Genesis #4 - Foundations #4 - "Fallen" (Genesis 3)

Genesis 3 and the Tragedy of the Fall

Foundations as we think about Genesis 1 through 11 and the story of everything. And we come to a text this afternoon that has to be one of the darkest, one of the saddest, one of the most tragic when you read the Bible.

This afternoon we come to Genesis and chapter 3. And so if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3, it's a lengthy chapter, so we won't read the entirety of the chapter.

I'll invite us just to read the first six verses, but we will be studying the whole thing. So Genesis chapter 3, beginning in verse 1 through to verse 6. In the interest of time, I won't do our normal responsive reading, I will simply read.

But I will invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's Word. Genesis chapter 3, reading verses 1 through 6. Genesis in chapter 3, verses 1 through 6. God's Word says, Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that Yahweh God had made.

He said to the woman, did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, we may eat from the fruit, we may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden, but about the tree in the middle of the garden, God said you must not eat it or touch it or you will die.

No, you will certainly not die, said the serpent to the woman. In fact, God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom.

So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. I pray that God will bless that reading of His Word and grant us understanding. Join with me as I pray and we come to this text this afternoon.

Well Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your Word. We thank you so much for the fact that it doesn't shy away from teaching us the hard.

Things.

And Father, as we come to this text, we do encounter one of the hardest things of all. As we gain an understanding of how it is that our world was plunged into sin and darkness so soon after God had created it and said everything was good.

We pray that as we open up these words that this would not just be a story to us, but the weight of this passage, the import of this passage, what this passage has to say to us would ring heavy in our hearts.

Father, as we gather for worship, I want to pray especially this afternoon for our sister church in Chandler, Arizona, Shepherd's House Bible Church that met today for the first time publicly. Father, what a joy it is to see another lampstand lit for you, to bear witness to you, to radiate the light of the gospel in a world that so desperately needs it.

Father, I pray for my friend Pastor Kosti, pray for my friend Pastor Brett and the leadership, pray for the two churches that have partnered to see Shepherd's House established, both Redeemer Bible and Mission Bible.

Father, as this church gets started, today was their first services. May their witness for you only grow and expand and shine brighter. May souls be saved, may believers be equipped, and may Jesus be glorified.

That's our prayer for them, and that's our prayer even now as we come to your word. We ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. Please be seated. Genesis chapter 3, and I have tagged our texts with just one word, fallen, fallen.

This won't be a message where I joke a lot and smile a lot because this is one of those texts where I think we need to treat with all the seriousness that it deserves. The Puritan commentator Matthew Henry, if you haven't read his commentary, you really.

Should.

To me, the most valuable thing in his commentary are his introductory comments to every chapter before he starts his commentary. In his introductory comments to this chapter, Genesis chapter 3, he said the following, quote, the story of this chapter is perhaps the saddest story all things considered as any we have in all the Bible.

In the foregoing chapters, we have had the pleasant view of the holiness and happiness of our first parents, the grace and favor of God, and the peace and beauty of the whole creation, all good, very good, but here the scene is altered.

We have here an account of the sin and misery of our first parents, the wrath and curse of God against them, the peace of creation disturbed, and its beauty stained and sullied, all bad, very bad. Oh, that our hearts were deeply affected with this record, for we are all nearly concerned.

In it.

I love how he says this to close his introductory comments, let it not be to us as a tale that.

Is told.

Arthur W. Pink, some of you know, that's one of my favorite authors, in his excellent commentary, Gleanings in Genesis. He opens this chapter with these words, here commences the great drama which is being enacted on the stage of human history.

Here we find the divine explanation of the present, fallen, and ruining condition of.

Our race.

Here we learn of the subtle devices of our enemy, the devil. Here we behold the utter powerlessness of man to walk in the path of righteousness when divine grace is withheld from him. Here we discover the spiritual effects of sin, man seeking to flee from God.

Here we discern the attitude of God toward the guilty sinner. Here we mark the universal tendency of human nature to cover its own moral shame by a device of man's own handiwork. Here we are taught of the gracious provision which God has made to meet our great need.

Here begins that marvelous stream of prophecy which runs through all the holy scriptures. Here we learn that man cannot approach God except through a mediator. And he says to these deeply important subjects, we must give our earnest attention.

In a series that we've called Foundation, this is probably about as foundational as it gets, we are about to encounter really the answer to the question, why is the world the way it is? I don't know about you.

Have you asked that question before? Have you ever wondered why is life in this world as difficult and as hard and as frustrating.

As it is?

If ever you have asked that question, I don't know, maybe you're more holy than me. You don't ask that question. You just kind of accept it and move on. But for those of us unlike me, those of us like me, excuse me, who are keenly aware of our constant need of sanctification and find ourselves more frustrated than we should be at times, I think this text is going to give us some helpful, if not painful answers to the question of why is the world the way that it is?

It's my custom, as you guys know, to give you a big idea for every sermon, and this is no exception. Here's my big idea for this afternoon. As we come to this passage, the fall of man, which is the big event here in Genesis chapter three, the fall of man introduced disruption in our relationship with God, deception from the evil one, and all kinds of disorder into creation.

The fall of man introduced disruption in our relationship with God, deception from the evil one, and all kinds of disorder into creation. You'll be struck as we read this narrative together just how simple it is.

It's very straightforward. But please do not confuse straightforward with simple, because from this passage on, the history of man will be anything but simple. To help us grab our arms around this text, I want to consider four realities about the fall that we need to grapple with in all their starkness.

Four realities about the fall that we need to grapple with in all their starkness. I will try my best not to be long, but you guys know I make no promises when it comes.

To that.

The Tactics of the Serpent

Consider with me, first of all, the tactics of the serpent. The tactics of the serpent, verses one through six. As you come to Genesis chapter three, Genesis chapter three starts pretty abruptly. Can I draw your attention to verse one?

Just starts after the pleasantness of chapter two, man has been created, God has made a wife for him, everything is good, everything is wonderful. Then you come to chapter three, verse one, now the serpent.

We're introduced to this character who is simply known in this passage as the serpent. Now some have said that the serpent here is the physical embodiment of Satan, that he takes on a physical form. And true, when you read the Bible, the serpent is often associated with Satan, as we'll see in just a moment.

That being said, I think it's more likely, not so much that Satan has taken on a physical form, as much as he has possessed a creature that already exists. We know this because the text says the Lord God made the serpent.

I think it's more likely that the serpent was just an ordinary creature possessed by the evil one and used to do his bidding. And from this point on, the serpent and Satan will become synonymous. So if you're taking notes, 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse three, Paul will say, but I fear that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

Revelation chapter 12 and verse nine, so the great dragon was thrown out, the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. Well, here he is in Genesis chapter three and verse one, and pay attention to the description that we get.

If we look again at verse one, now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He's described as cunning, the idea here is the word, he's shrewd, he's clever. And the word in and of itself is not a negative word, it's simply just somebody who's shrewd, somebody who's wise, somebody who's smart.

In fact, the book of Proverbs says we should pursue being this word. But here we're encountering a being who is far from just clever, who's far from just being shrewd and savvy. No, the text says that he is cunning.

And it's interesting, there's a play on words here, we can't really reflect this in English, but it's there in the original language. So when you look back at chapter two and verse 25, which shouldn't be too far on the page, you see where it says that the man and his wife were naked?

That word there is very similar in sound to this word here for cunning. I would argue the reason why that is, is that the nakedness, the innocence of the first family is about to be exposed by the shrewdness of this serpent.

Their naivety is about to be exploited in the worst possible way. Now, at this point, we may read and say, wait a minute, didn't God make Adam and Eve perfect? This makes it sound like there was a flaw.

Well, not quite. For a moment, I need to kind of take a step back, let's do some theology. You should expect to do theology when you come to church. Let's talk about the nature of man for a moment. You see, the Bible teaches us that man basically exists in four different states.

Follow me here. Man before the fall was created in a state of, here's the key word, innocence. Not perfection, innocence. After the fall, man is now in the state of fallenness. So you've got innocence, you've got fallenness.

In redemption, man becomes man in the state of grace. So you've got innocence, fallenness, grace. After glorification, all those who are in Christ will then be in the state of perfection. If you want some more information on this, I wish I could dig into this some more.

In the back page of the study guide this week, I recommend the book, Human Nature in its Fourfold State by Thomas Boston. He actually does a very good job of pulling all the Bible's teaching together and showing what it looks like for man to exist in each of these four states.

Well, which one were Adam and Eve? They were in the state of innocence. Now, here's the thing about innocence. Innocence doesn't make you supremely intelligent. How do I know? I live with that guy over there.

As fallen human beings go, he's pretty innocent. He has his moments, but generally, he's pretty innocent. But just because he's innocent doesn't make him intelligent. Granted, I think he's more intelligent than most kids his age, but he still has moments where he's just like, seriously, what are you doing?

He's pretty innocent as the world goes. There's so much he's going to learn, good, bad, and indifferent. But him being innocent doesn't make him a genius. Him being innocent doesn't mean that he's not vulnerable.

If anything, his innocence makes him more vulnerable. Well, that's what we're encountering as we encounter man here. And unfortunately, the enemy as we know him now as Satan or the devil, he is a crafty.

One.

And think about this. If he could be described as cunning and shrewd at the start of creation, I'd like to put it to you that we're a little ahead in the story. If he was cunning and shrewd at that point, what do we call him with thousands of years to kind of perfect his methods to get better?

That's why Paul could say in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 11, that it's for our benefit that we forgive one another, why? So that we are not taken advantage of by Satan, why? Because we are not ignorant of his schemes.

Ephesians 6, 11 will tell us that we are to put on the whole armor of God, why? So we can stand against the schemes of the devil. Beloved, our adversary is crafty. He will stop at nothing to get us. And how do we know?

We learn that from our text here. But can I give you some good news? You see, as crafty as he is, did you catch how God puts him in his place?

You read it.

You probably missed it. Look at 1 Corinthians 1. Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. He might be crafty, but here's what the text wants you to understand.

Crafty as he is, he is not Yahweh's equal. You see, Yahweh made the serpent and he made the power behind the serpent. And so even as we read this, we should not view the adversary as though, oh dear, this is God's equal in this celestial struggle between good and evil.

No, he's not. I agree with the reformer Martin Luther who said that the devil, devil as he is, is still God's devil. Well in our passage, we thankfully get an insight into the tactics of the adversary as we see them in the words of the serpent.

Can I draw your attention to three of those tactics real quickly? First of all, let me draw your attention to the tactic of distortion. The tactic of distortion in verses 1 through 3. So it says, now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden? The adversary's first weapon of choice was to distort what God had said. Now just in case you forgot it, Genesis chapter 2 verse 16 and 17.

This is what God had plainly said. And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.

So that's what God said. But the serpent is cunning. He doesn't just come out with a downright lie. He will in just a moment. But he starts off kind of with the soft approach. He doesn't so much deny what God has said as much as he distorts it.

And it's a subtle way to distort it. He just asked a question. Did you see it? Did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden? I mean, it's a question. I mean, everybody has the right to ask questions, right?

We live in an age where it's popular for people to talk about deconstructing their faith. I'm sure you've heard that phrase of late. It's funny. Every person I hear talking about this language of deconstructing says, oh, we're just asking questions.

You know, we're just asking questions trying to, you know, get to the truth of what Christianity really is.

Now, let me be clear.

I have no problem with asking questions. You've heard me say it before. I think Christians should be asking more questions in this day and age. We should not just take it for granted that anybody who speaks for God speaks for God.

But can I put it to you that there are some questions that are not innocent? Can I put it to you that there are some questions that simply don't need asking? Can I put it to you that there are some things that are above your pay grade and mine?

Man, I even suggest that there are some questions that aren't really about getting an answer as much as they are about gutting your faith. How do I know? Because that's what the serpent does right here.

Sometimes questions are the means that the adversary uses to undermine what God has clearly said. So I don't mind people asking questions and not being sure, but everybody should have the right to ask questions, to get to the bottom of things.

Of course they should, but let's not be so naive as to think that every question comes from a place of either ignorance or genuine inquisition. No, sometimes there are questions that come from the evil one and they're designed to undermine faith, not to give it assurance.

Well, as we look at this, what should Eve have done in this moment? What should have happened in this moment to put all of this to bed? Well, for one thing, I think Eve needs to ask some questions right back.

I mean, first of all, why is a snake talking? That's kind of abnormal. That probably should be your first question. After you get past that, why is this talking snake questioning what God clearly said?

If all else fails, why are you still here? Oh, how we wish that would have happened, but that's not what happens as we look at.

This text.

So verses two and three, the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden, but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said you must not eat it or touch it or you will die.

Can I put it to you that right here we see Eve falling for the tactic of distortion on the first try. We think, okay, Kofi, where did you get that from? Pay attention to the text. Eve says nothing about the graciousness of God.

She kind of just matter of factly says, yeah, we're allowed to eat from the fruit and the trees in the garden, but remember Genesis 2 .16? God had been actually very generous. He said, listen, you may freely eat of all the trees in the garden.

God had been incredibly gracious in his provision. Rather than focusing on what God said, God didn't talk about where the tree was. God talked about the significance of the tree. He said that you are not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

How does she just describe it? Oh, the one in the middle of the garden. The import of the trees lost on her. She fails to remember who God is.

How do I get that?

Did you catch that?

The serpent just calls God by the generic word for God. He doesn't use God's covenant name in this passage, and Eve replies with exactly the same. Not only that, she takes God's clear injunction. Did you catch that she makes it more stringent than God ever did?

God never said you can't touch it. I mean, credit to her. She may have meant well here, but that's not what God said. Finally, she misses the certainty of God's warning. God didn't just say you will die.

God was very explicit.

You will certainly die, but already this tactic of distortion is working, and that gives way to our second tactic here from the serpent, the tactic of deception. The tactic of deception, verses four and five.

So what's the serpent's response? Now that he's got the woman to question God's word because he distorted it slightly, he now goes in for the kill. Verse four, no, you will certainly not die, the serpent said to the woman.

In fact, God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. As it were, the serpent smells blood in the water or blood in the garden. You may pick your choice of that metaphor there, and he turns it up a notch.

In the first round of back and forth, he simply distorted what God has said, but now he drops in some not so good old-fashioned deception. God was painfully clear that eating of the fruit would lead to death, but what's the serpent's response?

No.

He attacks God's truth, and he substitutes his own lie in its place. He tries to say that God is not the truthful one here. Yeah, God said that you will certainly die, but God's not telling you the truth.

You won't die. Not only does he call God's truthfulness into question, he also seems to suggest that God is holding out on Adam and Eve. God knows that there are benefits to you eating from this tree.

Did you catch the two benefits he says? Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. He says, listen, there's a newfound awareness that you didn't have, but if you eat this fruit, you'll have it.

Oh, there's also an advanced knowledge that God has. God's trying to keep that from you, but eat it and you can have it too. Never mind that actually they were made in the image of God, and they could have derived their knowledge of what was good and what was not good from God himself.

No, our adversary lies to our first parents, and he's been lying to their He's been lying to us, excuse me, their children ever since. That's why Jesus could say, if you're taking notes, John 8, 44, you are of your father the devil and you want to carry out 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 tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature because he is a liar and the father.

Of lies.

You see the tactic of distortion in this text. Before I move on, I need to pause and note something about these first two tactics, the tactic of distortion and the tactic of deception. Can I put it to you that our adversary has not changed his tactics in the thousands of years that have passed since this passage?

You see, our adversary has perfected some very simple stratagems for deception. He distorts God's word. He takes a little bit here, he takes a phrase there, kind of blend in a pinch of error and voila, you have a dish of deception that is hot from hell itself.

If he can't distort God's word, well, he just deceives. He tells lies about God and lies about reality as it exists in God's world, lies about who we are, lies about our purpose, lies about what our destiny is.

Can I put it to you that he has a counterfeit system with counterfeit ministers who preach a counterfeit message, offering a counterfeit righteousness from a counterfeit Christ? He's more than happy for people to be religious.

Can I put it to you, he's even happy, if we can bring it into the modern day, he's happy for people to even use the name of Jesus. He's more than happy to do so. Can I put it to you that in an age where we've been told to believe in how smart we are, we would do well to remember that we are as capable of being deceived as anyone else?

That's what Paul can say in Ephesians 5, 6, let no one deceive you with empty arguments. Ladies, you're going through Colossians in your Bible study, Colossians 2, 4, you remember.

That verse?

I'm saying this so that no one will deceive you, he's talking to Christians by the way, that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable. Second Timothy 3, 13, Second Timothy 3, you've heard me say it before, I don't believe he's talking about the state of the world, he's talking about the church.

And he says, verse 13, evil people and imposters will become worse and worse, deceiving and.

Being deceived.

I don't want to be, is it Chicken Little who was saying the sky was falling?

Okay, good.

I'm not trying to be Chicken Little and basically make you think that, oh, it's all bad, no, God's truth is being proclaimed, there are faithful people who are holding up the word of God, the gospel is going out around the world.

I'm not trying to make you suspicious of everybody, but I am trying to help you to understand that if you want to stand in this dark world, you need to be protected by the truth. If I may be something of a broken record for the folks who are regulars here, this is why we take the Bible as seriously as we do around here.

And no, we aren't the only church, we definitely don't think we're the only good church in our area, that's why we're thankful for our brethren at churches like Cornerstone and Coram Deo and the Applegate community, we're thankful for them, why?

Because we all recognize the most important thing is the truth of God and the fact that the truth of God arms us against being deceived. We'll come back to our text, if our adversary can't distort or deceive.

Thirdly, he appeals to the tactic of desire. He appeals to the tactic of desire in verse six. And can I put it to you that this might be the trickiest one of all of them? Because think about it, distortion and deception, they come from outside in, but this tactic is dangerous, why?

It starts from within. It appeals to us on an internal level. So look at me at verse six, verse six says, the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom.

Three components, first of all, there's an appeal to the desires of the flesh. She looks at it and it's good for food. It's interesting, the word that's translated good here is the same word that's used when God looks at creation and says that it's very good.

It's interesting, the woman has now usurped God's role of determining what is good and what is not. There's an appeal secondly to the desires of the eye, the text says, it was delightful.

To look at.

Matthew Henry in his commentary says, now in her eye, this was like all the rest. It seemed as good for food as any of them, and she saw nothing in the color of its fruit that threatened death or danger.

Thirdly, have an appeal to one's pride. The text says that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. She sees in this fruit that which will make her wise. It's an appeal to her sense of self-value, and just like that, the text makes it somewhat clear, she's done in.

There's no break, verse six. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. I mean, you look at this and it's so matter-of-fact, consider the magnitude of what's just taken place here, and the text is just so blunt about it almost.

There's no real philosophical pondering, we don't even get a theological explanation here. There's no real moral exploration. It's interesting, I think that's kind of fitting, given that the rest of human history will be devoted to trying to understand what happens in this moment.

It's just sad and to the point. And it's even sadder when you realize, did you catch it in verse six? Adam was standing right there when it happened. I've lost track of how many times I've heard sermons where people will say things like, oh, this happened, and where was Adam?

Adam was derelict. No, well, Adam, we can argue, was derelict in his duty, but Adam wasn't like somewhere off in the garden somewhere. The text basically, he was right there watching this happen and didn't do a thing to stop.

It.

The Response of Humanity

Well, the tactics of the serpent have succeeded. That moves us on to the second fact here, which is the response of humanity in verses seven and eight. The response of humanity in verses seven and eight, we're clued into three responses now that something has changed, verse seven and eight.

First of all, there's a new awareness of self, a new awareness of self, verse seven. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew they were naked.

What a sad reverse.

Remember chapter two, verse 25, how it ends? Both the man and his wife were naked yet felt no shame. Open eyes are usually a good thing, but not this time. You read this and do you get the sense of a loss of innocence here?

That they know something that they kind of wish they didn't know now. They're self-conscious and not in a good way. Not only is there a new awareness of self, secondly, there's a new awareness of shame.

There's a new awareness of shame. The text says, then the eyes of both of them were open and they knew they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. They recognized, we're naked and this isn't good, we need to do something about this.

Thomas Boston, in that book I recommended, Human Nature in its Fourfold State, he says this, quote, they fell from their rest in God and fell upon seeking inventions of their own to mend their case, yet they marred it quite badly.

Their ruin was from their own proper estate. They would not abide as God had made them, but they sought out inventions to deform and.

Undo themselves.

I would argue that right here in this text, we have the first instance in all the Bible of an attempt at works righteousness. They see the problem. They know something needs to be done, but rather than cry out to God, what do they try to do?

Try to fix the problem themselves. Sound familiar? That's the problem with self, with works righteousness, excuse me. Much like trying to cover yourselves with a patchwork of leaves when you actually need.

Clothes.

Ever since the fall, rather than run to God, what is it we do as human beings? We run to our own devices seeking to cover up our shame. Not only is there a new awareness of self and of shame. Thirdly, there's a new relationship to God that's observed here.

It's not a good one, verse 8. Verse 8, then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the.

Garden.

I mean, this is a tragic episode all the way around, but can I put it to you that this might be the most tragic part of the fall? Think about, again, the end of chapter 2. The relationship of God to our first parents was one of harmony, one of communion, it was one of joy.

This language of walking with God, as you read the Bible, the Bible helps us to understand that walking with God speaks of close communion, it speaks of friendship. God doesn't walk with just everybody.

There was an unfettered relationship, but where there was once unfettered relationship, you now catch that there's fear? Not the good kind of fear. The Bible tells us to fear God. There's a good kind of fear we should have.

The kind of fear the Bible says like a son has for his father, a respect, a reverence. No, this is now the kind of fear that terrified slave has of a master. Can I put it to you that we as human beings have been battling the same problem ever since?

That no longer as human beings do we naturally view God as our father and our creator? No, as human beings, we're now estranged from God. The Bible says that there is an enmity that exists. If I could use a modern colloquialism, there's a beef that exists between us and God.

Well, so far in this narrative, have you noticed that God hasn't said anything yet? God's been kind of quiet so far. Well, actually, when we come to verses 9 through 19, we finally get the word of God on this.

Issue.

We get the word of God in verses 9 through 19. Verses 9 through 19 really are broken up into two. You have questions that God asks, and then you have pronouncements that God makes, questions he asks and pronouncements he makes.

Let's look at some of these questions real quickly, verses 9 through 13. Well, God starts off with some questions for Adam. So verse 9, so Yahweh God, the Lord God, called out to the man and said to him, where are.

You?