Transcription downloaded from https://yetanothersermon.host/_/lakeside/sermons/102350/the-original-sin/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] A few weeks ago, we considered one of those great existential questions.! Why is there something rather than nothing?! And of course, we discovered that the Bible's answer for that the eternal, triune, covenant creator God has made all that exist.

[0:22] And then He steps back in His perfection and He evaluates what He's made by the power of His word. And He declares that every piece of it is very good.

[0:35] And through that, in these first two chapters of the Bible, we've contemplated the wonder of the created world. We have discovered the glory of humanity made in God's image as His special creation.

[0:52] We have looked at the beauty of human life and marriage in God's garden. Genesis 1 and 2 really is an incredible utopian picture of God's goodness and glory.

[1:10] And we read that and we're in wonder over it and then we immediately become discouraged about it. Because what we read in Genesis 1 and 2 is not matching up with our experience now.

[1:27] Our experience here, now, in this place is not the same as what we're reading was true at the beginning. Every human being can sense that things are not as they ought to be or even as they were meant to be.

[1:48] Which forces us to ask another of those great questions. After discovering the Bible's answer for why is there something rather than nothing, we must then ask, what happened?

[2:03] Where did it all go wrong? And that's what our text begins to answer for us today. Genesis 3, verses 1 to 7. Let's read it together. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

[2:21] 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.

[2:36] 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.

[2:52] 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, 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.

[3:19] 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.

[3:38] Amen. Two statements bracket this section and give us the aim of the text. The first one is the last verse of chapter 2.

[3:48] If you just want to set your eyes on it again, we concluded our time of study last week with this phrase, The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

[3:59] That's bracket number one. And then we immediately get into what we just read. We come to the end of it in verse 7. What is it that we read again? It's the closing in of that section, another bracket.

[4:10] What does it say? Well, the man and the woman, their eyes were opened, and they were aware now of their nakedness in such a way that they were ashamed.

[4:23] The text then is about humanity's descent. It's humanity's descent from purity and innocence into guilt and shame.

[4:37] It's the record of the original sin, a catastrophic moment in human history that affects each and every one of us still today.

[4:52] And it does so much for us. Of course, it doesn't do everything. We go on in the Scriptures to discover more and more about what this means, but it does so much for us. Remember, Genesis is a book of foundations.

[5:04] It's a book of origins. It's laying a foundation for us to understand something of our sin and what it is, how we're drawn into it, the pattern of human sin that is established here in the very beginning with the first man and woman.

[5:21] But then even here, we have a finger pointing forward to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as our true and sufficient Lord and Savior.

[5:37] I just want to walk through the narrative with you and explain a few things that we find here and then see how we can get to anything good in this text or from this text.

[5:50] Notice first, we have a diabolical devil. We're going to have a lot of Ds today, right? A diabolical devil. Look at verse 1 again.

[6:03] Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. A new character is suddenly introduced into the narrative and this character will play a significant role in the original sin.

[6:21] It's a subtle serpent that enters into dialogue with the first woman, Eve, which is a rather bizarre twist to the story as we've been reading it.

[6:33] It's unexpected, not only that this creature would be there, but that it would have a voice and that it would enter into dialogue and some kind of reasoning and rationality.

[6:44] It's a bit bizarre. Before we jump into explanations of the purpose of this serpent and the identity of the serpent, let's just think first about the three descriptors that are given to us right here in the verse.

[6:59] What does the verse itself say about this creature? Well, first, we find that the serpent is part of the Lord God's very good creation.

[7:13] This is a created being. This is a created creature that after having been created, God steps back, the Lord God, and says, with this creature, everything is very good, meaning that the animal itself is not intrinsically evil.

[7:33] That's just not what we're finding here in this text. It's not a tale of some ongoing conflict between humans and snakes, though that conflict is great in the Blankenship house.

[7:46] That's not what this text is about. There's a second thing that we find here. It's a categorization for the serpent. It's categorized as a beast of the field.

[7:58] If you'll think back to chapter two in several places, even back to chapter one, when we see the creation of the land animals, God divides them into three different categories. We see this particular creature is categorized as a beast of the field, which may indicate that its presence in the garden sanctuary is atypical, perhaps, maybe suspicious.

[8:26] Moses, perhaps, is laying the groundwork here for the possibility that the serpent is an imposter and an intruder. And then we get to a third thing.

[8:38] Finally, we note that the serpent is noted especially for his shrewdness and his cunning. Certainly something that characterizes the animal and is used throughout the scriptures for both positive and negative explanations.

[8:57] Jesus in Matthew chapter 10 tells his disciples that as they go into the world on mission, that they are to be wise as serpents, crafty as serpents, shrewd as serpents, innocent as doves.

[9:13] It's positive. We go just a few chapters later in Matthew 23 and we find that Jesus is confronting the Pharisees of his days and he calls them a brood of vipers with venom on their lips.

[9:26] They are destructive. They are using cunning then for evil. And what we find here in this text is that as an animal, the serpent's craftiness, its shrewdness and cunning is part of its God-given nature and is good.

[9:45] And yet Moses is also signaling how this creature will, with great cunning, attempt to deceive the woman in the garden.

[9:57] And we put all of that together. What becomes clear to us in this text is that it is not intending to convey that a mere animal is the source of temptation.

[10:07] That's not the takeaway from this text. An unnamed moral being is at work here. At this point, we don't know who this being is.

[10:20] We don't know where he has come from. We don't know what is motivating his actions. All we know is that he represents a clear and present deadly threat to life in the garden.

[10:34] And either he has taken possession of a real serpent, beast of the field, in order to use that beast for his purpose or else perhaps Moses is just stylistically presenting the tempter to us with the imagery of a cunning serpent.

[10:52] Either way, this is not about a snake. It is about a sinister adversary of God and of his people.

[11:03] And of course, as we read our Bibles, we find that this adversary goes by other names. We find him as Satan or the devil, that great adversary of God and of his people.

[11:17] All of these names kind of come together in one place in Revelation chapter 12 at the end of the Bible when it's showing Christ as victorious over evil. It says that the great dragon was thrown down.

[11:29] That ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him.

[11:43] He is the tempter who seeks to destroy God's people through his rebellion. His tactics are cunning and they are effective.

[11:54] And one goal of this text, I think, is to demonstrate that the way he deceived Eve and influenced Adam is precisely how he works to devour you and me.

[12:10] It's all here. Jesus said he's the father of all lies, that he was a murderer from the very beginning. He seeks your death by enticing you to disbelieve God and to rebel against his word.

[12:27] Loved ones, if there's anything we need to take from verse number one and moving forward, it is this. It is that you have a real sinister and powerful enemy that is seeking to destroy you and you must be careful and vigilant, watchful of his tactics.

[12:45] And this passage helps us see what to watch for. 1 Peter 5, you probably know the verse well. Peter says, be sober-minded, be watchful.

[12:56] Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, Peter says. How, Peter? Firm in the faith.

[13:08] Both resisting the temptations that he presents in effectiveness here in this passage. Well, that's the diabolical devil, but then we immediately move into another portion of the text.

[13:22] We see a deceptive dialogue. Deceptive dialogue. Look again at the end of verse one. The serpent speaks and he says to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

[13:37] 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.

[13:53] But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened. You'll be like God, knowing good and evil.

[14:04] This might be the most famous conversation in all the Bible. Serpent enters into dialogue with the woman and his goal is to deceive her into eating the fruit of the only tree in the garden that God has actually prohibited.

[14:24] Except he doesn't present it that way, does he? It's in this dialogue that we can discern a kind of definition for sin and of course the tactics that Satan uses to deceive us.

[14:38] And here it is. Sin is fundamentally an act of rebellion that results from distrusting God, disbelieving God, distorting God's word, and denying God's judgment.

[14:55] Three features there. Did you catch them? Distrusting God, distorting God's word, denying God's judgment.

[15:07] These are the three main elements of temptation that are presented to us here. Let's just walk through them. First we see the diminishment of God's benevolence. The diminishment of God's benevolence.

[15:19] Again, verse one, he said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And she responds, something of a lack of God's benevolence still yet.

[15:35] God said, you can eat of the trees of the garden. That's not exactly what he said. But she's a little bit closer than the serpent at least. You just can't eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden.

[15:48] sin. Sin is the inevitable result of believing that God is not good and generous. That he is restricting you from something that is beneficial for you, that will be satisfying for you and helpful to you.

[16:07] And in his cunning, the serpent intentionally misquotes God's command. He insinuates here a lack of benevolence on God's part and even when the woman corrects him, she somewhat softens the abundance of God's blessing that he had freely given them in the garden.

[16:29] The serpent insinuates that God had kept them from every tree. The woman implies that God had kept them from some of the trees.

[16:41] In reality, God had given them every tree. Every tree. Save one. Do you see the deception that's here? The cunning that's at play here.

[16:52] Notice what God actually said. Just look back at chapter 2 and verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree.

[17:06] Surely, certainly, definitely, every. That's all of them. Save one. That's what God actually says. There's an infinite emphasis on God's benevolence and his kindness and his free gift of blessing that's overflowing in the garden for Adam and Eve and yet far from indicating anything of benevolence in God, the serpent comes in and actually questions, did God say you couldn't eat of any of the trees?

[17:37] And then she even softens it up somewhat and says, well, she doesn't say that he said we could surely eat of every tree. She says, well, we can eat of the trees. We shouldn't eat of one.

[17:51] Isn't this the tactic that Satan often uses with us? The serpent plants the seed of distrust by suggesting a stinginess in God's nature and so he does with us.

[18:06] Second, we see a distortion of God's word. We, of course, see it with the serpent in verse 2. Did God actually say cunning, crafty?

[18:21] Kent Hughes says the serpent here introduces the assumption that God's word is subject to our judgment. He questions what God says.

[18:34] Eventually, he's going to outright deny it. He hasn't done that yet, but he's questioning it. He's luring the woman into this idea and then we see in verse 3 that she herself distorts a bit of what God had actually said.

[18:49] Look at what she says. Verse 3, God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden and here's the distortion. Neither shall you touch it lest you die.

[19:00] She adds something, doesn't she? That's not what God said. Look back at chapter 2, again, verse 16. You may surely eat of every tree in the garden.

[19:10] That's benevolence, that's goodness, that's blessing, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. There's no prohibition against touching here.

[19:21] She adds something here and her motivations for that are not immediately clear. It could be that she was just motivated by caution, just not wanting to get even close to what God had forbidden them and of course, we could sympathize with that.

[19:42] Those of you who are not avid endorsement like the Blinken ships maybe go on hikes from time to time and perhaps you take your kids on those hikes and there's maybe a cliffside and mom says, you know, if you go over the cliff you're going to get hurt so why don't we just stay about 10 feet back from it, right?

[19:58] The danger is over the cliff. You can really go probably another few feet over but with great caution we say, you know, let's not get any closer than what we already are unless something happens.

[20:10] Of course, if that's what Eve's got going on we can sympathize with that in some way, can't we? Of course, there's another explanation. Perhaps it wasn't caution that motivated her. Perhaps she's already begun to believe some of the deception of the serpent.

[20:28] It could be a blatant mischaracterization of God making his prohibition seem more extreme than what it actually is. We are certainly familiar with that too, aren't we?

[20:41] We have a rule we don't like or we get in trouble. We see this with our kids all the time and suddenly what actually happens gets embellished to make the person who has done the thing seem worse than what they actually are or more extreme than what they actually are.

[20:54] Perhaps there's something of that here in what the woman is doing. I don't know. Either way, she puts words in God's mouth that were not his.

[21:07] That's a problem. It's a problem to take away from God's word as the serpent does. that immediately leads us into liberalism which is going to result in sinfulness.

[21:21] It's just as much a problem to add to what God has said. That's going to lead us to legalism which is also going to take us into sinfulness.

[21:31] It's part of the temptation. But there's a third element here. It's the denial of God's judgment. Verse 4. Now the serpent puts all his cards on the table.

[21:45] He outright denies what God said. You will not surely die. You won't die. God just doesn't want you to be like him. If you eat it, your eyes will be opened in a way that you have never experienced before.

[22:01] You'll know good and evil in a way that only God can know it. And you won't need him anymore. That's the gist. It's a denial of God's judgment.

[22:12] It's the climactic moment of this dialogue. The serpent outright denying God's word as he has lured the woman into this conversation. He accuses God of withholding a superior good from her.

[22:29] But even she downplays the reality of God's judgment. Doesn't she? The end of verse 3. The gist of what she says here, you shall not touch the tree that's in the midst of the garden lest you die.

[22:47] The gist of that is perhaps we might die if we do. It's downplaying, isn't it? God had told Adam that if he ate of the tree, he would surely die.

[23:00] Chapter 2. Eve downplays that thread of judgment to say that perhaps they would die. and then Satan rightly quotes God but just says it's all a lie.

[23:12] And such is the lie that entices every one of us into our sin against God. Temptation says that God is a liar, that he selfishly wants to keep you from something good, that his judgment is an empty threat to control you.

[23:29] and in our sinfulness we downplay the reality of what sin is and how God intends to judge it. We think it's just not that big of a deal and we do so to our own demise.

[23:44] Elements of temptation are here. They're present in our own temptations. There's a third part to the narrative, isn't there? We've seen a diabolical devil and a deceitful dialogue.

[23:55] Now we get to deliberate disobedience. Disobedience. Emphasis being on the deliberation that is here in verse 6. Deliberate disobedience. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, 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.

[24:26] The trap was laid for her by the serpent, but now the serpent's gone. It's not going to show up again until God curses him. He's out of the picture now. It's just Eve at the tree.

[24:39] And I want you to sense how deliberate she is in this act. This was not an uncontrolled impulse. She took time to examine the fruit to consider its would-be benefits.

[24:56] A warning for those of us who allow our minds to deeply contemplate and fantasize about the pleasures of sin. Thinking, we'll never go that far.

[25:08] I just want to think about it. What would it be like or what could come from this? Notice what she does. First, she concludes that the fruit was safe.

[25:20] When she saw that it was good for food, it's safe, doesn't seem poisonous, it's not rotten. Looks like the fruit of all the other trees. Then she determined that the fruit would bring satisfaction and happiness and pleasure to her life.

[25:38] It was a delight to the eyes. And I want you to just think about those two before we move to the third. consider all the way back again in chapter 2 and verse 9.

[25:49] Look at what it says. Out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree. That is what? Pleasant to the sight and good for food. Now just think about that.

[26:03] Every single tree in the garden was satisfying and delightful and safe and good and blessed and she had access to all of them.

[26:20] What then is it that causes her to fixate on the one tree in all of God's creation that God said don't eat of it? Well her third evaluation is what gives us the answer.

[26:34] Finally she concludes that the fruit would provide knowledge and power reserved for God alone. It was desired to make one wise.

[26:50] The allure of the tree in her eyes was that she would have a God-like ability to possess wisdom apart from God.

[27:01] We talked about this a couple of weeks ago the significance of this tree and why God gives it the name that he gives it. It's not that in taking the fruit there was some inerrant power that was conferred onto the people that would actually make them like God.

[27:19] That's not it. It's representative of God's wisdom of moral autonomy. They were to hear from God and trust in his word to know what is good and what is evil.

[27:34] Eve sees the tree and the allure of the idea that I could possibly have this on my own. That's the allure of the tree. She carefully examines the fruit but she ignored everything God said.

[27:51] She just ignores it. sin always appears safe and satisfying and it's certainly seductive as long as we're ignoring what God says about it.

[28:08] As long as we're diminishing the truth of his infinite benevolence to us. But what's missing from the scene?

[28:20] a preacher. Eve needed a prophet to correct the errors and to proclaim and emphasize the truth of what God actually said and who God actually truly was in his nature.

[28:43] Eve needed a priest to crush the head of the serpent and to bring her back to God. in his garden. She needed a king to step forward and to rule over the garden in righteousness leading her in faithfulness.

[29:00] She needed Adam. But where's Adam? As it turns out he was right there watching listening and eventually eating himself.

[29:19] Commas are important. He wasn't eating himself. He was eating himself. Verse 6 right at the end. Suddenly Adam's back sin.

[29:33] And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. And this is such a tragedy for us.

[29:45] I don't know if we always recognize how much a tragedy that phrase is. She gave to Adam and he ate. Adam's sin was not like Eve's.

[30:00] It was different. The mechanics of it were the same. He took the fruit that he wasn't supposed to eat and he took a bite of it. All of that is the same. But this is more than that.

[30:12] What led to this act was different for Adam than it was for Eve. Eve was deceived by the serpent. Adam was not deceived by the serpent.

[30:24] Paul insists on that in 1 Timothy 2.14. Eve was deceived. Adam was not deceived. He knew the truth of what God had said because it was to Adam specifically that God said it.

[30:42] He was well aware of the truth of God's benevolence and what God actually said in his command and his prohibition. He wasn't tricked into eating. Rather, he sat by passively to see what would happen.

[30:58] He watched. He watched. And when his wife survived the bite, he listened to her in this sense, that it didn't result in what God said it would result in.

[31:18] And so he takes it. After much deliberation and no deceit and he eats. He takes a bite for himself not because he was deceived but because he wanted for himself all that he believed the tree offered.

[31:40] And we have this habit of reducing original sin to merely eating a piece of forbidden fruit. And no wonder we get so confused wondering why God makes such a big deal about this.

[31:52] It's just a piece of fruit. That's not what this is. This is so much more than that. This was an act of defiance against God that sought to achieve life and blessing and wisdom apart from the good and generous creator.

[32:09] By eating the fruit Adam effectively spat in the face of God wanting to be a God unto himself. This isn't about fruit. This is about rebellion.

[32:23] God defiance against God. Sin always involves deception to some extent even if it's self deception.

[32:38] Adam's sin shows us though that it doesn't always involve a tempter. In fact James wrote that sin is the child of desire that comes from within us not just from a tempter that is external to us.

[32:56] James chapter 1 verse 14 each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire and desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

[33:15] What does that mean for us? It means that no one makes us sin and we must stop reducing temptation to a kind of victimization that is beyond our control.

[33:29] That's not what it is. We sin because we want what it offers. We sin because we don't believe God is benevolent enough to satisfy the deepest longing of our souls.

[33:43] we sin because we don't know and trust his word or believe his threats of judgment. Every time we sin it's because we want what we want apart from the good and generous creator.

[33:58] The pattern that we experience every day of our lives is right here at the very beginning in the original sin. It's deliberate disobedience and then we get to the fourth part of the story and we find a deadly descent descent.

[34:13] Look at verse 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.

[34:31] So after eating Adam and Eve's eyes were indeed opened. That's what the serpent said would happen. It's not that you will surely die.

[34:41] It's that your eyes will be opened. God knows that. He doesn't want that. And here we find their eyes were open. Just not in the way that they had hoped. It was a half truth.

[34:55] They didn't immediately die in the sense of being extinguished. But that's only part of the story. Suddenly their nakedness was viewed with guilt and shame.

[35:07] That's what's happening here with the nakedness. purity to guilt. It's innocence to shame. They felt dirty and exposed rather than fulfilled and enlightened.

[35:22] Isn't that what sin always does? It looks so good and delightful and desirable and when it's finished it doesn't feel so good anymore does it?

[35:34] everything was different now. Their innocence was lost now. Death had begun to reign in them in a way that they had not before comprehended.

[35:51] Ian Dugget says in the Bible death is the reversal of life not the reversal of existence. Adam and Eve's experience of life in its fullness immediately diminished as their sin exposed them to shame and fear.

[36:13] The serpent had claimed that if they disobeyed God they would experience freedom power. in actuality their sin brought bondage hopelessness and unsurprisingly our first parents immediately try to cover up that guilt because that's what we try to do.

[36:38] That's the impulse right? I'm dirty. I want to be clean. Something's wrong. I want it to be right again. they try to cover their shame by sewing together a few fig leaves for clothing.

[36:54] What is this? It's a symbol of our attempts to mask guilt which are always insufficient. They never actually get the job done all the way, do they?

[37:05] Self justification may for a season ease our consciences. God sees right through all of that. our only hope, Adam and Eve's only hope, was that with God's justice, there might would be found something of God's mercy that somehow he will be able to truly and sufficiently cover their guilt.

[37:33] And that's where it ends. It's depressing. Let's think about it a little further though. for Eve to sin is terrible.

[37:48] But I'm going to say something I think is important to our understanding of the Bible and our understanding of the gospel. Her sin is terrible. Adam's sin is catastrophic.

[38:04] It's catastrophic. Adam was our covenant head. his failure to meet God's demand for covenant obedience, a demand given directly to Adam before Eve was ever created.

[38:23] Significant to him. It plunged the whole human race into sin. We all sin in Adam and we all sin in the same way as Adam.

[38:39] and just as death began to reign in him at this moment so does death reign in each of us. How do we know that? The scriptures tell us Paul helps us so much with this in Romans 5.

[38:53] He says just as sin came into the world through one man that is Adam. He doesn't mention Eve. He mentions Adam. Why? Because Adam's sin is significant here.

[39:03] death came through that sin and so death spreads to all men because we've all sinned.

[39:16] Our only hope is that God will provide a greater Adam who can truly meet the demands of covenant obedience on our behalf because none of us are doing it.

[39:31] We're guilty. He must be a man like Adam but he must be more than a man because he can't be in Adam in the same way that we are in Adam and that leaves only one being to possibly do this work and it's God himself.

[39:56] Only God can meet those demands and save us from sin and death. And that's exactly who Jesus is. He is truly God who's perfect and without sin and yet he's truly a man who lived as a man and suffered as a man and was tempted as a man yet without sin.

[40:26] man. Matthew 4 and Luke 4 both tell us about Jesus' time or at least part of his time of temptation with that old serpent the devil.

[40:39] He tempts Jesus for 40 days as he fasted in the wilderness and three of those temptations are recorded for us there. each one matches the tactics that we see here in Genesis 3.

[40:55] Satan distorts God's word. He misquotes it intentionally. He questions God's benevolence and he offers Jesus a power that belongs only to God.

[41:09] All three presented in those temptations. each time Jesus did what Adam failed to do. He rebukes the serpent he trusted the will of the father and he confronted each temptation with the declaration of the truth of God's word from Deuteronomy 6 and Deuteronomy 8.

[41:32] So that in the wilderness temptations and then in his life and in his ministry ultimately in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus overcame temptation he trusted God he perfectly obeyed and that's why the apostles argued that Jesus alone is our true prophet priest and king.

[41:54] Hebrews 4 we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin and because of him because he's our high priest let us then with confidence draw near to God's throne of grace that we may receive mercy and help in time of need that's who Jesus is that's what he provides as a new covenantal head Jesus secures for his people all that Adam lost in the garden he perfectly fulfilled God's covenantal demands and then he took our sins on himself on the cross thereby completely satisfying God's wrath against sinners a perfect and sufficient propitiation as we read the terms in the

[43:00] New Testament and how do we know it was sufficient because God raised him from the dead showing that Christ's death was sufficient to pay for our death and to forgive our sins and to offer us life and that's the great part of it is that he then does indeed offer us life he invites us to receive his life in abundance by faith faith in Christ and here we see the great reversal of what happened in the garden Eve and Adam and the serpent diminish God's word they question his benevolence they deny his judgment Christ proves the judgment of God's wrath as he takes it on himself he proves the truthfulness of God's word as he's raised from the dead he proves to us the great benevolence of God as he gives himself for us that is not a stingy

[44:17] God that is the God we all need and fortunately it's the God we all can have by faith says Paul again in Romans 5 for if because of one man's trespass that's Adam death reigned through that one man much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ therefore as one trespass led to condemnation for all men so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous the scene in Genesis 3 of course points us to the uniqueness of Jesus as our

[45:32] Lord and Savior that's the good news of the gospel that we get to from Genesis 3 there's practical matters here as well the text shows us this basic pattern of sin and how we're drawn into it it tells us that we need to be vigilant and watchful of a real adversary of his tactics and even of indwelling sin that doesn't need a tempter finally we need to learn here to continually cast ourselves on the great mercy of God not trying to self justify our own version of sowing fig leaves together but by trusting entirely in the righteousness of

[46:38] Jesus just as Adam's sin is imputed unto all men so is Christ perfect righteousness imputed unto those who will believe that's good news for us friends that if you will just trust him you will be forgiven and stand before God righteous whole forgiven and those of you who are Christians need to carry that with you every day because chances are today will be another day of eating of the fruit that you shouldn't eat what's our hope when that happens that Christ is our righteousness yet not I but through

[47:39] Christ in me we sing isn't that what it is and so every day we confess our sins to the Lord as is necessary trusting that he is benevolent that he's merciful and that it's all proven in the Lord Jesus Christ let's pray together may!

[48:05]