Genesis - the Fall

Reading – Psalm 139:1-16; 32.

C. S. Lewis, “I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this.” This is not a parable. Here is an account of what happened when God made man, and sin and death came into our world, into my world and your world.
It is appointed unto men once to die, and Genesis three is telling us the means by which death entered the world created by the Holy One
In Genesis we have what is apparently a simple unfolding of the events of the early days of the history of the race and of the consequences that came from them.
The biblical teaching is that the man and woman were made upright by God, who himself is upright. They fell into sin and did so as representatives of the human race, Adam in particular being so designated. As a result of that fall, the judgment of God in the form of death passed on everyone.
[1] WHAT EVE DID – ate the forbidden fruit. 6 ¶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.
Someone has said that if you are going to smoke a peace pipe with the devil then the pipe needs to have a very long stem, but better not to smoke at all. So she gazed at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as she had never looked at it before. The tree seemed utterly enchanting, and she became obsessed by it.
Satan didn’t bother to remind Eve of the terrible consequences for her, her family, and the human race. He never does.
Satan lets the attractiveness of the product lure Eve to her doom. In the Lord's Prayer the prayer doesn't say, "Lead me out of temptation." By the time we have got into it we are already half lost. The Lord tells us to pray beforehand, don't let me get to the place where I feel this tremendous awakening of desire within.
Eve “saw that the tree was good for food.” It was nutritional, not harmful. This is what John calls “the lust of the flesh”1 John 2:16. The temptation looks as if it will meet a legitimate need.
Eve saw that the fruit “was pleasing to the eye.” He got her on the emotional level. It was lovely, not ugly. This is what John calls “the lust of the eyes.”
Eve saw that the fruit “was desirable for gaining wisdom.” This appealed to her on the intellectual and spiritual level. Wisdom is generally a good thing but wisdom isn’t gained by disobeying God, but by fearing and obeying Him. When its in opposition to God’s Word it feeds what John calls “the boastful pride of life.”
The thought was how can it be wrong when it seems so right? Kidner says: “Eve listened to a creature instead of the Creator, followed her impressions against her instructions, and made self-fulfilment her goal”.
The downward spiral is complete. When you start fondling Forbidden Fruit, you’re already done for. You’ve committed the sin in your heart long before you take that first bite. If you don’t want to get trapped, don’t spend time thinking about how nice it would be, how good it would feel, or how much you deserve it.
When you start saying, “I know God says……but…….,” you are on the verge of making a terrible mistake.
[2] WHAT ADAM DID - he ate the fruit. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
Eve has now joined the serpent’s side, she is doing the serpent’s dirty work for him, and she is dragging her husband down with her. That’s what happens when we yield to temptation, others are always hurt and in the end, we suffer together.
Where had Adam been during this entire conversation? He was certainly around, but why was he silent, why didn’t He intervene. Adam watched her as she took the fruit put it to her lips and bit into it and swallowed it down. Then he simply took the offered fruit without asking her any questions.
If Adam had been a true spiritual leader, he would have reacted and corrected her. He was a mouse not a man. 1Ti 2:14 tells us: And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
Eve was tricked by the devil. But Adam was not deceived. He had heard the original command from God and he knew it was wrong to eat the fruit. He wasn’t tricked at all. And as the head of his family and the “federal head” of the whole human race, he is held morally responsible for the first sin.
Eve sinned first but Adam is to blame. He should have known better, he should have exercised leadership to protect his wife.
Adam chose to identify himself with her in her rebellion against God. He wanted to be independent of the Lord too - and in that attitude mankind fell, with all its tragic consequences.
The NT explains this and goes on to describe exactly what they had done. 1 Cor. 15: 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
Eve was deceived; but Adam sinned in utter rebellion. This is why the Bible never places the blame for the fall of the race on the woman.
[3] WHAT THEY DID –sinned against God
From the NT we learn a word that defines what our first parents did. It is called sin. The bible says in Romans says that sin entered through Adam. Ro 5:12 therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. Ro 5:17 by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, 19 through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners.
What is Sin? We need to know. Sin is a falling away from something good. It is the reversal of God’s good intentions for the race.
We see this in nearly all the synonyms for sin found in the Scriptures: the words used in the original languages are transgression, to miss the mark, to go astray, shortcoming and offense. Each of these involves a departure from a higher standard or from a state enjoyed originally.
The prophets when they rebuked Israel for its sin, would say: ‘You have fallen away, you have strayed, you have been unfaithful. You have forsaken God; you have broken the covenant, you have left him for other gods. You have turned your backs upon him!’
Sin is leaving God. In His parables the Lord Jesus speaks of sin as leaving God. The prodigal son leaves home, goes away from the Father and turns his back upon him. The lost sheep strays from the flock and from the Shepherd; it is lost.
Sin is pride. Eve thought she knew what was better for herself and her husband than God did. The man also made himself autonomous. This is pride, it lies at the heart of our sinful race. It makes us all want to be more than we are or can be.
Sin is rebellion. Jesus tells of wicked tenant farmers who grab the master’s rights and wrongly seize the land which they only held on a rental. They are lawless rebels. 1Jo 3:4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. That’s the definition of sin. It's ignoring God's law; it's breaking God's law. It's living as if there was no law of God. It's further defined in Romans 14:23: To know to do right and not do it is sin. I John 5:17 "All unrighteousness is sin."
So when you know what’s right and don't do it, that's sin. When you know something pleases God and you don't do it that is sin. ‘
Sin is going beyond the bounds that God has established. Sin is defined as any breach of God's law. God's law is revealed in the bible of course.
Sin is humanities most basic problem.
The media is full of stories about evil, the prisons overflow, and the laws of the land get added to year after year.
People like to think humanities basically good and something happens to make him bad. They accept there is such a thing as evil, but how do we define that evil? Why are we bad?
What is our standard for what is evil? Today we don't have a standard. Once our view of morality, crime and justice, all came from the Bible.
People now say the Bible is not our standard and so they redefine morality in terms of popular culture. In other words something is sin if the majority think it is so, but the majority are led by the media, and the media can’t be trusted. Something is sin if the government passes a law, but the government is often influenced by vocal minorities and passes knee jerk laws.
That kind of redefining of sin leaves society without morality, righteousness and unrighteousness, because you have no definition of sin.
Cheating is cheating whether it’s diving in the Premiership or copying in the classroom. Murder is still murder whether it’s in a blood feud in the Middle East or an abortion in Harley Street.
We need the basic pattern of moral law as laid down by our Lord, love God and love our neighbour, how does that amplify, in the 10 commands.
It’s hard to tell the world about a Saviour who will save them when their definition of sin is basically non-existent? You tell them sin is a breach of the law of God.
They say I don't believe that. Just keep teaching and preaching the truth and let the spirit of God take it and use it to convict the hearts. It's the word of God the Holy Spirit uses. It’s truth that has power to convince and humble.
[4] WHAT SIN DID – it brought guilt and fear 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
They quietly sinned and fell, and immediately something in them died. They were in a state of rebellion against God - in Adam all die. That is the Fall of man.
Eating forbidden fruit was a good experience at first. However the actual experience of sin is like the one taste of alcohol to a reclaimed drunkard or the first taste of blood to a predator, nothing is the same again.
At a stroke it wipes out all the peace, joy, self-respect, and innocence. It leaves us guilty and hopeless. Sin is madness.
They truly thought that she would gain enlightenment. When they ate their eyes were opened and they truly did know something new, only they now knew evil on a personal basis. Immediately Adam and Eve knew things had changed - the joy and peace they had known until then disappeared.
New feelings filled their hearts, horror, wretchedness, insecurity, shame.
They looked at one another and knew that things would never be the same again. The enlightenment they dreamed of turned out to be deep moral darkness.
The “wisdom” and ‘liberation’ Satan promised through rebellion proved to be slavery, sin, shame and death. Innocence was gone forever.
A] IT RUINED THE GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
i] It brought Guilt and Shame -7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
God’s presence was a theophany, an appearance of Jesus Christ in human form before He was born of Mary thousands of years later. The garden in the cool of the day was normally a time of refreshment, but this day was a time of fear.
They had been in harmony with God all their life until now but now a divorce between man and God had occurred. Now Adam and Eve didn’t want to see Him.
They did something they had never done before, they made body coverings. Not because they were in one another's presence, they were one flesh as man and wife. But, the embarrassment arose from feeling exposed before God.
Their psychology was now changed; they had a sense of shame and fear.
Adam says “I was afraid because I was naked.” He had been naked every other time the Lord had walked with him in the garden. The problem wasn’t his nakedness, but his feelings of guilt, because of sin. The nakedness described here has the sense of being unmasked -nakedness of soul.
Self-reflection has begun and the first movement of conscience produces shame.
God made us to be self-less but now self-consciousness dogs us every day, and we discover that clothing helps us. The whole human race finds it psychologically necessary to clothe themselves. It helps to make us feel more secure and able to face life with a sense of well-being. Dare I is say this is why ladies find it very uplifting to buy a new dresses. Clothing is a way of changing our appearance so that we look different and can project an image.
The shame of nudity is no artificial inhibition introduced by the conventions of civilisation as nudists and anthropologists say, it’s source is an awareness of sin.
Animals wear no clothes because they have no knowledge of good and evil. Little children feel no need of clothes because as yet self-consciousness is still latent.
The consciousness of a power to choose good and evil is awakened and they feel that in themselves they are faulty, that they are not in themselves complete; that though created by God, they are not fit for His eye.
They were covering themselves from God, but God doesn't look at the outward appearance, he looks at the heart. God on high saw it all as he does today.
When they sinned their conscience was activated. God’s question focuses on this, “Who told you that you were naked?”
Conscience is like a monitor alarm on a patient in hospital. It goes off and warns that something is not right, the pulse or temperature is at a dangerous level.
Of course it’s possible, through repeated sin, to deaden your conscience so it no longer functions correctly. But this first couple’s conscience was operating as God intended--it told them that they had sinned.
When that alarm goes off, the fallen human way is to deal with it just as Adam and Eve did: stop it up as quickly as possible, like the smoke alarm in your kitchen .
Our modern psychotherapeutic culture is desperately trying to rid itself of the notion of guilt and shame. Modern celebrities brag openly about things that, just a few years ago, would have been kept quiet.
Best-selling books, like Healing the Shame That Binds You promise to rid us of “toxic shame” by “Using affirmations, visualizations, ‘inner voice’ and other useful healing techniques”.
Even many professing Christian psychologists, tell us that our problem is low self-esteem; we need to learn to accept ourselves.
It is not surprising that the enemy of our souls offers many counterfeit solutions.
But the fig leaves of human solutions to guilt will not answer in the day when we stand before the living God. The story of God’s coming to that first guilty, fig-leaf-clad, hiding couple, shows us God’s solution to guilt.
ii] It brought Fear and Hiding -8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
They heard God’s voice and hid among the trees. They weren't comfortable in his presence any more, their guilt made them afraid. Fancy thinking that hiding behind trees would solve the problem! How pathetic!
The psalmist says God is inescapable. Psalm 139:7 ¶ Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
Heb. 4: 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
We have learnt to live with CCTV everywhere. Our movements are recorded by a hundred cameras on a simple journey. That’s no problem to law abiding citizens.
God knows exactly what we are doing when there are no cameras around. He knows our thoughts, and can see that our relationship with him is broken.
When we sin, we only have two options.
# 1 is to conceal it. That means to cover it up, to make excuses, and to rationalize.
We lie about sin, we cover up, we turn away, we change the subject, we destroy the evidence, and we get defensive and say, “How could you even think I would do something like that?” Or we smile and hope that it won’t be noticed.
Have you known times when one of your children seems to be avoiding you? When you found them, they looked uneasy and instinctively you know that they’ve done something wrong! Some people don’t like bumping into believers.
People by nature build walls around their lives. The Bible is unread, they don’t pray, worship is unobserved; when God sends reminders of His being, they are uncomfortable, they don't like it.
But because we all sin, we all need to deal with the guilt. We suffer physically and mentally because we conceal our sins, we go through the torment of living with a guilty conscience. Psalm 32: 3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. When that happens, we go through the torment of living with a guilty conscience. Psalm 32: 3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
#2 is to confess it and turn from it. The Psalmist goes on to say Psalm 32: 5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"—and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
To confess means to own up and admit it was wrong.” To turn from it is to repent by taking steps to break the sinful pattern. You are saying, “I’ve been in the wrong path but now with God’s help, I’m going to change direction.” Proverbs 28:13 says “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”
We deal with our guilt, not by hiding but by coming to God and acknowledging our sin. Jesus said whoever comes to me I will never drive away. John 6:37.
God graciously seeks, confronts, and offers reconciliation to the guilty in Christ just as he did for Adam and Eve.