of hearts redeemed and given over to you and reconciled with you in right relationship. Father, that we would recognize you as you are and we would sing these songs out of hearts transformed and changed by your grace and your mercy.

Father, be with this entire service and allow us to experience your conviction, experience your challenge, and experience encouragement from you. I ask this in Jesus' name. Appreciate the work that they put in every week and so very grateful for them.

Hopefully you were able to come before the throne of God himself as he is and worship him this morning. I wanna make sure that everybody knows to make yourself comfortable. I think there's some more donuts, coffee juice, if you need that.

Some of you might need a little more sugar or a little more caffeine to stay awake for the next half an hour or so. So take advantage of that. Also make sure you have your Bibles open in front of you.

I want you to have Genesis 3 there on your lap so that you can reference it, look at it, see it. Make sure that the things that I say are actually in there. I might try to throw you a loop just to see if you're paying attention.

Just kidding, I really don't do that on purpose. But Genesis 3 has some pace to it.

It starts right away.

We've only seen three characters mentioned in the Bible so far. Three beings that have been mentioned. God, the first man, and Eve, the first woman. So that's where we're at right now. God, Adam, and Eve.

And then right away, now the serpent was more crafty. We're seeing a fourth introduction here. We're seeing a new character mentioned. And we know right away that it's one of the created animals. Now the serpent was more crafty than all the other beasts of the field that the Lord God had made.

Now how many of you have ever wondered what the snake or serpent really is? Have you ever been curious about that? Is it a snake?

Is it a dragon?

What is it?

All different kinds of people down through the ages have speculated on what this being looks like. Snake, serpent, dragon, dinosaur are some of the things that have been put out there for this creature.

Lizard.

There's so much speculation over what it was. But I think we can get caught up in the creature itself without recognizing what the text wants to communicate to us. And so let's talk about what we do know about this creature according to the text.

What does God say about it? And then maybe it'll help to solidify for us what is this being that we're looking at here? Because I think that by the end of this text you might have in your mind what the intention of the author was, that this is something a little more than just your run-of-the-mill gardener or run-of-the-mill snake that you might kill in your backyard.

I think there's something more going on here. Let me explain this. The first thing that we know is it was created by God. The second thing we know is the serpent speaks. Anybody put a pause on right there and kind of go, wait a minute, something's different here?

Have any of you ever had, you know, you're out mowing the lawn and a gardener snake goes, and some of you scream, whatever, and then you jump and then you catch it by the tail or something, I don't know, what you do.

But you see the snake and it rears up and talks to you. Anybody, like, take in note of that. Like, that happens to you, you kind of go, okay, that's not normal, right? So the serpent speaks. The serpent is naturally crafty according to the text.

The serpent deceives the woman. We're gonna see that. The serpent is punished. And the serpent will be a longstanding enemy of humanity and God. And lastly, the serpent will one day be defeated by an offspring of the woman.

As we progressively go through that list, do you begin to see the notion that maybe something more than just a snake is in mind here? There's something else going on in the text. It ought to be clear that we're not observing just any ordinary snake.

Those reading this in the times of Moses would not have thought this was a normal snake. They would have pursued this and tried to figure out what's going on here. And after reading the New Testament and references that are mentioned in the New Testament to Satan as the originator of lies, are we gonna see a lie here, the first lie spoken?

Also, we're going to see in the New Testament references that outright call him that serpent, that ancient serpent of old or that ancient dragon, okay? I think that we're standing on pretty good ground to make a case that this serpent that we're talking about here is Satan.

The New Testament refers to Satan as the serpent. So are you making that connection? The reason I'm taking the time to make this case is because I think if I handed you a copy of Genesis 3 and that's all that you possessed, you would struggle to know who this serpent is.

Would you agree with me? But when you take this passage in the context of all the rest of scripture, it kind of snaps into focus that what we have here is Satan in the text using a serpent. Even in Moses' time, they would have known that snakes don't speak and they would have been looking for something more.

But the snake begins by asking a misleading question to the woman. Did God prohibit you from eating fruit from the trees of the garden? Now, we kind of have a notion that that might be an inaccurate question.

Now, I mean, some of you have had professors that say there's no such thing as a dumb question or something like that. Well, this is just a misinformed question. It appears at face value kind of like, well, no, that's not the case.

That's not what's going on. It's kind of misguided from the beginning. But it opens a rift in the woman's thinking about God. To entertain this question requires some thought about the fairness of God.

It turns the attention to the permission and prohibition. Do you see how automatically the serpent says, well, what's God given you? What's he allowing you to do here? Has he put you in this garden, he's given you all these great trees and he won't let you eat any of it?

Do you see how the question is posed that begins to kind of question, who is God and what is he doing? Is he the one who's, he's prohibiting you from things? To entertain this question requires some thought about the fairness of God.

But the question also serves Satan's plan by getting the woman to talk, okay? So he's posed a question and she's going to correct him. And how many of you are like me, you really like correcting other people?

Okay, so somebody says something false to you and you're, oh, no, no, I know the answer, I know the answer. And then you can't stop from talking, but you can't keep yourself from answering that question.

Anybody like me on that?

Three of you?

I think a lot of us are that way. When we hear something inaccurate, it's like, I've got to speak now, now I'm just compelled. And that's where he gets Eve into conversation. I think he's kind of put a hook into her in a sense of intrigue, interest.

She's standing here, she's talking with one of God's creation, one of God's created animals, and she's kind of going, well, what's going on here? So she corrects the serpent, as I think most of us would.

Well, hold on a minute, you're asking the wrong question. She remembers the permission of God to eat the fruit from all the trees except for one. The woman understands the bountiful blessing of God that he has planted her in a garden with beautiful trees and an orchard and all different kinds of things to eat.

She recognizes his blessing and the goodness of God in this. But I think one thing can be missed, and we brush over it because of this intense dialogue that's going on, we miss something in verse two.

Notice this, I've missed this a lot of times. As a matter of fact, until this week, I never really noticed it at all. She is speaking on behalf of the man as well as for herself. She's speaking on behalf of the man, she says, it says in verse two, and the woman said to the serpent,.

We, who's the we?

She's representing the man as well in this dialogue with the serpent. And she says, we can eat from the tree, all the trees of the garden except for the one. She's speaking for herself and for the man.

And in verse three, she recognizes the prohibition of God. They are not to eat from the tree in the midst of the garden. I don't wanna make much of this, I wanna just kind of brush over this real quick, but I noticed one thing, she doesn't name the tree.

Now we know what the name of the tree is from last week. It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But I wonder if there came a point in human history, how long since the command was given, we don't know.

But I wonder if there wasn't a point where they ceased to name it. They didn't even call it by its name. They tried to stay clear of it and stay away. And she doesn't even use its name for the tree. She says that one that's in the middle, we're not supposed to touch.

That's the one that's prohibited from us. I think it would be wise, even if it's a little bit of a stretch from the text, it would be wise for us to have things in our households, in our families and in our lives that we don't even name.

We don't speak of those things. We don't talk of those things. We steer clear of those things. And we talk about what is good and delightful and what is lovely and what is right. But we wash away those things that are nameless.

But also in verse three, we see that the woman adds to the law of God. Now God prohibited them from eating it. That was the rule, right? He said, don't eat it or you will surely die. But she says that they can't even touch it or they will surely die.

Now it's possible that God has expanded this rule later and we don't have it recorded to include touching the fruit. That's a possibility, right? That at some subsequent point to saying, don't eat it, he later comes to him and says, you know what?

Just don't even touch it. So there's that possibility there. But whatever the case in that, I don't wanna read too much into her adding to the law there but there is in this exchange a sense that the wheels have begun to spin in her mind.

The serpent and the woman are having what I would call the very first theological conversation. The first conversation about God and trying to figure out who he is. And Satan has a theology. Satan has a way that he views God and he's going to show us what his theology is and he's going to rope Eve into his theology.

They are probing the mind of God and for the first time, a seed of questioning the motive of God has come alive in her. And she begins to question, what is God's motive for prohibiting this? Why prohibit it?

She does know this one thing to be true. God has promised death if they eat from the forbidden fruit and she says as much here at the end of verse four but the serpent said, I mean, at the end of verse three, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

That concept, I don't know how fully orbed or formed the concept of death was to the woman, what that entailed. I'm sure she didn't have a full grasp on what that word meant other than that was the punishment for eating that fruit.

But the serpent now launches into an all out assault on the integrity of God. He outright disagrees with God saying that God is wrong and they will not die. Do you see that in the text? You will not surely die.

Direct disagreement with God. God says, you will die. You will surely die. No, you surely will not die. The exact opposite statement in Hebrew from what God says. A direct, complete lie, a disagreement with what God has said.

The statement from the serpent is not just some academic disagreement. Well, God thinks this is gonna happen. I don't think this is gonna happen. It ultimately comes down to questioning the goodness of God.

Has he openly deceived his creation? And Satan gets down to business in verse five ascribing what ultimately amounts to evil motives to God. The logic of verse five goes something like this. God prohibited Adam and Eve from eating the fruit because he knows they will become like him when they eat it.

If they eat it, they'll become like him. Now, what was Satan's first, those of you who have studied a little bit more than just Genesis in scripture, what was the first sin of Satan? Pride, that he wanted to elevate himself to God.

What is he holding out to the woman right now in his temptation? To be like God. If you eat it, you'll be like God. It's the same temptation, that same desire to achieve, to improve, to better yourself, to become on par or equal with God.

And I would say idolatry of self is still the fundamental sin that you or I face every day. Isn't that ultimately the root of every evil and every sin that we commit is self-worship? I deserve, I need, I have earned, I get this, whatever.

God prohibited them from eating the fruit. He says, no, the only reason God has prohibited you from eating the fruit is because he knows you will become like him. You will grow in knowledge. God is trying to hold you back, says Satan.

In essence, the first temptation boils down to this. The first temptation is to question the goodness of God. Does he really have your best interest in mind? Does he really know what's good for you? Now, he's afraid.

God is afraid that you're gonna rise up to his level. And so he's not permitting you to eat this. And the root of most sin begins with that very thought.

Is God good?

Does he have my best interest in mind? Does he really know what's good for me? I need something, but God is keeping it from me. He doesn't really want what is best for me. And that's the starting point of human depravity.

We question if God is really good. Is he really kind? Is he really gentle? And the human race still has a tendency to see God as a cosmic killjoy, right? He's up there watching us, making sure we don't have any fun.

Isn't that what a lot of people think about God? Isn't that the perspective of many in our culture? God is just looking for the opportunity to put you under his thumb, squash you. That notion that he is not good is a fundamental flaw that is introduced through the temptation that we're seeing here.

The idea that God is suppressing us. And we see here where this type of thinking gets us in chapter three. I cannot overestimate the devastation of verse six. I cannot express words in the English language to really convey the importance and the significance of verse six in the scope of human history, in the scope of the world, in the scope of my life, in the scope of your life.

What we see in verse six comes down to where you live moment by moment, this replication of to follow God or to not follow God. Look at verse six with me. 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 she ate, and she ate.

Here we plunge into the darkest abyss. For the woman is enticed. She sees that the fruit is edible, it's good for food. It looks super delish. That's what it says in the text. That's a loose translation.

It looks almost as good as a piece of French silt pie.

From Rixie's, okay?

It looks good.

And she also believes what Satan says, that it is good for making one wise. And wisdom, wisdom's a good thing, right? Is that a good thing to ascribe to, to desire wisdom? She's, it's gonna make me wise.

She's just gonna do a little self-improvement here. She's gonna make herself a little bit better. Is it more useful to be wise or is it more useful to be foolish? Well, I mean, come on, people.

Better to be wise, right?

She's just making a good choice. I mean, you got a chance to be wise or to be foolish. I mean, who's not gonna eat this fruit? This is gonna make me wise. I'll be more useful to God if I do this, right?

I'll still follow him. I'll still follow him, but I'll be more able to follow him. I'll improve myself, be better. So she took the fruit and ate and gave it to her husband and he ate. Anybody here that's eaten anything yet today?

Hopefully you have, otherwise you are gonna nod off here in just a second. Is eating a pretty simple process for us? A pretty small thing for us to eat something? Not a big deal, not too complicated or complex.

It's just kind of like put it in your mouth, chew it, swallow it. That is the act that plunges humanity into darkness. Ooh, they ate, but what did they eat? The only thing in God's created order that they were told not to.

The only thing that he prohibited from them and that is what they ate. And she gave it to her husband who, I know that a lot of people recently have pointed this out. I think as a kid, nobody was saying this, but now it's a really big deal to point out in verse six that she gave it also, or she also gave some to her husband who was with her.

Right, do you see that in the text? It's not just Eve and the serpent having a conversation. Adam is there kind of standing by. I picture him kind of with his arms folded, maybe his hand kind of like this, just like kind of observing this.

He's a real gentleman, so he's like ladies first, and she eats the fruit. And I picture him kind of like, what did God say was gonna happen when you eat the fruit? Gonna die, so he's kind of watching.

What does death look like? Because I haven't seen any changes yet. How long did he have to stand there and wait until he would determine that nothing bad had happened? Like, I mean, he's like, okay, 15 minutes have gone by, half an hour, a year.

But I mean, he's standing there and he eats with her. Now, one thing that's key in this is that Adam is held responsible through the entirety of scripture for this event. He is held responsible. Paul, in Romans chapter five, Romans chapter five is about Adam.

Adam, go back and read that if you get a chance this week to reflect on this event from the New Testament perspective. And you will see that we are all sinners because Adam sinned, and there's a lot of theology in there.

But Paul speaks of sin coming down to each and every one of us in this room through Adam. Adam, the one that was the representative for the human race, and he fell. He was the first human created, and therefore his sin is pictured as the origination of sin in the human race.

He represented us. And I dare say, lest we become arrogant in ourselves, we each made that decision with Adam. Because you know what? When you were born, did you have to sin? In essence, you've chosen to.

Each and every one of us has. We've replicated Adam's folly by sinning ourselves. And I dare say that, it's fair to say, each and every one of us will sin before the sun goes down today. Again, we will replicate the sins of Adam in ourselves.

Right?

So, some of you might have a tendency, hypothetically, to say, if it was me, I would've stood strong, I would've been a rock. No, not so much. He represented us, and he was a faithful representative of what you or I would've done in the same circumstance.

When they eat, they immediately gain knowledge, and it's not quite what they signed up for. How many of you know that sin promises one thing and then grants another? Have you experienced that in your life, like I have?

Sin kind of says, oh, this is gonna be fun, it's gonna be entertaining, it's gonna be good, it's all right, and then you actually sin, and it's like, that's not so good anymore. All of a sudden, something has changed.

They immediately gain knowledge, and they immediately recognize their own nakedness. And that's the strangeness of what sin does. It doesn't remain isolated into one area of life. Sin has a tendency to creep and seep and infiltrate all areas.

It's kind of like the concept of the skeleton in the closet except the skeleton gets out and walks around sometimes. Do you get what I'm saying? We like to try to think that we can keep sin contained in a vault in our lives, pull it out, play with it once in a while, put it back, and it's not gonna have any impact.

I'm not hurting anybody. Have you ever heard that? It's not hurting anybody. It's just between me and this person or whatever, and it's gonna be okay, and that's a lie. Disobeying God by eating a piece of fruit.

See a logical connection between nakedness and fruit? There's no connection there. Disobeying God by eating a piece of fruit affects the intimacy, the openness, and the innocence between the first married couple.

Not a whole lot of logic in that connection, but it's an unintended consequence. And I would say to you that sin has unintended consequences that you or I cannot master or control. So you think you can contain sin?