16 Verses
The Whole Story of the Bible in 16 Verses
Genesis 3:6-7: Adam and Eve reject God’s call to be his representatives in his created kingdom
God created a kingdom and he is the king. God also made mankind in his image to be his ambassadors in his kingdom and made a covenant with them in which they were to multiply, fill the whole earth and subdue it. However, Adam and Eve reject God’s covenant and incur the awful penalty for rejection of God.
Sin and Death
The day you eat of it you will die.
They suddenly noticed things about each other’s appearance and their own appearance that caused them to want to cover up. So, they looked for some fig leaves and covered themselves.
That was a new “feeling” they had never had before. Strange and not real pleasant.
They then heard God coming like normal to walk with them in the cool of the day, and they felt a new sensation, kind of like the one they just experienced with covering themselves, but this one was more intense and made them want to go hide. So, they hid from God.
Adam and Eve have to be confronted by God now as they are called out of hiding rather than a joyful and playful interaction. This is different and hard.
They don’t feel the same anymore. Not terrible but worse.
Sin and death have come. Not immediate death, but death. God is distant, cut off. He does not walk with them anymore. They don’t hear him like they used to and their hearing him seems to be getting fainter and fainter.
But God was good to them, it seemed, because rather than kill them he took one of the creatures they so often enjoyed watching and marveling over and slaughtered it in front of them, in their place, for their error, skinned it, made clothing from its skin, and covered them with that now leather clothing.
Can you imagine what that sight was like? I am a hunter, but I don’t enjoy killing. It’s not normal. It is a necessity for now to manage the economic reality of scarcity. But it’s not pleasant and never should be.
Managing creation this side of the fall and this side of Jesus’ return is intended to remind us of what sin has done and the price it took to begin setting it right again.
It should be a reminder that something is not right. Can you imagine Adam and Eve watching God slaughter one of his creatures?
Their first taste of death was one innocent creature taking the punishment for their error! We will need to come back to this.
That experience was not pleasant, I suppose.
Death.
Cancer, stroke, murder, war, suicide, physical and mental illnesses of varying degrees, deaf, mute, blind, lame, economic scarcity, terror, lack of internal peace, broken homes, abuse, difficult births, mortality rate…
We all know what’s not right. God’s image that is stamped on every human soul contrasts with and recoils at evil until we condition ourselves to it. Even in sin, man has a sense that something is not right.
How did we get there? I mean, God made a kingdom, he is King and it was all very good. He made man in his image and made a covenant with them to fill it and rule over it as his ambassadors. How did it go so wrong?
Genesis 3:1-21
What do we see? What does it mean?
- The Root of All Sin v. 1, 4-5
The root of all sin is the belief that God is not really looking out for our good and he is holding back the best from us. God is not to be trusted and he does not love me. He can be trusted for our complete happiness. We have to go get that ourselves.
This root produces two errors Tim Keller quotes Sinclair Ferguson as calling “un-identical twins from the same womb”[1]. Those twins are lawlessness and lawfulness.
Lawfulness – I have to meet God’s demands to get him to be good to me and get good from him.
Lawlessness – I don’t trust God’s rules for my good so I’ll get good from God apart from God’s way.
I would argue that every sin known to man grows as fruit from that root.
This rebellion gives…
- Birth of the Counter Kingdom of the “World” System v. 6-7; 1 John 1:15-17; 1 John 5:19
Good for food…………………Desires of the flesh
Delight to the eyes……………Desires of the eyes
Desired to make one wise……Pride in life
John is preaching from the text of the Old Testament. There is no doubt that John has in mind the birth of this counter kingdom when he identifies it for his readers in 1 John.
This counter kingdom takes the root of sin, “the root of all sin is the belief that God is not really looking out for our good and he is holding back the best from us. God is not to be trusted and he does not love me. He can be trusted for our complete happiness. We have to go get that ourselves”, and plays our created and good desires against the very desires creator.
God made our flesh to delight in good.
God made our eyes to see beauty.
God made life to be enjoyed and fulfilled.
The rebellion offered the fulfillment apart from God and thus the perversion of flesh, the eyes and the enjoyment of life.
Examples:
Food is to be enjoyed and savored and point us to its creator and the giver of that food. In the counter kingdom, food is worshiped as an end in itself.
Our women to be delighted in and rightly appreciated for their beauty. In the counter kingdom, our women exploited through visual stimulation.
Life is to be lived to the fullest and fully enjoyed with God as sovereign. In the counter kingdom, gather as much of the tokens of life as we can because we love the gathering of items in life rather than life enjoyed in Christ without any token of life. What tokens? Things, children, sports, etc.
- Kingdoms in Conflict v. 8ff
Man runs from God…God calls man back to himself.
Man disobeys God…God warns of the consequences of disobedience. Death.
Man misrepresents God…God speaks his truth through his word.
Man produces and fosters false “gods” in the image of man and creation…God defies images.
Man believes lies about God…God shouts that he is good and rewards those who seek him.
- God Bears Witness to His Goodness v. 14-19, 21
Sentence is pronounced. Sin and death are now mankind’s cruel taskmasters.
But God does not execute Adam and Eve. He said that they would die if they ate. In one way they did die because the curse of death was introduced and they began to slowly die and would one day succumb to it’s power. But they did not din instantly. Why?
Their first taste of death was one innocent creature taking the punishment for their error. This pattern set for us at the end of Genesis 3 and would continue and is to be a reminder that it would take innocent sacrifice to atone for their sin and one that does not have to be repeated to be effective. Who would be such a sacrifice?
The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus!
[1] Timothy Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism(Place of Publication Not Identified: Penguin Books, 2016), 52.
Theology in the Dirt 