Readings: Genesis 3:1-21 | Romans 5:12-19 | Matthew 4:1-11
Text: Genesis 3:1-21
Often, we try to get to the bottom of how things went so wrong:
~ Unexpected death of loved ones
~ Cruelty toward other people
~ Landslides, volcanoes, earthquakes, and other disasters
Maybe something like this is what brought us to seek help by walking through the doors of a church.
By searching in the world, we can find part of the story—abnormal psychology, cutting-edge medical treatments, looking for understanding through geology. All of them can diagnose the process by which things went wrong, but ultimately they are shallow comfort for us suffering people.
Genesis 3 (along with 1-2 before it) are foundational if we are to understand why the world is the way it is, and why we are the way we are. The true corruption and true enemy need to be identified. Without knowing that, we will likely look in the wrong place for salvation.
Genesis 3 tells us that God created a good world—one with no lack, no pain, no loss, in a world where there was only justice and righteousness.
What could shatter this bliss? The serpent (whom we later meet as the devil and Satan) would become the first “bad influence” as he got into a theological debate with the woman.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but Eve 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.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
With that, the woman’s heart was changed to doubt God. This became the refrain of all this sin-filled world: Satan says, “Did God really say?” and a humanity which turns our eyes to what we call good, we desire, and reach out our hand to take.
6So 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. 7Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
And when the consequence doesn’t come immediately, instead of realizing that God is being patient toward us and wanting us to fess up [2 Peter 3:9-10], this sin tells us we got away with it. Maybe God wasn’t serious when He said that disobeying His command would bring death. Maybe we can handle the fallout on our own. Maybe we don’t really need God at all.
But this self-deception doesn’t last forever. In Genesis, it comes in the very next verse, but your experience may vary. Maybe God lets it go for months or even years. However, when the truth comes to light, we deny it or we blame someone else.
8And 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. 9But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
This is the point where we should take stock of how we got here, because apparently it’s even God’s fault for putting the situation within reach. Wasn’t this the same God who said, “17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen. 2:17) So, who’s responsible for what?
God made the world, provided the man and his wife a garden in which to live and work. They had all that human beings need, and a command to exercise dominion over creation. (There was neither hunger, nor homelessness, nor unemployment.) What good had God failed to provide them?
The serpent came in with mere words. He asked a question, he made a false assertion. He did not force anything. What Satan did was make evil look good.
The woman and her husband heard these words and chose to believe them over the Word of the Lord God. Then, they decided for themselves that the whole command about not eating from this tree wasn’t bad after all. They used their free will to defy the warning God had fairly given them.
So, God was well within His right to impose the following consequences:
“14The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15I 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.” 16To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” 17And 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; 18thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”” (Genesis 3:14–19)
We should also know that this was not just an encounter written for them. It was written for us, that we might have a view of the human condition that is objective and not twisted by any self-seeking bias.
With this knowledge, we are able to answer the questions: Why must people die? and Why do bad or painful things happen in the world?
People must die because of sin—sometimes their own, sometimes that of others, and sometimes there is no answer given. But we all must die. “12 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.” (Romans 5:12)
Evil and suffering happens in the world because sin is in the world, and because we are the pinnacle of God’s creatures, we still know it ought not be this way. We were created for a better life. Yet, all we keep experiencing is the onslaught of sin from around us, and the constant tide of doubt and disobedience within us.
Since this has been a humanity-wide epidemic, who can deliver us from this “body of death”? [Romans 7:25] Only Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Blessed Virgin Mary. Even while every person was set against God in their flesh, and we even hated God because of His righteous judgment of us, He loved us enough to take our whole race’s burden.
Consider all that Jesus Christ has done in direct answer to sin’s entrance into the world and our dreadful condition:
LSB 544 O Love, How Deep
1 O love, how deep, how broad, how high,
Beyond all thought and fantasy,
That God, the Son of God, should take
Our mortal form for mortals’ sake!
2 He sent no angel to our race,
Of higher or of lower place,
But wore the robe of human frame,
And to this world Himself He came.
3 For us baptized, for us He bore
His holy fast and hungered sore;
For us temptation sharp He knew;
For us the tempter overthrew.
4 For us He prayed; for us He taught;
For us His daily works He wrought,
By words and signs and actions thus
Still seeking not Himself but us.
5 For us by wickedness betrayed,
For us, in crown of thorns arrayed,
He bore the shameful cross and death;
For us He gave His dying breath.
6 For us He rose from death again;
For us He went on high to reign;
For us He sent His Spirit here
To guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.
This is why we have comfort as we live out life in this mutilated world. God continues to rule and to provide. He continues to give time for people to be rescued from the futility and folly of living as creatures blind to their Creator. In Christ, He comes with redemption for the slaves of sin and the fearful captives of death. He has begun this good work in the hearts of every believer, and He will bring it completion at the Day of Jesus Christ. Neither Adam, nor Eve, nor Satan has the last word; the Lord Jesus does.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
Stand and sing Stanza 7:
LSB 544 O Love, How Deep
7 All glory to our Lord and God
For love so deep, so high, so broad;
The Trinity whom we adore
Forever and forevermore.
O Love How Deep: Text: attr. Thomas à Kempis, 1380–1471; tr. Benjamin Webb, 1819–85, alt.
Text: Public domain ~ Used by permission
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