We have set out together to build an altar of remembrance of the statues and testimonies of God, and endeavored to do so along the backdrop of the grand narrative of God’s story; Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation. We looked at the first movement, Creation, in three parts, Creator God, Creation Out-of-Nothing, and Creation in the Image of God.
We have looked at the ominous second movement of our grand story, The Fall, by focusing on the context and events leading up to the Fall (a crisis of belief for our first parents), and on the action of unbelief, Original Sin! This week, as we look at Genesis 3:7-8, we will see that not only does belief always produce action, but actions always have consequences. We will look at the Consequences of the Fall.
Let’s read again together starting in Genesis 3:1 through 8:
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, '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.
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 the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
We see clearly that Adam and Eve did come to know both good and evil by moral experience. Their eyes were opened to sin and they were ashamed. They immediately began to try to cover themselves in order to hide their shame. Then they were confronted with the presence of God. For the first time in their lives, they did not run to him. Instead they hid. Knowledge of evil always produces fear. Adam and eve were afraid of God because they understood who they had become.
I. Moral Nature of Sin;
Last week we defined sin as any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude or nature. We saw how the attitude of unbelief was in itself sin that produces in our lives the actions of unbelief that are also in itself sin. Our definition specifies that sin is a failure to conform to God’s moral law not only in action and attitude, but also in our moral nature. Our very nature, the internal character that is the essence of who we are as persons, can also be sinful.
Before we are redeemed by Christ, not only do we perform sinful acts and have sinful attitudes, we were also sinners by nature. As we will begin to see next week, that is the glory of the gospel, that as Paul says, “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us,” not just while we were sinning, but that while “we were by nature children of wrath.”
II. Inherited Sin;
What does this mean for us? How does Adam’s sin affect us? The Bible teaches that we inherit sin from Adam in two ways:
A. Inherited Guilt - The Bible says that we are accounted guilty because of Adam’s sin.
Paul explains as follows, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” The context here makes it plain that Paul is not just talking about the sins we commit every day of our lives. The passage is taken up with a comparison between Adam as the first representative head of man and Christ as the second representative head.
He is saying that through the sin of Adam, all men sinned. Remember that as soon as God created a being less than himself, He knew there resided in that being a nature that was not perfect and given to fail. God gave the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil as a way to learn obedience through moral experience. However, the fall of Adam proved that the man God had made was sinful in his nature. In the fall, God thought of all mankind as having sinned.
The idea is affirmed in Romans 5:18-19 when it says, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 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.”
We were all represented by Adam in the time of testing in the Garden. As our representative, Adam sinned, and God counted us as guilty along with Adam. The technical term for this is imputation; which means to think of as belonging to someone and therefore to cause it to belong to them. Since God is the ultimate judge of the universe, and since His thoughts are always true, Adam’s guilt does in fact belong to us. God rightly imputed Adam’s guilt to us.
You may say that you did not choose Adam to represent you and that if you had been there you would not have sinned. Well, God says we would, and 1 John 1:10 says, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
B. Inherited Corruption -The Bible says we have a sinful nature because of Adam’s sin.
In addition to the legal guilt imputed to us on account of Adam’s sin, we also inherit a sinful nature. David says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” in Psalm 51:5. This is a strong statement about the inherent tendency to sin that each of us has in our lives from the very beginning. However, our tendency to sin, which we received from Adam, means that in the eyes of God, we are not able to do anything that pleases Him in at least two ways:
1. In our natures we totally lack spiritual good before God.
Every part of our being is affected by sin; our will, intellects and emotions.
Paul says, in Romans 7:18, “I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is , in my flesh.” And in Titus he says, “to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.” Jeremiah says, “the heart is deceitful above al things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?”
These passages do not deny that humans can do good in human society in some sense. This inherent tendency to sin does not mean that humans are all as bad as they could be. It is saying that none of that good is spiritual good; it is not righteous apart from Christ, it is not good in terms of a relationship with God, because it springs forth from a selfish heart and sinful nature.
2. In our actions we are totally unable to do spiritual good before God.
Not only do we lack any spiritual good in ourselves, but we also lack the ability to do anything that will please God in itself. Again, Paul says, “those who are in the flesh cannot please God,” in Romans 8:8. Even more, when talking about bearing spiritual fruit for the kingdom of God, Jesus says in John 15:5, “apart from me, you can do nothing.” No act, no matter how good, is pleasing to God when performed by an unbeliever because it does not proceed out of faith and love for God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Though from a human standpoint people may be able to do much good, Isaiah affirms that “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”
III. Actual Sins
More than just the sinful natures that we inherit, that make us totally sinful in themselves, we also choose, volitionally to sin and actually do commit sins ourselves as the natural effect of the unbelief of our sinful nature. From this, two key understandings are clear from the testimony of Scripture:
That we all sin - Universal Sinfulness
That we are all responsible for our sin and will be held accountable by God - Universal Responsibility
A. Universal sinfulness - In many places, Scripture testifies to the universal sinfulness of man. Psalm 14:3 says, “They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good, no, not one.” David said to God, “no man living is righteous before you.”
Solomon said, “There is no man who does not sin.” Paul makes an extensive argument in Romans 1:18-3:23 that all people stand guilty before God. He concludes with certainty in 3:23, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” John makes this point in the gospel exceedingly clear in 1 John 1:8-10, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
B. Universal responsibility - Pelagius lived from about 354 – 420 AD and was a popular Christian teacher in Rome and later Palestine. He taught that God holds man responsible only for those things that man is able to do. He said that since God warns us to do good, we must have the ability to do the good that God commands. His interpretation of a doctrine of free will became known as Pelagianism. His position denied the doctrine of inherited sin, and he was later refuted by Augustine, and was declared a heretic by the Council of Carthage, because this position is contrary to the testimony of Scripture, which affirms both that we are unable to do any spiritual good, and also that we are guilty before God.
If our responsibility were limited by our ability, then extremely hardened sinners in geat bondage to sin, could be less guilty before God than a mature beleiver who in his daily striving to obey still falls short. The true measure of our responsibility is not our own ability to obey, but the perfection of God’s moral character. Matthew 5:48 makes this plain, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
IV. Consequences of Sin
So sin has a moral nature in that it is a violation of the moral character of God, and we inherit the guilt and corruption of that sinful nature from Adam. As a result of that sinful nature we all sin and fall short of the glorious moral nature of God, and we are responsible for that failure and will be accountable to God, just as Adam was. So, what are the consequences of sin?
As we talked about last week, belief is always followed by actions, and actions always have consequences. Unbelief results in actions of disobedience, and disobedience results in disciplinary consequences. Just as we talked about two weeks ago, you are not being punished when you reap the consequences of your behavior or choices. When you choose an action, and you know there are consequences that come with that action, then the consequences are not punishment, they can only serve to deter you from the action or to prevent you from repeating the action.
That is what separation from God, through physical and spiritual death, and eternal Hell is, the known, just consequences for sin. Following our passage in Genesis, we see the consequences for the sin of Adam and Eve clearly marked out.
A. Separation - After God had given the specific and universal consequences for their sin to the serpent, Eve and Adam, we see in Verse 23 that, “therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.” God removed Adam from His presence. Even though God's omnipresence is affirmed the Bible freely uses language about people departing from, or being sent away from God's presence.
So how should we understand the language of departing from God's presence? Not in spatial or physical terms, but in relational terms. Or, to put it another way, it is a spiritual separation that we experience because of our sin, not a strictly local separation. Here we are confronted with Isaiah's famous words from Isaiah 59:2, “but your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Judah and Jerusalem suffer the same consequences as Israel previously had known. As 2 Kings 17:18-23 says, “the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence...he afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he thrust them from his presence...the Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them until the LORD removed them from his presence.”
Paul characterizes the gospel in these terms in Ephesians 2:12-13 when he reminds us that when we were sinners we “were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Once we have received forgiveness in Christ, Paul goes on to tell us in Romans 8:38-39 that, “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
B. Death - After they had been put out of the garden we quickly see in Verse 24 that they will surely die. “He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” Remember, the Tree of Life was the source of eternal life in the garden. Now they have been removed from it and the way back has been guarded by an angel. The death of sin, though not immediate, is sure. And as Genesis 5:5 tells us, “Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.”
Adam died, and in Genesis 4:15 we see the consequences of sin passed from one generation to the next, just as we have talked about the blessings of generational faithfulness. “Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.” This death is not just physical, but spiritual, in fact, this is Cain's fear, as Genesis 4:13 says, ‘Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden.’”
Death remains as a consequence in the NT. Romans 1:32 says, “Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Paul affirms in Romans 5:12 that the consequence of death comes as a result of the action of sin when he says, “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” In Romans 6:23 he famously makes death the clear consequential result for sin by saying, “For the wages of sin is death.”
In the end, access to the Tree of Life is granted to those who overcome, as it says in Revelation 2:7, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Access will be granted in Heaven to be a constant source of nourishment and healing to those whose names appear in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Revelation 22:1-2 says, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
C. Hell - For those who do not believe, who do not overcome and persevere, whose names are not written in the Blood of Christ, the final consequence of sin is eternal separation from God in Hell.
Is God present in Hell? We have to say that he is, because Scripture affirms that he is. Revelation 14:9-11 says, “In Hell there is torment day and night in the presence of the holy angels and the in the presence of the Lamb.” Secondly, to deny that he is present in all of his creation is to deny that God is infinite and immense.
When we turn to the Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 29 deals with the subject of God's relationship to those who will experience future judgment in Hell, we find a precision of thought on these matters that is often lacking today:
“Q. What are the punishments of sin in the world to come?
A. The punishments of sin in the world to come, are everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of God, and most grievous torments in soul and body, without intermission, in hell-fire forever.”
Hell is not spatial separation from God, it cannot be because God is omnipresent. No, Hell is separation from the comfortable presence of God. It is the unshielded experience of the presence of God in his holiness and just wrath, and the absence of his mercy and grace. R. A. Finlayson wrote: “Hell is eternity in the presence of God without a mediator. Heaven is eternity in the presence of God, with a mediator.”
Jesus himself readily uses the language of relational separation to describe the misery of eternal Hell. After all will he not say “I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness,” as Matthew 7:21-23 informs us? Will he not on the last day as the enthroned King, say to those on his left “depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire,” as Matthew 25:41 affirms? Are we not right to think of Hell as exclusion from God's presence, and therefore as a state of eternal separation from him?
Although God’s discipline as a consequence for sin does serve as a deterrent against further sinning and as a warning to those who observe it, this is not the primary reason why there must be consequences for sin. The primary reason is that God’s righteousness demands it.
In Jeremiah 9:24 God says, “that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD." In order that the universe might fulfill the purpose for which He created it, that He might be glorified, God must display His moral glory; His steadfast love, His justice, and His righteousness in the earth!
Paul tells us in Romans 3:25 why God put Christ forward as a propitiation (or a sacrifice that bears the wrath of God toward sin and turns it into favor), “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested - the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
So God does not end the story without hope, but proceeds to Redemption, and so shall we.
Take These Stones Home
Talk with your children about how actions always have consequences.
One way to illustrate the point is by teaching them Newton's Three Laws of Motion:
1. If nothing happens, everything stays the same.
2. The force of an object is equal to its size and speed.
3. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Demonstrate by rolling balls across the floor. First one at a time, talking about how nothing changes unless it hits another object and how it is only as strong as the weight of the ball and how fast you roll it. Then, have them roll a ball and you roll a ball into theirs, talking about how the action of your ball caused a reaction in the other ball.
Share with them the rest of the story in Genesis 3.
Point out that the actions of the serpent, Adam and Eve all had consequences.
(It is important to point out that God punished the serpent.)
Ask them to share something they have done where they know there was a consequence.
Share with them Psalm 14:3 and Romans 3:23.
Explain that when we sin, we deserve the consequences of sin.
Share with them that the consequences of sin are:
Separation from the presence of God.
Spiritual and Physical Death. (It is important that they understand this is where death comes from - Romans 1:32; 6:23.)
Eternal separation from God in Hell.
Be sure to share the hope of the gospel to overcome the consequences of sin - John 1:8-10.
Close by praying with them and asking God to forgive them of their sins.
No comments:
Post a Comment