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Scripture Reading: Gen. 3
I. Realizing the fall of man — Gen. 3:1-8, 22-24:
А. The fall was through the deceiving of the serpent, the embodiment of the devil, Satan the tempter, who is the enemy of God — vv. 1-6; 1 Tim. 2:14; Rev. 12:9; Matt. 4:3; 13:39a.
B. In man’s eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to forsake God as the tree of life in His economy — Gen. 3:6.
C. The issue of man’s fall:
1. Satan entered into man to be man’s indwelling sin — Rom. 7:17, 20-21.
2. Sin entered into mankind — 5:12a.
3. Sin brought death to mankind — v. 12b.
4. Sin brought vanity and the slavery of corruption to all the creation — 8:20-21.
5. Man was constituted inwardly a sinner, with the soul corrupted, the body changed in nature, and the spirit deadened — 5:19a; Gen. 3:7.
6. Man was condemned outwardly — Rom. 5:18a; Gen. 3:8.
7. Man attempted to cover himself and hide himself from God — vv. 7-9.
8. God would not permit man to eat the tree of life until his fallen nature would be dealt with — v. 22.
9. God drove man out of the garden of Eden and closed to man the way to the tree of life — vv. 23-24.
II. Saving man from his fall — vv. 8-21:
А. God came to seek the lost sinner — vv. 8-13:
1. God cursed the tempting serpent more than all the cattle and the animals of the field, saying that he shall go upon his stomach and eat the dust — v. 14.
2. God will greatly multiply the woman’s pain in her childbearing; in pain she will bring forth children; and her desire will be to her husband, and he will rule over her (1 Tim. 2:15) — Gen. 3:16.
3. God cursed the ground so that it will bring forth thorns and thistles, whereby man will in toil (in Heb. the same word as pain in v. 16) and by the sweat of his face (1 Pet. 4:1b-2) eat of the ground all the days of his life until he returns (his body dies) to the dust — vv. 17b-19.
B. God promised that Christ as the Son of God will come as “the seed of woman”:
1. To bruise the head of the deceiving “serpent” for man — v. 15; 1 John 3:8b.
2. To release man from the fear and slavery of death — Heb. 2:14-15.
3. In this promise of God Adam believed and called his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living — Gen. 3:20.
C. God redeemed man by the shedding of the blood of Christ (typified by the slain sacrifice — Heb. 9:22; Matt. 26:28) and justified man by Christ as righteousness to man (typified by the coats of the skin of the slain sacrifice — 1 Cor. 1:30; Gal. 2:17a) — Gen. 3:21.
In the past term of our full-time training, we studied the Christian life quite much. In this term we have begun to continue the study of the Christian life according to the Scriptures from another angle. We have seen that the Holy Scriptures are not only a record of stories of man but also a record of the history of God in His union with man. In the previous chapter we saw that God in His history in time restored the judged universe and created man. Right after God’s creation of man, man became fallen, so God had to come in to save man from his fall. In this chapter we want to see God’s history in time in His dealing with man’s fall.
In God’s carrying out of His eternal economy, God’s adversary Satan caused two great frustrations: one was Satan’s rebellion, which polluted and devastated the creation of God, and the other was his seducing of man to transgress against God. Thus, God had to deal with these two frustrations caused by His adversary.
We have seen in chapter 2 that God dealt with Satan by judging him and declaring God’s verdict on him. Now in this chapter we want to see how God dealt with the problem of man’s fall. According to the record of the Scriptures, before God dealt with the fall of man, He was fully aware of it.
The fall of man was initiated by Satan through the deceiving of the serpent (Gen. 3:1-6). The subtle serpent was the embodiment of Satan the devil (Rev. 12:9a). As the enemy of God (Matt. 13:39a) and the tempter of man (Matt. 4:3), Satan deceived man not directly but through man’s wife (1 Tim. 2:14) by causing her to doubt the sure word of God. In this way he lured the woman into his snare, and through her he caused man to fall in man’s transgression against God’s clear word (Job 31:33).
Because the fall of man was consummated by man’s eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3:6), the nature of man’s fall was not a matter of a transgression that affected only man’s outward condition before God. It was both a matter of an offense that caused man to be condemned by God to remain under the condemnation of God (Rom. 5:18a) and a matter of disobedience that caused man to be constituted a sinner in the eyes of God (v. 19a). Man’s eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil indicates that man had forsaken God as the tree of life in His economy. This resulted in a case of offending God outwardly and of damaging man inwardly. By eating the evil fruit of the tree of knowledge, Adam built a case of transgression, of disobedience, which caused him to be condemned by God. By this eating, Adam also accomplished a wrong action that poisoned him in his nature, causing him to be constituted a sinner. Hence, through this one fall, Satan caused Adam to be condemned according to the commandment of God and constituted a sinner in the nature of man.
The issue of man’s fall is terrifyingly great. It implies mainly the following eight items.
Satan as the evil one (Matt. 6:13) entered into man through man’s eating of his evil fruit from the tree of knowledge. Through this, Satan’s evil nature surely became the evil element added into man’s nature. Romans 7:17-21 unveils that something evil as an evil law dwells in man to be the very sin that dwells in man, causing man to do things that man does not will. What is this evil to be the indwelling sin in man’s fallen nature? It must be the evil one, Satan, who dwells in our fallen nature. This issue of man’s fall is too, too terrifying!
Since Satan, who is the substantial element of sin, has entered into man, sin spontaneously entered into man with Satan. Since this entering of sin into man was its entering into Adam, the forefather of man, sin entered into all of mankind, the world (5:12a), through this one entering. Today all of mankind, the whole world, has sin in their fallen nature to make them sinners in their constitution.
The very sin which dwells in man is productive. It issues in death. Death is the wages of sin (6:23a) and was brought into man through sin (5:12b). Hence, Satan, sin, and death, three terrifying and damaging factors, entered into man, even mankind, through man’s fall.
Sin not only brought death to all mankind but also brought vanity and the slavery of corruption to all the creation (8:20-21). Today due to man’s fall, all the creation is subjected to vanity and the slavery of corruption. Everything in God’s creation is being corrupted under a kind of slavery and is becoming vanity. Hence, the whole creation is groaning together, and there is no joy in the universe today.
There was another issue of man’s fall that very seriously affected man’s being. Due to the fall of man, man’s soul was corrupted, man’s body was changed in nature, and man’s spirit was deadened. In the fall of man Satan saturated man’s soul with his evil word and thought (Gen. 3:1-5) to corrupt man’s soul. Through the fall of man, Satan as the substantial element of sin entered into man’s body to cause man’s body to be changed in nature to become the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3) full of lusts (Gal. 5:16b). Also through the fall of man, man’s spirit was deadened by sin (Eph. 2:1). Hence, man’s whole being was devastated by man’s fall as a very subjective issue to man.
Another issue of the fall of man was that it affected man’s self-consciousness and his relationship with God. After man became conscious of his nakedness due to his fall, he attempted to cover himself in his nakedness and to hide himself from God in his contact with God (Gen. 3:7-9). To cover his nakedness is man’s doing and pretense. Fallen man is used to endeavoring to do something to cover his sinfulness and pretend to be something in falsehood. For man to hide himself from God is to keep himself away from God in his fellowship with God. This is the issue of man’s fall that makes man false and void of God’s presence.
Due to the corruption in man’s nature through his fall, God would not permit man to eat the tree of life (v. 22) until his fallen nature would be dealt with. This indicates that God would not let His eternal life be received by man without man repenting of his sin and without the dealing with man’s corrupted nature.
The last issue of man’s fall was that God drove man out of the garden of Eden and closed to man the way to the tree of life (vv. 23-24). This was to execute God’s prohibition of man from eating the tree of life. This prohibition was taken away by Christ’s full redemption through His death, which cut a new and living way for the believers of Christ to enter into the Holy of Holies to receive God as their eternal life (Heb. 10:19-20).
Man became fallen to such a miserable state. Surely such a fallen man could do nothing to help himself out of such a fallen state. Only the wise and almighty God could afford a full and dynamic salvation to the man created by Him and spoiled by His adversary. Furthermore, He, as the unchanging and everlasting God, could not have any change in annulling His eternal economy, which He made in His Divine Trinity in eternity past and for eternity future. He had to rescue the man whom He had created for His unchanging purpose, and He did it.
Furthermore, what God created for His purpose according to His good pleasure was a wonderful, excellent, marvelous, and precious man. In the eyes of God, man in his original created state was most excellent, marvelous, and precious. We may even say that in Genesis 2 man became God’s pleasure. Hence, God loved man (John 3:16). He would save him at any cost, even at the cost of sacrificing His only begotten Son.
This is why even in eternity past Christ as the second of the Divine Trinity was preparing to come into time (Micah 5:2) to die for fallen man according to the divine determination made in the council of the Divine Trinity in eternity past (Acts 2:23 and footnote 1, Recovery Version; 1 Pet. 1:19-20).
Thus, God came in to save man from his fall. Genesis 3 tells us that God came to visit the man whom He had created and who had become fallen and lost. When God came to Adam after his fall, He called to Adam, saying, “Where are you?” (v. 9). It was as if God were saying, “Where are you? You have become lost, so I have come to seek you. You have become fallen, so I have come to rescue you.” That was God’s visitation to Adam. This was the first case of “door-knocking” in the whole universe. God was knocking on Adam’s door to visit Adam. Man had not yet invented physical dwelling places, so there was not a physical door on which God could knock. But God came to knock on the door of Adam’s heart. He came to seek Adam because Adam had become lost.
When God found Adam, He had a kind of gospel conversation, gospel talk, with him. The first gospel talk is recorded in Genesis 3. The first lesson for those who intend to visit people with the gospel is in Genesis 3. We should learn how to talk to a fallen man.
The first thing God uttered was, “Where are you?” Adam responded by saying, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I am naked; so I hid myself” (v. 10). This indicates that when we talk to the sinners whom we visit, we have to spend some time to help them realize where they are. We need wisdom to do this. The way is not to tell them where they are but to let them tell us. God was very clear where Adam was, but God would not say anything. Instead, He asked, “Adam, where are you?” Adam told his story to God. Then God preached the gospel.
The first thing in the preaching of the gospel is to condemn the serpent. The serpent was cursed by God in Genesis 3. God said to the serpent, “You are cursed more than all the cattle / And more than all the animals of the field: / Upon your stomach you will go, / And dust you will eat / All the days of your life” (v. 14). This indicates that formerly Satan, the serpent, was standing and walking. Now he is cursed to go upon his stomach along the earth and cursed to eat the dust. Now he is altogether something belonging to the earth. In God’s condemnation of Satan, He gave Satan a limitation: he cannot move above the earth, and he cannot eat anything except dust.
God also assigned a certain amount of suffering to the woman and the man (vv. 16-19). The suffering assigned to the woman was in the childbearing and delivery of a child. The delivery of a child is a great suffering assigned by God to fallen sinners. In Genesis 3 God assigned man to toil with sweat (vv. 17, 19). As fallen sinners, we all need God’s assignment of suffering. The human life today after man’s fall is a life of suffering. The less suffering a person has, the deeper he can become involved with sin. Those who are wealthy and self-indulgent are more involved with sin. People who are poor and who have to toil all the time to eat have no time to think about worldly amusement, entertainment, and the pleasures of this life, all of which are mostly involved with sin.
In the beginning of the book of Job, we can see that Job was very rich. All his children were enjoying a rich life until one day a great wind came and destroyed the house where they were eating and drinking wine. The house fell upon them, and they died (1:18-19). If they had been toiling in the field, this might not have happened. We should be warned by this. Job was very rich and comfortable, but God assigned a certain amount of suffering to him. In the midst of our suffering, though, we can enjoy God as our Savior and rest.
This is all a part of the gospel, but we need to see the main item in this gospel. In God’s curse of the serpent, the gospel was announced. This announcement was that the seed of the woman would come to bruise the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). To bruise the head of the serpent is to put the serpent to death. The serpent, the tempter, the deceiver of man, was to be put to death by the seed of woman. This was not only the gospel but also a great prophecy that one day the very God would become a human seed. The top gospel is that God became a human seed to destroy Satan, putting him to death.
Satan spoiled man, poisoned man, causing man to become the flesh. But God became a man, became flesh, and died in this flesh to put Satan to death. Hebrews 2:14 says that Christ shared in man’s blood and flesh “that through death He might destroy him who has the might of death, that is, the devil.” Genesis 3:15 has been fulfilled in Hebrews 2:14. The incarnated God put on man’s flesh, and in this flesh He died a death that put Satan to death. This is the top gospel.
The death of this human seed, on the one hand, put Satan to death, destroying him, and on the other hand, accomplished redemption for fallen man. God prepared this redemption through the shedding of the blood of Christ (typified by the slain sacrifice — 9:22; Matt. 26:28). This was a vast event that God consummated in the universe for the completion of His economy in redeeming His chosen people.
Eventually, through the death of this human seed, God made Christ a covering to cover the naked, shameful, and sinful man so that this human seed could be man’s righteousness before God (1 Cor. 1:30) for God’s justification of man (Rom. 3:22-24). This is typified by God clothing man with the coats of the skin of the slain sacrifice (Gen. 3:21). The incarnated God put on the human flesh to die in order to destroy Satan and to accomplish redemption. Such a death makes Him the very righteousness that the fallen man can wear before God, not only to be redeemed but also to be justified.
All of this is much more than the story of man. It is the story of God, the history of God in saving the fallen man. It is also the contents of the preaching of the gospel. This gospel preaching tells us how God, the Creator of man, became man’s Savior after man’s fall. He became man’s Savior by becoming a seed of humanity, a human seed. The creating God, because of the fall of man, became a human seed to destroy the tempter, to redeem fallen man, and to be made man’s righteousness before God to cover fallen man’s sinfulness and nakedness. This is really a history of God.
At the beginning of God’s gospel, God said, “Adam, where are you?” Now after wearing the human seed as his clothing, Adam could say, “Now, God, I am in this dear One who has become my clothing. Through His death I’m here.” This is the story of God in His acting to rescue man, to become man’s redemption, and to become man’s clothing, man’s covering, man’s righteousness, so that man can be in God to become one with God.
Genesis 3 reveals that after man’s fall, God came to visit sinners. He became a human seed to die so that Satan could be destroyed and the redemption of man could be accomplished. Then He became our righteousness that we could wear to cover us. Eventually, the result is that we fallen sinners who have been redeemed and justified can be in Him to be one with Him. Is this not a top gospel? Such a gospel is the history of God. Our gospel preaching, our gospel conversation with sinners, should be with this high gospel of the history of God.
