Advent: The Fall
Genesis 3
First in our Advent series, this sermon was preached by Rev. Chris Roberts during the morning service on Sunday, November 29, 2009.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
For the next four weeks we will set aside our walk through Ephesians to focus on an event of crucial importance to the church: the birth of Jesus Christ. This season leading up to Christmas is known as the season of Advent. Advent itself is a word that reflects or waiting for the arrival of Christ. As Christians, we have two ways we must celebrate the Advent. First, by looking back to when Christ arrived in the manger. God took on flesh and made his dwelling among us. But we do not just look back; it is our great delight and hope to look forward with anticipation to the day when Christ will come once again, this time to reign as king over all the earth. The Advent season is a time to celebrate what Christ has done and what Christ will do.
We will look at the Advent through five movements, on each of the four Sunday’s of Advent and, if plans do not change, we will gather again on Christmas Eve to rejoice in the birth of Christ. Today we will look all the way back to Genesis at the fall of mankind, asking the question why did Christmas have to occur, why did the Savior need to be born?
We know that our first parents dwelled in the garden of Eden, that place of paradise where they fell from righteousness into sin. Adam and Eve were placed in the garden by the God who spoke all things into existence. In Genesis 1 we read that in the beginning there was no created thing until God spoke creation into being. God himself is no created being but has existed throughout eternity in a mystery of being we can never fully understand. Where did God come from? The question is invalid – God did not come from anywhere. To come from somewhere means there is some beginning point. In 1978 I came from my mother’s womb. But God has no beginning, no end, so he came from nowhere, he has simply always been. This is why in Exodus 3:14 God identifies himself simply as I Am.
This eternal God existed when nothing else existed and at some point in eternity he brought all things into existence. From nothing he spoke and there came into being a creation that was without form and void. There are endless debates about the mechanisms of creation but one way or another we stand before God who has made and shaped all things according to his will.
Among his creative works, he filled the earth with plants and animals. None of these things fulfilled God’s plan for the full expression of his creative power so God then made man, putting humans in a seat of authority over creation, making us the tenders of his garden.
God created Adam and Eve from the dust of his new creation. From our very creation we are joined to this world he has made. Adam and Eve were formed in the garden, in a place of paradise peace where they were left to take care of and fully enjoy what God had made. There was only one restriction placed: in Genesis 2:16-17 Adam is given access to everything the garden has to offer except for one tree; he was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Some foes, seeking to slander God, will say that this religion opposes knowledge and will charge that God barred Adam and Eve from the tree of knowledge. But note what this tree bears: it is not any and all knowledge but the knowledge of good and evil.
Having created Adam and Eve and established them in the garden, God continued to visit with them, walking with them in Eden. We have no idea how long things continued in this way. It may have been a month, it may have been a million years. What we know is that at some point a serpent entered the garden.
Let us take a moment and read the encounter between Adam and Eve and this serpent, looking at Genesis 3:1-8.
Adam and Eve experienced a unique condition. At no other time in human history have people lived with an uncorrupted nature with the ability to choose good or evil. From Eden to Christ, mankind lived in bondage to sin and, as Genesis 6:5 describes, every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. But Adam and Eve were created good, pure, with the capacity to do either good or evil. When faced with the devil’s lies they decided to follow his way and were plunged into the darkness of sin.
Following their sin God confronted Adam and Eve, in Genesis 3:9-13.
God did not have to inquire about their sin, he knew what they had done, he knew why they had done it. But he gave them this opportunity to confess their wrongdoing and seek forgiveness. Instead they sought a scapegoat. They avoided responsibility for their wrongdoing and found someone else to blame for their actions. Because of their sin, God brought judgment. Genesis 3:14-24.
Adam and Eve were banished from paradise. This is both blessing and curse. It is curse because they were cast into the wilderness, into the wild lands beyond the paradise they had enjoyed. They were put into a world of labor and toil, of thorns and painful childbirth, a land of death and decay. But in death we see a reason for hope. God could have allowed them to live forever but consider the condition. They would have remained forever in their sins, for the rest of eternity struggling under a burden of a nature turned against God. But in death we pass from this world of sin into a world of glory and holiness. In death we are given true life with God where we are made new and incorruptible in the paradise of Heaven as we wait for the end of time when God will remake the heavens and the earth, removing sin from the earth. Then we will dwell eternally in bodies not marred by sin.
In the midst of judgment was another glimmer of hope. In verse 15 God says to the serpent, 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. From the very first God promised that One would come who would strike the head of the serpent.
The events of Genesis 3 happened a long, long time ago. How does any of this affect us today? Are these just stories about people who lived in ages long past, so far distant that they do not touch us today? Or does this account reveal something about our own lives?
It can be difficult for us to understand just how strong the bond is between us and Adam. Adam stood as representative head of the entire human race. What he did affects all of us. What happened to him also happens to us. One place we see this is in the effect of sin. Death has spread to all the earth because of the sin of Adam. In 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 Paul contrasts the work of Adam with the work of Christ: For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Adam stands as representative of all who are born in him, all of his descendants, so that we share in the penalty of sin. In the same way, Jesus stands as representative of all who are born in him, his spiritual descendants, so that we enjoy the reward of his righteousness.
But it is not just the punishment that is shared. The notion of original sin is found in Romans 5:12-15 where we see that as descendants of Adam we inherit the sin of Adam. Look at verse 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… By Adam’s sin we have all been made sinners. By Adam’s sin we have all been corrupted. Let’s look again at God’s description of humanity in Genesis 6:5: 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. Then in verse 12: And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
We get a similar gloomy picture of man in Isaiah 53:6 but it is mixed with hope in the promises of God: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
There are these two threads throughout the Old Testament. Down one is a continual account of human sin. Because of the Fall we are all born in sin and from birth we live in opposition to a holy God. One does not have to look far in the Old Testament before finding many examples of human sin. But down the other thread is hope and grace and redemption, the mercy of a gracious God who could cast every person into eternal punishment but has instead given us promises of mercy. On him was laid the iniquity of us all! On whom? The Old Testament offers many glimpses at the coming Savior. Old Testament faithful were given this promise that God would bring deliverance, that God would pay a price they could not pay.
The price of sin is eternal judgment. The wages of sin, Romans 6:23 tells us, is death. Left to ourselves we would have to pay our own price, clearing the balance of our rebellion against the just commands of the eternal God. Left to ourselves, we could never pay the balance of our sin and would be subject to judgment for all eternity. Left to ourselves there is no hope, no bright future, nothing to look forward to except the fires of judgment. But God has not left us to ourselves.
This is the promise of the Old Testament, the promise we celebrate in the season of Advent. In his mercy and love God has promised a deliverer, Immanuel himself – God with us! He would come and deal with sin, paying what we could never pay. He would crush the head of the serpent, emptying sin and Satan of all their power.
Because of Adam’s sin, we all fall into judgment and corruption. Because of sin we will all die. After death comes judgment in which we would all stand guilty before God. But because of the promised Holy One of God, we need not despair. There is this answer to our distress: Jesus Christ and His righteousness.
His mercies are not automatically applied to every person. As we noted earlier, everyone born in Adam shares in his corruption while everyone born in Christ shares in his life. By natural birth we are all in Adam. Only by spiritual birth can we be in Christ. This spiritual birth requires that we look to God in faith, clinging to Christ and his righteousness rather than the work of our hand. We were created to live in relationship with God, a relationship that requires our complete submission to his will, his commands for our lives. To be born in Christ means surrendering any claim that we have authority over our lives and giving him full authority. He will be our savior and Lord of our lives.
When we thus cling to him by faith, we will enjoy the rich life he has promised to his children. Only in this way can we escape the curse of the Fall and the wrath of God. Only in this way can we have the life our creator God planned for his people. If you want the best kind of life, it is found in Christ alone.