SIN ENTERS PARADISE. Genesis 3:1 7

Transcription

1 1 Dear Friend, this is a transcript of a sermon preached by Pastor Jeremy Tan from the pulpit of Amazing Grace Baptist Church Singapore. We are committed to expository preaching because we believe it is the most effective way to expose, explain and expound the Holy Scriptures. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, [Jesus] expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24:27). Through careful systematic and sequential exposition, the preacher is able to declare unto you all the counsel of God (Acts 20:27), and Christians are blessed with a regular, well-balanced diet of God s Word. Expository preaching also helps us to have a high view of Scripture. We wish to extend a warm welcome to you to join us in our church services for a time of uplifting worship and helpful Bible study, which will bring rejoicing and refreshment to your soul. Do visit our church website at or write to us at amazingracebc@gmail.com. SIN ENTERS PARADISE Genesis 3:1 7 In Genesis 3 we have the answer to one of life s big questions: how did sin and evil come into the world? The Genesis record makes it clear that sin was not a part of God s original creation. God had created the first human pair without sin, and with the power of choice. Instead of obeying God, Adam and Eve chose to listen to Satan. Therefore, sin entered the world through Satan s temptation of the first human beings. Before his fall, Satan was known as Lucifer, the anointed cherub (Ezekiel 28:14) who reflected the beauty of God s glory and directed all worship to the Almighty. The name Lucifer means the bringer (or bearer) of light. He occupied such high status among the angels, that even the archangel Michael dared not bring a charge against him (Jude 9). Lucifer had the position and power above all the other angels, but he was discontent; he craved the throne of God for himself. He wanted to be like the Most High, or El Elyon, the name of God which means the possessor of heaven and earth (Isaiah 14:14; cf. Genesis 14:19). For Lucifer to be like the Most High means that he sought to become God. According to Ezekiel 28:15, sin originated with Lucifer when he desired the throne of God: Iniquity was found in thee. God immediately judged Lucifer and removed him from his position in Heaven. When did this happen? Job 38 informs us that the angels were present with God at the beginning of the creation week. Job 38:6-7 6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner stone thereof; 7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? All the sons of God shouted for joy at the foundation of the world. This means that Lucifer s rebellion occurred sometime after the first day of creation, but before the sixth day when man was created.

2 2 When Satan failed to usurp the throne of God with his insurrection, he sought control of those on earth whom God had created in His own image. God had planted the gardentemple for the first man and the woman to live and work. Their responsibilities were to cultivate the Garden and to protect its sanctity. So Genesis 3 begins with an intruder to the Garden of Eden. Now, God had created everything very good (Genesis 1:31), so the serpent was not a bad snake. But the one that slithered into the Garden was no ordinary reptile; it became the tool of Satan to serve his wicked purpose. There are two main points in this study of Genesis 3:1-7. I. The Dialogue with the Serpent. One of the ways to defeat the enemy is to know his strategies, so this account of the temptation must not be read merely for its history. Instead, Genesis 3:1-7 provides us with the archetype for all temptations that we may encounter. There is an all-too-familiar pattern in our temptations that follows after the dialogue between the woman and the serpent. The pattern of temptation in this dialogue is repeated throughout human history. There are three stages in the course of temptation. It begins with 1. Doubting God s Word. Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? This is the first time since the beginning of creation that a dissonant voice is heard. In Genesis 1, there was the voice of Almighty God the Creator, absolutely sovereign in power and purpose, who spoke the universe into existence. In Genesis 2, there was the voice of the LORD God who gave His commandments to the first human beings. But now in Genesis 3, the serpent spoke; this is the questioning voice of Satan that challenged the authority of God. God gives humanity language to subdue the earth, to bring everything under dominion. The serpent perverts language, using it to bring confusion and to draw Adam and Eve under his control. (Genesis: A Commentary, Bruce A. Waltke with Cathi J. Fredricks, p. 91). There is no doubt that Satan had heard God s commandment for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now through the serpent, Satan approached Eve with a question, Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Now let us look at this tree for a moment. There are some ideas about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The most popular idea is that this was an apple tree. But the Bible does not give us any hint about the fruit. Another idea for the tree is inferred from the sense of shame when the couple realized their nudity: the idea is that the tree symbolized sexual intercourse. But this cannot be right because God had commanded the man and the woman to procreate, to be fruitful, and multiply (Genesis 1:28). The bed of the husband and wife is undefiled (Hebrews 13:4), and there is no sexual sin within marriage.

3 3 We may imagine the tone of Satan s question as one of surprise or exclamation. Is it really true that God said this to you? The tone of amazement in the serpent s question so enticed Eve that she did not stop to think about the unnaturalness of a talking snake. But once the reptile had attracted Eve with the question, the seed of doubt was planted. The result was the single most disastrous dialogue in the history of the human race. We read Eve s reply in Genesis 3:2-3 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. The woman s response to the serpent is instructive. God s command, as recorded in Genesis 2:16, is that they could freely eat the fruit of every tree of the garden. But Eve merely said, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. The serpent was sharp and quick to detect the difference between Eve s reply and God s command. We may not think too much about Eve s reply. The difference in words may seem small and inconsequential to us, but this is how doubt against God s Word is planted. Satan s question already seems to have aroused doubts in Eve about God s goodness toward her and Adam. Friend, inaccuracy with God s Word is the fertile ground for the seed of doubt to be planted. When we are not careful with God s Word, there is the danger of misinterpreting and misunderstanding the meaning and intention of God. Another inaccurate handling of God s Word is the teaching of the doctrines of man as if they are the commandments of God (Matthew 15:9). Be warned: Satan is an acute theologian; he and his false teachers know how to use the Bible to their advantage. If we do not interpret the Bible carefully, we will become the easy targets and ready victims of our adversary, the devil. Notice something else that is significant about this dialogue. Both the serpent and the woman addressed the Creator as God, which is Elohim. Both avoided addressing God by His covenantal name, which is LORD God, or Yahweh Elohim. In the midst of temptation, one tends to keep God at a distance, so as to avoid the conviction of sin and the reminder of a personal relationship with Him. To be reminded of God during our temptation is to be confronted with our accountability to Him for what we are about to do. From doubting God s Word, the next stage in the temptation is 2. Denying God s Word. Genesis 3:4-5 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. The serpent is a sharp observer of human nature. Even in the beginning with Eve, the first woman, the serpent noted that she did not quote God accurately. So it followed up the question, Yea, hath God said? with a denial. This is the denial that disobedience to God results in the penalty of death. Here we have the lie of Satan that has cheated the human race from the beginning: there is no punishment for sin.

4 4 Many people believe that God is too loving and too kind to let anyone go to hell. Friend, this is the lie of the devil. The Bible repeatedly states that no person will escape the judgment of God for their unforgiven sins. The righteous God will judge all sinners without partiality and corruption. The serpent lied to Eve, Ye shall not surely die. This is a contradiction of verses such as Ezekiel 18:20, The soul that sinneth, it shall die, and Romans 6:23, For the wages of sin is death. In Genesis 3:5, the serpent not only denied God s words, but it also questioned the integrity of God. It implied that God is holding back some good thing from them. According to the serpent, God did not want them to have their eyes opened. By eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the man and the woman would be like God. Why, God is jealous that we should become like Him! Notice also that the focus is shifted from God s generous provision of all the trees that could be eaten to the single prohibition, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of being grateful to God for His gracious provision of so many things, temptation leads us to grumble that God is denying us something good. Why can t I do the things that the world does? Why am I denied a relationship with that person? Why can t I have what I want? Why can t I try this, or enjoy that? When we focus on that one prohibition that is our temptation, we think that God is unfair and unhelpful to us! We think that God is a killjoy. We lament that God is standing in the way of our personal fulfilment, and that being a Christian means we are losing out. Temptation blinds us to the reality that God s prohibition is for our good. Concentration on such a forbidden object very easily led her to these modifications unless Adam had told her incorrectly. (Allen P. Ross, Creation and Blessing, p. 135). Perhaps Adam did not communicate God s words clearly to his wife. This is a warning to us about the preacher or teacher who is careless with his handling of the Scriptures. Worse, many people are not at all like the Christians in Berea who searched the Scriptures for themselves whether those things were so, even though their preacher was the apostle Paul. The Bereans did not treat God s Word lightly; they wanted to see the truths for themselves by searching the Scriptures. No wonder that Paul praised them as noble (Acts 17:11). How about us? Do we have a noble attitude toward God s Word? 3. Disobeying God s Word. Let us be clear that temptation itself is not a sin. None of us is exempt from temptation. Our Lord Jesus was also tempted in the wilderness. However, He rejected the temptation of Satan and did not sin. Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. Eve desired wisdom. Later the apostle Paul would say that the world by its wisdom did not know God, and that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God (1 Corinthians 1:26-2:16; 3:18). The apostle John gives us the types of temptation that affected Eve. We read in 1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

5 5 Notice the types of temptation. First, the lust of the flesh is the desire to experience. Eve saw that the tree was good for food. Secondly, the lust of the eyes is the desire to have. To Eve, the tree was pleasant to the eyes. As the saying goes, You will never know until you try it. How many people have fallen for that line! Third is the pride of life. This is the desire to be, or the pride of having or knowing something. For Eve, she desired [the tree] to make one wise. She wanted the knowledge that belonged to God. There are several examples in the Bible that depict these three types of temptation. We will look at two examples. First, we have the case of Achan. Before the children of Israel entered Jericho, God commanded the people against taking anything from the city. But Achan disobeyed God. In Joshua 7 we have Achan s confession after the children of Israel suffered the loss of their soldiers in the city of Ai. Joshua 7:21 When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes combined to tempt Achan. His desire for these things led him to disobey God, and his sin brought trouble to his nation and the destruction of his entire family. The second example is David. 2 Samuel 11:2-4 2 And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. 3 And David sent and inquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bath-sheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? 4 And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house. During the days when kings led their soldiers into battle, David stayed behind in the safety and comfort of his palace. While resting on the rooftop of his palace, David saw the naked form of Bathsheba and he was tempted. David s temptation led him to adultery with Bathsheba, then to the cover-up of his sin with the murder of her husband Uriah the Hittite, and trouble for his own family. When and where did David s troubles begin? With the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life! Now coming back to Genesis 3, we note that when Eve took the fruit, Adam her husband [was] with her (Genesis 3:6). Adam was right beside her, or at least, close by. He was a silent observer to the dialogue between the serpent and his wife! Adam knew the commandment of God and the consequences of disobedience, but he did not correct, object, or reject the fruit Eve offered to him. No warning from Adam! Instead, he went along with his wife. He did eat. The woman listens to the serpent, the man listens to the woman, and no one listens to God. (R. Kent Hughes, Genesis: Beginning & Blessing, p. 65). Why did Adam keep his silence? It is possible that he paused a moment when he saw his wife take a bite of the fruit. But when he saw that she did not die immediately as God had warned them, perhaps he reasoned that it would be no problem for him to eat it too. Note here that temptation is often

6 6 hard to resist because of the element of truth in it. Satan is right in that Adam and Eve did not die immediately after eating the forbidden fruit. But what Satan said is not the whole truth. Though they did not die prematurely after eating the fruit, both of them suffered immediate spiritual death. But Adam is not alone with such a thought; there are Christians who dispute the meaning of spiritual death. They insist that spiritual death should not be interpreted by its literal meaning. They seem to be in agreement with the serpent s statement, Ye shall not surely die. But God is always faithful and true to His Word. According to Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: The death, which Adam the one man passed upon all men, includes immediate spiritual death, and physical death ultimately. But why is it that we are all sinners because of Adam, and not of Eve? We read the apostle Paul about this in 1 Timothy 2: But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Why is it that Adam s sin condemned us, but not Eve s sin? Why is it that Adam s sin became our sin, and not Eve s sin? Wasn t Eve the first person to disobey God when she ate the forbidden fruit? Yes, Eve was the first person to disobey God, but in 1 Timothy 2:14 we read that Eve was deceived, whereas Adam was not deceived. God had given to Adam the authority as the head of the woman, and God had given to Adam a clear commandment about the tree. Adam had no excuse. He sinned with full knowledge of what he did. As the father and federal head of the human race, Adam is our representative to God. Thus, his sin became ours, and all of Adam s descendants have inherited his sin nature. From Adam, we are all sinners by nature, as well as by choice. So we see in Genesis 3:1-6 the pattern of temptation. Temptation begins when we doubt God s Word. We doubt God s goodness to us, and we doubt God s words of warning to us. Doubting God s Word then leads to denying His Word. Friend, all of us have the capacity to convince ourselves that God understands us when we sin. We claim that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and we give all sorts of excuses. But our excuses are self-delusions. Jeremiah 17:9 reveals that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Thus, we ignore or minimize the sin that comes with the temptation. But note Proverbs 28:26, He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. The end of doubting and denying God s Word is disobedience to Him; and the disobedience of Adam and Eve to God s commandment led to II. The Descent of Man. Genesis 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. Before they disobeyed God s command, clothing had never occurred to the man and the woman, and there was no shame in their nudity. But now, their eyes were opened.

7 7 Instead of having the knowledge and wisdom of God, they now knew evil. That which was not shameful before, now becomes something for them to be ashamed. The experience of Adam and Eve is warning to us that Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44), and he makes promises that he cannot deliver. Instead of becoming wise from eating the forbidden fruit, they became foolish by covering up their nakedness before God. In what way are they foolish? Hebrews 4:13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Psalm 94:9 He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see? What is there in God s universe that He does not see? It is impossible for any of God s creatures to hide from Him! Ever since Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together to cover up the nakedness of their sins, their descendants have continued to do the same. Instead of fig leaves, people seek to cover up their sins with works of charity, works of kindness, donations to worthy causes, religious sacrifices, acts of penance, and so on. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Friend, we cannot cover up our sins through self-effort; there is only the cleansing for our sins, and God provides cleansing for sin in the Lord Jesus Christ! According to 1 John 1:7, it is the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanseth us from all sin. Have you admitted and confessed to God that you are a sinner? We all need cleansing for our sins, not a cover-up. 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Conclusion The account of the first temptation in Genesis 3 is not a story that is interesting to know, but it is the archetype for us to learn about overcoming temptation. We must learn from this because those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. In Eve s dialogue with the serpent, she minimized the provision of God. God said, You may freely eat. She simply shortened God s words by saying, We may eat. Secondly, she added to the prohibition. God said nothing about touching the tree, but Eve said that God commanded them not to even touch it. Third, Eve weakened the penalty of sin. God had declared, You shall surely die. Instead, Eve said, Lest you die. How do we overcome temptation that is common to us all? According to James 4:7, Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. The Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect example for us. When Christ was in the wilderness, Satan tempted Him with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Satan tempted Christ to turn the stones into bread, then the devil tempted Christ with the lust of the eyes by showing Him the kingdoms of the world;

8 8 and finally, Satan tempted Christ with the pride of life, by jumping from the top of the temple. Christ rebuffed each of the three temptations by quoting the Word of God. God s Word defeated Satan. Do you know God s Word well enough to overcome temptation? A thorough knowledge of the Word of God and an unwavering trust in the goodness of God are absolutely essential for spiritual victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. (Ross, p. 137 italics by the author). May God use this lesson from Genesis 3 to help us glorify Himself by overcoming temptations to sin, and obeying Him according to His Word! Finally, we note the verbs in Genesis 3:6, took and eat. These verbs describe simple actions, but what Eve did with ease when she yielded to temptation, these same verbs describe the costly sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The verbs take and eat will become the words of salvation after the perfect atoning death of Christ on the cross for sinners who believe in Him as their personal Saviour. Christ took the cup that was to be His crucifixion (Matthew 26:39, 42). This is the cup of salvation that Christ offers to all who believe in Him as their personal Lord and Saviour (Matthew 26:26-28; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Disobedience to God brings certain judgment, and the penalty for sinners is everlasting death in hell. We are all the descendants of Adam, and we are all sinners. Adam s sin became our sin, and we sin because we have his sin nature. If you have not come in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for the cleansing of your sins, come now and ask Christ to be your personal Saviour! Permission: We share our materials with you as a blessing from the ministry of our church. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by Amazing Grace Baptist Church. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: Copyright: Amazing Grace Baptist Church Singapore. Website: Used by permission as granted on website.