In the Beginning: Our Desperate Condition (Genesis 3:1-24)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

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The first lesson is taken from Genesis chapter 3, starting at verse 1.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

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 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.

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 and childbearing.

In pain you shall bring forth children.

Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.

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 gram 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, 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 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 the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

Let's pray.

Gracious Heavenly Father, as we continue this uh journey from the beginning, we pray that your grace and that your light would shine through this text as it did to its first audience.

We believe it had power in its day.

We believe it has power in our day as well.

So we pray, Lord, open the eyes of our hearts.

Let us see your compassion, your grace, your abundant mercy for us needy sinners.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Please be seated.

You've heard the story, you know how it goes.

Once upon a garden, we were lovers with no clothes.

Fresh from the soil, we were beautiful and true, in control of our emotions, till we ate the poisoned fruit.

And now it's hard to be, hard to be, hard to be, a decent human being.

So we're week three into our journey into the book of Genesis, the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

We began our series by having a look at Genesis 1 and considering two questions.

And those two questions were who is God, the transcendent creator, who relates to his creation through his word?

And then the second related question, who am I?

An image bearer of God, and what's my vocation to join God in this ongoing work of cultivating and causing creation to flourish?

And then last Sunday we had a look at a complementary creation account in Genesis chapter 2, where we saw that God has a design for humanity, male and female, made in his image.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

And the question for us is are we going to discover human flourishing through our own self-determination of ourselves or through discovering who God created us, intended us to be.

Thus far, the story has shown us the way things ought to be.

The way God intended, the sort of flourishing and fullness of life that God always intended for creation.

And now in Genesis chapter 3, we catch a glimpse of the heart of the problem.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

The heart of this sense of it's not the way it's supposed to be.

In Genesis chapter 3, we see that the human condition is more desperate than we would expect, but we also see this: that God is far more compassionate than we ever could have hoped.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Let me say that again.

The human condition is more desperate than we would expect, but God is far more compassionate than we ever could have hoped.

And in saying that, I'm very intentionally echoing one of my favorite quotes of a pastor, Bible teacher named Tim Keller, who writes this, he summarizes the gospel as this we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

This is the heart of the gospel.

And I think, friends, as we take a look at Genesis chapter 3, we are not just going to see the heart of the problem.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

I think we get to see the heart of the gospel as well.

So let's take this journey.

Open up your Bibles, open up your order of service, if you will, to Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

This morning I want us to catch a glimpse, to understand our desperate condition, and to understand God's deep compassion.

First, let's look at our desperate condition.

In verse 1, chapter 2, verse 1, we meet our antagonist.

Pardon me, chapter 3, verse 1, we meet our antagonist.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

No announcement, no character development really, just an ambiguous and unsettling creature who shows up in the middle of this beautiful creation narrative.

And a single adjective is used here.

This serpent is craftier than all the other beasts of the field.

This word can suggest a sense of shrewdness or cunning, deceiving, misleading.

This serpent is one of God's creatures, yes, but it doesn't conform to God's intended order for his creation.

There is something disruptive about this serpent's presence.

And at this point in the narrative, I think it's very easy for us with 21st century eyes to sort of look at this verse and go, really a talking snake?

Like you expect me to take that seriously?

And I totally get that.

That is a legitimate question.

I think there's any number of routes we could take with that question.

But I do think that when the church has, one, we can recognize this, that this talking serpent is no ordinary serpent, but later in the biblical story of salvation gets identified as Satan.

In Revelation chapter 12, verse 9, John identifies that ancient serpent who is called the devil in Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.

Revelation 12:9

So this is more than just a talking snake.

This is the chief enemy, the one who has sworn to oppose God's good, flourishing order in creation.

We don't know anything beyond that at this point, but we know this serpent is here to be a disruptive force.

When I was reading about this serpent earlier this week, I read just a something that just provoked a lot of thought for me, and it comes from a fellow named Augustine.

He was a bishop in the fourth century of the church, but it's funny how fourth century folks sometimes have a lot to say to us here in the 21st century.

Augustine was reflecting on the spiritual dynamics of this talking serpent of Satan addressing the woman in this moment, and for Augustine, he recognizes this.

He recognizes a link between this temptation, this spiritual warfare taking place, and the devil entering Judas on May Thursday at the betrayal of Christ.

There is some profound spiritual dimension taking place here, regardless of whatever else we think about this text.

The bottom line is this that Satan is committing an act of spiritual warfare against God's image-bearers.

So I want us to hold on to that.

Here's our antagonist, the serpent, and now the serpent is going to work temptation.

He leans in with this now famous phrase, did God really say?

One, we remember God's command in chapter 2, verse 17.

God's command to the man was that you can eat of all the trees in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.

For in that day you eat of it, you shall surely die.

And the question we might want to ask was why?

It sounds like such an arbitrary rule, such a strange line in the sand to draw.

And whatever we might think of this, I think the bottom line is this: that God is defining the terms of his relationship with his good creatures, or the first man, the first woman.

Our right relationship with God is predicated upon trust and obedience to his word.

That's the bottom line here.

So what the serpent is suggesting is maybe God's command, maybe God's word, maybe this relationship of trust and obedience is not necessarily in your best interest.

Maybe you want to think about this again.

The serpent has a strategy here.

Number one, he wants to contradict God's word.

You will not surely die, but you'll become like God.

Which is a real tragic irony, of course, because they're both created in God's image.

In the most meaningful way, these the man and the woman are like God in the way that God intended them to be.

But the serpent begins by contradicting God's word and he undermines God's motivations.

By the end of his temptation here in verse 5, the serpent has suggested that God is withholding.

There's good stuff God is not willing to hand over to you.

Maybe he's even a little self-protective, because he knows you're going to be like him, and he he can't handle competition, you know.

So the serpent is contradicting God's word.

He is undermining God's motivations, God's heart towards his creatures, and so we see the birth of sin.

And we see three very key words, I think, here in verses six to seven.

Let's have a look closely here.

Verse six.

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 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.

It was good, it was delightful, it was desirable.

When we begin with contradict a contradiction of God's word, and when we no longer trust God's motivation, his heart towards us, then it's very easy to re-evaluate what is good, what is in our best interest.

Because maybe God is withholding something that really would do me some good, really would make life a lot easier.

Maybe having re-evaluated the good, it becomes something we we take a certain degree of delight in.

This is something that enhances my life.

And so it's something that's desirable.

I want this, I want more of this, and I'm willing to do what it takes to get it.

See, the serpent promises a lot, but delivers very little.

And we see this when we compare chapter 2, verse 25, where we read that the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed, with chapter 3, verse 7.

Having eaten the fruit, we read that the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths.

This is not a matter of being ashamed of their body, suddenly very self-conscious in that regard.

No, this is this is a gesture of feeling ashamed of our most inner condition.

Suddenly, guilt and shame is entered into humanity for the very first time because of sin.

And I think what we want to catch is this condition of our first parents is our condition too.

In 1 John chapter 2, the Apostle John writes that the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

That's John writing in the present tense in his day.

I think that just as much applies to our day, doesn't it?

And then the Apostle James writes that after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin.

And sin, when it's fully grown, gives birth to death.

This is an ongoing process for fallen humanity.

Again and again, we discover God's word is contradicted.

Maybe we can't trust his motivation towards us.

Maybe we reevaluate what's good and delightful and desirable.

But ultimately, what's the consequence?

Shame and guilt.

Doesn't deliver on the promise, does it?

See, the Bible is pretty brutally honest about the human condition.

I think maybe in a way we're not always honest with ourselves about our condition.

The human condition is a desperate one.

It's now in a way that it was inclined towards God's goodness, in a way that our first parents looked at God and said, You are good, and you are delightful, and I desire nothing besides you.

Well, now they've substituted a creature for the creator.

Now this is good and delightful and desirable.

This is a desperate one, our human condition.

We are inclined away from desiring God and towards desiring idols and the objects of our sin.

And we also exist in this condition of an inherited guilt.

Our first parents having fallen, we are born into this condition of desperate guilt.

That's why Roman, that's why Paul can write in Romans chapter 5, which I don't have in my notes.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Here it is, sorry.

Romans 5.19, he writes, by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

This is the condition into which we were born, dead in our sins and transgressions.

G.K.

Chesterton, one of my favorite authors, writes over a hundred years ago of this condition of sin.

In his day, he writes that certain new theologians dispute original sin.

But he says this original sin is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.

Theology can seem very cerebral, can't it?

Maybe sometimes I get going a little too much in the pulpit in that way.

But sin, Chesterton understands, this inheritance condition of inherited guilt is not just something that's cerebral, it's something very vivid.

Something that we see in the world around us, something that is demonstrable.

And in this way, I think the Bible makes the most sense out of human life.

I mean, no wonder when we hope for the very best for humanity, almost inevitably leaders let us down.

Politicians fall short of their promises.

Pastors fall into immorality.

The institutions we hoped would keep us grounded decay and fall away into scandal or whatever else.

I've been reading a history of communism.

Don't get worried.

It's just something I find fascinating.

I find it fascinating that this core idea that we would share all goods in common is something that led to such genocidal hardship and pain and devastation.

How do you start with that idea that workers ought not to be exploited and get to this place where you're becoming the exploiter?

I think only this condition of sin can explain something like that.

Why is it that the more we're educated, the more desperate things seem?

We're not improving the human condition.

From one generation to another, we see these things as if they're cycles.

This is the desperate condition into which we are born.

No wonder we look outside ourselves and we feel let down.

No what?

We can look inside and feel that too, can't we?

It's not just politicians and institutions, whatever else that let us down.

We let ourselves down all the time, don't we?

We make ourselves promises and we break them.

We feel ashamed of ourselves.

We understand Paul's experience in Romans chapter 7.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

I have the desire, Paul writes, to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Who among us can say we don't identify with that?

How do you explain that?

I think this is the desperate condition that the Bible is drawing our attention to.

We are powerless to help ourselves out of this body of death.

So when we encounter sin in the world or in ourselves, I think we ought to be shocked.

Because this is not the way it's supposed to be.

We have permission to be shocked, but maybe not surprised.

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised when we encounter it again because this is the desperate condition that humanity is in that I am in.

We can be shocked, but not surprised.

This is our desperate condition.

Our trust in God has been undermined.

And we re-evaluate what is good, and it results in shame and guilt.

We are inclined to sin.

We live with an inherited guilt.

How do you react to something like that?

Maybe we read Genesis chapter 3 and we think, God is so difficult.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

He has set up the rules for us to fail.

I started off the sermon by reading a quote from just a songwriter that I find infinitely fascinating, named David Bazan.

I think he would qualify now for this sort of contemporary category of ex-vangelical, someone who was once a believer but has fallen away from the faith, but feels very resentful, I think, towards the Christian faith.

And so the songs on this one particular album are sort of dealing with Christian themes from without and working things through.

He's on a spiritual journey, I don't doubt.

But he writes this different song on the same album, or on the same album, and uh the song is called When We Fell.

He writes this when you, referring to God, set the table, when you chose the scale, did you write a riddle that you know they would fail?

Did you make them tremble so that they would tell the tale?

Did you push us when we fell?

So, did God set things up to fail?

Is God set against his creatures such?

How do we expect God to respond?

That has a lot to do with the question of who we expect God to be.

I don't doubt that David Bazan is on his spiritual journey.

But I would pray that he sees what the author of Genesis 3 wants us to see.

This is our desperate condition.

The shame and the guilt, the inclination to sin that we're in, but God responds to our desperate condition with deep compassion.

First off, we see that God condescends, then God curses, then God covers, and then he casts out.

Let's see God's compassion at work here.

Verse 8.

God condescends, not in a sense of being patronizing, but in a sense of coming down to our level.

Verse 8.

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

And God's question for them is, Where are you?

This suggests that this is not something out of the ordinary, but God is perhaps accustomed to having his afternoon walk, as it were, with our first parents.

That was the kind of friendship and fellowship and intimacy that they enjoyed.

But now God shows up and his partners are not there.

They've hidden themselves, they've retreated into their shame.

And so his question for them is, Where are you?

Which is not a reprimand, so much as it is expressing that desire to seek them out and find them.

See, the story of salvation is the story of a God who seeks out sinners, not pushing them when they fell, but seeking them out to restore them.

Whether it's in Egypt or in exile, God seeks out his sinful people to restore them.

And chiefly God does so in our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's why we read in 1 Timothy 1.15 that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

And indeed, Jesus says to us that he came not to call the self-righteous, but sinners to himself.

This is who Jesus is.

He's entered into our desperate condition, taken our corrupted humanity into himself, into the divine life, so that we can be restored to perfect fellowship with God through him.

God still condescends to seek out sinners.

Then we read God's deep compassion is expressed in God's curse, which, granted, sounds hostile.

Cursing is the sort of thing we our teenager gets in trouble for doing.

Stop cursing.

No, God's curse may sound hostile, but if we read carefully, we catch a glimpse of God's promise.

So let's have a look at these curses in reverse order, because I think that's helpful.

Verses 17 to 19, God curses the man.

He writes to Adam, he says, Behold, you have listened to the voice of your wife, you've eaten of the tree 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.

Thorn 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.

What's happening here is echoing God's commission for our first parents in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Fill the earth and subdue it, exercise dominion.

In other words, Adam, go out into creation, confront an untamed chaos, and bring it into flourishing order.

And now as Adam goes out into an untamed creation, the result of sin is that, not that this creation is going to give way to order naturally, but it's deteriorating such that he'll be met with toil and hardship as he tries to fulfill his vocation.

And likewise for the woman who was commissioned in Genesis chapter 1, along with the man to be fruitful and multiply, the woman will bear new life and cause it to flourish in her very body.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And yet now this vocation to bear new life into the world will not just be a cause for celebration, but a cause for pain as well.

And pain of all sorts.

The vocation for the man and woman becomes infinitely desperate.

And to the serpent, God gives a direct address.

He draws out the consequence of what's happened and the promise as well.

The consequence of the serpent's actions here is a rather dreadful existence of crawling around on its belly and eating dust.

It's such a deflated and humiliated posture to have.

But God offers a promise as well.

He promises the serpent its ultimate defeat.

In Genesis 3.15, we have what's called the proto-evangelium, the very first glimpse of the gospel.

And it goes like this: God says to the serpent, I will put enity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

You could say he shall crush your head and you shall strike his heel.

The idea is this: God is going to have victory over this serpent ultimately.

And that victory will be realized, one, through a promised offspring, and two, through a self-sacrifice, as it were.

This offspring, yes, is going to crush the head of the serpent, but not without being dealt a lethal blow himself.

How does that compute?

It's left hanging there as we continue into the rest of the Old Testament, but maybe we catch a glimpse of the gospel that God does for the man and woman what they cannot do for themselves.

He promises an offspring, one who will deal with their desperate condition finally, and God ultimately upholds his promise to defeat sin and death and Satan in our Lord Jesus.

That's why John writes in John 1.3.8, the rest of the the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

This is the fulfillment of God's promise of defeat to the serpent.

Jesus is the promised offspring.

God chose his deep compassion for dealing with the desperate condition of humanity in Jesus.

And God also shows his deep compassion in covering our first parents.

Did you notice in verse 21, they've covered themselves with loinclaws in verse 7, but in verse 21 it says that the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

So on the one hand, we might say, well, I guess the loinclaws were pretty chafed and probably weren't particularly adequate.

That's one way to take it.

And if that's the way we take it, then we can see God's mercy at work providing for them something they don't deserve.

But maybe there's more going on than this, because we can observe that this is the very first animal sacrifice in Scripture.

And that points us towards the Old Testament sacrificial system that will be developed in Exodus.

And the point of this sacrificial system is to deal with, to cover the consequences of sin.

So here you have sin dealing devastating consequences on our first parents.

And what does God do?

He takes a substitute, he puts it to death, so that he can offer a covering, as it were, to the man and to the woman.

God still covers sinners by his grace.

We read in 1 Peter 1, 18 and 19 that you, church, were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Christ is our sacrificial lamb.

And in Galatians chapter 3, Paul writes that in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

As many of you as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ, which is an imagery to say we were robed, as it were, in who Christ is.

God, in his deep compassion, covers sinners.

And finally God casts out.

Again, like cursing, this can sound really hostile.

It can sound like God is just fuming angry and just throwing his first tenants, as it were, out of this property he's established.

It's true that this is severe, but it's a severe mercy.

God gives his motivation for this in verse 22.

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 of the tree of life and live forever, and therefore God sent him out from the garden of Eden.

God is not content to let the man and the woman stay in this condition of corruption forever.

God sends them out of the garden that they wouldn't perpetually be sustained, as it were, by the tree of life, but instead that he can ultimately deal with the consequence of sin and draw them back into his heavenly presence.

And it is God's heavenly presence presence that we're talking about.

That's what the cherubim is meant to clue us into.

Cherubim minister to God in his most glorious presence.

So it suggests this when the man and woman are cast out, that earth, as it were, has lost its ability to work its way towards heaven.

But that does not preclude the possibility that heaven can make its way towards earth.

And so here we meet our Lord Jesus again.

God still calls the outcast to himself.

The kingdom of heaven is near, announces our Lord Jesus.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, all those who toil, and I will give you rest.

And the great story of salvation concludes with a heavenly garden city, described much as the Garden of Eden itself is described.

John writes in Revelation 21, I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven, the first earth had passed away, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He shall dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

God has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Heaven has met earth in our Lord Jesus.

And now we can have that restored relationship with God in trust and obedience through what He's done for us through His cross and through His resurrection.

That is why Jesus took on our humanity to reestablish the union of God with human beings.

So, friends, we see our desperate condition, don't we?

We see our guilt, we see our shame, we see our sin, we see our powerlessness to help ourselves out of it, but we should always catch God's deep compassion here in Genesis 3.

It points us ultimately to what God will accomplish in Jesus for us and for our salvation.

I want to conclude by having a quick look at a photo here.

I hope we've got it queued up.

This is one of my just favorite illustrations of all time.

It's called Mary Comforts Eve, and it's by the Cistercian Sisters of Mississippi Abbey.

If you have a look at this picture, you'll see Mary pregnant with our Lord Jesus, offering, as it were, consolation to Eve, having just taken the fruit of temptation for herself.

It's as though she's saying to Eve, What God has promised to you, I will ultimately fulfill.

It will ultimately be fulfilled in the one that I bear into the world.

And what do you see around Eve's ankle?

She is entangled by the serpent, isn't she?

But what do you see under Mary's foot?

You see this signal that the serpent's head will ultimately be crushed by the one she bears into the world.

This, saints, is the gospel.

And we start to glimpse it right here where everything went wrong, because that is how God responds to sinners with deep compassion in our Lord Jesus.

So, the human condition may be more desperate than we would expect, but God's compassion is far greater than we could ever have hoped.

This is your God, Christian.

He is for you.

And in Christ, the God of peace, will soon crush Satan under your feet.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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May God bless you and keep you today and every day.