The Fall of Man
Text: Genesis chapter 3
What are the consequences of the fall?
The fallout of original sin has infected and affected us all. We still live today thousands of generations from the beginning, but are just as diseased, just as cursed as Adam and Eve. Let’s look at Genesis 3 and see what happened.
The Temptation: Planting seeds of doubt by twisting the words of God
Offering false promises that appeal to our fleshly desires
The Sin: Disobedience: They ate that which God had forbidden
A failure to trust God
The Result: Their eyes were opened (saw things differently)
They recognized their nudity (exposed)
They hid from the presence of the Lord (guilt)
The Response: God took the initiative to seek them out
The Confrontation: We were afraid because we were naked (exposed)
God asked, Who told you that you were naked?
The Blame game: Adam blamed God and Eve
Eve blamed the serpent
The Curse:
The Serpent: He was cursed more than other animals
Legs removed? On his belly eating dust henceforth
Hostility with humanity (especially women?) Hostility with the seed of woman (Christ) He will bruise your head
You will bruise his heel
The Woman:
Multiplied pain in childbirth
Pain in the raising of children (trampling of your heart)
Your desire will be to possess / control your husband
But he will rule over you (subjugation)
To Adam:
Cursed is the ground BECAUSE OF YOU / creation
corrupted
The need to toil for sustenance
Hostile environment (thorns and thistles)
Must labor to live
Death – return to the ground
The state of fallen humanity: HUMANITY BECAME A FLAWED YET MORALLY RESPONSIBLE SPECIES.
Enmity between humanity and Satan – A spiritual war
1 Peter 5:8 -- Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
Zechariah 3:1 Satan is an accuser
Matthew 4 – Satan is a tempter
Mark 4 – Satan is a thief stealing away the seed of the gospel
Luke 13:16 – Satan is an oppressor of mankind through illness
2 Corinthians 12:7 – Satan is a bringer of torment
1 Thessalonians 2:13 – Satan is a hinderance to ministry
2 Thessalonians 2:9 – Satan is a liar and deceiver
Revelation 12:9 – The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
Ephesians 6:12 --For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
2. Suffering and hardship
By toil you will eat (no longer does God provide your subsistence without labor)
Humanity opposed by creation itself – thorns and thistles
Creation corrupted (Cursed is the ground because of you)
Romans 8:20-23 -- For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
3. Death – Till you return to the ground
Deut. 24:16 Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin. Prov. 10:16 -- The wages of the righteous is life, but the earnings of the wicked are sin and death.
Romans 6:23 -- For the wages of sin is death
James 1:14-15 -- each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Romans 5:12 -- Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all people, because all sinned.
The Grace of God: A garment of skins / A covering for sins
The state made temporary – dismissed from the garden
Removed from partaking of the tree of life (and living in perpetual sin)
Romans 5:17 "For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!"