Text: Romans 1:18-32: 18   For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Genesis 3:1 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’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 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.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 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. 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. 8 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. 9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 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.” 14 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. 15 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.” 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 for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
17 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; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” 20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. 22 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—” 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Introduction

Perhaps you know what it’s like to have it all, only to lose it all. Something within humanity wants to abandon the security of the known and launch into the possibility of the unknown. We so often see potential where others see only problems.

Unfortunately, we often forget that potential does not imply a definite improvement. Sometimes, the potential leads to disastrous consequences.

No act in human history can match the Fall in Eden for its consequences. Two perfect humans, already possessing immortality and a perfect relationship with their Creator, reached for more, stretching into the forbidden to take what they God would have given for the asking. Adam’s disobedience could have doomed humanity before we ever began.

The story brings questions without answers, but it also ends with glimmers of hope. The story of the Fall in Eden, the oldest tale in human history, continues to bring hope to us when we witness the mercy of God rise from the ashes of a perfect world. Even in the Fall, we see the evidence of Jesus’ love for us all.

Sermon

To better understand the situation, it’s important to remember a fact from Genesis 2:25: “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” The Hebrew text features a play on words between “naked” in verse 25 and “crafty” (“subtle” in KJV) in verse 1. The Hebrew word for “naked” implies innocence and vulnerability. The Hebrew word for “crafty” implies a type of prideful, worldly wisdom that contradicts godly wisdom. Somehow, the serpent possessed pride already.

It also helps to see a consistent theme to the first chapters of Genesis: The Word of God. God consistently speaks, and things happen. As we learned last week from Genesis 1, we can trust God’s word. When God speaks, we can trust what He says.

Now, we see the first questioning of God’s word. This had never occurred to the man or the woman. To this point, they had always trusted what God said. Yet, as one author wrote, “It cannot be fortuitous that Eve lacks precision in the wording, whereas the serpent does not” (Allen Ross, Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), p. 131). Adam and Eve may have heard God’s prohibition of the fruit of the tree, but for some reason they chose either to forget God’s commandment or to simply remember the “gist” of His word. Furthermore, the questioning of God’s word directly challenged His integrity. Will God really bring death to the capstone of His creation? The answer, as Adam and Eve learned, was that God will always honor His word.

After the serpent questioned God’s word, he then directly contradicted the command. “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.” The first lie in Scripture, however, did not bring about the Fall. Why did Adam and Eve believe the lie over the truth of God’s word? Something within them wanted to hear the lie; something within them wanted to believe it.

Have you ever noticed how temptation strikes us? I like the prayer I’ve heard before: “Lord, lead me not into temptation, because I can find plenty for myself.” We always want to believe the temptation will not affect us when we find it; sometimes, we even go looking for it. We also want to hear the inevitable consequences will not apply to us. The serpent told the couple exactly what they wanted to hear: all gain, no pain.

Readers of Genesis for centuries have noticed that, in a sense, Adam and Eve fell before Eve stretched her hand toward the fruit. In 2 passages in his letter, St. Paul drew a comparison between Adam and Jesus Christ (Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22); in both passages, St. Paul directly charged the guilt to Adam. Eve may have eaten the fruit, but I don’t think it’s beyond the bounds of Scriptural interpretation that Adam desired to “be like God” before Eve ever lifted her hand.

What had happened to Adam and Eve? It’s as if something happened that made them wish to be on their own; they wanted something that belonged solely to them and for which they were not responsible to God. Before this moment, Adam and Eve maintained an intimate relationship with God based on the consciousness God gave them. It never occurred to the them not to surrender their self-will to God. Adam and Eve existed to please God, and God was pleased with them. According to C.S. Lewis, “in perfect cyclic movement, being, power and joy descended from God to man in the form of gift and returned from man to God in the form of obedient love and ecstatic adoration” C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), p. 74). Then, something happened in their hearts. According to Lewis, “they wanted some corner in the universe of which they could say to God, ‘this is our business, not yours.’ But there is no such corner” (p. 75). Furthermore, the withdrawal of surrender to God betrayed the natural tendency to surrender to God, leading to intense pain and psychological damage.

Eve, then, succumbed to the temptation. “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.” The deed was done.

Can you imagine Adam and Eve immediately after the crime? Did they wait to see if one of them died? Perhaps Adam watched Eve eat the fruit first before he tasted it. “If someone’s going to die, let it be her!” Then, when Eve didn’t die, Adam ate —

And then they looked, and “they knew that they were naked.”

In some way, the actual events that followed exceeded death as the penalty. All of us who have ever dealt with guilt for what we’ve done knows that we sometimes feel as if death would actually release us from the worst we could feel. Death can’t be worse than guilt, we think. Adam and Eve had to deal with the guilt of their consciences for disobeying God.

Then, imagine their puzzlement when they realized the control over their bodies they had possessed no longer applied. Some writers over the century have surmised that the couple’s immortality may have come from a degree of control over their bodies that extended to the cellular level. At their fall, that control vanished. The perfect bodies they had known disappeared, replaced with bodies that eventually refused to act as they wished.

Then, imagine their horror when they heard God nearby. God Himself came to dwell with man! This time, what should have brought unimaginable joy — the presence of God — brought shame, disgrace, fear, and even contempt.

It’s interesting that God actually questioned Adam and Eve. He knew what had happened; He needed no explanation. However, it’s possible that God wanted to give Adam and Eve an opportunity to repent. Instead, the perfect couple — the 2 people in the world who had ever trusted and loved each other with no taint of sin — turned on each other with a fury that screams from the pages of Scripture.

The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Can you hear the accusation in Adam’s voice? “Don’t blame me, it’s Your fault for giving me this woman in the first place.” My heart breaks to think of the shame and pain those words brought to Eve.

Then, God turned to Eve. “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Now, it’s the serpent’s fault!

Again, we know how sin works: first the temptation, then the act, next the guilt, and — eventually, inevitably — the judgment. We may get away without the judgment at times in life, but part of us always knows it’s coming.

God dealt with the serpent first. Of all the cultures in the world, very few hold the snake in high regard. Fortunately, ours isn’t one of them.

Next, God turned to Eve. Much has been made of God’s judgment on women, but two key words are “desire” and “rule” in verse 16. The word for “desire” does not mean a craving to please or to have. Instead, this word implies a hunger to devour. It’s the same word God uses to warn Cain that sin “desires” him in chapter 4. God’s perfect intent for Adam and Eve called for a perfect cooperation and trust between them. Now, that cooperation will descend into a power struggle that will continue throughout history.

Finally, God judged Adam. The ground Adam had so lovingly cared for would turn against him. As his nature turned against him as he lost immortality, so would the ground from which Adam came turn against him for the rest of his life. What should have brought joy to him — the fulfillment of a job well done and the satisfaction of seeing the fruit of his labor — would bring sorrow to him instead.

And then, the inevitable fell: “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Death would come. After a life of sorrow, turmoil, disappointment and betrayal, Adam and Eve would die.

Lastly, God drove them from the Garden of Eden and placed an angel to guard the tree of life. The avenue for eternal life was closed. In a sense, this in itself was an act of mercy. Greek mythology has a story of a mortal, Tithonus, who was given eternal life by the gods without receiving eternal youth. Death would eventually be a blessing in itself when compared with eternally aging and growing sicker with no relief.

Conclusion

Could anything good come from this story? The American theologian Jonathan Edwards saw mercy everywhere he looked in this story. In A History of the Work of Redemption, Edwards added a new wrinkle to the Fall by introducing a new character to the events: Jesus Christ Himself.

According to Edwards, Christ began his “mediatorial work” at the moment of the Fall. Edwards pointed out that in subsequent periods of Israel’s history, God’s judgment on the sin of the Israelites led to death and chaos. Why were Adam and Eve spared, given the severity of their sin? Edwards believed that God spared Adam and Eve only because of Christ. Edwards wrote that “As soon as man ever fell, Christ the eternal Son of God clothed himself with the mediatorial character, and therein presented himself before the Father. He immediately stepped in between an holy, infinite, offended Majesty, and offending mankind; and was accepted in his interposition; and so wrath was prevented from going forth in the full execution of that amazing curse that man had brought on himself” (Jonathan Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption (Evansville, IN: The Sovereign Grace Book Club, 1959), 29).

Edwards believed that upon the Fall of Adam and Eve, “God the Father would have no more to do with man immediately” (p. 30). God is holy and therefore could not tolerate sin. Christ assumed the role of “Captain of their salvation.” In this role, Christ fulfilled God’s promise to Eve in verse 15 as the One who would “bruise” Satan’s head. Edwards saw, in this promise, the “first revelation of the covenant of grace” (p. 31). More importantly, the mediation of Christ occurred before God pronounced the sentence of death on humanity. Otherwise, humanity would have been exterminated on the spot. Adam and Eve, therefore, were the first recipients of the mediation of Christ.

Edwards also saw, in God’s provision of clothing for the sinners, the initiation of the sacrificial system. God Himself provided the clothing for the naked, vulnerable couple; God Himself would provide for their salvation. Edwards recognized that Adam and Eve were clothed “at the expense of life.” According to Edwards, Jesus’ death on the cross provided “clothing to our naked souls” (p. 35).

Do we see the cost of sin? Do we recognize its patterns in our lives? Even more, do we see the love of God in sparing us when we sin? As the Psalmist David wrote, “He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:9-12).

Jesus removed our transgressions for those who believe in His name, confessing Him as Lord and believing God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9). The God who showed mercy in the Garden showed mercy on Calvary for you. The Christ who interceded in the Garden stands ready to intercede for all who believe in His name.