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For the first 17 years of my life, I was born and raised overseas. When I was about six years old, I found myself with my parents in a country, and in that country, my father’s company had a lovely little beach house on one of the beaches, and so occasionally he would take the three of us kids, my two sisters and myself, down to it to enjoy a day at the beach. And we had done that on one Saturday and had just dried ourselves off, changed our clothes, and locked with a padlock the door to the beach house, and we’re just about ready to get into the car to go home.
Exactly that time, another car pulled up, which had one of the political leaders of the country in it. And although this particular country had outlawed alcoholic beverages, somehow he had gotten a hold of one too many. And as he got out of his car, he brought with him quite a large entourage. Walked up to the beach house to see if he could get in. Noticed that it was padlocked. Shook the padlock. Frustratedly walked back to his car and pulled out a rifle. And from his car, he took careful aim at the padlock, fired one shot, and hit the padlock dead center. It sent shards of bullet and lock spraying out, and one of the shards caught my father in the neck, about a quarter of an inch from his jugular.
At that time, my father grabbed my two sisters and myself, threw us into the car, my two sisters in the back, me in the front, and sped out of there like he was a race car driver at Le Mans, as I looked over at my dad, he had his handkerchief clutched to his neck, and it was quickly turning scarlet. We went back to the house, and thankfully, we were able to get a house visit. And one of my earliest memories as a little six-year-old boy was seeing my father on the couch in our living room, being tended to by a physician who was poking around in his neck for the remaining shard. My dad pulled out of it just fine, and everything turned out okay.
Fast forward several years later, when I was a doctoral student at another seminary, I had just gone to the mailbox in the student center. Had gotten my mail and was on my way back to the dorm room. As I passed under a few trees, all of a sudden I felt this amazingly intense, hot, agonized pain in my left calf. Looked down as a student passed by me, and he stopped and reached down and picked up a spent 38 caliber bullet and said, “Jeff, you’ve been shot.” Well, I was quite surprised. This doesn’t happen on a seminary campus, so I limped to the security kiosk where my good buddy, the director of the police force at the seminary, was there, and I sat down, and there was a tear of about six inches in my in my dress pants. We rolled up my trousers and looked at my sock, and there was a hole in my sock. Rolled down my sock, and there was a hole in my calf, and it was bleeding. And so he packed me up into the car in the same way that my father had packed us kids up, and drove me to the hospital, where we had to make a GSW report, and where then a doctor took special care and poking around in the hole in my calf to make sure there were no shards of bullet remaining. Someone had fired into the air a 38 caliber pistol, and the trajectory of the bullet had brought it down remarkably on to my leg.
Like father, like son.
To paraphrase the Baptist Faith and Message, I inherited from my father a bent towards getting shot. Apparently, this goes to all the men in the Bingham family. This is the point of our exegetical homily this morning. The account that Moses presents for us in chapter three of Genesis is that what happens to Adam and Eve happens to their progeny. Their progeny inherit a proclivity. Their progeny inherit a bent towards sin, a nature the BF&M says that is inclined toward sin. I have to admit that at times in my life this inclination is the same inclination that a cat has for catnip. The same inclination that my lungs have to breathe. That this inclination is quite powerful and quite ready to incline me towards sin.
In chapter three, there is the story of the death of three relationships. In Genesis one and two, Moses constructs three important relationships, and all three of these relationships die in Genesis chapter three. The first relationship is the relationship between God and particularly the human creature. God reveals Himself to the human creature first of all as the Creator, and the human being as a creature, and this gap between creator and creature is never to narrow, never to become less “gap-ish.” It is to remain that one is the creator, and many are creatures. God also reveals Himself as the omnibenevolent, the kind and generous provider, for he provides for every need of the human creature. Thirdly, God reveals himself as the lawgiver, for he does restrict the human being to all the trees but one, so that he is creator, he is benevolent provider, and he is lawgiver. This relationship between God and humanity will end up dying in the narrative of Genesis three.
A second relationship is the relationship that Moses develops between creature to creature. Yes, the relationship of human creature to other creatures, but primarily the relationship between the two human creatures and their progeny. If we look at the way in which the man and the woman are related, Moses presents us with this characterization: they are to have a one-flesh relationship. As a matter of fact, he helps us to understand what that means for the man is to leave his mother and father, and to cleave to his wife, and so the relationship that is to characterize the man and the woman is a relationship whereby the husband cleaves, and by cleaving, one can speak figuratively of the relationship as “one flesh.”
Paul, in later revelation, particularly in Ephesians, will also employ this idea in a broader ecclesiological aspect. In Paul, he talks about the church as the unity of Jew and Gentile, who Christ by His one body has made into one new humanity, and so the church is also pictured as a new unified grouping of human beings. The same is used in Ephesians chapter five, where Paul speaks of the church as one new body, so that yes, this metaphor applies to the relationship between husband and wife, but in the New Testament it is expanded as a metaphor which characterizes the ecclesia, the church, the body of Christ, a unity of believing Jews and believing Gentiles. We will see this one-flesh relationship destroyed and take on death in Genesis chapter three.
There is a third relationship which Moses builds in chapter one and chapter two, and that is the relationship between the human creature and the earth, in particular the dust of the earth. For you’ll recall from chapter two, verse seven, God reaches down into the dust of the earth, and from the dust of the earth he forms the human male, and then he breathes the breath of life into him, and so the story is the account tells us that God creates the human male from the dust of the earth. We also recall that he blessed the man and the woman in Genesis one by telling them that they had the destiny of ruling the earth, and so the picture is this: God reaches down into the dust of the earth and forms man out of the dust of the earth, so that humanity might be over the earth. Out of the earth, in order to be over the earth. This relationship of humanity to the earth, you will see die in Genesis chapter three.
You will also see the relationship, the destined relationship that humanity was to have over the animals by ruling over the earth with its animal inhabitants, you will also see this rulership die. And so, you need to bid farewell to Genesis chapter two. You need to bid farewell to the breath of life. You need to bid farewell to the one flesh relationship. You need to bid farewell to life. You need to bid farewell to the destiny of rulership. You need to bid farewell to the unity and the harmony between human beings. You need to bid farewell to all that because it dies in Genesis chapter three. Bye bye, bye bye. Bid farewell to Genesis chapter two because that was then, and this is now.
You will see, as a matter of fact, that in Genesis chapter three, the first word is now. It’s not necessarily being used in a chronological sense, but it is the very common way in which authors in Hebrew change the topic, a transition into a new thing they want to talk about, and what they want to talk about now is that what was true in Genesis two is no longer the case. Notice how Genesis two ends with verse 25. Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame. This is a conclusion to the wonderfulness of chapter two, and it’s also the introduction to chapter three. The notion of nakedness here certainly is referring in some degree to the sexual aspect of their nakedness. Yes, but Moses intends us to understand much more than that. Nakedness is being used here. Nakedness without shame is being used here for the absence of moral guilt and the presence of innocence. At the end of chapter two, the human creatures are innocent and void of moral guilt, but that will change.
“Now,” the account begins. “The serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made.” This is one of the wild animals that that Adam and Eve were supposed to have rulership over. The serpent was one of them, and so we need to pay very close attention here because the immediate literary context does define this being involved in the temptation as a snake, and we can’t deny that it is a snake. But if we practice a Judeo-Christian hermeneutic, if in addition to emphasizing what the immediate literary context teaches us, we also practice responsibility to the larger Christian literary context of the New Testament, we have to recognize that something else is intended here also. In Revelation 12 and verse 9, the Apostle John tells us that this snake was also Satan. So that here is the Apostle John and his Apocalypse, looking at Genesis chapter three and interpreting it, and he interprets it as a serpent and, in particular, as the demon Satan. This is something that John the Apostle does quite frequently. He also interpreted Genesis chapter one at the beginning of his first chapter in his gospel. John loves to interpret Genesis.
And so as we begin here with a being who is at one and the same time, a wild animal, a snake, and Satan, and he begins to deceive the woman with his cunning. What he, in particular, does is to attack the attribute and the character of God that we spoke about just a moment ago. He calls into question the reliability of the Creator, the honesty and the integrity of the Creator. He leads the woman into thinking that perhaps the Creator is not as benevolent, not as generous, not as giving and as lovingly providing as He has shown Himself to be in Genesis one and Genesis two, as a matter of fact, he presents the Creator as one who selfishly keeps something for himself. He greedily holds something back for himself, and he is not as benevolent as he perhaps has pretended to be, and she falls for it, so that she ultimately finds the fruit of the tree to be lovely to look at, to be something which is appealing to her hunger, but more than that, the serpent has tempted her with the lie that if she eats of the fruit, she will actually become like God. She will gain deity. This is very attractive for any creature who is dissatisfied with simply being a creature. They would much rather be divine, and so in particular here, what attracts her is that she would have knowledge like unto God. She wouldn’t have to ask why anymore. She would know the answer. She wouldn’t have to ask where or when anymore. She would know the answer, and so it is this lustfulness for omniscience and for a knowledge which surpasses the limitations of human knowledge that drives her to eat the fruit. And she does.
The way in which Revelation 12 nine describes it is that she was led into this. This is the way in which deception is to be perceived. The serpent misled her. The serpent led her into, and in this leadership of the serpent, she eats of the fruit. But then notice immediately what she does. She turns and she passes it to her husband. Verse six: “She also gave some to her husband.” Notice here that the tempted one becomes the temptress. The tempted one became the temptress, and of course, what we see in Adam is nothing but utter, complete passivity. He doesn’t arise to be Eve’s champion, the one-flesh relationship of his cleaving to Eve is completely missing. He doesn’t stand up to protect her, to rebuke the serpent. He stands there idly, passively, and then when he himself is confronted with the fruit, he eats as well. What we see happening here is the death of the human relationship between the Creator, Provider, and lawgiver, that relationship is shattered, and we also see here the beginning of the end of the one flesh relationship between the man and the woman. Say goodbye, for they are now part of the past, and this is now.
With the end of verse six, we find that immediately they do gain some knowledge, but the knowledge that they gain is the knowledge that they are guilty of moral trespass, and so with this sense of moral trespass, they immediately seek to cover themselves because they know they are guilty. They want to hide their guilt, and so they make covering for themselves. This will become a human habit. From this point on, humans will not want to be open about their guilt. Humans will not want to be forthcoming about their guilt. Humans will want instead to build a pathway that denies their guilt in order to try to convince others that they are not guilty but innocent. They will do so by manipulation. They will do so by wearing different types of masks, both literal and figuratively, they will attempt to convince a watching world who knows that they’re guilty that in reality they are innocent. When God comes looking for them, they know they are guilty. They are no longer innocent, and so their first instinct is to hide, which they do.
The Lord finds them, and when he finds them hiding, notice that they are hiding because fear has crept in to what used to be a wonderful, fearless, blessed creation. Bye bye. Genesis two is gone, and now, what you have is a situation in which humans feel fear, and in which they want to convince everybody that they are guiltless. But unfortunately, it just doesn’t work. But they give it a try. The Lord begins an inquisition. What have you done? And eventually they cough up the truth. Notice how it is that it begins. The man replied in verse 12, “The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.” Notice that he fesses up to eating, but the entire explanation begins by pointing to God’s responsibility, God is ultimately in his mind to blame for why he ate, because it is God who gave Him the woman who deceived and tempted Him. Deflecting responsibility off of you, and putting the responsibility upon primarily God, and secondarily on his wife. Politicians are great at this; they do this all the time. If their administrations are failing, there is always someone else to blame. I do this all the time. When Pamela and I have a difference of opinion, convenient for me to try to make Pamela look more guilty than me, and so every time that we shirk from taking the full blunt of our guilt, and we try to cast guilt onto someone else rather than to take it and to admit it ourselves, we are following in the footsteps of our father, Adam. Notice that the woman does the same. It’s all true. The serpent deceived her, but I want you to know that the “I ate” part, just like with Adam, comes at the end, and it is the serpent’s fault why she did it. She did eat, but she is hoping that the serpent will soften her guilt.
In verse 14, something enters into the world that never existed before. You see, in verse 14, the word. Up until this time, you’ve never seen the word curse. What you’ve seen in chapter one and in chapter two, instead, is the word “bless.” You have seen God bless, bless, and bless. But now, because of the entrance of sin into His creation, “curse” now enters into His world, and he curses the wild animal who must now move upon his belly. But that is not all. He introduced verse 15 hostility between this wild animal and the woman and her offspring, so that now this promise of ruling over the animals of the field—that’s gone. Because what has now been introduced is hostility; the creatures of the earth now are hostile against the woman and her progeny. It continues until we get to verse 17. In verse 17, the ground is cursed, and the man must now only eat by performing painful labor all the days of his life. The earth is no longer subject to him. He’s not ruling over the earth. The earth is fighting back with its thorns. This is now combat. This is now war. The promise of human rulership over the earth is now dead. Too, the relationship between God and the human being is dead. The relationship between the man and the woman is dead and is now characterized by hostility and competition.
Look at verse 16. “I will intensify your labor pains,” he says to the woman. “You will bear children with painful effort. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.” Some people want to read this as a romantic desire that Eve will have for her husband, or a sexual desire that she will have for her husband. But remember, this is the context of “curse.” This is the context of divine judgment, and the New English Translation has it best. “You,” he says to the woman, “Will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.” What was supposed to be a one-flesh relationship in marriage now becomes, in the worst case, a competitive race to control, dominate, manipulate, and overcome each other. The one flesh relationship is dead, and then finally, it is the dust of the earth that has the last voice. Verse 19, “You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to the dust.”
Remember in Genesis two seven, God reached down into the dust of the earth, and He formed man by taking man out of the dust, so that he might be over the earth. But now, what you find in this verse 19 is that Genesis 2:7 has been utterly and completely reversed. The man, after he physically dies, is going to be put back into the dust, where he will corrupt and decay. And so the final discipline of God, the final judgment of God upon the man, is that the creative act of God in Genesis 2:7 is utterly, completely reversed, and He puts humanity back into the dust, where now the earth is ruling the human being. The relationship between the human being and the earth, in which the man and the woman were to rule the earth, that third relationship is now dead.
Gottfried Leibniz was wrong. This is not the best of all possible worlds. This is not best of all possible worlds, because sin inhabits it and all of human creation is inclined toward sin, disunity, disharmony, breakups, and divorce, doubts about God, and the failure to fulfill the destiny for which it was created. Leibniz was wrong. This is not the best of all possible worlds. Why? Because, as Thomas Aquinas said, God can always create a better one. We need the better world of which the Old Testament prophets and apostles speak. We need the new creation and the new covenant and the new covenant’s promise of a new heart. We need the new birth which Jesus and Peter talk about, we need new minds of Romans 12. We need the new bodies of Second Corinthians five and First Corinthians 15. We need the new heavens of Isaiah 65 and of Second Peter three and of Revelation 21, we need the new earth of Isaiah 65 and two Peter three and Revelation 20.
We need the promise of Revelation 21, of a God who at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ makes everything new, but for that we must wait for another saving act of Jesus Christ. We are on hold for one more redemptive deed of Jesus Christ. We are waiting for Jesus to do one more Gospel act that will bring our salvation to consummation, to fullness, and to glory. He must return, and until he returns, our ultimate salvation is on hold, and sometimes our patience draws to an end, so that with the psalmist we groan out the question, “How long?” With the apostles we groan out the question, “How long?” With the psalmist, we cry out the question, “How long?”
But can you hear it? It’s the promise of the prophets, can you hear it? It’s the promise of the apostles. Can you hear it? It’s the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He will come back.
