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"The Fall"
Three weeks into the story of God and the plot thickens.
“In the beginning God created.” A majestic opening that
declares the existence of God and His creative power
makes the world and everything in it. “Let us make man
in our own image…So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him; male and female he
created them.” The pinnacle of all that He made was us,
you and me, human beings, created uniquely and specifically
for the purpose enjoying and caring for the world that
was made just for us! And God saw all that He had made
and it was very good.
What next? If you were writing this story how would it go?
Adam and Eve were so thoroughly content and satisfied with
all that God had made they lived in continuous praise and
worship of Him who made them. And He was with them, visibly,
tangibly. They talked face to face and laughed and dreamed
about all that was possible for this new creation God had
given to them. And for generation after generation they
lived in perfect harmony with each other and with God. And
it was very, very good.
It is a shock to arrive at chapter 3 and discover that the
way to that future will not be a short straight path but a
twisting, turning, dark and dangerous road through thousands
of years of almost unimaginable sorrow and suffering. The
plot thickens.
To make sense out of what is about to happen in our text we
will first need to step back and consider exactly why God
created us and the angels the way that He did. From little
on I and I’m guessing virtually every person who has read
these opening chapters of the Bible too, have scratched
their heads and wondered why on earth did God put these
two silly trees in the Garden of Eden, when being God,
and therefore knowing all things, He knew what was going
to happen when He told Adam and Eve not to eat from the
one called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
Right? And in so doing we reveal that we are truly sons
and daughters of Adam and Eve who no longer perfectly
possess the image of God because like them our first
instinct now is to question and in fact blame God for
whatever is wrong, but more of that in moment.
First things first, why would God create angels and people
with the ability to choose? It took me a long time to get
my head around an answer to that question. But somewhere
along the line it finally dawned on me – I think perhaps
my understanding grew up out of this simple verse from
(1 John 4:8) “Whoever does not love does not know God,
because God is love” combined with the title of a book
that I have used quite extensively throughout my ministry
to counsel myself and others. It’s called Love is a Choice.
And there it was – God is love and love is a choice. Created
in the image of God means in part that we were created to love –
to love God and to love each other and for that love to be
expressed their must be a choice. The tree of the knowledge
of good and evil therefore gave Adam and Eve the opportunity
to show their love for God for the glorious world He had
given to them by choosing to do what He asked.
A brief example from the Arp family chronicles: I have two
sons. Jonathan is 22 next month. He’s taller than me. I
still outweigh him but that’s more a function of age than
anything else. He goes to the gym several times a week and
lifts weights. The last time we were messing around and I
foolishly thought I could still take him was probably four
years ago. As we laughed and wrestled on the living room
floor he rolled me over, put his shoulder into me and I
distinctly heard three ribs go, pop, pop, pop. Needless
to say I am not big enough or strong enough to physically
force Jon to do anything, anymore.
Matthew on the other hand is still 13 years old, although
at Christmas time his brother was teaching him how to work
out with the weights. I’m a little suspicious of that. If I
want Matthew to clean his room and he resists, I am still
big enough and strong enough to make him do it. But all of
you know that’s not pleasant for either one of us. Every
once in a while though he’ll get it in his mind to choose
to do what he’s supposed to do without being told just
because he wants to, and when I get home guess what he
can’t wait to show me? And you can feel the love. And
then he says, “Can I have $10?”
Do you see the point? If God had created us and the angels
in such a way that we had no choice but to do what He commands
there would be no way for us to experience or to express love.
Created to know and enjoy the fullness of God’s love, the
Bible says that an angel named Lucifer, also called Satan,
chose first to disobey. His desire was not to love God but
be a god himself, and there was a rebellion in the heavenly
realm of God’s perfect creation. Satan and those angels who
followed him were cast out of God’s presence. In his defeat
Satan now goes after God where he knows it will hurt Him the
most. He attacks God’s precious children.
And the plot thickens. Chapter 3 begins. What will Adam and
Eve do? Will they choose to love and trust in God above all
things? Satan makes his appearance in vs. 1 and reveals the
tactics that he still uses today. He seeks to twist God’s
Word and create discontentment and doubt over God’s good
and gracious will for us. Pastor Schuschke has a lovely
story from his days of studying in England when he was
teaching a Sunday school class to one little first grade
girl. I can’t do the English accent so I won’t even try,
(but ask him to repeat it because it’s even better with
the accent) but this very astute little girl simply said,
“Perhaps Adam and Eve should have know something was not
quite right when the serpent began to speak.”
Notice very carefully my friends the lie that Satan employs. He
leads Adam and Eve to question whether God really and truly
loves them if they are forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge
of good and evil. Followed by the most hideous half-truth ever
spoken – “for God knows that when you eat of it you will be like
God, knowing good and evil.” Left out is the rest of consequences –
pain, suffering, hatred, murder, jealousy, greed, selfishness,
sorrow, sadness, sickness, and on and on.
Given the choice to love God above all things Adam and Eve
chose instead to love themselves more. And the image of God
was irreparably broken and distorted. And it could not be
repaired or replaced – or could it?
Hold that thought and look at the consequences of their action
and look carefully at your own life. When they heard God coming
Adam and Eve ran the other direction. The ability to choose to
love God was gone. Now the natural inclination of man is not
to come to God but to run and hide from his presence. Thus,
Jesus says clearly, “You did not choose me, but I chose you”
(John 15:16).
God graciously comes looking for us. He calls Adam and Eve out
of the bushes and brings them to confession and repentance. But
look at how they act. “Adam what have you done?” “Who me, Lord?
It wasn’t me. It was the woman YOU put here with me. You messed
up God. She was a defective model. This is really all your fault,
not mine.” Like I said at the beginning blaming God for our
troubles comes naturally now. And Eve follows suit blaming
someone else. “It’s not my fault either. The devil made me
do it!”
Look at the consequences for Adam and Eve and us: pain in
child bearing, a distorted relationship between husband and
wife – desiring and ruling over. Work, a blessed joy in the
original creation now becomes painful toil. The whole creation,
the whole planet now falls under the curse of sin and the
struggle to live will be a struggle to survive. The glory
of human life is reduced to a fight for survival. A fight
that in end we will lose, “for dust you are and to dust
you will return.”
The broken and distorted image of God is now passed from
generation to generation. Our genetic code, if you will,
has a flaw in it. Every baby ever born from Adam and Eve
on is born with the disease of sin woven into the very
fiber of their being.
The evidence is another short tale from the chronicles of
Arp. I have two daughters to go with my two sons. They are
28 and 25. When they were born they were the most precious
little things you could have ever imagined – almost as
precious as the two grandbabies they’ve given us this past
year. But here’s the thing, as Sara and Elizabeth grew, not
one time, I promise you, did Lois or I ever sit them down
and say, “Now, Sara, here’s what you do. When Elizabeth has
a toy that you want you just walk over to her, push her
down and take it from her.” Nor did we ever teach Elizabeth
saying, “Elizabeth, when your sister knocks you down and
takes your toy start screaming and yelling and pitching a
fit until your dad comes running and then sit back and smile
while your sister gets what’s coming to her.”
I’m telling you folks, they were born that way! You all
were. The image of God was irreparably broken and distorted.
And it cannot be repaired or replaced – or can it?
If you have your Bibles you should underline and highlight
and put a big exclamation point beside Genesis 3:15, or do
it when you get home today. It doesn’t seem like much, but
it is the beginning of God’s plan to restore His image to
us. Speaking to Satan, God says, “I will put enmity between
you and the woman, between your offspring and hers;” now
listen, listen, “he will crush your head, and you will
strike his heel.”
It is the very first promise of a Savior. One of Eve’s descendants
will crush Satan’s head and destroy him forever, and in the
process Satan will strike the Savior’s heel – a poisonous bite
to be sure of suffering, beatings, mocking, humiliation and
finally crucifixion. But not an eternal death blow because
this Savior, born of a woman, will be none other than God
himself come into human flesh in the person of Jesus, who
suffers and dies, but on the third day He rises again from
the dead, to restore the image of God to all who will believe
in him.
This is the amazing story of God. It is worthy of your
consideration. Created in God’s image to live eternally
in His presence He became one of us in the person of Jesus
to forgive us and give us the life we were created to
have. He is coming again to do just that. The plot thickens!
Amen.
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