Our British friends say something
about a meeting like this. He said, Brother so-and-so will
now read a paper. And I spoke at such a meeting
years ago, and they intended for me to read a paper for an
hour. And I was there and tried to
preach, but we will read a paper. I will stay fairly close to my
notes. Most of the time, we'll try to
make some advancement. This is the second in a series
of lectures on the fall, its consequences and the implications,
and that's a very broad subject. You have a handout sheet with
18 questions on it, and this has guided our study. And in
our first session, we answered seven questions. God willing,
this evening we will deal with questions eight through thirteen. Some of these matters will be
controversial. They will be controversial not
because the Word of God is controversial, but they will be controversial
at points because we will upset long-standing religious tradition
that many people hold to be very dear to them. We will let the
Word of God we trust speak for itself. In our first lecture,
we dealt with the first questions, and question number one was,
what is the significance of Genesis chapter 3? The major significance
is simply this. It gives the historical point
in time in which sin entered into the human race. And what
we will see in these studies is that sin entering into the
human race manifested itself in Adam and Eve, the first human
beings, and nothing essentially has changed since then. the very issues of human depravity
and human nature as fallen and sinful manifest themselves in
this chapter and will continue to manifest themselves throughout
the history of the human race. And we will see, sadly, that
there is very little difference from the time of the first sinful
human beings and us here tonight. The same characteristics are
continually evidenced and manifest in sinful fallen humanity. Question number two was, what
have their beginnings here? And I want to repeat this tonight
because this gives us an overview of our entire study. We see the first failure which
became evident on the part of both the man and the woman. Either
Adam failed to properly catechize his wife, for he was given the
covenant Word of God not to eat of the tree before Eve was converted. So he either failed to catechize
and instruct his wife, or she failed to properly listen. And
it is upon this that the entire chapter of Genesis chapter 3
stands or falls. Everything is related to man's
relationship to minutely and carefully understanding the very
Word of God. We see here the importance. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. We find
the first question in verse 1, which concerns surprise and doubt. about the veracity of the Word
of God. The subtlety of the serpent is
increasingly manifested here. First innocuous. Yea, hath God
actually or really said? It is an element of feigned surprise
concerning God's Word. We see the first recorded conversation
which was both theological and abstract in nature. The greatest
danger in theology is to be abstract and divorced from practicality
and implications. We note the first temptation
in the opening verses which centered on questioning divine revelation
and inspiration. We see the first seduction It
was the seduction of Eve concerning a misrepresentation of the Word
of God. We see the beginning of human
irresponsibility. Adam abdicated his headship and
neither spoke up nor took the necessary protective leadership
for his wife. We see the beginning of feminism. Eve became the first spokesperson
And God did not recognize the feminism of Eve. When He confronted
the first pair, He confronted Adam as the head of that relationship. He rebuked him for listening
to his wife rather than remaining faithful to the covenant Word
of God. We see the beginning of all religious
tradition. in verses 2 and 3. The woman
gave her idea equal authority with the Word of God and then
lessened the Word of God. We see the beginning of all legalism. Touch not, taste not, handle
not. We see the first lie in verse
4 stated in denials and half-truths. It struck at the very veracity
of God Himself. We see that the serpent was the
first radical, destructive, higher critic to deny the Word of God
and then to offer an alternative explanation. We see the first
suggestion for an empirical approach to truth to find meaning and
fulfillment through experience and apart from the Word of God. We see the first evidentialist
approach to truth, a denial of what I will call biblical presuppositionalism. The woman saw the tree. She viewed
it from her own subjective perspective, apart from the Word of God. She
did not presuppose God's authoritative Word concerning the tree. It
is the beginning of evidentialism. We see the first humanistic exercise
in epistemology. Epistemology being the science
and theory of knowledge. Eve interpreted the forbidden
fruit, gave it meaning, assigned it meaning, apart from and thus
contrary to the Word of God. We see the beginnings of lust
and human existentialism. Eve experienced a subjective
attraction to the forbidden fruit and what it personally would
mean to her as a path and avenue to knowledge which God had kept
from her. We see the beginnings of an aesthetic
appeal which is separate from morality. The tree was pleasant,
to the eyes. We see the first attempt at occultism,
seeking esoteric knowledge apart from God through natural means. We note the first attempt at
autonomy, autos, self, namos, law. Man would be a law unto
himself. autonomous, completely independent. Man's desire is to be completely
free from all outward restraints. He seeks to be his own God and
determine for himself what is right and wrong. We note the
beginning of pragmatism in verse 7. The covering of fig leaves
for their nudity seemed a good and proper expediency. but it
failed to deal with the real issue, and that was their sinful
self-consciousness. When God confronts Adam, He said,
because He said, naked I am. He could not cover the sinful
self-consciousness. We see the beginning of social
alienation. And a sinful self-consciousness
The basic union and unit of society is not the individual, but the
family. It is not good that man should
be alone. I will make him and help me for
him. But, once they acquired this
experiential knowledge of evil, they turned individually to themselves
and could not stand for anyone else to see them naked, and so
they made coverings of fig leaves, and society became individualized. An individualization of society
is a corruption of society, because the basic social unit is the
marriage relationship and the family, not the individual. We see the beginning of false
mere external and works religion in verse 8. Fig leaves to cover
their nakedness and stifle their self-consciousness. Man seeks
to take comfort and hope in what he himself can do religiously. And covering themselves with
fig leaves was a religious act. We see the first instance of
disharmony in creation and the first revelation of divine anger. God came into the garden in a
windstorm with His thunderous voice in anger seeking out Adam. We see the beginning of human
fear. And human fear was first directed
toward God because of a sense of His wrath and a sinful self-consciousness. We mark the first confrontation
and interrogation. God gave Adam the third degree,
as it were. God confronts the man as the
head of the marriage relationship. He did not recognize the feminism
of Eve. The first manifestation of self-righteousness
we meet in chapter 3. Adam judges God. and his wife
for causing him to sin. He had the audacity to try to
take the higher moral ground with God Himself. You can see
the immediate effects of the depravity of fallen sinful humanity. We see the first excuse. It was
God's fault. It was Eve's fault. Adam really
sought to excuse himself. We see the first blame shifting
and claim of victimization. The man blames both the woman
and God. Self-preservation then takes
priority even over the love that the man and the woman had for
one another. If man cannot lie to cover himself,
He plays the victim. You can see that all of these
things have not changed in the thousands of years since the
fall. We see the first environmental
victimization. Man could blame everything in
his environment rather than see his own culpability. He could
blame the tree. He could blame God. He could
blame the serpent. He could blame the woman. He
could even blame the fig leaves. as they failed to adequately
cover that self-consciousness which had become sinful. We see
the first curse and the first challenge to the serpent in verses
14 and 15. We find the first promise and
hope of redemption. The only true philosophy of human
and redemptive history in verse 15, the Proto-Evangelium. the
first hope of the Gospel. And this gives to us in one sentence
all of subsequent human history. That the seed of the serpent
would crush the heel of the Redeemer, but the seed of the woman, and
it's in the masculine of the Hebrew, will crush, grind down,
and wear away, and conquer the seed of the serpent. We see that
God establishes and mandates the headship of the man, and
the submission of the woman in the fallen order in verse 16. We see the beginning of misery
and futility in the context of work because of man's sin in
verses 17 and 19. We see the first possible act
of faith and hope. Adam called his wife Eve. Chavah is the Hebrew Zoe is the
Septuagint, meaning life, and the Latin Vulgate took the term
Havah in the Hebrew and made it Havah, and that became Eva,
and finally in our English Bible it became Eve. We see again the
establishment and first revelation of the principle of blood atonement
in verse 21. And then in the remainder of
the chapter, the first exclusion from the devout bounty of God's
creation and the first environmental protection act. God excluded
them from the garden and He did it in His grace and mercy that
there might be redemption. The tempter through the serpent
was, of course, the devil. Question four, what is sin? Sin
is a process, James tells us in James chapter 1. It begins
in the heart, it spreads through the personality, and it culminates
in open disobedience. When Eve ate of the fruit of
the tree, She already was a sinner in her heart. She had already
been seduced. And the eating of the fruit was
only the outward manifestation of that sinful state. God did
not say, in the day ye eat thereof ye shall sin. He said, in the
day ye eat thereof ye shall die. Sin was already at home within
the human breast by the time she partook of the fruit. Question
five. Why did the serpent approach
the woman? There were evidently inherent
tendencies in the woman's personality which made her more susceptible.
She was prone to speak up while her husband was more than willing
to let her. She felt that she needed to fill
a void that Adam had passively provided. She quickly sought
to correct the serpent, and she seemed overprotective of the
divine command, and so she added her own thought to it. And she
was completely fascinated with a pleasing object which seemed
to hold great promise. And the woman's personality has
not changed. Question 6, how did the serpent
approach the woman? Aki, he begins, has God really
said? He questions the Word of God.
Not only that, throughout chapter 2, clear to chapter 4, we have
repetitively, again and again, the Lord God, the Lord God, the
Lord God. And what we have now in Satan's
question is, yea, hath God said. Not Yahweh Elohim, but rather
Elohim, God in the abstract. And when the woman answers and
says, God has said, she unwittingly came down to the devil's level
and she spoke of God in the abstract. He was no longer the all-encompassing
living reality. He was an abstraction. She was
seduced at that point when she answered the servant. And then
what did she say? She said, of the fruit of the
trees of the garden we may eat, not freely eat. She already did not come to terms with God's
goodness. With His bounty we may eat, not
freely eat. She was not grounded in the Word
of God. God hath said, Ye shall not eat
of it, neither shall ye touch it." And that is the strong Hebrew
expression of the strong negative with the imperfect tense, you
shall never ever eat of it. God's word, you shall never ever
touch it. Eve's thought, and that is the
beginning of all religious tradition, she gave her thought, her protectiveness,
don't even get near it, don't touch it, the same strength and
force she gave to the Word of God. This is the entrance of
all religious tradition that takes its place with equal force,
and then she said, lest ye die. That expression in the Hebrew,
is an infinitive absolute. It's the strongest expression,
and usually it's formed on the same root as the word mot, matut. What we have here then is the
strongest language, and she said, lest ye die. And she changed
the Word of God. The serpent knew at that point
she was not solidly grounded in the Word of God at all, and
then he said, thou shalt not surely die. And that brings us
to question eight tonight. Thou shalt not surely die. The serpent responds with a direct
contradiction of the divine command. There might be some here with
the Hebrew Bible tonight, or at least with the Septuagint,
the Greek Old Testament of the third century B.C. We'll use
both in this study. He puts down the exact commandment
of God We have here mot, which is the infinitive absolute, the
strongest expression possible, and then built on the same root,
dying thou shalt die, emphasis by repetition, but he puts the
negative in front of the infinitive absolute. Any other place the
negative goes between the infinitive absolute and the main verb. Here it comes before. It's the
most vehement denial possible. Now he has to back it up. The
seduction is almost complete. He progresses from allegedly,
in verse 1, inquiring about the Word of God, to raising doubts
about it, and now to vehemently denying it. Now he asserts a
further half-truth, which is designed to complete the woman's
subduction. For God doth know that in the
day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be Kelohim, like God Himself, or your own gods, knowing good
and evil. Look carefully for that. For
God has always known. That is a participle in the Hebrew. Participles in the Hebrew, there
are two tenses as we noted in our last lecture. The perfect
tense considers an action as complete. The imperfect tense
considers an action as incomplete and can be used for durative
or continual action. If continual action Continual
action without intermission is to be stressed. The participle
is used rather than the verb. God has always known. That's what He's saying. God
has always kept something back from you. There is a knowledge
that God has that He's kept back from you. God has been dishonest. For God has always known that
in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be fully or completely
open. And ye shall be your own gods,
and determine for yourself what is right and what is wrong. I
offer you autonomy. You no longer have to live your
life according to God's Word. You can be autonomous, independent. There is the major thrust. God has always kept back that
esoteric knowledge, that knowledge of good and evil, that forbidden
knowledge, The serpent tells them their eyes have not been
fully opened. God has always withheld from
them something good and desirable. God was not good. The serpent
was telling them the truth. God had been dishonest from the
very beginning. So the devil offers them autonomy. And this is the lie that has
been perpetrated throughout the history of the fallen, sinful
human race. I can be my own God. I can determine
for myself what is right and what is wrong. I can live apart
from God's Word. Eve saw that the fruit was good. She interpreted apart from the
Word of God. She did not presuppose the authoritative
Word of God. When she looked at the fruit,
it was good. She came to the opposite conclusion. She sought
to act autonomously, Allah unto herself. Human race has always
wanted since the fall to be independent of God. This is at the very essence
of fallen sinful mankind. The devil offers them autonomy. The woman then interprets the
tree and its fruit. Without reference to the Word
of God, she comes to an opposite conclusion. It was good. This
is the beginning of all humanistic devaluation of morality. This is the beginning of amorality
and situation ethics. It's here. And it's been with
the human race ever since. Man, as the image-bearer of God,
cannot be amoral. He remains a rational, that means
intelligent, morally responsible being. It's inescapable. But
he wants to be amoral. Then she found the fruit pleasant
to the eyes. The beginnings of an aesthetic
appeal separated from morality. So we have such things as artistic
license. We see pornography and perversion
and we call it art. It all began when the tree and
its fruit were pleasant to the eye. She interpreted apart from
the word of God and gave it no moral connotation. She said it's
good. She was completely taken up with
or overcome with covetousness or an intense desire. It was a tree to be desired to
make one wise, and that is a Nepal participle again. It comes up
to this intense desire, this process of time, and what the
fruit promised. There's a distinct parallel here
with 1 John 2, verses 15-17. Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride
of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the
world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the
will of God abideth forever." Look at the words in 1 John chapter
2. The pride of life. We have two
words for life. In New Testament Greek, one is
zoe, meaning a principle of life. The other is bios, illegitimately
the source of our word biology. For this is in reality the source
of our word biography. Only intelligent, rational beings
can have bios, life with meaning. Life with its pleasures. Life
with its richness. The pride of life means the presumptive
arrogance of what gives life meaning and fulfillment apart
from God. The lust of the flesh. The tree
was good for food. The lust of the eyes. The fruit
was pleasant to the eyes. The pride of life. The fruit
was an object of great desire as a means to wisdom, fulfillment
and autonomy. The seduction is complete. God has been a liar all along.
The serpent is to be believed. She found in the fruit an avenue
or path to wisdom, to that esoteric knowledge belonging only to God. This, we have said, is the beginning
of all occultism. To acquire esoteric knowledge
apart from divine revelation through the use of natural means,
the Ouija boards, the pendulums, the pyramids, the automatic writing,
the tarot cards, and such things. Occultism. Man wants to know
what God has not revealed. She took of the fruit thereof. It's very important to note this.
She touched it and she did not die. Neither shall ye touch it, she
said, lest she die. It was her own idea, and her
own misunderstanding of God's Word furthered her seduction. She touched it and she thought
she would die, and she didn't die. Her own misunderstanding
of God's Word furthered her own seduction. Is that not true today? Our own misunderstanding of God's
Word will inevitably lead to error? to heresy and to sin,
to corresponding wrong behavior and wrong action. Our own misunderstanding
of God's Word. Then she ate, and she did not
die. A seeming contradiction of God's
Word. And she gave to her husband who
was with her, and they both ate, and neither died. Adam knew the
original commandment. To them, the serpent was speaking
the truth, and God had been a liar all along. Eve had been seduced by the serpent,
but Adam ate in full, willful defiance of the plain known mandate
of God. And so we ask, did the man and
woman die? Yes. They died spiritually. and it is immediately evidenced
and manifest in their behavior and their attitude. We'll deal with this thoroughly
in question 16, God willing, in a further lecture, when we
see the result within the human personality and within society
of man's spiritual death, of man's sinful fallen condition. That part of their nature which
was in communion with God as His image bearers died, they
died spiritually. Their very first actions of seeking
to cover their nakedness, of shifting the blame, and minimizing
their own responsibility for their sin, demonstrates the radical
moral transformation which had already taken place in their
personalities. The effects of sin meant that
immediately the process of physical death began to operate in their
bodies. They began to age and decay. They immediately became liable
to physical death and in the process of time they would indeed
physically die. The half-truth of the serpent
now became a full, awful realization. They now experientially possessed
the knowledge of evil. They didn't know it through the
Word of God. They didn't know it in the form of warning. They
knew it in the form of personal experience with all of its heinousness. They realized in themselves a
sinful self-consciousness, not simply a physical nakedness. This drove them to turn from
each other. Society now became individualized
and fragmented. This is seen in the words of
Adam in verse 10. And he said, I heard thy voice
in the garden, I was afraid, because naked I am. That's the
Hebrew. Naked I am. Not I was. Naked I am. He was still before
God in the fullness of his sinful self-consciousness. Naked in
God's presence. Now the attempt to cover their
sinful state with their self-efforts marks the beginning of all false
religion by human effort and a works mentality. This was a
pragmatic effort which failed to deal with the sinfully awakened
conscience. Now question nine. Why did Adam
and Eve hide themselves from the voice of the Lord God? It's extremely important that
we note this because we are going now to attack religious tradition. There were at least two reasons.
Number one, they were naked. And the fig leaves did not cover
or hide their sinful self-consciousness. Number two, they heard the thunderous
voice and sound of the Lord God pacing back and forth in the
garden in anger, in a windstorm, such a sound and sight they had
never heard before, and they fled in terror and fear. The first occasion of disunity,
disharmony, and anger and wrath in creation. God's immediate
reaction to the fall and sinfulness of man. Look at the verb in verse
8. They heard. The verb is in the
imperfect tense. A repetitive or continued action. They heard a continual or repeated
noise. a sound, something loud, something
that caused them to fear. The term, the voice of the Lord
God, may also be translated as the sound. The voice of the Lord
is often described as thunderous. We believe they heard the thunderous,
threatening voice of the Lord God. The word walking is a hyphpael
participle. Hyphpael. The conjugations of
the Hebrew verb are kol nephal, piel pual, hiphil hophal, and
hithpayel. And hithpayel means an intensive
reflective action. It's a participle constantly
pacing back and forth in the garden. The wind blowing through
the trees, the trees lashed by the wind. All of creation is
upset. Something is terribly wrong.
It's because of their sin. And God is coming down in anger.
Now the words, the cool of the day. The term, the cool of the
day, that has entered into our languished Bible is actually,
la'ruach ha'yom. Ruach is spirit or wind or breath. Yom is day. It can also be translated,
storm, ruach ha-yom, a wind storm. There are eight different terms
in the Hebrew Old Testament for a wind storm. Eight different
terms and one of them is the term yom. In the Akkadian, the
ancient Assyrian Babylonian, the word day and storm were cognate
terms to be used Interchangeably, if we look through the Old Testament
at the prophecy of the day of the Lord, it will be a stormy
day. We have every reason to believe that God came down in
a windstorm with this thunderous voice to confront the first sinners. Creation was experiencing the
first effects of the fall of man. Well, then, where did the
idea come in the cool of the day? a gentle, cool evening breeze. This came into our Bible in the
third century B.C. in the Septuagint, or the Greek
Old Testament. The Hebrew Old Testament was
translated into Greek in Alexandria, Egypt, about 246 B.C. A desert
environment And in the desert environment
there would be an afternoon breeze blowing across the desert. And
they took this to mean this was an afternoon breeze. What we
have said this evening is backed by the Hebrew lexicons, it's
backed by the ancient languages, and it fits the context more
than a religious tradition which was an interpretation of the
words and not a translation. It came from the Septuagint into
the Latin Vulgate of Jerome. And from the Latin Vulgate into
our English Bible. And so we have an entire theology
that has been based upon the Lord God walking in the garden
in the cool of the day seeking fellowship with Adam or wooing
him in love. It does not fit the context.
What fits the context is God coming down in wrath, in a windstorm,
pacing back and forth in the garden in His thunderous voice,
lashing the trees and coming down in anger. He said, I heard
your voice and I was afraid and I fled. We must beware of theology. that
comes not from a translation of God's Word, but from an interpretation
or an accommodation. Beware of religious tradition. It began with Eve when she said,
neither shall ye ever, ever touch it. And religious tradition is
with us today. Question number 10. What answer
did Adam give to the Lord God? Verses 9 and onward. And the
Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou?
The question of the Lord was rhetorical to expose the man's
sin. It is vital to mark that he called
to the man. Masculine. Where art you? Masculine, singular, not to the
woman. He did not recognize the feminism
of Eve. She was the first spokesperson,
but he addressed himself to Adam, who was the responsible head
of that relationship. The man's response, verses 10-12,
emphasizes his fear of the voice of the Lord God. Your voice I
heard in the garden and was afraid. In all of the Semitic languages,
the word order is verb, subject, object. If anything occurs before
the verb, it stands in a position of emphasis. Thy voice in the
garden I heard and I was afraid. The essence of fear was the thunderous
voice of God and the windstorm that raked along the trees of
the garden. And then we find, emphatically,
I hid myself because naked I am. Not I was naked, but naked I
am. The fig leaves could not cover
that sinful self-consciousness that manifested itself in his
unclothed condition. The divine cross-examination
forced the truth from the man so he would face his own responsibility
for his open defiance and rebellion against the Word of God. God
asked him, who declared unto you? Who announced unto you? The word is rather graphic. Who
made this great revealing declaration unto you that naked you are? Not naked you were, but naked
you are. That's the Hebrew. From the tree of which I commanded
thee not to eat of it, hast thou eaten? A direct and personal question
in this interrogation. The answer of the man reveals
his defiance. and his refusal to take his responsibility. He blames both the woman and
the Lord God Himself. The woman whom thou gavest to
be with me, she, and that's an emphatic personal pronoun. We call it an independent pronoun
in the Hebrew. She gave me of the tree, and
I did eat. It's your fault. And it's her
fault. I'm nothing but the victim in
this situation. This reveals his defiance and
his unwillingness to assume responsibility. And I just make a note here to
Romans chapter 9, verses 18 through 21. Thou wilt say then unto me, why
dost ye yet find fault for who hath resisted his will? Nay,
but, O man, who art thou that replyest against God? Shall the
thing form sin to him that formed it? Why hast thou made me thus? Man will blame God for his sin
before he will take responsibility for it. It has become a characteristic
of the human race. This is a discussion of divine
sovereignty and human responsibility. The issue is that from the time
of Adam to the present, men and women would rather charge God
than take responsibility themselves. Question number 11. What was
Eve's response to the question of the Lord God? Verse 13. The
question of the Lord God to the woman is even more pointed. We have zot, zot, this feminine. And said the Lord God to the
woman, what is this that you have done? What is this that
you have done? The woman's answer likewise is
evasive and blame-shifting, although she admits to being beguiled
or deceived. Simply put, the devil made me
do it. And when you look at the human
race, fallen and sinful as it is, it has not changed since
Genesis chapter 3. These are the oldest excuses
in the book, and they're still being used today. We are the
victim. Everyone is a victim. A victim
of the environment. A victim of government policy.
A victim of a stingy government that won't pay our bills for
us. We're always the victim. We see the beginning of it in
Genesis chapter 3. Now, we're going to deal with
some religious tradition. This proneness to deception that
the woman was deceived, the man was not, has far-reaching effects
down into our own time, even to the place of women in the
church, and the woman's place and prominence historically in
advancing false religion and the cults. Almost every cult, major cult,
women have played a major role. I think especially of Christian
science, falsely so-called, of the Pentecostal and Charismatic
movements. The woman's seduction and her
place in the church. And I draw your attention, please
turn there if you would, to 1 Timothy 2, verses 8-14. I am dealing with the very Word
of God. Let God be true, but every man
steeped in religious tradition. I will, therefore, that men pray
everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting, in
like manner also that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel,
with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broidered hair or gold
or pearls or costly array, but which becometh women professing
godliness with good works. but let the woman learn in silence
with all submission. But I suffer not a woman to teach,
nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then
Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but
the woman being deceived was in the transgression." So let's
look at the considerations here. Number one, men are to take the
leadership in the church and its functions. Women are not
to be prominent or ostentatious in actions or clothing. The word
modest apparel is a misnomer. The word modest in the original
language is to be construed with behavior. Suitable apparel, modest
behavior. Suitable apparel, modest behavior. It goes deeper than the outside.
It goes deeper than the clothes worn. It's the expression of
the personality. Suitable apparel, modest behavior. Women, we find the primeval headship
of the man remains and enters into the sphere of the church.
The church relationship does not set aside the headship of
the man. Finally, because of the woman's
tendency to be led astray, as she was in the fall, she is not
to teach or lead in the sphere of the church's ministry. I want
you to look very carefully now at verse 11, 12. But I suffer not a woman to teach,
nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. Why
is there a comma in our English Bible? For I suffer not a woman
to teach, nor do you usurp authority over the man. Very simple. Why
does the English Bible place a comma at that point? It's not
necessary, unless there is something in the original language that
the English strains to take note of by inserting a comma there. Let me give you a literal rendering
of the Greek. But to teach emphatically, a
woman emphatically, I do not allow, nor to usurp authority
over the man but to be in silence. The woman is not to be in a teaching
position within the sphere of the church. Two things, not a
teacher and not in leadership. But we say, women can teach Sunday
school, can they not? Women can teach other women and
teach little girls. Maybe they shouldn't teach men.
The women are not to teach, period. And they're not to be in a position
of leadership. This is the very Word of God.
Will we take our religious tradition or will we bow to God's truth?
It's easy, is it not, to see through the traditions of men
until it comes down to cross our own desires and our own tradition
and practice. 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verses
34 and 35. Let your women keep silence in
the churches, in the assembly, for it is not permitted for them
to speak. La leo. To speak out. To audibly talk. But they are
commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if
they will learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at
home. For it is a shame for women to
speak out in the assembly. But what of Titus 2, verses 3-5? Surely there you have women in
a teaching position, do you not? The Word of God is not contradictory. It's self-consistent. It's coherent.
The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh
godliness, not false accusers, mediabolus, not she-devils, not
given to much wine, teachers of good things, kalos didaskalos,
teachers of good things, and now we see that they may teach,
and there's an entirely different word here. It means to admonish
or to earnestly exhort the young women to be sober, to love their
husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers
at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the Word of
God be not blasphemed. It is in the practical conversation
that the woman's influence is felt within the sphere of the
church, not in an official position. Because Eve was deceived. This
is the teaching of the Word of God, and I hardly know a church
that follows the Word of God in these matters. Question number
12. What was the significance of
the curse upon the serpent? It was both a curse and it was
a challenge, revealing to the serpent, and through the serpent
to the devil, his end. His end. What would happen to
him? His utter defeat. The devil attempted to seduce
mankind and build his own kingdom. But that kingdom will be ultimately
and utterly destroyed by the seed of the woman. And the Hebrew
uses the masculine gender. He, the seed of the woman, he
shall bruise thy heel. This is the protevangelium, the
first promise of the Gospel and a Redeemer. The word bruise here
means to rub off, to grind down and to crush. 1 John 3a, For
this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy
the works of the devil. The word destroy there is luce.
Luo means to loose. He is going to dismantle. the kingdom and the works of
the devil. He began that in his earthly
ministry. It began in the wilderness temptation
that, God willing, in a future lecture we will look at very
thoroughly. He began to dismantle the works
of the devil. Romans 16, 20, And the God of
peace shall bruise, or break in pieces, crush Satan under
your feet shortly. We have just a few minutes left.
I would like to deal with something that is even more controversial. In question 13, we have some
moments left, do we? What is the woman's desire toward
her husband? This is a strange thing, because
to read the old commentators, we find that women are extremely
sexual, and they're overpowered by the sexual urge toward their
husband. Be interesting to have them preach
in our modern churches, would it not? What is the woman's desire? Several things that we want to
know. First, the woman's lot is to have pain in childbearing,
unlike brute creation, which has relative ease in giving birth,
even multiple births in the animal kingdom. relatively easy. Not altogether so because of
the curse, but relatively easy in contrast to human beings.
Now historically, because men held in centuries past the medical
profession without allowing any women into the medical profession,
in a male-dominated medical profession, They forbid any use of medications
for women in childbirth because they said it was their lot, according
to the Word of God, for women to suffer. The early use of chloroform in
the 19th century was forbidden to women to ease childbirth,
and some of them died in childbirth because it was the woman's lot
to suffer. Queen Victoria was the first
woman to have chloroform to ease her through childbirth. And it
finally became accepted. Do you see how the Bible can
be used in a wrong way? How it can be used? As it was
with Galileo who said the world was round. It was spherical. And the church of Rome said it's
flat. Religion sometimes has proven
itself to be horribly destructive. of divine truth. The woman's
desire is to dominate the marriage relationship, and her husband
now is commanded to rule over her. Look at verse 16. Unto the woman he said, I will
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou
shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband,
and he shall rule over thee." What was once the natural order
before the fall was now commanded because of sin and alienation. The words, and thy desire shall
be to thy husband, are literally, and unto thy husband emphatically,
shall be thy desire. There is only one other construction
like this in the entirety of the Old Testament in the Hebrew,
and that is Genesis chapter 4 and verse 7, and the words of the
Lord to Cain concerning offering a proper sacrifice. But unto
Cain and to his offering he had not respect, and Cain was very
wroth, and his countenance fell. Cain offered fruits and vegetables. He offered up the fruit of the
ground. His attitude was, this is what I'm going to give you,
God. Take it and be happy with it. It's not that he didn't offer
the blood. It's that he had a rebellious,
wicked heart, and he was a child of the devil. The Bible makes
this very clear. That is why he didn't offer the
proper sacrifice. And the Lord said unto Cain,
Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou
doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? This is God's grace. And if thou doest not well, sin
lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire. Same construction. And thou shalt rule over him.
Sin was waiting to overcome Cain. He was to master this sin and
master this impulse. And this he refused to do because
he was a child of the devil. And so he murdered his brother
because his own works were wicked, his brother's works were righteous,
and the first human blood ever shed was shed in religious persecution.
For this is the message ye have heard from the beginning, that
we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of that wicked
one, and slew his brother, and wherefore slew he him, because
his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." The
words of Genesis 3.16 and Genesis 4.7 are parallel. And in the
Greek we have The word, thy desire shall be
to thy husband. It's rather paraphrased that
you'll tie his hands behind his back. The woman's desire as a
fallen, sinful human being in the fallen order is to dominate
the marriage relationship and God commands the man to rule
in that relationship. This is the Word of God. I do
not have time to read the headship of the man, 1 Corinthians chapter
11, the headship of the man and the submission of the woman,
Ephesians chapter 5, and 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 1 through 7. I will make two remarks on this.
Likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if
any obey not the word, they also may without a word No definite
article in the Greek. Be won by the behavior of the
wife. This means that a Christian wife
is to be in submission to even her unsaved husband. There's
no way to get around this. This is a simple declaration
of the Word of God. Then he speaks very much about
the behavior of the woman, and it ends in verse 7. Likewise
ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving
honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel. and as being heirs
together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered."
Haven't you heard messages of giving honor unto the wife as
under the weaker vessel? She's like a fragile vase. It's not here. This is a chiastic
expression in the Greek. Husbands are to dwell with wives
according to knowledge as to the weaker vessel and to honor
them as being heirs together of the grace of life. Women in
the marriage relationship among Christians are not to be second-rate,
but equals before God. And with that, we must close. Father, we pray that we, with
a Berean spirit, might search the Word daily, whether these
things be so. Might we be faithful to Your
Word? Might we seek Your glory in all things? And might we bow
in obedience to Your truth? We ask this through Jesus Christ
our Lord, Oh, man.