I've been here a little over 10 years now, and to see the multiplication of the number of children in this congregation is so encouraging. It's so encouraging. Please bow with me in prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, as we struggle with the brokenness that surrounds us in this world, Jim so aptly just prayed for. We seek to understand why things are the way they are and if things can ever be made right. So we come this morning to hear your answers to these questions. I pray that your servant will be faithful to rightly divide your word of truth and that your people will have the spirit-led ears and minds and hearts to hear the answers that provide comfort, assurance, and glorify you from your word. This morning, Father, show us Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. Coming to a high school near you this fall is a new ethnic studies course that is now mandatory in the California public schools. The published curriculum states that the goal of this course is to examine how historical oppression has affected ethnic and non-traditionally structured minority groups to understand the intersectionality boundaries and address sources of inequality in our society. Now, if you understood what I just said, congratulate yourself for being woke. If you didn't understand, it's okay. It's hard to keep pace with the advance in the liberal education theory in our society today. But page two of the model curriculum that's published was interesting. It says that these goals will be achieved as students, now I'll quote, critically grapple with the various power structures and forms of oppression including, but not limited to, white supremacy, race and racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia that continue to impact the social, emotional, cultural, economic, and political experiences of minority groups. Now the interesting thing about this list is that the most important phobia is missing. It's the one that lies at the root of the problem of human inequality. It's not homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, even hydrophobia, but God phobia. It's God phobia. That has the greatest impact on the social, emotional, cultural, economic, and political experiences of all people, not just minorities. So today in part two of this little mini-series in our Genesis study called The Garden Temple, we will see tragedy strike as Adam fails the test of faith that he was given. but we'll also see the amazing grace of how God responds to his rebellion. We'll discover roots of the brokenness in this world and we'll hear the first announcement of the gospel in the Old Testament shadow of redemption that will become the New Testament reality of Jesus Christ. So I invite you to open your Bible to Genesis 3 And as you do so, I'll just give a little bit of a review of what we've learned so far. Three weeks ago, in Part 1, titled Paradise Given, we looked at Genesis 2, and we learned that when God created man from the dust of the ground, he breathed into him the Spirit of God. That spirit is called the Imago Dei. It's Latin for Spirit of God. And that was the Imago Dei that set Adam apart from the other creatures that God had made so that he could be the priest and vice-regent over creation reporting directly to God. Adam was given a wife as his complement and helper and together they were to expand the garden temple to encompass the entire globe. and to fill it with their image bearers who would also have the Imago Dei, so that in essence the entire earth would come a physical complement to the heavenly realm where God now reigns today, filled with spiritual creatures. The Imago Dei made Adam an inherently righteous free moral agent, a condition necessary to commune with the Holy God. Adam received the Imago Dei first and then passed it on to the woman created from him as God acted on his decision to, quote, make man in our image after our likeness. So Adam and his wife were untarnished, truly free will creatures made to know God and to love Him and enjoy Him forever. So Adam was both able to sin and able to not sin and to prepare him for the task ahead, God wanted him to demonstrate his allegiance. So you recall this, at the center of the garden were two trees, They were sacramental, meaning that they were physical trees that provided a spiritual blessing. The first tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Its title is important, the knowledge of good and evil, because those two words form what's called a merism, where you have two contrasting words which indicate a complete whole. Its title as a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, through this tree God would give Adam the knowledge that he needed for his work as the priest and the king over God's physical garden temple here on earth. But extreme care was required and Adam was to gain knowledge at God's discretion and in God's timing through God's blessing of that tree. So God made a covenant with Adam to test his faithfulness. Every good thing in creation was for him to enjoy except that one. Under the penalty of death, Adam was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This agreement is the first of the Bible covenants. It's called the covenant of works as this slide shows and we saw three weeks ago. Obedience will be rewarded by allowing Adam and his wife to continue to have access to the second tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of life. This was not a magical tree. This was also a sacramental tree and is actually the first shadow of the life-giving Jesus Christ. One of our fill-ins from part one was that at the close of Genesis 2, potential perfection existed and Adam can pass his probation and gain the promised reward. So God could have looked over the events in chapters 2 and said as he did at the end of chapter 1, All things are very good. But that was about to change as a new character enters this perfect garden temple. Today's title is Paradise Lost. And our text is all of chapter three. We'll break it into five parts. Temptation, fall, grace, punishment, and redemption. I hope that from this chapter we will all gain a better understanding of why this world is broken and why the gospel is such good news. Now along with some key terms, the one big idea is on the top of the handout and it's this. Genesis 3 teaches the essential Christian doctrine of original sin, its consequences, and God's amazing response of grace. The original sin that led to the fall of mankind is a unique and essential Christian teaching because it's a foundation for why Jesus saves sinners. We need to rightly understand what God is teaching here if we are to make sense of Christ's redeeming work. So let's open it up, beginning with temptation. Follow along as I read from verses one through six. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say that 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, 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, 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, and 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. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Now the serpent in verse one, it says is one of God's good creatures, but he's identified as more crafty. And with his ability to talk, the reader is informed that some other being is controlling this serpent. Although he's not named, it soon has become clear that this is Satan. He is the anti-God. He is the adversary of God and humanity. The Hebrew word means accuser or persecutor. And the New Testament Greek word is diabolos, the devil. Satan originates in the spiritual realm. He stands outside of earth's natural order. And now he has come into the garden. We're not told why or how, but as we will see, it is a significant problem. more crafty is actually a word play in the Hebrew between Chapter 2, verse 25, and here in 3.1, it's a wordplay that's roughly translated as nude and shrewd. And it serves to connect Genesis 2 and the narrative there with what's going to happen now in Genesis 3.1. It serves to connect these two passages together and illustrate the vulnerability that they have before the anti-God here in verse 1. He speaks to both of them, Satan does, And it begins not with a question, but with a statement of surprise. Did God really say that you may not eat of any tree in the garden? With this one statement, the serpent has managed to move the character of God from a benevolent provider to a cruel oppressor. The woman, she's not named until verse 20, which is a significant detail. The woman attempts to defend God, but she falls into his trap when she exaggerates God's words. And she adds, neither shall you touch it to God's command. That error gives the serpent what he needs to move from fake surprise to dogmatic statement. You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now he has moved from questioning God's words to questioning God's inner thoughts, to questioning God's intention. When he says, you will be like God, knowing good and evil, the woman is presented with the tantalizing possibility of being more than what God has made her at this point to be. Not just in knowing, but in knowing mysteries. The very mysteries of God. Suddenly, to eat from the tree was not a culinary delight of taste and presentation. Instead, to eat would give her something she didn't have that she thought she needed for true happiness. The serpent pitted his words against God's word. He presented divine love as envy. He presented obedient service as slavery, a proper restriction as tyranny, and a suicidal plunge to death as a leap into life. and the woman bit, literally. Her desire is called coveting. It's the first sin in history. It is the underlying issue that is the brokenness in our world and the underlying foundation of coveting that leads to coveting is our first fill-in, it's this. The essence of coveting is the belief that I need something I do not now have to be happy. Something I do not now have to be happy. Coveting is a strong desire for something usually that someone else has that I don't. And you believe it's necessary for your happiness. And notice that she does not try to tempt Adam. She simply gives and he takes. Her sin is a sin of initiative. His sin is a sin of acquiescence. And both are equally devastating. Derek Kidner provides the most succinct summary of this sad event when he writes, she took and ate, so simple to act, so hard it's undoing, for God will taste poverty and death before take and eat become verbs of salvation. So now Satan's work is done. Mankind has fallen into sin and the serpent leaves the man and woman to deal with the consequences, or so he thinks. Immediately we see the loss of innocence when they realize they are naked. And they attempt in the next verse to self-atone for their disobedience with fig leaves. Now that's the origin of our desire to try to hide our sin. And this is one of the reasons, this natural inclination is one of the reasons why we are encouraging people to be in Christian accountability groups. To be with another trusted Christian that you can share your attempts to try to hide your sin, and in so doing, to build a relationship of trust and prayer for each other. But more importantly, this is the beginning of God phobia. Look at verses seven and eight. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees of the garden." Their fear of God reveals the loss of the Imago Dei. Before they had perfect communion, The loss of the Omago Dei has severed that completely. God's spirit withdraws from Adam and the woman because of their sin. And just as God warned, they are now spiritually dead. There's no way back and they cannot reverse the consequences. Now, while some parts of God's image remain in the unique human characteristics of rationality and compassion and love and the ability to think in abstract terms and come up with ideas like intersectionality and education theory, those things remain. But to paraphrase Frasier Crane, the spirit has left the building. And it's worse yet, because by choosing to believe the serpent, they have rejected God and have now pledged their allegiance to Satan. Adam and the woman are now citizens of the kingdom of darkness. Satan is one of the rebellious supernatural creatures in the spiritual realm that the Bible tells us are set against God. When they did and why they would rebel is information God has not shared. But we can be sure that when the woman and the man took and ate, their rebellion brought shouts of joy from all of those fallen spiritual beings. because the fall brought the loss of the innocence, the loss of the inherent righteousness, and the loss of the free will with which they were created. Aligned now with the devil, their will has become like those of the fallen beings, unwilling to choose God because they are now unable to do so. Like Satan, They are enemies of God, and it is impossible to overstate the significance of this event. That leads to our second fill-in. The result of Adam's sin was his inability to continue in or return to the condition in which he was created. The moment he disobeyed, he lost for himself and every other human being the original purity and freedom that God had given him. Now, every human being is what the Apostle Paul calls a natural person. 1 Corinthians 2.14 says, The natural person is unable to accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. If the Spirit of God is dead, It's dead. What can dead things do? Stink. But God's will will not be denied and his character cannot change. Look at the amazing grace in verse 9 following. But the Lord called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked And I hid myself. God said, who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave me to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you've done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. Now with the man and the woman in hiding, verse 9 says, the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? But notice how carefully God frames his question. He does not ask, why are you hiding? Because to do so would draw attention to the stupidity of Adam and the futility of him thinking that he can hide from God. but by asking, where are you? God attempts to draw them out like the good shepherd seeking his lost sheep. That's the character of God. So at the very moment of Adam's treason, God extends compassion. Instead of condemnation, he offers grace as a healing balm for their guilt. But it will not be at the expense of his justice. Adam, spirit withdrawn, with a new hardness now, instead of answering the question, his response answers the question that God didn't ask. God didn't ask, why are you hiding? But his answer in verse 10 answers that question. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid. Now he's lied. He's not naked. He's got his self-atonement fig leaves covering him. But self-atonement only leads to God-phobia. But notice this first example of chesed love. Remember that term? Chesed love. That's that long-suffering love that we read of repeatedly throughout the Old Testament. This first example of chesed love is that God asks him this. Who told you that you were naked? Have you done what I forbid? Now the question itself encourages Adam to confess It's intended to draw him out and at this point a simple yes would have brought everything in the open But perhaps like Richard Nixon or taking a page from Bill Clinton's book He remains evasive first he attempts to blame God and he throws his wife under the bus The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit, and I ate." Now, have you ever wondered about the origination of our victim mentality that we see so often today? Here it is, right here in Genesis 3. Through rationalization, Adam the criminal becomes Adam the victim. The woman's question next, she blames the serpent, and as the joke goes, the serpent didn't have a leg to stand on. And as he must, God delivers the verdict on the serpent, the woman, and Adam. Follow along in verse 14. The Lord said to the serpent, because you've done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 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. To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust. and to dust you shall return. These verses, 9 through 19, form a chiasm. Remember that? Chiasm. That's where something is in one order, a central point, and it's backed out and repeated in the reverse order. It makes a point. It makes a point to highlight, a main point. And this slide shows the chiasm that's here in Genesis 3. The central point is the serpent's curse in verses 14 and 15. And verse 14 is the first time the word cursed is used in the Bible. God's curse is the opposite of blessing, and it's different from punishment. The man and the woman are punished. They will experience key problems in their life role and in their life relationship. The woman will experience pain in her role of childbearing, and the man will be forced to work the uncooperative ground in his role of providing for his wife and family. Now, these roles probably sound quaint to our modern secular ears, but in fact they are the creation order, which is why we respect them. Second, both of them will now experience relationship difficulties as the woman's desire is to rule over a resisting husband. Relationship problems are not because women are from Venus and men are from Mars. It's because of the fall. It's because of the punishment that they received with that first sin. But God's mercy is seen in verse 17, because the curse is not placed on the man, but on the ground. But the punishment can be clearly seen in the key nouns in these verses, pain, opposition, sorrow, sweat, and death. As a representative head of humanity, Adam's punishment flows downhill to us like other substances are known to do. And this is why we battle thorns to get sweet berries and why hail ruins the wheat crop. But God's pure disgust is with the serpent. In verse 14, he's not even questioned, he's only cursed. Earlier he had been described as more cunning than the other animals, but now he's cursed above all the others. He's sentenced to crawl in the dust. He will grovel in humiliation, confined to the ground, alienated from every other creature. The most subtle of the animals now becomes the loneliest and the oddest of them all. Verse 15 is important, not as an attempt to explain why most women hate snakes, but because it's the first glimmer of hope in this entire tragic event. Verse 15, 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. This verse is called the Proto-Evangelion, a Greek word that means good news. It's the first announcement of the gospel. Here is the grand display of the sovereign grace of God as he changes the woman's sinful fascination with the serpent into a righteous desire for God. Offspring is the English translation of the Hebrew word Zarah. It means seed, and it's used in both the singular and the collective sense in scripture. Here in verse 15, the enmity between your offspring and her offspring is in the collective sense. The collective sense of the serpent seed is not baby snakes, and it can't be other spiritual beings because they don't procreate. So this means that the collective seed of the serpent is the fallen human beings who have been dragged by Adam's disobedience into Satan's rebellion and against God. And they are not extended grace. But there's also the singular sense in verse 15 seen in the words he and you in the statements. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. God is declaring here the titanic battle that is about to begin between the individual seed of the woman who will deliver the death blow to the spiritual being who stands behind the serpent. And in so doing, the singular seed of the woman will be severely wounded. Now at this particular moment in the garden, God has divided humanity into two communities, those of the woman that reproduce her spiritual life and are called the elect, and those of the serpent that reproduce his unbelief and are called the reprobate. The elect love God. The reprobate love self. The reprobate loves self. And as we move forward through Genesis, the division will emerge immediately in the hostility between Cain and Abel. And then everyone we meet after them will be either the seed of the woman or the seed of the serpent. But now we come to the significance of Adam's naming his wife in verse 20. And it's a further act of God's grace. The man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Here, by grace alone, through a given faith alone, God restores Adam and Eve so that his promise of the gospel can stand. By naming his wife Eve, which means living, Adam reveals his belief in the promise of God that Eve will bear an offspring who will defeat Satan. The Old Testament believers didn't know who or how. They didn't believe directly in a specific individual named Jesus. But like his offspring Abram would, many generations later, Adam and Eve believed God and God credited them with righteousness. In verse 21, God makes the sacrifice, which has an immediate effect, but is also a prophetic announcement. He makes proper coverings from skin from an animal for their nakedness. And in so doing, that blood sacrifice presents the first shadow in the redemptive story of the sacrifice that will ultimately be the Son, the singular seed of the woman who is to come. But while what was done is covered, it's not undone. One day God will be just and the justifier, as Paul says in Romans 3.26. But at this point in history, he chooses to be only just. The covenant was broken and the stipulation of death must stand. So as the hosts in the supernatural realm, both good and evil, look on, Adam and Eve are driven from the garden temple out into a world now cursed with toil and pain. The way to the tree of life is barred. They are unable to go there. And the man from dust, who is from dust, will return to that dust. Human death has entered God's good creation. And so it will be for many, many generations, until what Paul calls the fullness of time in Galatians 4, when God sent forth His Son. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons and daughters. And because you are sons and daughters, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, an heir through God. Now these verses summarize the New Testament, the entire New Testament gospel account of the mission of Jesus Christ on earth. And they reveal what is hidden in Genesis 3.15. The collective seed of the woman is the faithful that are seen throughout history in Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. They are the ones to whom Paul says in Romans 3, God gave the oracles of God. And we're reading the oracles of God this morning in Genesis 3. What a blessing to receive God's truth, God's Word. They've been blessed to receive the oracles of God. All of them, like Adam and Eve, believed God's promise. And as the writer to the Hebrews says, they look forward to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. That's what they're looking forward to. They are the collective seed of the woman in the Old Testament. But also in Galatians 4, Paul speaks of the singular seed that we see in Genesis 3.15. Who's that? It's the second person of the Godhead, the Eternal Son, who took on flesh by being born of the Spirit of God and a virgin. Jesus Christ is the offspring of Eve, who, because of his virgin birth, is not of Adam's lineage, and therefore he is untarnished by that original sin. The original sin that has tarnished all of us. Taking on the form of a man, he is the eternal Imago Dei, the eternal Son. He's the faithful one who undoes what the created Son of God, Adam, did when he fell. Genesis 3 is this essential doctrine of original sin. It describes the fall and it reveals the grace and justice of God in the punishment, but also the promise of the seed. The whole story is how the promise of Genesis 3 was fulfilled on Golgotha is summed up in Paul's statement in Romans 5 19. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. That'd be a good fill-in. Here's our last one. Jesus Christ restored the Imago Dei and gives it to all who believe so that what he is they will one day be. That's that first fruit concept that is seen throughout Scripture and highlighted most clearly in 1 Corinthians 15. Here in Genesis 3, it describes the beginning of history and explains to us why this world is broken. Because the seed of the serpent continues to encourage fallen people to self-atone. But self-atonement cannot answer our God-phobia. So the brokenness remains. Which is why the cross must stand at history's center. Because there the curse on the devil pronounced at the beginning was fulfilled. And then going forward, all of those God calls in Christ's atonement solves our God phobia. We're no longer broken. We no longer fear God. And now we are privileged to participate in God's redeeming work. In Christ, we are reconciled to God. So as we wait, We work knowing that as Hebrews 13 verse 14 says, here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him, that's Jesus Christ, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. that is the fruit of the lips that acknowledge Christ's name. And do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God our Father. We do good because God has given us His Spirit. That's the down payment of our glorification. What Jesus is, is what we will be. Although not yet, we continue to keep our eyes focused above, where He's seated at the right hand of the Father. To look up because our redemption is drawing nearer every day. Our God-phobia is gone. To finish Paul's statement, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. I pray that that is your cry today. Let's bow in prayer. Heavenly Father, what a blessing. You have given us the revelation of the truth that explains our world. May your Spirit continue to bring this truth to our hearts and to bring us to a lasting joy regardless of the worldly trials that we face. Restoring the Spirit of God has brought us to life. May we be doing Christ's work, spreading the gospel, the gospel of His death, burial, and resurrection, according to Scripture. And as a result, we have received new life. In that new life, Father, help us to bring this good news to a world so desperately needing to hear the truth. In Jesus' name, amen.