Now we've come up to the end
of Genesis chapter three and we've seen all of this coming
together in God's purpose, God's plan to save his people from
their sins by the appointed substitute, the seed of woman, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I think about this quite
a bit as we go through passages like this, that everything that's
happening here, was foreordained by a holy and just and wise God
to bring about salvation to the praise of the glory of His grace.
When we talk about salvation, we have to talk about eternity
because this is a salvation that God has given to His people through
Jesus Christ from the beginning. Nothing here took God by surprise.
Satan did not sneak up on God and take him by surprise. Nothing
here is plan B or God's backup plan. This is the way God ordained
it from the beginning and it's all working out. So we see that
Adam fell. He disobeyed God and brought
himself and the whole human race into a state of sin and death. And God has shown Adam and Eve,
you know, when they fell, when Adam fell, they realized their
nakedness and they became ashamed. They tried to cover it over with
those fig leaf aprons. And I think every gospel commentator
I've read agrees that that's a, whether you can say that it
was intended to be this, but I believe it was. That's a picture
of man trying to cover his sin, trying to get away from his sin
by just covering it over with his works. And it does not work. And God says that. He tells Adam
that. He removes those fig leaf aprons
and shows the only way of life. First, in Genesis 3.15, look
back there, when he's pronouncing the curse upon Satan, he reveals
a special person. He says, I'll put enmity between
thee and the woman. Now how? And between thy seed
and her seed, the woman's seed. Now that's something special
because the woman doesn't have the seed. The man has the seed,
but whoever he's talking about here, it's the woman's seed,
because he's not gonna be born by the aid of man. And he says,
this woman's seed shall bruise thy head. That's dealing a death
blow to Satan. And he says, thou shalt bruise
his heel. And that's indicating, we see
later on, that he will die, but he won't stay dead. He'll rise
again. The death blow to Satan will
be his end. Satan bruising his heel, as it
were, crushing him. That's going to be the beginning
for God's people. It's going to be the beginning
for the kingdom of God in the person and work of Christ. And
that's who he's talking about. Salvation. God showed Adam and
Eve that salvation cannot come by the works of man. It cannot
be realized by covering over with religious efforts or morality
or anything we do or don't do. It's going to come by this person
who is both God and man without sin. This is the first prophecy
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal son of God. The Bible
says he was made of a woman, made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law. And so again, this is all God's
purpose before the foundation of the world. This person, Christ, who is the second person of the
Trinity, covenanted with the Father to save a people of the
Father's choice, the elect of God. God chose them in Christ
and gave us to Christ, putting all the responsibility of our
eternal salvation and glory upon Christ. And that's how it is.
Now look over at verse 20. It says, and Adam called his
wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Now
up to this point, she was not called Eve. She was just called
woman. But now she's called Eve because
the name Eve means life or living. And she's described here as the
mother of all living. And I always found that interesting
because, now we could say she's the mother of all living physically
because all human beings descended from her and Adam, from Adam
and Eve. But I think that the thrust of
it here is to show that in a way, there's one sense in which Eve
is the mother of all who are living spiritually in this sense
only. It's through her that Christ
would come and Christ is our life. And without God's working
to send Christ into the world as the seed of woman, Eve wouldn't
be the mother of all living, she'd actually be the mother
of all dead. Because we're all dead in trespasses and sins and
without Christ, that's the way we would stay and we would perish.
So she is the mother of all living, that's the first time that she's
called Eve. And then look at verse 21. It
says, unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats
of skin and clothed them. Now that verse there is an illustration
of what God had told Adam before. He said, you remember he said,
in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die. Sin demands
death. Death is, listen. The law of
God, the justice of God must be satisfied. This is what he's
showing Adam and Eve here. Fig leaf aprons won't do it. The works of man won't do it.
Covering it over won't do it. What's going to do it? It takes
the blood of the Lamb. Without the shedding of blood,
No remission, no pardon, no forgiveness. Why? Is that because God is bloodthirsty? No, it's because He's a just
God. He's a righteous God. He's a
wise God. And when He saves sinners in
mercy and love and grace, He must also be just and righteous
and true to Himself. He's a holy God. And so He told
Adam, in the day that you eat thereof, you shall die. Blood
has to be shed because justice has to be satisfied. And you
know, that's the whole idea behind the word propitiation. You know,
when the Bible, I think in the New Testament four times, uses
that term that Christ is our propitiation, our propitiatory
sacrifice. And in the Old Testament, that
thought comes through in the use of the mercy seed in the
tabernacle, where the blood was sprinkled. And that's what it
is. It's a sin-bearing sacrifice
that brings satisfaction to the justice of God. God reveals himself
as a just God here. And notice, he didn't say, now
Adam, you go out and kill an animal. No, he killed the animal. This is showing that this is
God's work. This is not man's work. Now, I know men killed
animals as pictures and types, but I think the first Example of that here in Genesis
321 is showing and making this point that salvation is of the
Lord. Salvation is of the Lord, in
the Lord Jesus Christ, conditioned on him and not conditioned on
us. And so he slew an animal and he shed, made coats of skin. Now, so death equals what? Sin demands death. Death equals
satisfaction here by a suitable substitute, which I believe here
is a lamb, but Christ is the lamb of God. And righteousness
is established and righteousness demands life. Now look over at
Hebrews chapter two with me. And this is sort of a, you might
say an explanation of this whole thing in verse 14. Hebrews chapter two and verse
14. I'm gonna spill this water one day. But
when I do, it'll just keep going on. But look at verse 14. It says, for as much then as
the children are partakers of flesh and blood, that's God's
children, that's God's elect, chosen before the foundation
of the world, he also, this is talking about Christ, He also
himself likewise took part of the same. That is, he had to
take part in flesh and blood without sin. And there's the
seed of woman right there. God manifest in the flesh. And the reason he had to partake
of flesh and blood is that through death, that he might die, he
might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil.
Now, only God has the power to give life and to take life. The
Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. The devil doesn't have
the power to do that. But what power does the devil
have? I believe it's the power of accusation. And what he's saying here is
that if the devil, he's the accuser of the brethren. And if the devil
accuses the brethren, What's the result? Well, his arrows
of accusation do not stick. Why? Well, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justify, who can
condemn us? It's Christ that died. And so
I believe it says, we'll look at verse, him that had the power
of death, that is the devil, the accuser of the brethren.
Verse 15, and deliver them who through fear of death were all
their lifetime subject to bondage. bondage to sin and death. For
verily, he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took
on him the seed of Abraham. And wherefore, or for this reason,
in all things, it behooved him." Now, what does that mean, behooved?
Well, that's the Greek word for debt. He was indebted. He was obligated to be made like
unto his brethren. Now, why was he obligated? Is
it because we demanded it? No. It's because God the Son
and God the Father made a covenant before the foundation of the
world wherein he agreed to be the savior of his people. And
he said, it's kind of like, Randy I think preached a message a
while back on Philemon. You remember the story of Philemon?
Where the runaway slave Onesimus stole from Philemon and ran away
and by the providence of God he ended up in Rome and there
with Paul and Paul preached the gospel to Onesimus and God brought
him to faith in Christ and then Paul sent Onesimus back to Philemon
with a letter and one of the points in that letter is when
Paul says if he had done you wrong if this man had done you
wrong he said Put it on my account, I'll repay it. And that's a great
picture of what Christ did in the covenant of grace in agreement
with his father for his people. If we have done wrong, well we
have. Put it on my account. And that's why it behooved him.
to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people, for in that he himself hath suffered
being tempted, he is able to succor or comfort them that are
tempted." That's what this is all about. The death of Christ,
the righteousness of Christ, the coats of skin back here Genesis
321, that's a picture of imputed righteousness. That's exactly
what it is. The emblem of a cloak or a coat
or a covering metaphorically describes God legally accounting,
charging the merits of the righteousness of Christ to all of his people. And that's a blessing. Paul wrote
about it in Romans 4, 6, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth,
chargeth, accounteth righteousness without works. And that's the
righteousness of God that's revealed in the gospel. That's what this
verse 21 is about. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. That's not a work we do. It's
nothing we contribute to. And it's not the work of the
Spirit in us. As I'm gonna talk about that
in the main message on you must be born again. The work of the
Spirit within us is necessary or we cannot be saved, we cannot
enter heaven without the work of the Spirit in the new birth.
But that's not our righteousness before God. Our righteousness
before God is totally what Christ did on that cross without us
outside of us as our substitute, our surety, our redeemer. And
the merits of what he accomplished in his finished work on that
cross is charged to the account of every one of God's elect.
Our sins were charged to Him, that's why He died. His righteousness
charged to us. And that's what the coats of
skin that God clothed Adam and Eve with, that's what it means.
Another thing, a good point to make here is this. When we talk
about the blood, that's the same as talking about righteousness.
Because His blood is the satisfaction to the justice of God that equals
righteousness. Now from that righteousness comes
life, the new birth. And I'll be talking about that
later on, but let's go back to Genesis three. Look at verse
22. He says, and the Lord God said, behold, the man is become
as one of us. Now notice first here, God is
still referring to himself in the plural. And I believe it's
talking about the Trinity, God, the Father, God, the Son, God,
the Holy Spirit, As the Trinity, as each person of the Godhead
was involved in the creation of the world, we see that each
person of the Godhead is also involved in the salvation of
sinners. The father representing the sovereignty of the Godhead
chose a people, the son who accepted those people and agreed to be
our surety, our substitute, our redeemer, and the revelator of
the Godhead in all of his glory, and the Holy Spirit is the great
applier, you might say, of all that Christ accomplished. He
imparts life to dead sinners. And so he says, behold, the man
has become as one of us. Now, what does that mean, the
man has become as one of us? Well, the next phrase tells us,
I believe, exactly what he means, to know good and evil. What's happened here? Well, you
remember, Adam and Eve, they were forbidden to eat of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And I believe what
that represents is God's standard and God's sovereign right to
determine and declare and hold his creation accountable to what
is good and what is evil. God is the determiner of good
and evil. Good and evil must be measured
as it pertains to God. But man, by nature, because of
our fallen Adam, and this is what Adam did, he exalted himself
to say, I can determine what's good and what's evil for myself.
Man declaring his autonomy, his self-governance, His independence
from God. I'm not going to go by God's
standard, I'm going to go by my own. Well, isn't that what
man does? That's what all fallen, sinful, unbelieving people do
in false religion. You remember the rich young man
that came to Christ? He said, good master. He didn't
believe Christ to be God-man. He said, good master, what good
thing must I do to inherit eternal life? And Christ, remember what
he said to him? Why callest thou me good? There's
one good and that's God. In other words, this man, Christ
was pointing out that this man was going by a wrong standard
of goodness. And that's what all false religion
does. Man does what's right in his own eyes. And think about
our day. You know, basically it's pretty
much If it feels good and does no harm to others, then it must
be right. Well, we know that's not true.
And so when he says man has become as one of us to know good and
evil, he's saying man has lifted himself up to try to determine
for himself what's good and what's evil. Well, if we go by God's
standard of goodness, how are we to view things? Well, how
do we compare? There's none righteous, no not
one. There's none good, no not one. Where do we find goodness? Where
do we find righteousness in Christ? What does God require to save
a sinner? He requires the perfection of
righteousness that can only be found in this person, the woman
seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, based upon his finished work.
And so if whatever is the ground of your salvation, whatever standard
you go by, if it's less than the perfection of righteousness
that can only be found in Christ, it's a false claim. Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And
so man has lifted himself up And, you know, just one other
side note here. Somebody, I heard somebody, I
can't remember who it was, they said, it was a long time ago.
They said that, he said that Adam and Eve, before the fall,
did not have a conscience. But after the fall, that's what
they gained, a conscience. I don't agree with that. I believe
Adam and Eve were created with a conscience. When God made that
covenant, if you will, in Genesis 2, when he said, Adam, you all
can eat of all the trees of the garden except the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. Adam knew what he was doing was
wrong when he ate of that tree. And how could he know it was
wrong if he didn't have a conscience? What is the conscience? It's
the seat of judgment. Our moral compass, as they say.
But what happened to Adam's conscience? Well, when he had the first thought
of disobeying God, and actually did it, his conscience became
defiled. And what does it take to cleanse
the defiled, legal, guilty conscience? Hebrews 10 tells us, the blood
of Jesus Christ. That's right. Remember he told
them in Hebrews 9 and Hebrews 10 that the blood of bulls and
goats could never take away sin, it could never make the worshipper
perfect as pertaining to the conscience. But there's one who
can and that's Jesus Christ. The woman's seed, the blood of
Christ. Look back at verse 22. He says,
the Lord God said, behold, the man has become as one of us to
no good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his
hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Now, God sent him out, verse
23. Therefore, the Lord God sent
him forth from the garden of Eden. It wasn't that God was
afraid, well if I leave him in the garden he might sneak up
on me and take a piece of fruit off that tree of life. No. What's happening here is God
is excluding every way of life but the way that he prescribed
through his son based upon his blood And he's keeping it. He says in verse 23, therefore
the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the
ground from which he was taken. And that's part of the curse
of man. He's going to work the ground, earn his living by the
sweat of his brow. And you know that's a work that's
never finished. Man, you know, you got to do it day in and day
out. And when he dies, it's not finished because the next generation
has to pick up where he left off. It's never finished. And that's a good point because
if man trying to work his way into God's favor, to salvation,
that's never a finished work. It's always inadequate. That's
why I love those passages talking about the finished work of Christ.
It is finished. Christ did it all. He accomplished
everything that God requires for the salvation of his people.
Christ did it. And that's such a blessing, isn't
it? The gospel is a gospel not of
you, he did his part, now you do yours. He didn't leave his
part unfinished. The gospel is a message of a
finished work. All the wisdom, all the righteousness,
all the sanctification, and all the redemption that God requires,
I find complete and finished in Christ. Looking unto Jesus,
the author and the finisher of our faith. Well, it says in verse
24, so he drove out the man and he
placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, those are
angelic beings, and a flaming sword which turned every way
to keep, to guard the way of the tree of life. God guards the way of the tree
of life. He guards the way of salvation
because that's his glory. Nobody can sneak in another way. And this passage here has brought
a lot of questions, you know, talking about a place where there's
flaming sword going all the way around and cherubims and all
of that. And some people say, well, where
is that place now? I've heard preachers say, well,
it must have been destroyed during the flood. But the problem that
I have with that is this is talking about God's word, God's justice,
God's way of salvation, and that cannot be destroyed. Well, I
did a little research on it, and you know, I rely heavily
on a man named John Gill. He was an old Baptist writer,
commentator. He must have had a lot of patience
to sit and write a commentary on the whole Bible with a quill
pen and probably candlelight, I don't know. But here's what he had to say
about it, and I've got this in your lesson. First of all, what
he's saying here, that the lesson is this, now you may not agree
with what Gil said, you may have another idea. But here's something
we all agree on. And that's this, that the only
way of the tree of life, and the tree of life, that's a symbol
of everlasting life. It's really Christ himself. He
is the tree of life. He is our life. The main lesson
is this. Nobody has access to the tree
of life who does not come God's way. We can all agree on that. The gospel way. The way of God's
grace that reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. Any sinner who comes any other
way is barred from the tree of life. And we're gonna see an
illustration of that next week in Cain and Abel. Cain came his
way, the way of works. Abel brought the blood. That's
the way. And so man can only gain access
to the tree of life God's way. Gil said the flaming sword represents
God's word and God's justice. I like that. The way of the tree
of life is a way of law and justice satisfied, the sacrifice of the
woman seed, Christ. And Gil wrote that the words
here are not to be understood of placing the cherubim, but
of Jehovah placing himself in his Shekinah glory at the east
of the Garden of Eden. And the way Gil describes it
here, it's almost like God in Exodus 25 when they were making
the furniture for the tabernacle and he came to the mercy seat,
the cherubims on the mercy seat, and God said, that's where I'll
meet with you. Above the ark, between the cherubims, on the
basis of the blood. And Gil says this is the same
thing right here, the idea. He says, for example, here's
an alternate translation of it. He says, so he, the Lord God,
drove out the man, and he dwelt at the east of the Garden of
Eden between the cherubims as a shekinah, a flaming sword,
to keep open the way to the tree of life. And then another possible
translation, he, the Lord God, made the glory of his Shekinah.
You know what that word Shekinah means. It means the presence
of God. And what the Shekinah is, it's
a word the Jews used to use to indicate that here is the greatest
manifestation of God's glory. This is the greatest. For example,
you can see the glory of God in creation. Psalm 19 gives us
that. But if you want to see the greatest
manifestation, the greatest revelation of all that God is in every attribute
of His nature, where are you going to look? You're going to
look in the face of Jesus Christ, the glory of God. In Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead. You see that? And that's what
Gil says this is, it's his Shekinah glory, his majesty to dwell of
old at the east of the Garden of Eden, over and above the two
cherubim. And so, God has placed his glory,
his glorious presence, outside the garden, between the cherubim,
and it was there that God kept the way, guarded the way of the
Tree of Life. Now, is this where Adam and Eve,
Cain and Abel, were to bring their sacrifice? Possibly, I
believe it was. And as God, we know that Cain,
when he brought his, he brought an offering that represents the
works of his hands and he was rejected. Abel brought the blood. But that word place, look back
at that verse and I'll conclude with this. It says, verse 24,
so he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the garden. This is the only time in the
Old Testament that that Hebrew word is translated place. 83 times is translated elsewhere,
meaning to dwell or to tabernacle. And that's what the tabernacle
of the Old Covenant was about. It was the dwelling place of
God. That's where he gave his greatest manifestation of himself.
And God is always portrayed as one who dwells upon the mercy
seat between the cherubims. And so, what do we see there? Well, we see that, again, the
only way, the way of life, the tree of life, comes God's way
to the praise of the glory of His grace through and by the
Lord Jesus Christ. I agree with Gil on that. You
may not agree with him, but we do agree on what the main meaning
is, I'm sure. That it is the glory, the shekinah
glory of God in and by His grace through the person and work of
Christ. Okay, we'll conclude there.