The Fall

Transcript

So glad you survived the Snowmageddon of 2025, and we all made it here safe and sound. But before we get started, let’s open in prayer. Father, we thank you for your word, and your word is truth. And Lord, you know what we need to hear. You know what needs to be revealed, that your word is a light upon our path. And I pray, Father, that as we open your word, our hearts will be open to your word, and you will speak clearly to us. Lord, help us also to have the courage to act upon that, and to listen to what you are saying to us. And I pray this in Jesus’ name, amen. We have seen in the last six sermons, done by Thomas and Andre and Cody Cannon, that God created all things. He created the sea, the dry land, the sun, the moon, the stars, and it was all good.

And also the plants and the animals, and it was all good. And then he created the man and the woman, and it was very good. He created a garden and placed man and the woman there, and there they had fellowship with God and with each other. What a wonderful place that God had created. But in Genesis 4

we read, Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. And then a few chapters later, we read in Genesis 6, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. There is something wrong with the world. Cornelius Plantinga writes, human wrongdoing, or the threat of it, mars every adult’s workday, every child’s school day, every vacationer’s holiday.

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The Serpent’s Deception

Sin has a thousand faces, but in our society, the shadow of sin has dimmed. Nowadays, the accusation, you have sinned, is said with a grin and a tone that signals an inside joke. Sin indulgence is now an advertisement, not an accusation. The popular place to inquire about the root cause of human evil is found in the department of psychology and sociology. What happens? How did we get from Genesis 1-2 to our present situation? Well, Genesis 3 is what happens. So let us read the text together. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden,

neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees

of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. To Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat all of it, all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of

it you are taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. The man called his wife’s name Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God send him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden he placed a cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Our text today deals with the fall of humanity, and it reveals the devastating consequences

Temptation and Tragedy

of sin. But it also talks about God’s justice and his provision of grace. We can divide the text into three sections. First we have temptation and tragedy in verses one to seven. Second we have the confrontation and curse in verses eight to 19. And third we have mercy and hope in verses 20 and 24. Let’s start with our first section, temptation and tragedy. And in this section we see the deceptive nature of sin and the beginning of the rebellion against God. In verse one we read, now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God really actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? We suddenly have a new character in our story of Genesis. Until now we had God, man, and the woman and the animals, but they weren’t really functioning

as main characters in the events of the first two chapters. While Genesis 3 doesn’t explicitly identify the serpent as Satan, later scripture clarifies this connection. In John 8, 44, Jesus describes Satan as a liar and the father of lies. Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11, 3 that it was Satan who deceived Eve by his cunning. And John in Revelation 12, 9 and 20 verse 2 calls Satan the ancient serpent. But we must note here what the text says. The serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. The serpent, Satan, are still created beings. There is not God and an anti-God of equal power fighting for the dominion of the world. There is only God, the supreme being. Satan is a created being. Scripture talks about Satan as a fallen angel. Satan’s fall is symbolically described in Isaiah 14, 12 to 14 and Ezekiel 28, 12 to

18. While these two passages are referred specifically to the kings of Babylon in Tyre, but if you read the passages carefully, you realize that it’s not just talking about these kings, but they also reference to the spiritual power behind those kings, namely Satan. These passages describe why Satan fell, but they do not say when the fall occurred. Jesus states in Luke 10, 18, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Satan fell before he tempted mankind in the garden. We see Satan using a serpent here to approach the woman and the man as just one of the animals of the garden. It might be unusual for an animal to speak, but we have at least one other example of that in Balaam’s donkey in Numbers 22. God allowed Satan to use the serpent to test Adam and Eve, though God himself is not the author of sin.

The cunning of the serpent is seen in the fact that it only speaks twice in this passage, but it’s enough to offset the balance of trust and obedience between the man, the woman, and their creator. In the first dialogue of the serpent, it poses a question. It is framed as a desire to know, but it’s really a rhetorical question that is used to attack God’s character and motive. With the question, the serpent twists the commands of God to entice the woman to respond. The question is filled with cunning and faint surprise. Did God really say? And then it continues by exaggerating the limitation God had placed on the human couple as to its access of the fruits of the garden. You shall not eat of any tree in the garden. The exaggeration is used to draw the woman into a conversation. Now the man and the woman were given the command to rule over the animals, but here she is

treating the snake, the serpent, as an equal. Instead of rebuking the serpent, the woman and the man listen to it. With its question, the snake is implying that God is keeping good things from the man and the woman, and this leads to the temptation that we find in verses two to five. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you shall surely not die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you shall be like God, knowing good and evil. The woman responded to the serpent by giving a recitation of God’s command, which she must

have heard from Adam, since God gave the command to man before the woman was created. But in her response, she overstates and changes what God commanded. First she overcorrects, God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, and by doing this, she makes God to be overly restrictive. While the original command stated that if you eat from the tree, you will surely die, the woman turns it into a negative outcome of eating, lest you die. God indicated the automatic result of their disobeying his command would be death, and the woman presents it as a negative result from the eating of the tree, not so much as God’s certain judgment. It’s a fine nuance, but it diminishes God’s sovereignty. While the serpent had started with a faint surprise, did God really say?

In a second response, it reveals its true intention, and it dogmatically states, you will surely not die, and paints God as a liar. More than that, the twisted reason, according to the serpent, for God limiting access to the tree is that they might become gods when they eat. You see, conmen don’t lie little, they lie big. The bigger the lie, the harder the victim thinks it to be impossible to be a lie, and the serpent presents here a lie so big that the woman starts pondering on the possibility of it being true. The lie appeals to mankind’s desire, and it plays on mankind’s pride. Sin always begins with questioning God’s goodness and truth. The tempter pitches God’s love as envy, man’s obedience as gullibility, but presents disobedience as a leap into the full life of what man ought to be. The snake’s appeal to the woman’s doubt, pride, and desire for autonomy.

And the woman responds to the snake, distortion of God’s motive, as we see in verse six. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. We see here the typical progression of temptation. First there is doubt, then there is distortion of truth, followed by a desire for what is not sanctioned, and then follows disobedience. You must wonder what the woman thought she would be getting. Everything she had so far was declared as good by God. The light was good, the dry land and the sea were good, the vegetation was good, and so on. Eight times do we find that the scripture declared what God had created in chapters

one and two, that it was good. The only time we find something wasn’t good was when man was still alone, and God fixed that to make it also good by creating the woman. The man and the woman already had all the good. What did they expect to get from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? The only thing left to be gotten was the knowledge of evil. So the woman concludes that also this tree was good for food. Here we see already mankind acting as though they are God, by determining on their own what was good. God had declared in Genesis 2

that the trees in the garden were good for food and desirable to look at, but God had excluded just one tree. Now mankind had extended its reach and declared the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

as good for food and desirable. It was a pleasure to the eyes. And the last quality of the tree was that it was delightful to make one wise. See the man and the woman framed their disobedience as a quest for wisdom. I mean wisdom is good, right? Wisdom is called more desirable than fine gold. So how could this be wrong? What could possibly go wrong with desiring to make one wise? Well wisdom is not wrong, but the way we want to acquire wisdom and for what purpose they wanted to use the wisdom, that is what is wrong. The woman and the man portrayed their act not as a rebellion, but as a quest for wisdom. They listened to the creature, the serpent, Satan, instead of the creator. The woman sees, desires, takes, and eats. Adam too, being right there with her, eats. He doesn’t say a word.

He just eats. How quickly the transgression comes once the decision has been made. The thrust of the story, with all its simplicity, lies in its tragic and ironic depiction of the search for wisdom. It highlights man’s choice to prioritize self over God. They bought in the lie that evil is not really evil, but is good, it is wise, it will make one great. But with the acceptance of that lie, they denied the one who made them. And this has immediate consequences as we read in verse 7. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Eventually, that which the snake promised did, in fact, come about. The man and the woman became like God, but they were really already like God, in that they were made in the image of God.

Now their eyes opened, but instead of being wise, they experienced shame, alienation, instead of fulfillment. They had only known the good, but somehow they thought that the knowledge of evil would bring added value to their lives. They gained knowledge, but it was the kind of knowledge they hadn’t bargained for. They ate the fruit, their eyes were opened, and it was not all good. Immediately there was disharmony between the man and the woman. The serpent had promised that their eyes would be opened, and indeed they were. They did become like God, knowing good and evil, but they could not handle the evil. Their new understanding of good and evil was unlike divine knowledge, and they were suddenly aware of their differences and were uneasy about them. Their pathetic attempt to cover themselves up with fig leaves so clearly illustrates their failed attempt to become gods. Sin always brings forth shame.

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Confrontation and Curse

Sin always creates separation. That is the fruit of sin. But fig leaves can’t cover up sin. Sin always leads to an attempt at self-atoning, but fig leaves can’t restore one’s relationship with God. Sin will always lead to confrontation with God, a holy God, and that is a terrifying proposition as we see in the second section of our text, the confrontation and curse that we find in verses 8 to 19. When they disobeyed, they shattered not only the harmony among themselves, but also the harmony between humanity and God. A holy and just God cannot overlook rebellion and sin. Sin will always be confronted by God, and as sinners, we always try to hide from God as we see in verses 8 to 10. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Most think what is being described here was probably the daily occurrence before the fall. God walking in the garden and fellowshipping with man in the beauty of his creation. And then we see what happened after the fall. The man and the woman hide from the presence of God. That is what sin does, in that we will try to run away from God. Sin also limits our understanding of God, and this limitation is seen immediately. They forgot that you can’t hide from God, and yet they try to, and they hid themselves in the midst of the trees of the garden. In verse 9, we hear the first words to man after the fall from God, and they are full

of grace. He asked them, where are you? Not that God didn’t know where he was, but the question was meant to draw him out of hiding and face his situation head on. This is the justice of God. Sin must be confronted. God is asking each one of us each day, where are you? It is the cry of a holy God searching for lost sinners. Here we have a picture of a good shepherd who has lost a sheep and is out looking for the sheep. His question displays tenderness and compassion. God’s question was meant to start a conversation so that man and the woman would recognize their fallen state. God didn’t want to leave the man and the woman in their sin, so he came down to them. God didn’t leave mankind in our sin, but he sent his Son to save the lost. While Adam hid from God, Christ came to reveal the Father.

While Adam’s sin brought death and separation, Christ’s obedience brought reconciliation and life. No one can remain hidden from God. Adam revealed his true state to an all-knowing God. Adam’s answer didn’t really answer the question, where are you? But it answered the question, why are you hiding? His answer reveals also that sin leads to fear, terror when approaching a holy God. Adam had only heard God walk in the garden, and that was enough for him to go into hiding. Is there any place where it is true that you can hide from an almighty God? And we’ll see that it cannot be. In the next three verses, we see that God confronts sin, the sin of the creatures in verses 11 to 13. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate.

And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. Adam’s response brings out his sin in full view, where before the fall, Adam and Eve had perfect fellowship, now they have disharmony. God’s questions are not about seeking information, but are rhetorical questions asked to hold the man and the woman accountable. Sin cannot remain hidden from God. The first man had tried to hide his nakedness with fig leaves and his disobedience by hiding the trees. He then tried to hide his guilt by passing it on to the woman. The woman you gave me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. Notice that Adam not only blames Eve, but also indirectly blames God. The woman you gave me. This is a profound insight in how sin distorts human nature.

Sin makes people blame other people or things for their sins. Instead of owning our failures, we naturally seek to justify ourselves by blaming others, even God himself. Adam’s wife follows his pattern of blame shifting. The serpent deceived me and I ate. While our statement is true, it is still an attempt to deflect responsibility. The harmony between man and woman, once grounded in trust and love, is now marked by self-preservation, division and deception. While the serpent did deceive, the man and the woman were not robots who could not but give in to sin. Genesis 3

shows that the true nature of sin, it exposes, it distorts, it deceives and it leads to blame shifting rather than repentance. We also see that God does not ask the serpent any question. His concern is with man. Satan is always presented in the Bible as an irredeemable adversary.

Scripture presents Satan and his fallen angels as being who permanently chosen rebellion and are beyond redemption. By not crushing the serpent, God is making distinction. Humans, though fallen, are still recipients of his grace and will be pursued for redemption. The serpent, however, is only met with judgment. This foreshadows the ultimate destruction of Satan, as promised in Genesis 3

and fulfilled in Revelation 20, verse 10. But we see here a consistent pattern. God pursues sinners, calls them to account and offers redemption. God did this. God did not and does not abandon humanity. He pursues them, even in their sin. God’s confrontation with humanity is to lead them to confession and repentance. And we shall see this in the next six verses, that sin, even though they’re confronted, sin has its consequences. And so we read first the confrontation with the serpent in verses 14-15. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all

livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. By skipping any dialogue with the serpent and proceeding directly to judgment, God asserts his authority. The snake’s defense would have had no leg to stand on. The serpent is not given the dignity of a conversation, only a curse. This demonstrates that Satan’s power is limited and subject to divine decree. This reminds us that while Satan is an enemy, he is not equal, not an equal rival to God. His defeat is certain. His power is temporary. The prediction of Genesis 3

, where the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent’s head, is the first prophecy of Christ’s victory over Satan.

Verse 15 is called the Proto-Evangelium, the first gospel message. It foreshadows the gospel itself. Just as God called Adam and Eve to account, so too does Christ call sinners to repentance. And just as God declared the serpent’s doom, so too does Christ, the second Adam, triumph over Satan through his death and resurrection. With this verse, what this verse talks about is not enmity between snakes and mankind, but a fight between the offspring of the woman, Christ, and Satan. While Satan will afflict a wound on Christ, the crushing of the heel seen in the cross, it is not a defeating blow since Christ rose from the dead. But Christ will afflict a crushing blow on Satan, the crushing of the head, because on the cross, the serpent’s power is broken, and resurrection is proof of that. Amid the devastating events of the fall, verse 15 stands out as a beacon of hope.

Though sin entered the world, the fall did not catch God by surprise. The cross was not plan B. God knew that man would fall, and the triune God had made a plan before the foundation of the world that the Son would redeem mankind. Scripture portrays God as a sovereign over his creation, but that does not mean that he forced Adam to sin. God created mankind as independent creatures. People had the freedom to choose good or evil, and they chose evil. Why the man and the woman desired sin is a mystery. It has not been revealed to us. He did not create humans as robots who could not sin or could not help but sin. Now in our fallen state, we are enslaved to sin until we come to Christ, and Christ revives us and gives us his spirit to fight sin. Through Adam’s failure, the need for the Redeemer, for a Redeemer, was revealed.

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The Consequences of Sin

A Redeemer who would succeed where the first Adam fell. This verse reminds us that even in judgment, God extends mercy and hope. Our hope is only found in Christ Jesus. From the judgment on the serpent, we move to the judgment of Eve, and we read in verse 16. To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. No curse is pronounced here, just a penalty. God has given the man and the woman the command to fill the earth. Childbirth was going to be part of the woman’s experience even before the fall. The penalty on the woman now brings in an element of pain that I don’t believe would have been there if the fall had not happened. But it goes further than that.

Motherhood in a fallen world includes also the pain of infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, sickness of a child, and the sorrow of raising children who rebel against their maker. Childbearing is now marred by sin, yet it is through childbirth that redemption would come to the world, as we’ve seen in verse 15. In the pain of childbirth, there was a constant reminder of the promise. And many women in Israel, until Christ was born, were probably wondering, will my child that is about to be born, the head crusher? The second part of the verse talks about the relationship between the man and the woman, and it is a topic of wide debate. While Genesis 2.24 described a unique union between the wife and her husband, in that they would become one flesh after the fall, this oneness would not be perfect. While in chapter 2, man needed a helper, one who would be with him, here it speaks of a

rivalry between the woman and the man. Desire to control has entered the picture. The word for desire used here in our passage is used also two times more in the scriptures. Once in the Song of Songs, where it is in a romantic nuance, a positive nuance. And then here in Genesis 4.7, when the Lord talks to Cain, he says, sin is crouching at the door, his desire is for you, but you must rule over it. We see the word desire again linked with ruling over something or someone. What was supposed to be a blessing, having children and being together with Adam, has now become tainted by the fall. In these elements of blessing, we shall now find the painful consequences of a rebellion against God. Marriage, once marked by harmony, is now marked by struggle. The God-ordained roles of husband and wives are now distorted by sin, leading to conflict,

brokenness, and power struggles. Paul presents Christian marriage, though, as a reversal of Genesis 3

. In a believer’s marriage, a woman’s submission in marriage is not as a result of sin, but as an act of faith. A husband’s love for his wife is patterned now after the love that Christ has for his church, replacing domination with a self-sacrificing love. The damage done by sin to God’s design for marriage is restored to harmony when and if both partners fully submit to Christ. Yet also in Christian marriage, two sinners are united, and that sometimes leads to an unhealthy relationship when one or both partners are not listening to the one who has redeemed their lives. We need to understand how sin affects our marriage relationship. One, sin will result in power struggles, tendencies to control, manipulate, dominate, even neglect the relationship. We should be vigilant against those. Two, we need to acknowledge our need for grace.

Sin affects us all. This should bring us to a humble posture in our relationship. We all should be patient and foster deeper lines on God’s grace. Avoid the blame game because there is enough blame for everyone. The blame game is a losing proposition. Three, Paul states in Colossians 3.18, wives, submit to your husband as is fitting to the Lord. This is not blind obedience, but a respectful partnership that acknowledges the man’s God-given leadership task. But women, put your trust first in God and then in your husband. Find your security with the Lord, but encourage your husband’s leadership so that he can lead with love. Husband, lead sacrificially like Christ. Remember, Christ served His disciples. He washed their feet. Love your wife as Christ loved the church sacrificially. Lead without being domineering. Sometimes we men avoid leadership. At other times, we lead by trying to control everything.

Your leadership should be with love, protecting your wife in selfless ways, prioritizing your wife’s spiritual and emotional well-being. Listen to her needs. Pray with her. Encourage her in her faith. In our text, in the last instance, God addressed the man and we read in verses 17 to 19, and to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

In this pericope, we see three major consequences of Adam’s sin. First, there is a curse on the ground. It is the second time God pronounced a curse. All creation is affected through this curse. The ground, the earth, the tectonic plates, the plant, the beast, everything. We read in Romans 8 that because of the fall, creation was subjected to futility. Creation is not able to fulfill its original harmonious purpose, but is now marked by decay, natural disaster, disease, brussel sprouts, and all kind of hardships. Secondly, because of sin, work which had been part of man’s life before the fall and was a joy-filled responsibility becomes now marked by frustration, struggle, and hardship. Time for one’s need now requires exhausting labor, and will often not bring forth the desired result. Instead of good things, it will bring forth what he had not planted and could not use.

What used to be work is now toil. Man was to subdue the earth, and the earth is now trying to subdue the man. Thirdly, death is now part of man’s existence. In chapter 2, God had said, on the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. So on the day that Adam ate from the tree, he was spiritually dead, and his death sentence, his physical death sentence was announced. As he was created from dust, now he will return to dust. This section in our passage can leave us crushed, defeated, and wondering, how can we go on? Sin has shattered the perfect harmony that we saw in chapters 1 and 2. Adam and his wife, once living in fellowship with God and with each other, are now afraid of God and ashamed of each other. The serpent is cursed, the woman’s future is marked by suffering, and the man’s future

Mercy and Hope

marked by fertility. But even amidst this heavy but just sentence, God’s mercy and grace shine through in our third point of the sermon, mercy and hope, in verses 20 to 24. And the story now moves in a redemptive way. And we see this first in the naming of Eve, and in verse 20 we read, the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Adam’s naming of Eve is an act of faith. After the death sentence on the man, the man named his wife Eve, which means life giver. Even though his life now had an expiration date, Adam looks forward to the next generation. Although she has yet to give birth, Moses, the author, looks back at what happened afterwards and how she had become the mother of all living. Adam has already called her woman in Genesis 2.23 to indicate that God formed her and that

she was an image bearer of God, just very much like himself. And although death was not part of their existence, he knew that his wife and he would not be the last of humanity, because God had promised that she would bear children, although now in pain. God had said that through the seed of the woman would come the head crusher, the one who would defeat the serpent. While humanity was fallen, a savior was coming. And like Adam, even when circumstances are bleak, we must hold on to God’s word. And although physical life came through Eve, spiritually, the descendants of Eve would struggle with sin. As Paul stated in Romans 5.12, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. But the good news is that eternal life comes through the seed of the woman, through Jesus.

As Paul states in the same chapter, for if because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. The second sign of mercy and grace is seen in the provision of garments in verse 21. And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them. Man’s attempt to cover up the consequences of his sin by making loincloth with fig leaves is really an example of how we all try to deal with sin, trying to fix it on our own. God has a better, more appropriate solution. He provides for them tunics of skin to cover them as they can no longer walk before God in innocence. While God has wrested from his creative work after the sixth day, here in an act of grace,

he acts, creates, and makes again on behalf of mankind by fashioning garments of skin. Maybe by mentioning the word skin, the author is hinting at the need for sacrifice to pay for sin. But at this moment, Moses doesn’t really feel this out. The third act of mercy is seen in the banishment from the garden, as we read in verses 22 to 24. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed a cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way of the tree of life.

Adam and Eve, in their disobedience, now know good and evil, but sin has affected them in ways they had not foreseen. We have mentioned already that sin makes people afraid of God. It brings separation between mankind and God. It brings shame, and it severely taints the fellowship among people. God did not want mankind to live forever in this condition, and as an act of mercy he prevented their access to the tree of life. What tragedy it would have been if mankind was doomed to live forever with those consequences, always living in a state of fear, in a state of separation from God, living in shame and living with a relationship with one another that is marred and broken. There is only one way back to restored life with God, and that is through the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head.

Living in Light of Redemption

By removing them from the garden, God ensured that humanity’s restoration would come through his plan of salvation. The cherubim demonstrates that sinful humanity can’t enter God’s presence on their own. Where does this leave us? Well, the question comes down to this. Are we relying on our own wisdom, or are we depending on God’s wisdom who provided the way back to the Father through his son, through his son’s work on the cross? If you’re not yet a follower of Jesus, know that just like Adam, God calls out to you and asks you, where are you? He does this because he wants you to confess your sins and come to him. From Adam on, we all have sinned and disobeyed God. We all have rejected God’s authority. The consequence of sin is separation from God and suffering and hardship and death. But from the very beginning, God provided a plan of redemption.

He did not leave us in sin, but promised a Redeemer who would defeat sin and open the way to God once again. Any effort to do this on our own will fail. Only God’s provision, the sacrifice of Jesus, can take away sin. That is why he died, to take the penalty of our sin upon him. While we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God, through Christ, opened the path of salvation. The cross reverses the exile from God and brings us back into fellowship with the Father. Genesis 3 explained the mess we are in, explains why we need salvation, but it also points a way forward. In John 3, 16 and 17, John explains the plan of God. In the words of Jesus, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. To be restored, we need to acknowledge our sins, believe in Jesus that he is the promised redeemer who died and rose again to defeat that old serpent, Satan. And as you put your faith in him, you need to turn away from your sin and live in obedience to him, relying on the Spirit of God to do that. From trusting in Jesus, you will become a child of God. Here are some clear lessons for Christians. One, there is a clear danger in questioning and distorting God’s word. What Satan did back then, he is still doing now. He will try to sow doubt in your heart in relation to God’s word. We need to conform our lives to God’s word and not God’s word to our lives.

God’s word is unchanging. Human culture might change, but his word will never change. That’s the temptation of compromising on the truth. Secondly, sin will not look like a hideous thing, a thing that repulses you. Sin will look like something that seems right, that feels right, that looks right if we don’t take God’s command into account. Always ask yourself, what I’m thinking and considering, will it be pleasing to God? If you would stand before the throne of God in a real way, you do every moment, would God be pleasing with you if you do this or that thing? Proverbs 14, 12 says, there is a way that seems right to man, but its end is the way of death. Sin is not just an oops moment. Sin separates us from God, from each other. But while sin separates and drives us away from God, God desires you to come to him.

If you repent from your sin, God will meet you where you are. As he says in Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is near to the broken hearted and saved the crushed spirit. Confess your sin and God will draw near to you. Fourth, take responsibility for your sin. Don’t worry about what the other person has done. First set things straight with God. Sin can be gotten rid of by blaming others. We must acknowledge it and repent. Ask yourself, what area of my life do I need to take to the Lord in confession? Fifth, God’s acts of justice, of judgments are also acts of mercy. God is holy and just and will not ignore sin, yet his mercy and grace are evident even in judgments. No matter how dark things are, God always provides a way of redemption. Jesus took on the crushing of the cross so that we could have victory over sin and death.

Paul says in Romans, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Sixthly, the only way back to God is through Christ. We cannot enter God’s presence by our own works. We need a mediator and this is Christ, the seed of the woman, who through his life and death paid a price for our sin and through the resurrection demonstrated that his sacrifice was accepted by the Father. Our righteousness must come from God, not from our own good deeds. Yes, this world is a mess, but if you have trust in Christ, you are a citizen of Christ’s kingdom. Spurgeon wrote, we see in the first Adam our ruin, but we behold in the second Adam our salvation. By the first came our captivity, by the second our deliverance. So how will we live in a messed up world? Well let’s honor our Redeemer by following him, living out our lives by the power of

the Spirit to the glory of the Father. Let’s pray. Father, how much we are still aware of sin in our lives, even though you have called us. We recognize that at this side of eternity we will still struggle with sin, but Lord help us to see that you, through your son Jesus Christ, has paid a price for the sin. And by the strength of the Spirit, we can live with you from glory to glory. And so Father, I pray that as we go from here, we will again look at our own lives and hear that call from you. Where are you? And respond to it with repentance and with confession. And Lord, may we know fully that your mercy and grace are there for us, not because of anything we have done, but because of the work of Jesus in Jesus Christ, amen.