The Fall Into Sin
One winter, when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, my brothers and I had a snow sculpting competition. We each had an hour to make whatever we wanted, and when we were done, we would pick a winner. After an hour, I stepped back with a smile on my face. I liked what I had made. To that point in my life, I don’t think I had ever been prouder of anything I had ever done.
My brothers, not so much. One of them made fun of it and threw a snowball at it knocking its head off. How do you think I felt at that moment?
I was devastated. I had just spent an hour in the cold crafting what I thought was a beautiful creation, only to have it broken moments after it was made. What would you do in that situation? Would you chase your brother down and tackle him into a snowbank? Would you destroy his sculpture? Would you just sit and cry some icy tears?
I didn’t do any of those things. I was mad at my brother; there’s no doubt. But in my anger, I couldn’t stand to look at the brokenness of what I had thought was so beautiful, so I broke the rest of it. I reduced it to a pile of snow and skulked off to the house and tried to forget all about it.
Last week, we read the Creation Account of Genesis 1. At the end of (almost)[1] every day we heard the same refrain: “And God saw that it was good.” At the end of the week, we read that “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”[2] God stepped back from his creation with a smile on his face, because it was perfect! It was exactly how he wanted it to be. There was nothing missing. There was nothing bad or hurtful or wrong. There was no death, no pain, no sadness. Everything functioned exactly how it was designed. It was perfect!
But then something changed.
There’s no break in the narrative from Genesis chapter 2 to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 2 ends with the creation of Adam and Eve, i.e. the crown of God’s creation. Genesis chapter 3 is simply called “The Fall.” It starts like this:
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’?”[3]
That’s a slippery snake, and not your ordinary reptile. This was Satan, the fallen angel, who was at war with God and – not unlike my brother – was trying to mess with God’s creation. So he comes with a temptation. He approaches the crown of God’s creation and he sows the seed of doubt in her mind.
In chapter 2 – before God created Eve – God told her husband,
“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”[4]
God had planted a lush garden in Eden. It was full of fruit that was good for food, and Adam and Eve had carte blanch to eat from any tree, except for one. So, what’s the correct answer to the devil’s first question (“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”)?
It’s a flat-out, “No!” God was not holding out on Adam and Eve. He had given them so much! There was only one tree that was forbidden to them. They could eat from every other tree in the garden. Let’s see how Eve did in response:
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 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.’”[5]
So far, so good, right? Eve came to God’s defense. This is how she should have answered.
But the devil is crafty, and even though Eve said the right thing, she was on shaky ground and the devil could tell. So he pushed a little harder:
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “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]
If the devil was trying to sow the seed of doubt with his first question, what was he trying to do with this second question?
He was trying to make it sound like God was being greedy, or that in his paranoia, God didn’t want Adam and Eve to reach their full potential, because then they’d be like God. The devil wanted Adam and Eve to question God’s intentions. And it worked!
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. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.[7]
Was the devil right? Were Adam and Eve’s eyes opened when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
In a way he was. Their eyes were opened, but not to some secret wisdom that God was withholding; their eyes were opened to the knowledge of good and evil, i.e. to the shame and guilt of sin. They had done the one thing God had forbidden, and they could never go back. Once you lose your innocence, it’s gone forever. It only takes one spot for something that had been pure not to be pure anymore. This one act of disobedience had immediate and lasting consequences:
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. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”[8]
What did Adam and Eve do in their guilt and shame? They hid from God.
But he was determined to find them. He asked, “Where are you?” Did he not know the answer to that question? Of course he did!
So then, why do you think he asked it? To give Adam and Eve a chance to own up to what they had done.
I do this with my dog. “Blue… what did you do?” I know the answer. The tattered shards of the napkin I carelessly left out on the coffee table the night before are lying at my feet. I know what she did, but I want her to know what she did. I want to discipline her in a way that she can connect the consequences to the disobedience.
That’s what God wanted for Adam (it’s also what God wants for you when you do something wrong). Do you think Adam understood? I don’t think so:
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”[9]
Again, God asks a question to which he already knows the answer. But he asks anyway to give Adam an opportunity to own up to what he did. What should Adam say next? He should say, “Yes, I did. I messed up. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.” But he doesn’t:
The man said, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”[10]
Whom did Adam blame for his disobedience? Eve’s the first one to get thrown under the bus, but shortly after her goes God himself – “The woman you put here with me.” In other words, Adam is saying, “God it’s really your fault for leaving this temptress with me. You should have known better.”
That’s heavy stuff. If you were God and your little creation just blamed you for his sin, what would you do? Flick him off the face of the planet? Grind him back into dust with your heel? Utterly destroy him like I destroyed my snow sculpture? That might be what we would have done, but not God. He plays it out:
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.”[11]
Whom did Eve blame for her disobedience? She followed Adam’s lead and passed the buck. Yes, it’s true that the serpent set out to deceive her, but she had a personal responsibility not to be deceived. She even had all the tools to prevent herself from being hoodwinked. She answered right the first time. She remembered what God had said. But in the end, memory wasn’t enough when desire was stoked in her (and Adam’s) heart for something that God had said was off limits.
Again, if you were God in this moment, what would you do? Condemn them together, now that they both failed your test? Start over with a new man and a new woman who would actually listen? Give up on humankind altogether and hand the world over to the lions or the elks?
Again, God shows that he is not like us, and that’s a good thing. Before he says a word of rebuke to Adam or Eve, God speaks a word of gospel to, of all people, the serpent, Satan, the deceiver:
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. 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.”[12]
I called this “a word of gospel.” This is good news, but good news for whom? Not the devil. This was bad news for the devil. But that’s what made it so good for Adam and Eve to overhear.
What’s so good for Adam and Eve about what God said to Satan? Their enemy, the one who had corrupted and deceived them, would be defeated. They weren’t going to be the ones whose heads were ground to dust under God’s heel. That distinction belonged to the devil.
And who would do the grinding? The offspring of the woman. This was God’s promise that Jesus would come – that God’s own Son would be born of a woman to defeat Satan.
In the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed, we’re going to explore the many ways that Jesus won that victory for us, but here in the First Article, it’s enough to know the character of God our Father, who, thankfully, is not like me. God did not look at the brokenness of his once beautiful creation and give up; he did not wipe it out and start over. He gave his heart, and his Son, to restore that creation, to forgive Adam and Eve, and to give them hope that they would not always be on the wrong side of war with heaven. But that their own descendant from their own bodies would one day come to be their Saviour.
God loved them and spared them. God loved them and promised salvation. And while there would still be immediate consequences for their actions, there would be hope for generations.
You know, you and I aren’t all that different than Adam and Eve. We question God’s commands, e.g. “Did God really say _______________?” We desire the things that God forbids. We avoid and evade God when he comes calling, and instead of hearts that are sorry for what we did wrong, we shift the blame and scratch and claw to try to justify our behaviour.
We don’t deserve God’s love anymore than Adam and Eve did, but this promise is for you and me too. The Son God sent is your Saviour and mine. Our God is not a vengeful God just waiting for you to slip up so he can strike you down. He patiently watches as you mess up again and again, and he reaches to lift you up again and again, to remind you of this promise and to give you the hope that your sins are forgiven too.
That’s why God gave you his Son, because he so loved this world that he couldn’t bear to watch you die for your sin. That’s why God gave you his Son; in the Lord’s great love for us, we are not consumed; his compassions never fail. That’s why God gave you his Son. And so, while we so often associate the Father with the work of Creation and Preservation. Salvation belongs to him too, because he sent his Son to save you.
To him be the glory forever. Amen.
[1] While there are 7 mentions of “it” being “good” over the span of the 7 days of Creation, there is no mention during day 2.
[2] Genesis 1:31
[3] Genesis 3:1
[4] Genesis 2:16,17
[5] Genesis 3:2,3
[6] Genesis 3:4,5
[7] Genesis 3:6,7
[8] Genesis 3:8,9
[9] Genesis 3:10,11
[10] Genesis 3:12
[11] Genesis 3:13
[12] Genesis 3:14,15