In Genesis we see the first recorded history of a plan for our salvation – the first Gospel promise! As we think about the coming of our Savior this Advent season, it is fitting that we look at this first promise of the Savior who would be born in Bethlehem. As we do that this morning, we will specifically focus on the question that God asks Adam in the Garden of Eden, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). In this sermon we will take a closer look at the nature of sin, and the grace of our God. I invite you to read the words of our text as they are found in Genesis 3:1-19.
The Fall
3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
If you are passing through Canton, Ohio, you may decide to stop at the Pro Football Hall of Fame (after all, there probably isn’t much else to do in Canton). In a Hall of Fame, you expect to see pictures of the most famous players and other artifacts that people find particularly important and vital to the formation of football in America. If you had to choose a Hall of Fame of chapters in the Bible, Genesis 3 would be in it. In fact, if you were the curator of the museum and you didn’t put this chapter into the Hall of Fame, I’d be asking questions. But how would you label this chapter in the Hall of Fame? Would it be labeled “The Fall into Sin?” – that’s what it does in my Bible as the heading. In some respects, we could say that is a fine title for these verses. Or would you title it some other way? The more I studied this chapter this week, and the more time I spend around it I think I would title the chapter in this way: “The LORD God’s love for sinners: The first promise of the Savior.” Or put succinctly “The Rescue” – which presupposes a fall. Now, perhaps that title isn’t as catchy or concise as “The Fall,” but it is an accurate description of what these words of Scripture show us.
I. The Nature of Sin
Today, it is common to hear the argument that there really isn’t any sin in the world. Or, that we, as humans and societal consensus get to decide what actually is sin. There could be some benefit in discussing these arguments, but ultimately, by faith Christians believe that these words of Genesis are true and that the Bible is real history. With that said, it is impossible to avoid the glaring truth of Genesis 3; sin has now entered the world. We can learn a lot about the nature of sin from Genesis 3 and what it means for our lives.
I have a question for you: Why was Christmas even necessary? Adam and Eve had a perfect relationship with God in the Garden of Eden, they had a perfect relationship with one another, they had meaningful work in the Garden. But then Satan came along in the form of a serpent got them to fall. He used the same temptation that he has been using ever since: Did God really say? God just knows that when you eat of this fruit you’ll know as much as he does? God isn’t really letting you know the whole thing. He’s holding something back from you. When we think about our lives, it doesn’t take us all that long to think about times where we have been tempted and fallen because of something we perceive that we lack. Isn’t that really what sin is? We feel that what God has given us isn’t enough and so we look to find knowledge, joy, or pleasure somewhere else than in God’s word and his promises. Satan is crafty. He attacks us and our vulnerabilities. He lures us in with what we feel we lack in life and exploits that.
There was no longer a perfect relationship with God and with his creation. Just as quickly as you flip a light switch, that’s how quickly creation had turned from the light of perfection to the darkness of sin. How does humankind react to sin? Adam and Eve hide. They run away from their sin, and they try to cover themselves. The voice of God which had once brought them so much joy and comfort, now can only bring them terror. They realized what they had done was against God’s command but were not willing to own up to it. And so, they run, hide, and cover themselves in leaves. It is almost impossible to think about a world that was so perfect that people could walk around naked without feeling any shame. But this was all lost when sin entered the world.
God’s reaction differs from that of humankind. He could at this moment do away with Adam and Eve, the serpent, his creation, and that would’ve been the end of things. But he doesn’t do that. Rather, he comes to Adam and asks, “Where are you?” He gently gives Adam the chance to come before God and say, “I disobeyed your command. I went against you. I sinned.” Just like the mom gently asks her child, “Johnny, where are you? Did you take another cookie?” Both the mom and God know exactly what’s going on but are looking to draw a confession from the guilty party. But instead of owning up to his sin Adam starts playing the blame game. He blames his wife: “The woman you put here with me.” And he ultimately blames God in that statement, too. Suggesting that if God hadn’t put Eve on this earth, the whole thing wouldn’t be a problem at all.
Through the reaction of Adam and Eve we learn some things about ourselves and about the nature of sin. First, just look at how quickly sin intensifies. We might think about a bulldozer how as it goes through rubble it picks up more and more stuff until it spills over. This is kind of how we see sin work with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve sin, then they hide, then Adam blames Eve, and ultimately blames God. This is so often how it works for us, too. Immediately after we sin, we should run to God and confess, I am a sinner. All too often, though, we commit a sin of some kind, then we try to hide from God, we try to hide from his commands. Then, finally, we look for anything else we can possibly blame for committing the sin before we blame God.
There was a statement that I remember from history class, and it went something like this - I’m paraphrasing slightly: “History teaches us how not to go down a path, not how to take a bad path better.” Isn’t this so true with the nature of sin. We see how Adam and Eve reacted when they sinned, we can see how sad their response is, yet somehow, we think we are trailblazers, and this is exactly the path we take when we sin and when we are confronted by our sin. Finally, that is because the result of sin has been passed onto us since Adam and Eve fell into sin on that fateful day in the Garden of Eden. Since that day, we were born into sin – sinful from birth the Psalmist David tells us (Psalm 51:5). No matter how hard I try to reform and change the sinful nature inside of me, it shows itself again and again and again. And again, and again God comes before us, confronts us with our sin and calls us to repentance. Truthfully, if this is where the story ended in the Garden, it would be darkness, it would be sadness, it would be despair. For both Adam and Eve and myself and you.
II. The Grace of Our God
But thanks be to our God! He doesn’t end the encounter in the Garden in despair. No, he comes to Adam and Eve with the same loving heart as when he gently asked Adam, “Where are you?” Their sin still fresh, hot out of the oven, God curses the devil. This isn’t God speaking a bunch of four-letter expletives at the devil, no he was telling the devil what his relationship would be to the God. That’s how they viewed blessings and curses in that day – the relationship of a mortal to the deity. And in cursing the devil God makes the first promise of the Savior. Let me read that first promise of the Savior to you, spoken directly to the devil, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
God could’ve let Adam and Eve linger in their sin, He could’ve allowed them to stay in despair, but he didn’t want that.
I want to mention several things about this promise. The first promise of a Savior, the rescue, that is for you and for me.
The first one is this: God doesn’t tell the devil who the Savior was going to be. Every single time that a baby was born, he would have to think to himself: “Is this the one who is going to crush my head.” Can you imagine the terror that this caused the devil?
The second one is this: throughout the Old Testament God’s people constantly asked the question that God asked of Adam in the Garden: “Where are you?” What did God do with this question? God provided more promises, he used the words of the prophets (in which there was progressive revelation of more details), he showed them through the sacrificial system, and all of these things consistently pointed to this truth; Jesus will come, but there is no atonement or satisfaction, there is no being made right with God, except for the death of my Son Jesus. And he did it. He came, Jesus took on human flesh and he crushed the devils’ head when he lived a perfect life and then died for you.
Sometimes this Messiah isn’t exactly who we expect him to be, he certainly wasn’t the Messiah the Jewish people were expecting, but He is perfect. He came to earth and exceeded any expectations. He even suffered as the anointed one. Why did he do this? He did it for you. That you are God’s own. That your place in heaven is secure. That is what our Messiah, our new born king did for you!
III. Concluding Remarks
Every day, our loving God comes before us and asks us (in a sense) the question that he did to Adam in the Garden. Where are you? In these words, he asks us to repent of our sins. You might remember the words of the catechism. “Repentance has two parts: the one is that we confess our sin, the other is that we receive absolution or forgiveness of sin.” In fact, the life of a Christian is really a life of repentance. That is true. We constantly, just like we did this morning, as Christians come before God and say, “Forgive me, I am a sinner.” I just want to say a comment or two about repentance. Repentance is not something that we do, rather it is something that God works in us. In doing so, he reminds us of the promises that are already ours. The forgiveness that he already won for us. These are some of the promises he lays before us: He says, I forgive you. Remember your baptism where I clothed you in righteousness. He says, I forgive you, take and eat my body and my blood. He says, I forgive you, look into the manger and see the baby lying there who is the Savior of the world. He shows us his Word, and says it is love that caused me to come down to earth for you.
Sometimes we ask the question we have been focusing on today of God as well. We say, “God, where are you?” And he reminds us that just as I came–like I promised right after the fall–I am coming again, and I’ll take you to be with me. Be patient. Right now, on this earth you feel this enmity, this war, between yourself and the devil and your sinful flesh. And during this life you feel the devil and the crosses of this world nipping at your heels. But one day very soon you will stand with Me on top of the devil’s head, crushing him forever. Victory is yours! Amen.
Prayer: Love caused Your incarnation; love brought You down to me; Your thirst for my salvation procured my liberty. O love beyond all telling, that led you to embrace. In love all loves excelling our lost and fallen race. (Christian Worship 21 Hymn 324 Stanza 2).