Transcription
This is the Bible show. Welcome, folks, to another episode of The Bible Show. My name is Sam. Joining me is Will, and we are continuing our series in Genesis. And this is actually, it's, it's Genesis 3 that we're jumping into today, and it's the fall. It's when bad news comes into the world, death comes into the world. And ironically, like I was telling you before we started recording, this is probably one of my favorite chapters in all of scripture because it's like the photo negative. It's, it's all bad, it's all ugly. I mean, except for the end where God shows some mercy, but it, so like, rolls out the red carpet for what Jesus is going to do and how he rescues us from the fallen world and everything that's sad. That it's really, I think, one of my favorite chapters of scripture. It's one of those ones if you just read through, like, all right, yeah, like the fall happened, this all seems bad. But like you said, as you talk, talk about it more, and as you see what the Bible's trying to convey, the message to us, it does become oddly beautiful in a weird way, cuz that's hard to say about the fall. Yeah.
And all these little, there's so much in it. Like, you could, you could, this is probably going to be a longer episode than we normally do. Like, let's just go ahead and say that up front. But it's, it's like God, in almost every verse or every paragraph, is including these kind of sovereignly ordained, poetic, beautiful things that, that ultimately get satisfied or reversed in Christ. And when you spend enough time just thinking about these passages, as you go, there's so many questions that we just read right past. There's so many, you know, cool little nuggets that we go right past that if you sit on them a minute, you're like, that's pretty amazing. I've never thought of that before. So hopefully, some of that will come out in this episode. Uh, but because this is going to be a little bit longer, let's, let's dive right in.
So chapter 3, uh, we, we just finished the last chapter with the creation of Eve. Adam and Eve are kind of in awe of one another. He's super pumped that he's got somebody. You know, it was not good for him to be alone. Now God has created a woman for him out of his wounds, and he's like, oh, the bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Uh, and is super fired up about it. They're going to hold fast to one another, is is the idea. And here's where it ends. They are both naked and were not ashamed. So like, we can't really relate to this idea of just being entirely in existence without shame, walking around with total liberty. Like, there's, I don't think there's any human being alive, except maybe a sociopath, that that doesn't feel like, what are they thinking? You know, how am I measuring it? Like, everything about that is foreign to us. But that's where chapter 2 leaves off.
Chapter 3 starts. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And immediately, here you get like, a serpent. Like, what's, what's going on here? All right. Well, who is this serpent? It's Satan. It's Satan. And so like, let's just pause here for a moment, because he's going to become a major player throughout the scriptures. This is the serpent, this is the dragon. Uh, what, what other names does he have? He's the, the great deceiver. He's the accuser. He's, you know, referred to as an angel of light. So as you go through the Bible, like, this is what Revelation says. Um, "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." That's Revelation 12:9.
So, so already, we get some of the backstory that's not presented to us in Genesis, which means there's some kind of timeline before the fall where Adam and Eve are having a great time in the garden, like everything is good. But then we're introduced to this character who had been an angelic being up in heaven. He's an angel of light, where elsewhere it'll say, you know, he's, he's musical. Like, there's, there's things about him that are absolutely beautiful. And Paul will say that Satan masquerades around as an angel of light, which means what? He has the ability to be light. He's beautiful. Like, he's, he's something that if you saw him without knowing his character or anything else, you'd be like, wow, that is stunningly beautiful. I, in fact, I'm drawn to this. Because he's the great deceiver, and he comes to bring death. He's described as a roaring lion, always looking around for who he can devour. But the first thing that we find about out about him, you know, prior to this, is that he's a rebel. You know, he's in heaven, he's looking at God who reigns, and there is something in Satan, in the serpent, that says, I deserve the throne. And he wars for the throne. And we're told that God cast Satan out of heaven along with a third of the angels. So this rebellious force. And where do they go? Here. Which, you know, if you remember, we did an episode on on the demonic realm. If a third of all angels that exists were cast down, and they're cast down here, that means that demonic influence in our world is a very real thing. There is a spiritual element. Like Paul says, you know, there's principalities out there. That is a very real thing in our world. Yeah.
We don't think about that much. And in this story, we especially just skip, like, it's a serpent. We're not sure about him. But we have the ability, like, we're not seeing this in real time. Like we have the rest of scripture. We have people's thoughts about it. So we get to say, okay, how can we piece all of this together like a puzzle? Because Genesis 3 is going to come at us pretty quickly and say, okay, why is it saying that? And Satan's one of those major ones where you're like, okay, how did he get there? Like, why? Yeah. And the question is, okay, God, you've created a universe that's 15 billion light-years in every direction large. Like, why our galaxy? Why our solar system? Why our planet? Why that continent? Why the garden do you put him in? Like, when he's fallen, and you cast him down, and Jesus describes it as Satan falling like lightning. Which, which, let's pause for a moment, because one of the other things that's really important to establish, and so many people don't understand what the Bible, uh, is doing when it presents Satan. Satan is not the co-equal of God, except bad. That's not what we're talking about here. Not either shoulder. Yeah. There, God is not like, oh, I hope I win against him. He's a really formidable adversary. Like, God is infinite in his attributes. He is infinite in his power. He is infinite in all of his things. Satan is a created being. He is not equal with God. He is not eternal. His power is not infinite. He does not possess all the divine attributes. He's, he's really no match for God. He's not, by the way, he's not omnipresent. So it's like, Satan is not tormenting everybody all over the globe at once. Like, he's just in the garden in this moment, right? He is, you know, God and His Spirit are omnipresent everywhere, all at once, hearing every prayer. That is not Satan. But Satan does have dominion, like he has dominion over his minions, in a sense. And so the demonic realm is really true. But if Satan is oppressing me at this moment, he's not, you know, actively present somewhere else. He's not, he doesn't have the divine attributes. Does that make sense?
And so when we come to this, it's like, okay, we have this creature that is very powerful, that is existent in the spiritual realm, who can bring destruction. And yet God can banish him from heaven. And so then the question is, why banish him to the garden? Why not destroy him altogether? Why, why allow this story to play out? And as we go through this story, I hopefully will present why, because it's actually much better that God uses him to bring about a creation that's far greater than the one he originally designed. And that's interesting about Satan. We're either obsessed with Satan or he never comes to our mind at all. And both extremes are wrong. Correct. Like, he should be thought of. He should be known. But he shouldn't be feared in that sense. Yeah. And, and Paul doesn't make light of it. He says, you know, we don't battle against flesh and blood. It's, it's a spiritual realm that we battle against, which means it's thick enough and dark enough and present enough to where it is a very real thing. And yet Satan is not this co-equal with God that we're like, oh, I hope God wins. I hope, you know, he wins the arm wrestling match. Like, no, they are not. They are not even close to the same playing field. In fact, when, if you are being tormented in the satanic realm, the Bible gives you very clear instructions on how to deal with them. And it's drawing near to the Lord. Getting near him. And what does it say? When you resist him and you draw near to the Lord, he flees. He, he's no match. When the, when Jesus is casting out the demons, they don't go, haha, here's our chance to fight you. They're like, oh, have you come to, to torture us before the appointed time? Like, they know their place. The demons believe in God and tremble, the Bible says. So we got to get that in proper context. Like, Satan is not a co-equal on just bad on the other side of God. So he's here in the garden. We'll get to that later.
But he said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" Now, we talked about this. This command was in Genesis 2. What's wrong with what's wrong with Satan's comment here? He didn't say that. Yeah, God never said that at all. In fact, quite the opposite. He said, "Look at all these trees in abundance. You have so many fruit trees in the Garden of Eden. And here's the tree, like, you can have access to all of them. There's just one tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I don't want you touching that. But just go enjoy yourself. Like, there's so much abundance there." And Satan comes because he's a liar, and he always operates the same way to trip up the people of God. He, he says, "Did God really say you can't eat of any tree in the garden?" Why does he put it that way? What does he want Eve to think? That God's withholding something. M-hm. Yeah. God is a tyrant. He's, he's coming to you with limits. Which, by the way, God does come to you with limits, right? And so, number one, "Did God really say?" He always wants us to question his word, his authority. Like, did, did God really say that? Like, he wants us to question. Then he wants us to question God, God's purpose. Like, is he a tyrant? Is he trying to withhold good things from you? Like, you should have that life, and look at where your life is now. God must not love you. He must not like you. He must be a tyrant. And he starts, he wants you to question the goodness of God. Always. You start doing that, and you're getting whispers of a demonic realm, right? Then the next one is always, you know, questioning God's love. And that's where he's going to go next. So let's, let's see.
"Did God really say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "Oh, no, no, no. We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God did say, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the middle of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" Well, that's what's wrong with that. That's also wrong. She's adding to the command, right? Because God said, "Eat of all of it. You can have all of it. Just don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." And she says, "Yeah, we can have all the trees, but God did say, don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree in the middle, but don't even touch it." Right? So she's adding to the word of God.
So in this, you see the two pictures of how we approach God, right? Satan's coming and saying, "Oh, he's putting restrictions on me, and he's a tyrant, and, you know, blah, blah, blah." And it's all license. You should be able to do whatever you want. God's a tyrant if he's telling you that there's limitations on your behavior. Then on the other side of that, you get the moralist, which is where Eve goes. It's like, "Well, no, no, no. We're, we're allowed, but God did tell us that we're not allowed to eat of this one tree. In fact, we're not even allowed to touch it." So she's putting boundaries around it that God never said. You know, and, and we do that. The religious circles, we do that all the time. I mean, can you think of examples of that? Like, in Jesus's day, they did it all the time. So God said, "Hey, you're not to work on the Sabbath." And they were like, "Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, you're not allowed to tie knots or start fires or put out fires." They came up with these huge lists of all the different things that they constituted as work. Or in modern day, you know, super fundamentalist Christian circles, you know, there's a very clear thing that you're not allowed to have sex outside of marriage. And Christians come along and they're like, "H, no dancing, and no, hold those hands, don't hold hands." But we, we put in all these extra rules around it. And so in this, you have license. That's where Satan's coming from. And then Eve is like, "Yeah, he, he doesn't, he doesn't even want us to get near it at all." Well, I mean, that's probably smart. But that's not what God said. Yeah, there's some wisdom to that. But yeah, but if you're quoting God, that's not what God quoted. Correct.
And so then the serpent comes in, and he's coming for the kill, right? He says, "Oh, you will surely not die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil." So now, now let's, this is the, so here's the playbook, ready? Lead him to question God's word, number one. Two, lead him to question God's purpose. Oh, he's just a tyrant, right? Then lead him to question God's love. If he, if he really loved you, "you will surely not die." I mean, if God really loved you, he's not going to, he's not going to impose consequences on you. If he really loves you, right? Well, that's a lie. And then for the kill shot, it, you'll be like God. That's, that's why he, he wants to be in a class all by himself, and he's, he's an egomaniac, and he wants all control, and he wants all power, and he knows that if you have it, oh, you'll be like God. And she's like, "Ooh, be like God."
And 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 she ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. And so I want to pause there for a moment, because one of the questions that used to really bother me is, if Eden was so awesome, yeah, where does the temptation to be like God come from? Like, like, does she feel a deficiency? Is she going, "Yeah, I know Eden is awesome, and I'm with God, and I'm enjoying this paradise, but I want more." Yeah. Like, does that bother you? Where's that come from? When you say it like that? Yeah. When you force me that not enough. Yeah. Like, why would she even want that fruit? All. Why wouldn't you say, "Hey, I'm satisfied in all of this." Correct. God said no, so just walk away. So what is it that most, that Satan knows? He comes and he provokes it. That desire to be like God. She's not sinful. She's not fallen. He comes and says, "You can be like God." And she's like, "Yeah, isn't that sinful?" Is it sinful to want to be like God? No. Correct. Now, you are made with a natural, inborn desire to be like God. Yeah. Do you know that when you get to the New Testament, you know, one of the main missions of the entirety of the gospel is to conform you more and more into the image of Christ, or to become more like God? God. And in John's epistle, one of the things that he says is, "When you see him, you will be like him." And so the, the point of our existence is to forever become more and more and more like God. Satan comes, and this is where it's so instructive. When Satan comes and says, "You can be like God," how did Eve hear that? You can be powerful. You can be the one in charge. You can be controlling this. You can change if I can eat this tree or not. Yeah. That's right. Everything about being like God is like, "Oh, I can just speak and things exist. And I can, I can get everything I ever wanted. And it's all going to be my power and my control and everything else." And that's the way that Satan wants you to hear that, to be like God. And then you fast forward to the redemptive stage of this, or or even through the Old Testament with all the redemption that God plans. And when Jesus shows up in the world, for instance, and you learn what it means to be like God, because he is God in human flesh. And you find that to be like God is to love to the point where your heart breaks. Yeah. It's to pour yourself out sacrificially. It's to lay down your own life for people that don't deserve it. It's, it is utterly selfless. Like, if you want to talk about the nature of what our God is like, it is pure. I mean, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, all of those things. Sacrificial love, great cost to yourself, mercy, pain. You know, later in Genesis, it's going to say that when God looks at mankind running away from him, that his heart is filled with pain. Like, you want to know what it's like to be like God? Longsuffering for his people. Like, if Satan had came and said, "Hey, Eve, do you want that? Do you want to be the one who leads and loves to such a degree that you would be compelled to die before you allow anybody to suffer?" That's not what Eve is thinking. No. But in reality, to become like God is not about control. It's not the megalomaniacal, tyrannical, like, haha, I've got it all. No, no, no. Take, take a step back. Because you want to know what it's like to be like God? It's Jesus. Do you want that? Most of the world doesn't. Most of the world wants their glory now. They want to advance themselves. They want me, me, my, my, my. They want their name in lights. And Jesus comes and sets all that aside and says, "I'll give it all up for you." It's utterly selfless. It's wild. But Satan is so portraying God's character as the tyrant, that that's how Eve hears it. But she wants to be like God because that is built into each and every one of us. Our purpose in this world is to become more like God. But Satan comes and just cleverly twists it, and that throws her off, because his version is pride. The real version is humility and dying to self. That throws Eve for a loop. That's what causes the fall.
I think all of our first reactions think of God as more the controlling one than the sacrificial one. M-hm. I think that's where, why this is so real for even us nowadays. Like, it's not just like, "Oh, Eve really messed up. She, she did it." Like, all of us have that gut reaction in our own lives. For sure. Well, if I was running this place, it wouldn't look like it does now. M-hm. Which is stupid. It would be way worse. Yeah. It wouldn't look like it does now. It would be much different. But that's the gut reaction of all humanity in our sin, which is to be watched out for. Yeah. There's, there's something else about how this is presented, because it's the knowledge of the tree. That's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What does that even mean? So like, when, when I first read that, you know, it's like, what's so bad about knowing good and evil? Because we think of it like, "Oh, Eve opened a book and went, 'Oh, now I know what good means, and I know what evil means.' It's a head thing. And I've studied it, and academically I understand good and evil." And that's not at all what it means. The Hebrew word behind knowledge is experiential. It's like, you, the deepest parts of your identity are saturated in it. In fact, in the next chapter, in chapter 4, it'll say that Adam knew, hear the word, knew his wife Eve, and they conceived and bore a son. So in that sense, knowing as sexual. So it's like the deepest forms of intimacy. And so now, hear it again. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil doesn't mean that Eve bites of it and goes, "Oh, yes, now I am very well aware, dictionary style." No, it is, I am now saturated and overwhelmed with evil categories that she's never experienced before. And all because, you know, she's looking, and she's seeing, and it looks nice. It sounds good to be like God. Who wouldn't want that? And then, kaboom. Yeah. What a turn of events. I mean, from Eve's perspective, thinking, "Hey, this is going to be okay. This actually sounds great. Like, I want to be different because of this. I think I'm going to be better because of it." And all of a sudden, very much not so. Yeah. It would have been a horrific moment. Yeah.
The Bible's building the pattern even for sin that we still see today, right? And we walk through what happened, that Eve saw the temptation first, and didn't just see it, but she saw that it was beautiful. And then that's when her desire rose up to take. And I mean, we see that through scripture, right? M-hm. Throughout other places. See it in some big stories. And we thought of a few. We thought of David and Bathsheba. David goes out to his balcony, and he sees that Bathsheba. He sees that she's beautiful. Her desire is now for her, and he takes her. Yeah. And destruction comes. The same thing with Achan. After the, the battle of Jericho, they're not supposed to enjoy any of the plunder of it. But he sees it. It's too beautiful. And so he takes it, and destruction comes. You see this in so many relationships of the Bible. You're absolutely right. Like, where you see it's beautiful, they take, and destruction follows. Which means you really have to guard the eyes. The eyes. And that that repetitive lust that looks at stuff and says, "Man, I really want that." It's coveting. Like, "I need that to be happy." Because what happens is, you go, "Oh, that's beautiful. I want that." You take it. And then before you know it, it's, it's destruction to you. And that pattern is laid out right in Genesis, like you said. And so he's, she takes, eats of the fruit, gives some to her husband, and you notice that this is an anti-communion. Ever notice this? So, and when Jesus is having communion, what does he do? He takes the bread, he breaks it, and then says, "This is my body." And then he gives. So when she, it says that she ate, took some, gave to her husband who was with her, and he ate. It's that, it's eating that leads to a fall. And it's in the New Testament, it will be Jesus saying, "This is my body, eat, and it will bring redemption." So he's going to turn that upside down, which he does with a lot of this chapter.
Verse 7: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked." And that's such a powerful line, because what is Eve after she's after the knowledge of good and evil? If I could just be like God. And what's, what's the first thing? What's the first knowledge she gets? It's not a good one. She knew she was naked. In other words, what's the only thing that I discovered by eating from that stupid tree? Is that I'm radically insufficient. I am flawed. I am naked. How do you not know that you're naked? Ever thought of that? Yeah. But every time I think of it, I just get stuck in like a loop, because we, that's all we know. Yeah. Like, the impossibility of thinking like, "Oh, I don't know." Nakedness and shame is just so obscure to us that it's hard to even imagine. It's, it's like a, but it'd be like a fish being like, "Oh, I'm in water." Like, it's, it's all they know. Like, so prior to this realization, this is all that they knew. And by the way, like, I used to say this when I would teach this passage, but it works. If, if you are at home and you're in your shower and you're bathing, do you feel naked? No. Like, you're not there going, "Oh my gosh, I'm naked." It's not on my, it's not on my mind. Why not? Because that's where you're supposed to be naked. Yeah. You're supposed to be naked. True. Normal. Like, I guess that, yes. But that's not what I'm looking for. If, let's, let's say, oh, I'm alone. Yeah. If your mom walks in as you're in the shower, now all of a sudden, you're very aware that you're naked. Why? But why? That just shouldn't happen. I don't know where you want me to go. But because there's, there's someone there, now all of a sudden, you're aware that somebody's looking, right? And at the fall, this is the break between this absolute liberty where you've never felt judgment, you've never felt anyone inspecting you before. There was nothing wrong. You, you had utter liberty to walk around totally unashamed. But now all of a sudden, when the fall comes, and all because the fall, the basic idea of the fall is, before this, my eyes are outward. I'm looking at the Lord. I'm looking at his goodness. I'm looking at others. When the fall happens, what changes? Everything goes from being outwardly focused to totally inwardly focused. And we become self-absorbed and fearful and anxious, and all of these terrible emotions. We now, for the first time, she's going, "What does anyone else think of me? Oh my goodness, I'm naked. What eyes are looking at me? What is God thinking of me?" And you're aware that somebody's evaluating you. This is the first time that Eve has ever had that thought, and she's terrified, and she feels it. And so they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Which, you know, that sounds weird, but we've been doing it ever since. Like, we might not use fig leaves, we might use Facebook, or we might use Instagram. Where, what are we doing? Every time, put on a facade. We put on a facade because, man, if they really knew who I was, all their judgment would just devour me. That I, I would feel so diminished. I'd feel so scared if they could see the real me. And so we cover ourselves with all of these facades, and we clothe ourselves in some kind of fig leaves of shame. And that's, that's a sad thing, and it's a crippling thing. And we all do it. And we all find whatever it is for us. Like, we all have our own fill in the blank of what do you hide behind? That's it.
And I mean, there's the great paradigm that what the gospel does for us, which is so powerful. What the gospel does for us is, you know, because we all want to be known, and we all want to be loved. Those, I mean, we, that's every human heart. But we have to pick one or the other. We, if I let you see everything about me, you're going to be like, "That guy, I got to get out of this room." Right? Like, everything about, like, there's, there's shameful things. I'm guilty. I'm ashamed of certain things. If I let you see at all, you might not love me. In fact, you probably would find it difficult to love me if you saw the very worst elements. Or I could hide all that stuff, and I could become the person that I know you want me to be, and man, you'll think I'm wonderful, wonderful, and I'll be loved. M-hm. And so all of humanity's called to make a choice between those two things. Do you want to be known, or do you want to be loved? Because if someone sees all of you, you're probably not going to be loved. And then Jesus comes, and he not only knows all your faults, he knows more, like, more than you do. He's aware of all of your faults. He sees every ounce of your shame, all your scars, nakedness of every sort about you. And he's coming to say, "You're so precious to me, and so valuable to me, that I'm willing to give my own life to purchase you." So, yeah, you're a mess, and it's okay, because I'm going to give you my righteousness. And you're that precious to me that I would do so. You are fully known, beyond what you know of yourself, and you are infinitely loved. And it's the only source of that kind of relationship that you can find in this world. Every human being will fail you in that regard. But Jesus then comes to his church and says, "What? You're to be a gracious, merciful people. People, when you find people with flaws, love them. Don't, don't sit in judgment over them. You judge them, I'll judge you." Yeah. "If you want forgiveness, you better forgive." That's right. And so he calls us to be like him, which is really hard. Yeah. Really hard. And we fail at that all the time. But the idea of the gospel is to extend that same ethic, to let people be fully known and fully loved in community. Broken, but seeking the more beautiful end together, right?
And I think what's wild about this is like, God hasn't punished them yet. No. And yet they're already hiding. It's like the innate part of our shame. Like, when sin enters into the world, naturally, we're just ashamed. Like, no one needs to tell me when I really mess up. Like, I'm telling myself enough. Like, I got that part under control. It's true. Like, there's a lot of times I'm like, "I'm the first to know I messed up." You don't need to tell me. But these guys are just like, instantly, they look at each other, and it goes into like, "Just hide mode." And that's interesting, because in Genesis 2, he says, "On the day that you eat of it, you will die." And it's like, okay, she ate. Why didn't God just have them go, clunk? You know, fall down dead? Or Adam, you know, right the moment he eats, clunk, he falls down dead? Or where, you know, God shows up and goes, "I'm so furious." Do you think that's what they were afraid of? Because they're about to hide from God himself. And if this is, this is just brain to mouth right now, so sorry everybody. No, no, no. I think it's this is good. I think there's, they don't know. Is he, is he going to show wrath? Is, are we dead because of all, you know, is he done with us? Yeah. "When you eat this, you die." They didn't, they probably look around like, "Well, not dead yet." But like, is he the one who brings death now? Yeah. For, wouldn't you be scared? I mean, that would have been my thought. That's, always be like, "Why do they hide from God?" But I see, I know a gracious God. I know the God that went to a cross. They don't know any of that. They just know. But even knowing that, sometimes we run from God in our shame, you know? I said that, I mean, in a more way. Yeah. We, we ultimately land in the right place because we know who he is. But initially, it's like, "H, is could love me even now?"
Um, but there's another thing about this, just to point this out, that when God says, "On the day you eat it, you'll surely die," and then they don't die. Did God just lie? Like, did he change his mind? Like, is he not sovereign? Like, what's going on? Well, I can say to you, "You're surely going to die." I don't expect you to get hit by a car on the day. He says, right? On the, and here's how to process that. You have spiritually died. And it's like, you know, I used to, I used to use this with students where it's like, if I go into a rose field and I see all these beautiful flowers, and I, and I cut a rose and I take it home and I give it to my wife, I'm giving her a rose that's unbelievably beautiful. It seems to be alive. It's still very colorful. But what's the reality? It's dead. It's cut off from the source of life. That's what's happening at the fall. You and all of humanity, Adam, are being cut off from the source of life. And though you have some humanity to eke out of you, and you've got years left to live, the reality is that now that you've been cut off from the source of life, you're just like that rose. You're going to wither, you're going to get brittle and dark and brown and die, and eventually return to dust. It's just a matter of time. So they're dead. Spiritually dead at this moment. The moment that they ate, they have cut the, the line from the source of life. They're dead, right?
And so now, like you're talking about, they immediately sew together fig leaves. They're trying to hide from God, from each other. And then verse 8: "And they heard the sound of the Lord God." Now, that word, that Hebrew word for sound, there can be sound like the sound of thunder and lightning, a lot of times. But it can also be voice, which I think is interesting, because it could be either. We're left to make the call. "They heard the sound of the Lord God," or the voice of the Lord God, "walking in the garden." So that's the problem. He's moving. The voice is moving. The sound is moving. "In the cool of the day." The word for cool is ruach. We talked about that too. What's ruach? Spirit, wind, breath. And so "in the spirit of the day." And "the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." So again, it's not enough to hide behind fig leaves. Now we're hiding behind trees. We want anything and everything that can keep his eyes from seeing us. And what's the problem? He's God. He's God. And I think what's fascinating there is they're hiding in the blessings of God. M-hm. Yeah. Right. They're hiding. Good point. They're hiding behind the things that God said, "Hey, I have blessed you with this. This is all the good stuff of the garden that you can have. I'm freely given to you. I create it. I made it." And yet, in their shame, they're like, "I, I'm going to hide from the Giver of those blessings behind the blessings." That's just like so us. It's crazy. I mean, really, like rather than running to God and in shame or whatever we think, "If I can just make my life matter enough," and then we run and try to hide behind our wealth, or our career, or whatever it is, what the blessings that he's ultimately giving us. We hide behind them and go, "Am I good enough now? Am I good enough now? Am I good enough now? Maybe then he won't judge me." And the reality is, like, just doesn't work. The fig leaves, they won't work. The trees of the garden aren't going to conceal you. The wealth, the career, all that stuff, just fig leaves.
Verse 9: "But the Lord God called to the man and said, 'Where are you?'" Now, what's going on here? Is, yeah, the question is, God not know? Is this for them, or is this for him? Yes, totally for them. This is a diagnostic question. Like, you're supposed to be near me when I come. The way that it was before, you ran. We had intimate communion together. And now I show up, you hear me, and you're nowhere to be found. And by the way, I've, I come chasing you even in your fall. And you run. You hear that? Like, that's crazy. That in the fall, God comes to us, we run from him. Like, that's the posture of our God. Always gracious, always seeking, always pursuing broken, fallen people. And we, like idiots, are like, "Get them away. You know, let me ignore it." And hide behind worldly things. But that's the heart of our God. He's like, "Where are you? What happened?" Think about this. "What are you doing?"
Verse 10: "And he said, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden.'" And this is Adam. "Now, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself." And so God says, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" And so here's, here's God inviting him into repentance. Like, what is it that told you were naked? You've never had this shame before. What's the problem? And so what happens? "The man said, 'The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate.'" In other words, whose fault is this? It's hers. It's hers. But whose fault is she? Who F? Like, yeah, God gives her, and she's the one who tricked me and ate. Then the Lord God, so now he's about to to bust some justice here. The Lord God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." You're the one who put the serpent here. So every, God comes to the man, and he's like, "Up, you gave me the woman." He goes to the woman, "Up, you gave the serpent." Everything is, everything is God's fault, right? We could have obeyed. We could have, you know, trusted you. But no. Uh, it's all your fault. You're the one who put us in this mess. You're the one who, who put the serpent here. So this is your fault, God. Adam's like, "You're the one who gave me the woman. It's your fault, God."
And what happens here is kind of fascinating, because in Romans, when it describes how the world is fallen and sinful, he gives this really wonderful description where he says, in Romans 1, that we abandoned the worship of our Creator God and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator. And that is the fault. That is that is still happening to this day in all of our hearts. Where God has laid down a design, right? God created the world, and then he says to Adam and Eve, "All right, I've given you a garden. I want you to take the design of the garden to the end of the earth. I want you to have dominion over everything, all the creatures of the ground, and the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea. Like, you're going to be my ambassadors here. Let's continue to take the beauty of the garden to the ends of the earth." And so then what happens? This creeping creature comes to them and says, "I think you should throw him off. I think you should rebel." Now, the way that God has structured this, it's God, man, and woman together, with man as the head of the household, right? Together, but equal in dignity. And then they're together to reign over all of creation and all created things. What happens at the fall? To where now you have the created thing who's telling the woman to reign over the man, who's then blaming God? And the created order gets thrown absolutely upside down. And that's the way the broken world operates. It messes up the home, it wrecks marriages, it wrecks families, it it wrecks priorities. We chase all the created trinkets of the world rather than worshiping God. And it leaves us empty, and it leaves our world an absolute dumpster fire. When the, the satanic design reigns, it's no good. When the Lord's design reigns, it brings really beautiful things to our world, right? Life. Yeah, it does.
And so now you have this upending of God's design over creation, which, by the way, you say that today, and it's like, "How dare you say?" You know, but that's what God has done. And by the way, he's going to hold the man accountable. If he didn't anticipate that the man would be the head of the household, why would he attribute the fall to Adam and not Eve? It's because Adam was meant to protect her. He was meant to guard the house. He was meant to guard her from the, the dangerous things and to lead his household. And when he fails, but only participates in it, God doesn't say, "Okay, the fall comes to the world through her." No, the fall comes to the world through you, Adam. You're the one who failed. In Romans 5, when it talks about how sin enters the world, what does it say? "Through one man, sin entered into the world." Because he failed. You're to leave. That's the design of God. You can argue with that. You can, you can take it up with God. But that's the way he lays down his word. And everything gets upended there. And so now God is like, "Okay, we're going to lay down some consequences here." I think this is one of those ones that we look back at. But the big question is like, okay, what does the fall mean for you and I, and for everybody else that's listening this podcast today? M-hm. Yeah.
So, so there's a doctrine called, it's federalism. And the idea is, through the one, everybody's impacted. And so like, we just talked about Romans 5, where it says, "Through the one man, the many were made sinners." And it's like, because we have Adam and Eve as our parents, we inherit their sinful nature. It's almost like spiritual genetics. You know, physically, you look like your parents because genetics come down. And this is like, you have spiritual genetics that because you're a fallen creation, now all of you are going to be fallen. And this is a doctrine that we hate in modernity now. You know, we don't want to believe that, you know, this is, in, in the church, it's a doctrine called original sin. That even in the womb, you're already a fallen creature. You're already, you don't have to train a baby or a toddler to be selfish. You've got a little toddler. How's that working out? It's, it's good overall. But yeah, we didn't teach her to be bad. She just is. Yeah. Yeah, she's, she knows how to be selfish. She knows how to throw tantrums when she doesn't get her way. And it's not because you're like, "Okay, here's how you throw a tantrum. Here's how you say no. Let me teach you this word early on." No. Yeah, they're just hardwired to be self-absorbed. And, you know, they're toddlers, so of course they're innocent. They don't, you can't like have the conversation with them where you're like, "Okay, this is the decision." You know, but you parent them, and you try to work against that fallen nature to where they can learn self-discipline. But Psalm 51:5 says that we're sinful at birth. Like, we don't get to like build up our sinful nature. Like, we're hardwired and ready to go. And nobody alive today likes the idea that we're born with evil natures. That's a strong word. I'll use it. We want to say, "No, no, no. Humanity is really good. It's just, you know, we get corrupting influences, and it makes us bad." But humanity, we're pretty good. This is a study that I thought, "Oh my goodness," because this is one of the most important doctrines. Like, it politically, like, so many different implications. If you believe man is good, you're going to trust him to do things that are good. You're going to give him power. And what does man always do when he gets power? This is another example. Corrupts. Yeah. It corrupts him. And he's going to.
Use it to exploit people. Why? Because man is not good. Like, I mean, let's just face it. Spoiler alert. I mean, 70%—there was a poll done. 70% of American evangelicals believe that the basic nature of mankind is good. That's evangelicals. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There are good elements. I'm not saying that we're totally rotten, awful, Hitlerian people. But what I'm saying is the nature of man is self-absorbed, just by nature. We're self-absorbed. And so there's a reason why you lock your doors when you leave home. There's a reason why our middle school here has lockers and with, you know, we want combinations on them. There's a reason why you lock your car doors. There's a reason why cars have alarms on them. There's a reason why everything that you do online has passwords. Why? People are bad because people aren't that great. That's the reason why you're taught not to pick up hitchhikers and stranded motorists, which is terrible and sad, but it's natural. That you want to believe people are good, but it's dangerous to, because they're not.
It's why the stores have security cameras, and homes have burglar alarms, and airports have metal detectors. Learned all about that, and why we have to take our stupid shoes off and everything else. Because there are, there's bad in the world, and we have to fight against our nature to become good. It's not the other way around. You, I mean, right? That I'm just shocked that people are shocked that we're bad. It's true. That was a wild number to me, that 70% of people who should be, you know, steeped in the scriptures, are are shocked that we're bad. Like, I'm, I'm not shocked by my badness. I'll be honest. Maybe I'm just in the church too long. Yeah, I'm just. But the Bible, like, okay, let's say, okay, I don't like that. That's not true. I know people that are really nice. Yes, you do. But even they are conditioning and self-disciplining them against their selfish instincts that look at somebody's suffering and go, I don't want to get involved. I don't want it to cost me anything. And they fight against that to do the right thing. The nature is to go, ah, that's not my problem.
But listen to what the Bible says. There is no one righteous, not even one. Let's do some gymnastics to figure out your way out of that one. I mean, even Jesus, when someone comes up to him and says, hey, good teacher, what does he say? Why do you call me good? There is no one good. Or Jeremiah, who says this, the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Uh, get out of that one. I mean, right? Or the Apostle Paul in Romans 8 says that the sinful mind is hostile to God. Titus, in Titus, he says that our consciences are corrupted. Isaiah says that our very best acts, our most righteous acts, are like filthy rags. And you know what that's talking about, right? Feminine hygiene products of the ancient world. It's pretty gross. Like, that's your best, best deeds are like that. They're corrupted by like, hey, everyone, look at me, and I want the glory for this. It's all about me, me, me, me, me. That's our nature. We're just wired that way. I don't know how you get out of that. I, I don't think you can.
But when we ignore the doctrine of the fallen nature of man, we get ourselves into some real problems. Like communism and all these things are like, oh yeah, man's good. Entrust them with power, they'll be great with it. Like, no, they won't. Like, that's the reason why we're the longest lasting constitutional republic is because our founders went, wow, man is really bad. We need to build three branches and separate powers and put in all these limits and everything else to where man can't walk all over each other. Because man will walk all over each other. When they were selling this to the nation, sorry to go on a historical bend here, I didn't see you getting here, but they said, if men were angels, governments wouldn't be necessary. What do they mean by that? We're no angels. Yeah, we are not angels. And wisdom is recognizing that we're not.
And there's a lot of people that will come to this and say, well, if that's what the Bible says about me, then I want nothing to do with it. And for me, I have the total opposite reaction. Because when the Bible comes to me in all of these diagnoses and says, you're not good, your sinful mind is hostile to God, your conscience is corrupt, your best deeds are self-absorbed, I'm like, he knows. All checks out. Yeah, right. Like, oh my gosh, like I struggle with all of this, like in my marriage. I know my wife deserves so much better than than me, yeah, at so many moments. And yet, gosh, I can't seem to perfect myself. I, you know, I, I want to be the better dad, and yet I fall short. I want to be the better friend, and I fall short. I want to be the better boss, and I fall short. I want to be the better employee, and I fall short. It's like I can't even meet my own standards.
I don't want a God who comes to me and says, I think you're perfect the way you are, because I'm like, obviously not. You don't know me. God, think how liberating this is. That God comes to you and gives you diagnoses that are so bad that you're uncomfortable with them. Man, he really sees me. And then he says, and you're worth my life. The most shamed diagnosis could lay on you, it's not going to make me run away. I'll go to a cross. I'll clothe you in my righteousness. I'll take all that shame, all that corruption, and everything else that you come to the table with. I'm going to swallow it all. I'm going to defeat it. I'm going to defeat death. I'm going to defeat all these things that are going to humanity ever since this chapter. I'm taking it all. There's nothing so corrupt about you that I walk away. You're mine.
And now all of a sudden, there's a freedom in being diagnosed like that. It's like Psalm 139 where David's like, where can I go to hide from you? You see everything. If I go to the depths of Sheol, you're there. If I go anywhere, you're there. You see it all. And you're not going anywhere. Yeah, like that's simultaneously terrifying that there's nothing he doesn't see. There's no thought, there's no emotion that he doesn't see. And yet, having seen it all, fully known, you're fully loved. That's beautiful. That that's liberty. I don't have to hide. I don't have to put on fig leaves and pretend like, oh, he can't see how rotten I am. Like, he sees it, loves me beyond measure, and then brings about a process of redemption by which he invites me to say, hey, walk away from that. Yeah, crucify that. You see, you saw what my son did. Now I'm giving you the power of the Holy Spirit. Now I want you to start fighting against that. That's cool. That's a, that's a powerful mission.
And so, that's where we're going to stop for today in part one of our teaching on Genesis 3. And we're going to pick up when God lays down the consequences that are so beautiful when you understand how it is that he will pick them up and absorb every single one of them to himself to set us free. That's where we're going to pick up next time. I want to thank you, uh, for watching and to invite you to like and subscribe and check out a couple of our other podcasts. One of them is Under the Hood, which you can find on YouTube. Also, In God We Trusted. If you like this content, check out those channels, subscribe to them as well. Um, we, it's so much fun to get to produce this. We would love for people to learn more about God, to learn more about our Savior. So please do share this with your friends and help get the word out there of a message that can bring light and hope to a very dark and desperate world. God bless.