Genesis: Paradise Lost
Genesis 3-part 2—Paradise Lost: The Response, Results and Remedy to Sin
I. Intro: Good Morning, Faith Community.
a. I want to start with a quotation from the great theologian Calvin….no, not the French Reformer, John Calvin, but rather Bill Waterson’s character, Calvin, from the great comic strip Calvin & Hobbes! Calvin and Hobbes during the 1990’s captured the growing no fault ethos of our culture so well…..
b. Look at the image on the screen—it starts with Calvin, the little boy, walking alongside of Hobbes saying, “Nothing I do is my fault.”
c. And then Hobbes scratching his whiskers while Calvin exclaims, “My family is dysfunctional and my parents won’t empower me! Consequently, I’m not self-actualized.”
d. And then Calvin holding himself with his eyes closed, like, oh poor me, says, “My behavior is addictive functioning in a disease process of toxic codependency! I need holistic healing and wellness before I’ll accept any responsibility for my actions!”
e. Hobbes, looking on in bewilderment responds by saying, “One of us needs to stick his head in a bucket of ice water.” And the strip ends with Calvin walking on saying, “I love the culture of victimhood.”
f. That’s a pretty astute cultural commentary, is it not? As well as theological…. We live in a culture of victimhood, where people are very reluctant to take responsibility for their actions.
g. Now this isn’t to deny that there are very real victims and very real crimes and that victims suffer consequences. But we live in a culture that loves to play the victim card, and rather than taking responsibility for our moral choices, we’re quick to shift the blame, and we’re quick to blame others.
h. In our culture, we’ve lost the moral concept of sin. In the 1970’s, famed psychiatrist, Karl Menninger wrote a book titled, ‘Whatever Became of Sin?’ He notes, “The word ‘sin’ which seems to have disappeared, was a proud word. It was once a strong word, an ominous and serious word. But the word went away (the actions didn’t, mind you, but the word did). It has almost disappeared—the word, along with the notion.” He goes on and says, “Anxiety and depression we all acknowledge, and even vague guilt feelings; but has no one committed any sins?”
i. So our culture really doesn’t acknowledge the concept of sin and yet we live in a world that is wracked with pain and suffering—turn on the evening news and you’ll quickly become depressed by the latest school shooting, political scandal, terrorist attack or neighborhood crime…and the darn shame is we’ve become numb to it because it’s so routine now…..
j. Closer to home, we all know the pain of physical affliction, relational breakdowns, emotional distress and alienation from God. At every level of our existence we see disintegration, socially, emotionally and physically….
k. So, even if we don’t want to acknowledge the concept of sin or the existence of sin, we live with the empirical evidence of it every single day, don’t we? Of course, because we live in a broken world.
l. And the book of Genesis gives us the best explanation for the beauty we see and experience in our world (that’s Genesis 1 and 2) but also and the pain and suffering we endure in this world….that comes to us in Genesis 3…
m. If you have your Bible’s with you, you can open them to the book of Genesis, which is the very first book of the Bible….
n. And this morning, we’ll looking at Genesis 3:8-24—and this follows of course, Adam and Eve’s fateful decision to put themselves in the place of God, and chose moral autonomy rather than trusting God and His Word…and they plunged humanity and the creation into death—alienation from God—we looked at that material two weeks ago….
o. Now this morning, what we’ll see is the Response to Sin (both ours, and God’s), the Results of Sin—and its catastrophic on every level, and then the remedy to sin—in the midst of the judgment against sin, the Lord provides this stunning promise of hope….
p. So with that, lets read Genesis chapter 3, verses 8-24
II. Read the Text: Genesis 3:8-24
a. This is the Word of the Lord.
b. This passage details oh so clearly the response to sin—first, humanity’s, and then the Lord’s…. next it shows us the results of sin---and then it promises the remedy to sin…. let’s look at each in turn….
III. The Response to Sin
a. This is what you see in verses 8-13. At the end of verse 8, after having their eyes opened and sewing fig leaves together, they hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden—remember, Adam and Eve had enjoyed the uninterrupted presence of God in the Garden from the moment they were created, and so the hear the Lord’s presence, and what once had filled them with joy now brought them dread and they, “hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” So our response to sin is we hide from God. And the Hebrew word for “presence” there is the word, “face.”
b. They were made for relationship with God—to have an open face to face relationship with God, but now they hide from their face, like a kid when you catch them with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar and they hide from your face….Adam and Eve now hide from God’s face….why?
c. Because they know both guilt and shame—Dr. Daniel DeWitt, who is a professor of theology and apologetics, in an article he wrote says this, “Though Guilt and Shame are twins, born in the garden, only moments apart, they aren’t identical. Guilt is usually tied to an event: I did something bad. Shame is tied to a person: I am bad. Guilt is the wound. Shame is the scar. When you violate God’s laws you feel guilt. But that emotion is quickly, nearly simultaneously, joined by shame. Guilt says, “You did something wrong.” Shame says, “That’s what you need to hide. You’re no good. You deserve to live in darkness. Come with me; I’ll lead the way.”
d. Humanity has been trying to hide from God ever since—the face of God, which was originally turned toward man in love, grace and favor, we now hide from---it’s become the face of terror for us, because we have guilt over our specific sin and shame internally because we intuitively know we don’t deserve to be in His presence….
e. So, we see humanity’s response to our sin nature—we’ve become hiders…. we hide from the Lord.
f. But notice how the Lord responds to our sin. He seeks…and notice how He seeks Adam and Eve…He doesn’t drive them out of their hiding—He draws them out. It wasn’t an indictment— “what have you done?” It was an inquiry— “where are you?” in order to draw Adam out into the open and hopefully bring forth a confession….
g. He’s a good shepherd who displays tenderness rather than toughness and He’s hoping to draw out of Adam what was going on in His heart….
h. By the way, when your kids sin, you have the raw material of life, and how we deal with it shapes our kids. If in your initial reaction, you go with inquiry rather than indictment, you’re taking the raw material and using it for good gospel parenting as you’re trying to help them examine their heart motives—whether they in that moment, weren’t trusting the Lord’s provision, or they thought the Lord was holding out on them, or they didn’t see the Lord as faithful, or they didn’t really believe His Word at some level.
i. You see, if you start with inquiry, you have the raw material for good gospel parenting, as you’re able to enter into conversation as a fellow saint, who sometimes sins, and draw a confession out, and then go to the Lord seeking forgiveness….
j. Now if you jump straight to indictment, you’ve taken that raw material, and you’re going to produce a little Pharisee, because you’re just laying down the rules to follow, rather than seeking to draw out the state of their heart in relationship to Christ—and if you keep jumping to indictment, they’ll hide from you and God when they sin, rather than learning they can go to you and God when they sin….
k. This is such a great example for parents—the Lord deals with this first sin, not by exploding with indictment, but with inquiry—now make no mistake, He will bring forth consequences, and that’s part of parenting too, but He starts by drawing out confession through inquiry….
l. So, the Lord calls to Adam…now, the Lord knows where Adam is…again, He’s trying to draw him into conversation, and confession….look at verse 9.
m. Read Verses 9-12: He blames Eve, for sure, but ultimately, he blames God—Adam says, “You gave her to me!” He goes from singing over Eve initially, to blaming God for her….and then notice he postpones his involvement until the very last phrase in the sentence…”and I ate.” And then the Lord turns to Eve…verse 13
n. Read Verse 13: She does a little bit better than Adam—she openly admits she was deceived—the serpent fed her a line, presented an attractive proposition, and she took it, hook, line and sinker….
o. So what’s the response to sin? Man, hiding from the face of God, turning on one another, and turning away from the presence of God in fear….and this then leads to the results of sin…..
IV. The Results of Sin
a. In verses 14-19, we saw how the Lord started to issue His judgment against the sin. And it comes in three parts: First, the judgment on the serpent, then on the woman, and then on the man…
b. To the serpent, God says, “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 you shall eat all the days of your life” (v. 14-15).
c. Now some people think this is cute little Hebrew story about how the serpent lost its legs---that at one time it was a different type of creature. The text doesn’t tell us that; that’s just pure speculation…
d. It’s better to see this symbolically—the one who exalted itself above man, will now crawl on his belly—this is a picture of abject humiliation. Satan is Humiliated and Cursed.
e. When the text says, “Dust you shall eat all the days of your life”—again, it’s not to be taken literally; this is not a scientific statement; it’s not that the snake literally eats dust; again, this is figurative language describing abject humiliation…. Kids have the expression, “Eat dirt” and that’s the idea…
f. So, the Lord curses Satan…and then He turns to Eve---and He doesn’t curse her, but He lay out the consequences for her rebellion. Look at verse 16
g. Read Verse 16: Here the results of the fall are two-fold for the woman. The intrinsically joyous areas of a woman’s life will now be marked by pain…the areas of bearing children and her relationship to her husband.
h. First of all, in childbearing: She will now bear children in pain---I remember when Trea was giving birth to our first daughter, Taitum, she took ahold of my left forearm, and I thought that thing was coming off, and I really wanted to say, “hey you’re hurting me” but I didn’t think that was the right moment…pain in childbearing…physically yes, but also emotionally as well---mothering itself, with all of its attendant joys, is also a source of painful toil….
i. But then secondly in her relationship with her husband—the Lord says in verse 16, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
j. Now, the desire there, isn’t a sexual desire…men wish that were the case, but it’s not the case, when you pair “Your desire shall be for your husband” with the reciprocating “he shall rule over you” it portrays a marital relationship that was once was marked by harmonious cooperation will now be marked by hellish competition…
k. Derek Kidner in his commentary on Genesis states, ‘To love and cherish’ becomes ‘To desire and dominate.’ While even pagan marriage can rise above this, the pull of sin is always towards it.”
l. One of the results of the fall is marriage is so dang hard—because rather than being characterized by cooperation and selfless service, it many instances it’s characterized by competition and selfishness….by the way, when you come to Christ as your Savior and Lord, one of the entailments is to love and serve your spouse in the way in which Christ has loved and served you….does that make sense?
m. So the two primary areas of a woman’s life that was supposed to be marked by great joy will now be marked by pain….and now the Lord turns Adam and lays out the consequences for his eating…. Look at verse 17
n. Read Verses 17-19: Just as with Eve, for Adam, the intrinsically joyous areas of his life will be marked by painful toil. One of man’s primary relationship is to their work--- God curses the ground….the creation is cursed now and that which was supposed to bring us joy, satisfaction and an abundance now brings us painful toil and frustration and produces thorns, thistles and goat heads…does that resonate with your work experience? Do you ever sleepless nights because you’re thinking about a frustrating experience at work? Or thinking about a strained relationship at work and how you’re going to try and solve it? Or thinking about how your margins are shrinking and if you don’t figure out what to do the business won’t survive---his work has gone from plenty to scarcity….
o. Now work itself is not cursed, but like every other part of our existence, our experience of it will not be as it was originally designed to be. Now note, God tells Adam his labor ‘will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field” which implies his work, and our work will bear some fruit, but it’ll be marked by painful toil. It means our work will be produced by the sweat of our brow….and this explains why work is labor intensive and why very often, it’s so hard to eek out a living….so man’s relationship with the land has completely changed….
p. Now, when you put all these together, you see the comprehensive scope of sin’s consequences. This passage shows us the results of sin, and how it affects us in all dimensions of our existence. Spiritually—sin has broken our relationship with God. So, the vertical relationship is broken.
q. Psychologically---sin has resulted in fear, guilt and shame—inwardly, humanity is marked by these things—it’s so often why people can’t look each other in the eye—so psychologically, we’re often characterized by fear, guilt and shame, just like Adam and Eve in the garden.
r. Then there is the breakdown in our horizontal relationships – our primary relationship of marriage has been altered in profound ways and think about it, if our primary horizontal relationship which is to be marked by love, but is now often characterized by desire and dominate, and that desire and dominate affects all our other relationships between humans, we’ll see the start of it next week with the story of Cain and Able, with a brother killing his brother….…and societies and nations….so we see the breakdown of our horizontal relationships….
s. As well, as the breakdown of our relationship with the creation itself…and the creation which was to work for us, now often times works against us….we live in a broken world….all of this shows us how deeply sin has affected us….and it makes the most sense of why the world is the way it is, and why we’re the way we are…
t. If these are the results of sin…. what hope is there? I mean here’s humanity hiding from the face of God, has God comes and judges the sin and lays out the devastating consequences for humanity…what hope is there for us?
u. Well, imbedded in the passage is profound hope…and here’ the third thing we see….
V. The Remedy For Sin
a. First, we see the promise of it---in verse 15, right after the Lord curses the serpent and humiliates him by telling him he’s going to eat dust the rest of his life…we see this tremendous promise…
b. The Lord tells Satan, “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.”
c. This is what theologians call the protoevangelim, the very first mention of the Gospel---right in the middle of the cursing of the serpent, the Lord says there’s going to be this long struggle between humanity and Satan, but One of Eve’s distant offspring would come, and through Satan will strike him on the heel, meaning He will be struck and He will absorb the evil, He will then turn and strike Satan on the head….defeating him once and fall all…..so we see the promise of it, first here in the protoevangelim, but secondly…we see….
d. The Pattern of It: We read in verse 21, “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them"
e. So, after drawing out their confession, and laying before them the consequences, the Lord then graciously covers them…. but how does He do it? Through a sacrifice and the shedding of blood….
f. And this becomes a pattern for the people of Israel—Remember Moses is writing this story as they’re making their way out of Egypt and coming into the Promise Land where they’re going to have the tabernacle and it was at the tabernacle and later the temple that access to God’s presence came only by the shedding of blood—a sacrifice—and the mediation of a priest….
g. So, this becomes a pattern for the people of Israel—the shedding of blood, a sacrifice and the mediation of the priest—and it points forward to Jesus Christ….
h. When Jesus died on the Cross, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom—full access back into the presence of God no longer required a sacrifice, the priest, or a temple—because Jesus was at once the ultimate sacrifice, the priest and the temple---
i. In Hebrews 9 we read these words, “When Christ came as high priest…. he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.”
j. Christ’s work on the Cross gained for you the access to the presence of God that was lost to you through Adam and Eve…
k. For Adam and Eve, and us, there’s no going back to the Garden of Eden, but through Christ there’s a better garden that lies ahead---and it’s there, upon a renewed Creation that we will fully come into His presence and look upon His face once again
l. In Revelation 22, I’ve shared with you when we did the overview of Genesis but in Revelation 22, John has a vision of the new heavens and the new earth and he says this, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” [So, here, you’ve got the restoration of Eden.] “No longer will there be anything accursed [so here you’ve got the reversal of the curse], but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”
m. Look at this! We see the first glimmer of the Gospel in the beginning in Genesis, and we see it’s glorious consummation in the in Revelation---all of Scripture points to the Gospel in Jesus—that we, like Adam and Eve, have turned away from God. We’ve chosen to go our own way and because of it, we’re alienated from God, we’re shackled with shame, and we hid in fear from the Lord…but the Lord…. oh, the Lord!
n. God in Christ pursues, He comes to us as our Savior, He sacrifices Himself in our place for our sin—and when He dies on the Cross, He exclaims, “It is finished” meaning everything necessary for you to come back into His presence, to pass from death to life, is done---and you, all you have to do, is to very simply, stop talking about the Lord, and start talking to the Lord…
o. And you do that by admitting first of all you’re a sinner—and just like with Adam, He already knows that, so you’re not shocking Him….but you come to Him in repentant faith, confessing your sins…and then believing that Jesus died for your sins, and rose again to give you new life in His name, and a new heart, which is finally freed from Satan’s grip, enabling you to finally and fully rest in God’s grace given to you.