The Fall of Man
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2018 · 9 December 2018
We have done a lot of background on Genesis 3, on the issue of sin, the problem of evil in the world. All of that was really a prelude to the text itself, the biblical record of why the world is the way it is. The Fall of man and the fall of the created universe is presented here. This is God's Word on that most influencing event on mankind. It is the record of the entrance of evil.
This tells us how the perfect good creation of God became corrupted and evil. The New Testament does not treat this as fiction, allegory or myth. The New Testament gives us a number of references to Adam, one of them is in the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:38. The New Testament refers to Satan as the serpent in the Garden, as the one who lied to Eve. And there is Eve as the one being deceived.
So, the New Testament gives many references to Genesis 3 and all of them are treated as actual people, a man named Adam, a woman named Eve in a garden and a serpent who was Satan. This is actual history. Jude 14 says Enoch, in human chronology, was the seventh descendent from Adam. Adam was the first man and Eve was the first woman.
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 that is inferior, all failure, all disappointment, all weakness, all sorrow, all pain, all disillusionment, all trouble, all discomfort, all regret, all conflict, everything that fails to be as perfect as God is came from this one event.
Genesis 3:1, “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” The creation of animals is discussed in Genesis 1. This particular serpent was wise and the reason he was wise is because Satan himself, that fallen angel Lucifer, had moved into that reptile and was speaking through that reptile the wisdom that he possessed as a fallen angel.
This is a real reptile, sometimes translated as dragon and sometimes as serpent. So an upright reptile approached Eve, but really it was Satan. He had fallen, as we know from Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. We also remember from Revelation 12 that when he fell he took a third of the angels with him. So because of Satan this animal is more cunning and more intelligent than any other animal.
Satan only wants to do one thing, he is the solicitor of evil. He wants to entice Eve and Adam into sin. He wants to corrupt God's good creation. Now let us examine his strategy. Satan’s strategy is lies, or deception. He wants is to create a lie that Eve believes. And that is why Jesus in John 8:44 called Satan the father of lies. Here he lies about the character of God and about the Word of God.
Satan moves in to attack God's highest creation, man. He had never seen anyone who could procreate. There is no procreation among angels. Angels were all created at the same time, although some now are fallen and some are holy. Man was a creature who has the capacity to have a relationship with the living God, and also be a creature who could reproduce.
Satan’s strategy is simple. He disguises himself as an angel of light, according to 2 Corinthians 11:14. If he 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. Satan got Eve to doubt the character of God, the Word of God and believe his words.
Only in lying is Satan consistent. There is a massive amount of inconsistency in the kingdom of darkness. Satan is the leader but he cannot control what his demons do and so there is a lot of inconsistency in the kingdom of darkness. But they are constant and consistent in their lying. They are void of the truth. And everything coming out of that kingdom is deceptive.
Satan sounds like he really is concerned for Eve's well-being. From being an observer Satan convinces Eve that if she follows him, she will reach great heights of blessing. He tells Eve that he knows more than God. He gets Eve to lower her view of God and then to doubtdoubt God's Word and to believe him. Jesus said that not only is he the father of lies, but he is the first murderer.
In the garden Satan told the first lie and he killed Adam and Eve and the whole human race. Let us follow his strategy. In the middle of verse 1, “He said to the woman, 'Indeed, has God said that you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?'" Why did he go to Eve and not to Adam? 1 Peter 3:7 says that the woman by God's design, from an emotional standpoint, is the weaker vessel.
She is not created to be the warrior, the fighter, the defender, the protector, instead she is the one to be defended, to be protected. She is the one who needs to be covered and cared for. That's why in Ephesians 5 husbands are to love their wives and they're to be the guardians of their wives purity and character and they are to nourish and cherish them. The husband is the spiritual guardian and protector.
But when a woman does not have that protection, she is more vulnerable. That is why in the Bible it is normal for women to have a husband, because a woman was designed by God to be a helper to a man. She needs to be protected and cared for by a man. And when a young woman becomes a widow, she should marry again because she needs that care and protection.
This is what Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians 11: 3, “But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” Eve was found by Satan in an unprotected condition and that's exactly what he wanted. He may well have succeeded with Adam, but he believed he had a better opportunity with Eve.
The Garden of Eden had everything that was absolutely wonderful and all of a sudden a talking serpent just could have been another wonderful thing. Eve starts this conversation innocently but the serpent’s strategy is deceptive. Here's just an animal in the garden who comes up and says, "Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?" This starts Eve on a path of questioning God.
It's a clever plan. All sin essentially follows the same pattern. If you begin to question God, you begin to doubt God, which can lead to distrusting God, which leads to disobedience. For the first time, the most deadly spiritual force was released by that question. The assumption was that what God said is subject to our judgment. That's what launches this entire attack.
All temptation starts with the idea that we can evaluate what God has said or what He requires. The word "Lord" is what puts the emphasis on His sovereignty. And that's the word Satan wants to leave out because he hates the sovereignty of God. He will not acknowledge Him as Yahweh, he calls Him Elohim which is a generic word for God and he drops the term "Lord."
And so the devil refers to the Lord God simply as God. "Has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?" Well, Satan starts by quoting Scripture, right? But he does turn the positive to a negative, reversing the emphasis by saying it the way he does. God said you shall eat of every tree of the garden, but this one of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
But Satan reverses it, you shall not eat from every tree of the garden? So he casts the negative tone over it and inverts the emphasis to not eating where when God originally gave the emphasis on eating everything, except that one tree. In this way he focuses Eve's attention on the prohibition and sets her up to question God and His Word. Did God restrict you in some way?
The further implication is that there's something in God's character, in God's nature that makes Him want to limit you, He wants to steal your joy. He wants to take away your complete freedom. That's the negative twist of it. Eve, did God really tell you that you couldn't eat everything in here? There must be something about that tree that God doesn't want you to enjoy.
The fact that God gave them everything in the garden to eat, is not mentioned. She is not just talking to a reptile, she is unaware of his subtleties as the devil. So she replies in verse 2-3, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.”
It seemed to Eve that this creature wants her to enjoy everything freely. But she knew enough that she could have stopped Satan at that point. She knew God. At that point she could have said, “I don't know who you are or where you've come from but you don't understand God. God is good, God cares and God has given us everything we need for pleasure and satisfaction.
Sin is a failure to believe that obedience brings you the purest good and true satisfaction. Eve knows God personally and not only had she had experience with His goodness and seen the manifest goodness of God, but she also had a clear command from God. She should have been suspicious of a talking reptile. And she should have pressed a little further to find out who she was talking to.
Taking the fruit was not the fall into sin. The Fall occurred before that act. The taking of the fruit was just evidence that man had already fallen. The Fall happened the moment she believed God was not good and that God had restricted her from something good. That lie plunged the human race into depravity. She said, “God said you shall not eat from it or touch it lest you die.”
As soon as you do not trust wholeheartedly in the wisdom and goodness of God, you're in trouble, because you have sinned. And she sinned, not when she ate, she sinned when she stopped believing God was good and only good. When you do not believe that His commandments are for your good and your highest joy, you have fallen. All sin comes from distrusting God.
Eve even adds to the command the words "or touch it." That is not in God's command in Genesis 2:17, God didn't say that. It's possible that this had been a warning given to her by Adam. But more likely she is beginning to think that God is harsh because she makes God even harsher. She is not defending God's goodness. She is not offended by the insults to God's character.
Martin Luther said, "Satan knows now that the wall has begun to topple, Satan started pushing against it so that it could completely crush Eve." Verse 4, "And the serpent said to the woman, 'You surely shall not die.'" Now this is just a lie. God tells you the truth and Satan lies. And Satan lied and called God a liar. He has been dishonored and Satan moves in.
The ultimate lie for Satan is this, there never will be any judgment for sin. Eve could have said, "Well, maybe God isn't caring and maybe He's restrictive and He's keeping back some good from me, but if I do it, I'm going to die." Satan wants to eliminate that fear, He wants people to think they will be reincarnated. Or that when they die they'll just go through a long dark tunnel and arrive at some happy place.
Satan says, "There's no absolute authority. It's your life and you can do whatever you want to do. And there are no consequences. You're not going to die, Eve. It's not going to happen." Who is telling her the truth? Satan is saying, “God doesn't love you. I'm the one who loves you. I have your freedom in mind. I don't want to restrict you." That is the love of hell.
Satan says that God's character is basically flawed. Verse 5, "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God." Satan says that God is not tolerant of people who attempt to rise to His level. He is self-protective, selfish. He resents anybody who seeks to be His equal." Satan knew that from experience, right?
Because Satan had sought to be God's equal and that's how he got punished. Isaiah 14:13-14, "I will rise and be equal to God,” and then God threw him out of heaven. In his mind he has determined that God doesn't want anybody getting anywhere near His equality. That's true but for holy reasons, not unholy ones. Satan hates God for what God did to him.
The big lie is that the God of the Bible is restrictive. The God of the Bible lies to us about the consequences of our sin because He wants to keep us from becoming like Him. When you go where God says you can't go, you will ascend to become a god. God lied when He said we would die and go to hell. God is so flawed in His character as to hate rivals. And Satan is the only one who cares about your freedom, pleasure and satisfaction.
In verse 5 he says to Eve, "God knows the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.” That is what the Buddhists promise, that's what the Mormons promise, that's what a lot of false religions promise, you will be like God. But being like God, Satan says in verse 5, means knowing good and evil. Eve would know good and evil, in a way she never thought.
Knowing good and evil, was a half-truth. Verse 22, "The Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil.'" It happened. You won't become God. But God knows good and evil the way a cancer surgeon knows cancer, which is very different from the way a patient knows it. She knows cancer as a victim, enduring pain, not as a physician who seeks to cure her.
Nothing in the fruit was evil. God made that tree, it was good and all the fruit on it was good. The evil was in the heart of Eve. Satan always tells people that the forbidden fruit is the doorway to fulfillment. What a lie. James 1:15 says, “When lust conceives, it brings forth sin.” And we'll see later how it moved from her mind to her emotions and her will and her behavior. Let us pray.