Beholding Fallen Man

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
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. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
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. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” – Genesis 3:1–13
 
How would Adam and Eve know that they were in a fallen state?  You would think they would be able to see some clear differences.  They had been without sin in a place without the presence of sin.  Now, all-of-a-sudden, they’re forever different.  Each of us have been born into this fallen state.  We’ve kind-of got used to it.  Coming from NC State I had gotten used to a mediocre football team.  I didn’t realize what it was like to be in close proximity to a winner on a national scale.  You would have experienced clear symptoms of fallenness.  What were some of those symptoms?

First, they entered into a new kind of knowledge of their surroundings.  Instead of just understanding evil on an intellectual basis they now understood it on an experiential level.  In verse seven it shows that they had a new realization that they were naked.  They experienced shame.  We know that we’ve done something wrong so we shrink back.  Typically, when you do sin, does it make you run to God right away or do you shrink back for a period of time?  This is the reality that we experience.  Second, they also hid.  Who were they hiding from?  There were no other people on the face of the earth except Adam and Eve.  I guess they were hiding from each other and from God.  Isn’t that interesting?  God gave Eve to Adam to be his, and yet, he still hid.  Also, God is the one who created their bodies.  It’s not like God walked into the garden and exclaimed, “Put those leaves on!” as he put his arms over his eyes.  We hide even when there’s no one to hide from and when there’s no reason to hide.  This is a symptom of the fall.  In verse 10 we see a third symptom that they experienced.  They were afraid.  Before the fall, fear was not a part of their decision making.  The most repeated command in the Bible is “Do not fear.”  Fear tends to mislead us in our decision making.  In verses 12 and 13 we see that Adam and Eve practiced the relationship killer called blame.  Children will blame parents.  Husbands will blame wives.  Siblings will blame each other.  Bosses will blame employees.  Employees will blame the system.  The cycle goes on-and-on-and-on.  Shame, hiding, fear and blame may seem like the problem we have in our relationships.  But those things are only symptoms.  The problem is rebellion towards God.  We all want something that God doesn’t want us to have.  We don’t believe that he is the best and that he has the best in store for us. 
 
In the book of Romans Paul gives commentary on what happened in the garden of Eden:
 
“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— for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. – Romans 5:12–14
 
How is it possible that we have to pay a penalty for someone else’s crime?  Death is the penalty for sin.  Adam sinned so he deserved to die, not us, right?  Well, what the Bible just showed us is that death entered the world through sin.  Sin entered humanity by one man, Adam.  Therefore, we all face death because of Adam.
 
This fallenness was passed onto us regardless if we wanted it or not.  Each individual person didn’t sin in the same manner that Adam sinned.  But, because humanity was in Adam, then that all humanity “sinned”.  A similar thought is in Hebrews 7:7-10 which says,
 
“And without doubt the lesser person is blessed by the greater. In the one case, the tenth is collected by men who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living. One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor.”  Other translations say that Levi was in the “loins” of Abraham. – Hebrews 7:7-10
 
Adam was God’s appointed representative for mankind.  Why was it this way?  Because God wanted it to be that way!  We don’t have a real clear understanding why God made Adam to be our representative.  There’s a lot of questions in the Bible that can be answered by understanding that God desired for things to be done in a certain way...just because that was His will.
 
There are other places in the Bible that show God choosing a representative.  God chose Moses to represent the people of Israel.  He chose who would be priests to perform sacrifices in order to stand in the gap between God and the people.  He chose David to be king over Israel.  He appointed the husband to be the head of the wife.  He appoints governments to be His servant.  Paul talked about being appointed to be a preacher, an apostle and a teacher.  He also appoints Christians to be His ambassadors in order to represent Himself to people on Earth who don’t know Him.  We don’t have many answers as to why God has appointed these particular people or institutions to carry out His will.  Apparently, in Genesis 3, we see that God chose Adam to be the representative of the human race.  Even though it may be hard to understand why God appointed certain people to certain tasks, we can still trust God and His understanding.  You don’t have to understand everything about a person before you can trust them.  I don’t understand everything about my wife and yet I still trust her.  If God is all-powerful and all-knowing then how much more should I trust Him.
 
I think to be able to understand this verse we must understand who God is.  A lot of questions in the Bible could be clarified if we had a better understanding of the character of God and the way He relates to people.  God is completely fair.  In Romans 2:11 it says, “For God does not show favoritism.”  We also see verses that communicate more clearly about God’s justice and holiness.  We also see that God is relational.  He is also all-knowing.
 
Paul said that “death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses…”  Why is this time frame significant?  What communication did God give the people of Israel while Moses was alive?  It was the Law.  In the Law God gave specific commands like don’t lie, don’t steal and don’t murder.   Abraham hadn’t seen any of those commands and yet he experienced death.  Death wasn’t a result of him breaking the clear command “don’t lie” or the command “don’t steal” or “don’t commit adultery”.  He experienced death because he was in the body or “loins” of Adam.  Every person from Adam to Moses experienced death.  They experienced death because of their sinful nature, not because of the breaking of certain rules. 
 
We’re all guilty of sinning.  If I was in Adam’s shoes, I would probably would have done the same thing he did… disobey a specific command.   All of this doesn’t mean that we’re not responsible for our actions.  James said,
 
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” – James 4:1-3
 
The sinful things you do come from “your desires that battle within you…”  None of us can blame Adam for our own decisions. 
 
So, how can we know that the story in Genesis 3 actually happened?  I think there are different ways to get that question answered.  One answer has to do with the author’s intentions in writing Genesis.  In Genesis you see the word “toledoth”.  It can be translated into a handful of different ways.  In Genesis 2:4 it says, “This is the account (toledoth) of the heavens and the earth when they were created.”  Genesis 6:9 talks about the account (toledoth) of Noah.  Genesis 10:1 talks about the account (toledoth) of Shem, Ham and Japheth.  In Genesis 11:10, we read about the “account” (toledoth) of Shem.  In the rest of Genesis we read about the accounts of Terah, of Ishmael, Isaac, Esau and Jacob.  The word “toledoth” is translated as “records” in Exodus and as “geneology” in 1 Chronicles.  In the rest of the Old Testament, it’s translated as “lines of descent”, “birth” and “line”.  The overall usage of the word doesn’t just convey an idea of “beginning”.  It places real people during a real period of time on a real place on earth.  In other words, the author wasn’t trying to write poetry, using figure of speeches, myth and legend.  He was writing a narrative.  He was writing history as it happened on the earth.  This doesn’t prove that Genesis is the word of God.  But it does show the intent of the author.  There are other pieces of evidence that show that Genesis is something that God breathed out to us.  But this is beyond my sermon this morning to explain those reasons. 
 
Move forward in time thousands of years to Jesus’ time.  How was it proven that he was the Messiah that was going to take away the sins of the world?  The Messiah was going to come through the line of Abraham, through King David, and through a variety of other people.  The Messiah had to come through those people.  Matthew starts his gospel with what?  He starts with a genealogy.  He traces Jesus’ ancestry all the way back to Abraham.  Just think of this as an archaic Ancestry.com Luke traces Jesus’ ancestry all the way back to Adam.  There are quite a few people I talk to that accept that Jesus walked the earth, that he was a real person.  They may even go so far as saying that they have no reason to doubt the genealogies in Matthew and Luke.  They say that Genesis is just metaphorical, and we cannot know that those events actually happen.  Here’s the problem with that thinking.  If you accept that Jesus was a real person who descended from real people, then you must say that the genealogies in Genesis are real as well.  You must embrace the people in Genesis as real if you claim to embrace Jesus as your messiah. 
 
There’s one more thing.  What does the Greek word “genealogy” in Matthew and Luke mean?  I’ll spell the Greek word for you.  I’ll see if you can catch what it spells...G-E-N-E-S-I-S.  As enthralling as genealogies are, they are an extremely important thread connecting the whole Bible together.
 
If we are able to embrace that Genesis is telling us real and accurate history then that has some pretty big implications.  If anyone says that the state of man is different than the state that is presented to us in Genesis, then that person is wrong.  We are not good people who do bad things.  We are sinful.  Other men, who spoke on God’s behalf, agree.  These are verses over a variety of scripture that describe what state man was born into:
 
David said that we’re born with a sinful nature, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5).  Isaiah said that we’re separated from God, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:2).  Jesus said that we’re lost, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10).  In Ephesians, Paul said that we’re dead, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…” (Ephesians 2:1).  He also said that we were all, at one time, “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12).  In Romans 3:10-12 we see that “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; 11      there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” 
 
I'll tell you what’s amazing though.  Even though all of these things are true about us, God still loves us.  Each one of us are still created in the image of God and are important to him.  That image is marred though.  Understanding how bad we are will make us appreciate how much God still loved us anyway.  After numerous chapters of scathing rebuke, Paul stated in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  If you haven’t read Romans 1-4 then you won’t appreciate Romans 5.
 
There is another way to put a value on our state of fallenness.  Consider the following story.  “It’s only one more,” you say to yourself.  “After all,” you continue, “nobody’s watching.  What could it hurt?”  The excuses continue, “It’s just one more drink…”  Then you hear a loud bang.  “It’s just one more look...” you state matter-of-factly.  At that point you hear something that sounds like two pieces of metal colliding.  “Oh, it’s just one little lie…” Bang! Bang!  “Just one more thought...just one more minute...”  Then you hear the sounds of agony.  As you look up you remember the words of the Lord, “they will look on me whom they have pierced…” (Zechariah 12:10)  You realize that the sounds you were hearing were the sounds of nails being pounded into Jesus’ body, nailing him to the cross.  The sound of metal colliding was the sound of the hammer driving the nails deeper and deeper.  It wasn’t just one more lie, or one more thought or one more minute.  It was one more nail.  It was one more pounding of the nails.  The words of Isaiah become more real to you than ever before, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5).  We wanted each of those sins.  No one made us do it.  It was our sin that nailed him to the cross. 
 
Jesus willingly laid his life down and took the punishment we deserve.    When we look at how Jesus suffered for us then we can realize just how fallen we really are.  If the solution is extraordinary, then the problem must be startling.  Imagine you find out that a friend is sick.  They tell you that they are going to have surgery to remove a brain tumor.  The surgeon must cut their skull open.  He will carefully and precisely remove the tumor.  The risk of the surgery includes neurological injury or even death.  If the instrument is placed a little too far to the left or right, then your friend could face irreversible and severe damage.  He would need someone to take of him for the rest of his life.  He might not be able to communicate with his family ever again.  He could suffer blood clots or a stroke.  He could potentially turn into a vegetative state.  If your friend, and the surgeon, are willing to take such extraordinary risks then the tumor must be extraordinarily dangerous.  The problem must be more severe than you ever imagined.  Then your friend continues to tell you that the tumor is a glioblastoma.  It’s the most aggressive and dangerous brain tumor.  Now it makes sense.  You understand how bad the problem is because you heard about the solution.  If Jesus was only insulted for our sins, then our sins must not be too bad.  If He was only beaten and flogged for our sins, then our sins would carry a little more weight, but still not too bad.  If He was insulted, beaten, flogged, pierced with nails, humiliated, drowned in his own pleural effusion, then our sinful state must be something dreadful and unholy. 
 
Since the Father wanted to save us then Jesus must have come.  We couldn’t have fixed our sinful nature.  Repentance means “a change of mind”.  We think that we’re not that bad, but God, in the Scriptures, says that we are bad.  We must agree with God that we are sinful people and stop arguing with him.  Before my children will behave differently, they need to have a change of mind.  They need to see that their wrong thinking has led to wrong actions.  They’ve had a moment of repentance.  That’s what we need.  We need to agree with God that we’re sinful people and that we need to reach out to the savior.