Sin and Salvation
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2018 · 21 October 2018
To understand who we are as people and who God is as our Creator we need to know first who God is and who we are as part of His creation. God created the whole universe as well as people and angels. And God has given us the Bible so that we can know who He is and what His plan is for us. And our God is a triune God, where God the Father is spirit, God the Son, Jesus came to earth in the form of man and God the Holy Spirit is a spirit.
As part of His creation, our God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in it. Colossians 1:15-17 describes Christ as, “The image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”
Now “dominions or principalities or powers” are angels that were created before man in heaven to worship God and to do His work. In Ezekiel 28 we read about the wicked king of Tire and his pride, but behind him in verses 12-13 is Satan, “You had the seal of perfection full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the Garden of God; every precious stone was your covering. The workmanship of your settings was in you on the day that you were created."
Then in verses 14-16 it says, “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. 15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you. 16 “By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God.”
Satan, the anointed cherub, this special angel involved in worship was the heaven’s praise leader. Everything was fine until unrighteousness was found in him. Verse 17, "your heart was lifted up because of your beauty." Once Satan began to sin the sin of pride and he began to be infatuated by his own splendor and his own glory and the wonder of his own person, he then wanted to become God and violently overthrow Him.
In Luke we have a reference to that very event when he was cast out. Jesus said, Luke 10:18, "I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” And the choice that this angel made led to his own damnation and the damnation of all the other angels who joined him in his rebellion against God. And then that damnation affected the entire human race when Satan was involved in causing Adam and Eve to sin.
Isaiah 14 gives us more specifics. It was "Satan who was behind the King of Tire." It's also Satan in Isaiah 14 "who's behind the King of Babylon." Verse 12, "How have you fallen from heaven? Oh Lucifer, son of the morning.” Wow, he's the anointed cherub, he's the star of the morning. Isaiah is looking ahead at the future ruler, the anti-Christ. And behind the anti-Christ will be this fallen angel, this Lucifer.
And when he fell he was immediately doomed to hell. Now when Satan went down, he didn't go down alone. In Revelation 12:3-4 we meet Satan the great dragon. Verse 4, “His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.” Now this indicates to us that when Satan fell, a third of the angels went with him. Unquestionably this is a massive force of angels. These angels along with Satan became the demons of this world.
Satan is now and was at that very moment incapable of repentance, which is a gift to humans only from God. Therefore there is nothing in Satan to cause him to repent or desire to repent. He is unredeemable evil. He is malevolent and wicked and nothing else, his corruption is so complete that good would never exist in him again in any way. Thinking he could be like God, He became as utterly unlike God.
God is eternal, but sin is not eternal. And since God is eternal, and sin is not eternal, God is not the author of sin. There was a time when there was no sin. It didn't come from outside that sinning angel and all the rest of them, but from inside. Satan, a created being, initiated sin in the angelic realm, Adam and Eve were created beings initiated in sin in the human realm. God gave this fallen angel access for a time to the perfections of Eden.
Even tempting Adam and Eve was within the purposes of sovereign God. Because God planned our salvation before time began. The salvation plan came before the fall of Satan and the fall of Adam and Eve. It all fits in God's plan. That once glorious creature chose to take a cosmic gamble that would backfire. His act once accomplished would reverberate for all eternity. The whole universe would reel from the shock, and even now you and I feel the painful effects.
Little did Adam and Eve know that in their sin the whole human race would perish. But it is also their sin that brought about the wonder of God's salvation. Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” Verse 15, "For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of God of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.”
It goes on to say as in Adam all died so in Christ shall all be made alive. Isn't it amazing that this great cosmic thing is going on? Conflict in heaven between an anointed angel and God himself and now a conflict between a force of wicked demons and holy angels. And it comes down to earth and pollutes the entire created universe in the midst of this massive explosion of wickedness with its corruption extending into every part of creation.
So into the garden, into the world of man comes this supernatural being, Satan. He tempts Adam and Eve successfully and the whole human race and all the surroundings in the universe are corrupted by their evil choice. God steps in to save sinners by offering his own Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross in their behalf. Sinners that belonged in hell have been graciously given heaven. We will not understand all the reasons but we do understand God’s grace and salvation.
In Genesis 3, we learn how the perfect creation of the all good and only good by God became corrupted and evil. If you study the New Testament you will find a number of references to Adam, one of them is in the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:38, the genealogy of Jesus starts from Adam through his son all the way down to the Lord Himself. The New Testament refers to Satan as the serpent in the Garden, as the one who deceived Eve.
Genesis 3:1, “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” Genesis 3:6-7, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves and made themselves coverings.”
Now this is the saddest event in history. All problems, personal and environmental, all that is wrong, evil, immoral, incomplete, all that is decaying, all trouble, all hate, all jealousy, all envy, all bitterness, all vengeance, all fear, all error, all intimidation, all manipulation, all deviation, all distortion, everything that fails to be as perfect as God is, came from this one event. This truly defines life in our universe. It is the reason for all imperfection and death.
Satan has one objective in mind, he is the solicitor of evil. His strategy is lies, or deception. That is why Jesus in John 8:44 called Satan the father of lies. He lies about the character of God, and he lies about the Word of God. And he targets God's highest creation in the natural world, man. Man is a creature who could reproduce, unlike the Godhead where the Trinity is eternal and unlike the angels, where some now are fallen and some are holy.
And according to 2 Corinthians 11:14, “Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” He wants you to believe that he is telling the truth and the God of the Bible, is the liar. That is his strategy. If Satan can get you to believe that the character of God can't be trusted and therefore the Word of God can't be trusted but he can be trusted, then he has accomplished his goal. And that's exactly what he does in the world right now, even in your life and mine.
Many of you have experience with fallen angels or demons who like to deceive you in making you think that they are in control of life. They also tell you that human traditions are more important than the Word of God. But they are creatures who are created by God who have fallen and will lie all the time and in the end will be in hell forever. They are these spirits who want to be worshiped who then give you a little power. But their lies cause spiritual and physical death.
God says in Exodus 20:3-5 in the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” Satan starts giving you the implication that God wants to deprive you of something good.
As soon as we do not wholeheartedly trust in the wisdom and goodness of God, you are in trouble, and you have sinned. Eve sinned, not when she ate the forbidden fruit, but she sinned when she stopped believing God was good and only good. All sin is believing Satan's lie that there's pleasure, satisfaction and fulfillment out there. And God is just trying to restrict you because God is narrow, limiting and restrictive.
The ultimate lie of Satan is that there never will be any judgment for sin. He wants to make sure people think when they die they will just get recycled by reincarnation. Or that when they die there is a bright light and they are going to some wonderful happy place. Or he wants to make people think that when they die they just go out of existence. Satan says, "There's no absolute authority. And there are no consequences. You are not going to die, Eve.”
Genesis 3:4, “Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.” Now this is a bold denial of what God has said. God tells you the truth but Satan always lies. Verse 5, “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The message here is that God restricts you because He doesn't love you. Modern psychology also says that a categorical law is harmful. The soul needs to be totally free.
Satan says God doesn't want anybody on His level and He knows that if you do that, you will be like Him." And you will know all the pleasures that God knows. And when you and I sin, we believe the lie that Satan led Eve through. She wouldn't know good and evil in the way that she thought. God knows good and evil the way a cancer surgeon knows cancer, which is very different from the way a patient knows it.
What you have here in Genesis 3 is not a myth, and it is not a tradition passed down from generation to generation. It is the written and inspired Word of God. And it explains to us exactly why things are the way they are and how sin came into our world and how it began to affect our world. Now you have to come to terms with your guilt and believe that it is wrong. You have to work through the fear of judgment which God has written in your heart and your conscience.
Eve was deceived by the serpent through the whole process. Adam just joined in the sin for reasons we don't know. But both of them disobeyed God. God did say don't eat, and they disobeyed God. And that's sin. And the moment Adam bought into deciding to be disobedient, immediately the principle of decay and death entered into his life and at that point the whole human race is plunged into evil.
We as human beings are continuously tempted by the devil the same way the devil tempted Jesus in Luke 4:3, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Jesus at that point had been fasting for 40 days, so He was hungry. That is the lust of the flesh. But listen to Jesus answer in verse 4, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” Jesus said when God gets ready to feed Me, He will feed Me.
Verse 5-7, “Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; 7 if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.” That is the lust of the eyes. Verse 8, “And Jesus answered, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.”
Verse 9-11, “Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. 10 For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you,’ 11 and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” That is the pride of life. We sin because we desire the lust of the flesh, the lust of our eyes and the pride of our lives, always those same three.
Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” The sin of Adam as the head of the couple is how sin enters the world. And with it comes death: spiritual death, physical death and eternal death. Whatever Adam became by way of corruption, we were there in his genes and Eve's genes.
Over and over again Paul says that our sinfulness is the result of Adam's sin. When he sinned, he brought down the whole human race that would come out of that original couple. The other side of this is when Paul talks about Jesus being the Savior and Jesus delivering you from your sin. Verse 15, “For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.”
Verse 18-19, “Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” How can we be held responsible for what Adam did? On the other hand, how can you be saved by what Jesus did?
That's how God designed it for His glory. God allowed this in order that sin might come, in order that He might destroy it so that it wouldn't any more be a possibility. And in the process He would save sinners who believe and judge sinners who do not. And therefore He would put Himself on display as to His power, as to His grace and as to His justice. So God allowed it. Just as we fell in one man, we rise again in one man, the last Adam, Jesus Christ.
You see, once Adam and Eve knew personal evil, because they did it, a whole new way of thinking entered their minds. They were evil. And they were embarrassed. They felt self-conscious. They felt guilty. They felt fearful. And they were gripped by a new emotion-- evil desire, perversion, lust and shame. Their purity was marred. They were shocked by thoughts that were wicked and impure.
Even that pure gift of marriage was so polluted as to make them feel that they needed to hide their loins from God and from each other. That very part of their body which was the source of joy and the source of life became a source of guilt and they were embarrassed to be naked. And they did the appropriate thing. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. This was a feeble effort to cover their shame and to cover their guilt.
Genesis 3:21, “Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.” In order for God to make them a garment of skin, what did God have to do? Kill an animal for the first time. So God showed us that sin can only be covered by God through a sacrifice. From here on the story is about God’s love and mercy and grace, and how few people receive it, and how the world rejects it.
What we have here is essentially the source of human depravity. Human depravity can be defined as a condition of the human soul in which there is nothing truly good, spiritually good, in which there is no genuine obedience to God. It is the condition of the spiritual soul in which there is no fellowship with God. It is the condition of the human soul in which it will not acknowledge sin and concerns itself only with the consequence of sin, not the sin itself.
It is a condition of the human soul in which blame shifting and a constant effort to exonerate oneself and exalt oneself is a daily effort. It is a condition of the human soul which is so profound and so deep that a sinner cannot on his own even honestly repent. And this condition is true of every human born into the world. Paradise was lost not only for Adam and Eve, but for everyone else. The human race, all people are born in this condition because of what Adam did.
God reacted to this in Genesis 3:14-15, “So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall crush your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
This is divine justice rendering a perfect sentence. Obviously there are natural consequences to sin. Whatever men sows, he reaps. If you lie, there are consequences to your lying. If you take drugs, that kind of behavior has its own consequences. If you are characterized by anger, there are its own consequences. If you engage in homosexuality, sexual sin, if you kill people--whatever categories of sins, surely there will be an effect.
But there is a greater reality than that, there is divine judgment on top of natural consequences. There is a natural built-in sequence we could even call wrath. We need to understand that far greater than that, is the sentence that comes down from God on sin. Here God renders an appropriate and just divine justice. The woman’s judgment is (verse 16), pain in child bearing. The man’s sentence (verse 17), the ground is cursed and he has live by the sweat of his brow.
God is always sovereign, He always rules. And here He demonstrates his sovereignty through these curses. Snakes symbolize the devil degraded and defeated. But in verse 15 we also find the first presentation of good news. That has been called literally for centuries the proto evangelium. Proto meaning the first or the prototype--the first evangelium, which means the first gospel. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed.”
God says, “I’m going to turn the human race against you.” God says to Satan, “If you think you have won the entire human race, you are wrong. There will come enmity from humanity toward you. You will not exercise complete control. You will not have the whole human race.” God will enable man in his sinful condition, to be so totally transformed that he will hate the serpent and love God. That’s the enmity that has been placed between Satan, and the woman and her Seed.
There has to be a deep change in the human heart to turn man back to God. It is so profound that the New Testament speaks of it as the new birth. It is so profound that the prophets, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, speak of it as having a new heart. Here is the first suggestion of regeneration, first suggestion of transformation, first suggestion of salvation, first suggestion of good news. The gospel is first given then not in a promise, but in a curse.
Verse 15, “Because this enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, will come about because the seed of the woman will crush you on the head as you bruise him on the heel.” God is speaking here of the seed of a woman who will be a Man. The Bible talks a lot about seed of men, because seed is in the man, not in the woman. But there was One born without the seed of a man, and that is the virgin-born Christ, the Son of God.
He is the only human who was not produced by the seed of a man. The only time a woman had the seed of her own. He is virgin-born. Clearly that is the testimony of the gospel of Matthew. Clearly that is the testimony of Galatians 4:4, “born of a woman.” Isaiah 7:14, “born of a virgin.” There will be one Man who comes from the seed of a woman who will be your destroyer. This clearly is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Satan understood this prophecy. Satan has always done everything he could to prevent the birth of the seed of the woman, and snuff the life of that seed out before that One can crush his head. So it says in verse 15, “He shall crush you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” He will deal a crushing blow to the head of Satan. The heel of the seed of the woman will be bruised, that’s an attack with no permanent damage.
Satan bruised the Son of God. Isaiah 53:5 says, “He was bruised for our iniquities.” Luke 22:52-53 says that Jesus confessed that “this is the hour of the power of darkness.” Satan bruised Him at the cross, allowing for the redemption of all sinners who would love God and hate Satan. But the One whose heel was being bruised would, at the same time, crush the head of Satan. That is an attack that destroyed the head of Satan.
How did Jesus defeat Satan at the cross? By providing the atonement that paid in full for the sins of all the people whom God would regenerate. By satisfying the justice of God, by paying the full debt to God, by conquering death, by opening heaven--all the marvelous work of Christ on the cross is the crushing blow on the head of Satan. Before God sends them out of the Garden of Eden and forbids them to come back, hope is placed in their hearts.
From God's side, atonement and security are introduced which sums up salvation. Man believes with a penitent heart and God provides atonement and secures the believing sinner for eternity. What is required of the person is to repent and believe. And it's all here. The salvation of sinners, their deliverance, and their rescue from sin has always been by faith and repentance through atonement and the power of God to secure us unto eternal life.
If there is to be salvation for the sinner, if he is to be delivered from the power of sin and Satan, if he is to be delivered from death, there must be faith. Salvation all through Scripture, from here to the very end of redemptive history, is always by faith. At no time was ever anyone saved by his works. And what do we mean by that? Simply believing God as He speaks. That is to say believing whatever God has said.
This is a picture of salvation. Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves but it was inadequate. Here is the picture of atonement where God through the sacrifice of an innocent victim, an animal is killed so that a garment can be made to cover sinners. God covering the sinner with the garment of righteousness, through the substitutionary sacrifice of an innocent victim. Christ died as the Lamb of God without sin and by His death a righteous garment is provided to cover the sinner.