Amen. Well, we're going to talk about
man and the fall, mainly from Genesis 3. And as I said, we're
talking about Christ in the Old Testament. And it may seem strange
that I'm going to start out in the New Testament. But this is
so directly related to what we're going to look at in Genesis 3,
the fall of man, man who was created by God. put into the
Garden of Eden, Adam. A woman that was created out
of man to be a helpmate for man in the Garden of Eden. And then
what transpired in the fall of man. Years ago an old preacher
told me, he was talking about people today and what we think
about man. I'm gonna be preaching on that
in the next hour. On what is in man. What is in
man. And most people go wrong on that.
Most do. Most do call themselves Christian.
And this old preacher told me, he said, wrong on the fall, wrong
on it all. And that's basically the truth.
Wrong on the fall, wrong on it all. And so we want to go to
the Word of God and see what the Word of God tells us about
man and the fall. How far did man fall when man
fell? Did he just fall partially or
whatever? Well, we'll look at that. But
let's look at Romans 5. You know, if you follow the Apostle
Paul's reasoning as the Holy Spirit guided him in the book
of Romans, beginning back in Romans 3.21 and all the way up to Romans
5.21, through that section, God reveals in glorious detail His
way of saving sinners, His way of justifying sinners based upon
the one ground of salvation, which is the righteousness of
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is by grace. And if
you look at Romans 5.21, it says that as sin hath reigned unto
death, That's what transpired in our fall in Adam. Even so
might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. That's like a summation of everything
that he'd said up to this point about how sinners are justified
before God. How we are forgiven of our sins. How we are declared righteous
by God who knows everything about us. but declares us righteous
based upon the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, which
we by God-given faith receive and believe when we receive Christ.
But as God reveals this, he's revealed how everything about
the blessings of salvation are fully realized, fully gained,
and fully given to His people, not based upon our goodness,
because we have none, not based upon our works, because our works
aren't good enough, not based upon anything but the righteousness,
the blood, the work of His Son. It's all in Jesus Christ. And
if you'll look over at Romans chapter five and verse 12, Now,
what is the problem that we have? You know, every problem we have
can be summarized in that one three-letter word, S-I-N, sin. How did we get into this mess
so that we need the sovereign grace of God, the mercy of God,
to get us out of this mess? Well, Romans 5.12, listen to
this. He says, As by one man, now who's the one man there?
That's Adam, the first man. The representative man. Sin entered
into the world. Sin entered into the world through
Adam. And death by sin, the wages of
sin is death. And so death passed upon all
men for that all have sinned. And if you would read that in
a literal translation from the original language, It would simply
read this, for that all sinned. All sinned. When did all sin? Well, when I took my first breath
or when I was able to reason. No, we sinned when Adam sinned.
Because Adam was the representative, as the old writers say, the federal
head of the whole human race. What happens here in Romans chapter
five, the Apostle Paul was led by the Holy Spirit to give a
contrast between what we find in our union with Adam in the
fall, contrasted with what we have in our union with Christ
in salvation. And if you'll look at it, he
talks about it this way. He says in verse 13, for until
the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where
there is no law. Now what he's saying there is
that there was a law before Sinai. Before Mount Sinai, there was
law. The law didn't begin at Mount Sinai. The old covenant
that God made with Israel began at Mount Sinai. And it was codified
in that law, the Ten Commandments with other laws that God gave
him. But there was a law before then.
And he says in verse 14, nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses.
That proves there was a law before Sinai because death is the consequence
of breaking the law. And he says, even over them that
had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who
is the figure of him that was to come. Now I'm not going to
get into that verse right now. I've taught on that earlier.
But what he's saying is that there was death. between Adam
and Moses, proving there was a law, but verse 15 says, but
not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through
the offense of one, many be dead, all right, the many there, all
whom Adam represented, much more the grace of God and the gift
by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto
many. And not as it was by one that
sins, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to
condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses under justification
of love." What did Adam do? We're going to see. He disobeyed
God. He ate of the fruit of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, and he brought in sin and
death through that offense. That was the, you know, somebody
might look at it and say, well, now that was just one thing that
Adam did. But you know, in disobeying God, in breaking God's law, even
if you look at it like, for example, through the Ten Commandments,
James wrote, if you break one, you break them all. That's how
sin is. It's not, you know, sin is not
just, well, we've got these sins that are deadly, and then there's
some light sins. Sin is sin and all sin deserves
death. That's the judgment of God. Sin
is against God. So to break one is to break them
all. But what Christ did for his people in salvation covers
many, many, many, many offenses. All the sins of all of his people
were laid upon him. All the sins of all of his people
were made to meet on him. Our debt, your debt, my debt,
all of his people, all of God's elect was imputed, charged, accounted
to him. And he took care of them all
by his one sacrifice, the scripture says. For by one offering, he
hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. So he says in
verse 17, for if by one man's offense, death reigned by one,
much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the
gift of righteousness. Isn't that interesting? If we
have a righteousness, it's a gift. We didn't earn it, we didn't
deserve it. And he says, and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the
offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation.
By the offense of Adam, we all fell into sin and death to a
point that all we deserve is condemnation. That's all we deserve. And then he says, even so by
the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men,
that's all whom Christ represented, unto justification of life. How is a sinner justified? How
are we saved from sin? The fall of our fallen Adam,
our own personal sins, which mount up. How is it possible? One man, Jesus Christ, and verse
19 says, for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,
brought into this state of death and sin, sin that deserves death,
so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Now with
that in mind, let's go back to Genesis chapter one to start
with. Genesis chapter one. I love to
go back to Genesis. The book of beginnings. And in
Genesis chapter one, we learn that God made man. Look at verse
26. Genesis chapter one. He says, and God said, let us
make man in our image. Remember I told you when we talked
about the creation, how the word for God there is plural. And
of course, what he's speaking of is the Trinity. One God in
three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit. All three persons of the Godhead were involved in
creation in some way, and we talked about that. Well, here
we see all three persons involved in the creation of man. Let us
make man in our image after our likeness. And he says, and let
them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created
man in his own image. In the image of God created he
him. Male and female created he them.
Verse 28. God said, God blessed them, God
said to them, be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth and subdue
it. You see, not only did God create
man in his own image, he gave him dominion over the earth.
And he says dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl
of the air, over every living thing. that moveth upon the earth,
and God said, behold, I've given you every herb bearing seed,
which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in
the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall
be for meat, that's what you'll eat, and to every beast of the
earth, every fowl of the air, to everything that creepeth upon
the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb
for meat, and it was so. And God saw that everything that
he made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the
morning were the sixth day." So what we have here is a mandate
from God to the man he created to rule over the earth. And that's
the kind of position that Adam had. And you know, when it talks
about God being made in God's image, That can mean a lot of
things, but you know, we talk about, you may have heard this
in your reading, there are attributes of God that he can transfer or
communicate to creatures, and then there are attributes that
he cannot communicate to creatures. For example, let's talk about
God's attribute of immutability, for example. God cannot make
a being that is immutable, because creation by nature is change. So Adam's not, he's not immutable,
we're not immutable. God is. And the other way that
we, for example, in salvation, how is it that we are unchangeably
saved unto eternity? It's by the grace of God, the
power of God, who saves us and keeps us through Christ, who's
the same yesterday, today, and forever. But there are attributes
of God that he can communicate. The power of reasoning, goodness,
love, and things like that. And one of the things that I
believe, if you look over at Ecclesiastes, if you can find
Ecclesiastes real quick. There's a verse in chapter three
of Ecclesiastes that's always intrigued me. When we talk about
man over the animals, you know, I tell our young people all the
time, I say, you know, you're going to go to school and you're
going to learn in biology and different science courses, they're
going to talk about how man is an animal. Man is not an animal. Man is above the animals. Now,
sometimes men act like animals and sometimes they're even dumber
than animals. I always think about Isaiah chapter
one, when Isaiah told Israel, told Jerusalem, he said, even
the ass knows his master's crib. You don't even know that. Man
doesn't even know his dependency upon God. He's declared his autonomy. He's declared his independent.
So actually what I see Isaiah saying there is that by nature
we're dumber than an ass in that sense. But man is above, he has
the reasoning power, the mind, a spirit. He was created a spiritual
being, physical and spirit. He had a heart, the mind, the
affections, the will, all of those things. And over here in
Ecclesiastes 3, if you look at verse 10, This is one of the
things that I think that he's talking about created in the
image of God and what sets man above the animals. He says, I
have seen the travail. Now you know what a travail is.
That's like a birth pain, a sorrow. He said, a travail which God
hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath
made everything beautiful in his time That's how God created
it. Also, he hath set the world in
their heart. Now what does that mean? The
world there, it's talking about eternity. Man, even as a fallen
man, even as natural men and women, we have a sense that there's
something after this life. We don't want to die, and so
we contemplate these things. We talk about them. We philosophize
over them. And of course, we know the natural
man is always going to come to the wrong conclusion. Listen
to the rest of verse 11. So that no man can find out the
work that God maketh from beginning to the end. The natural man,
he can think about it, he can expostulate about it, he can
philosophize, he can get religious, but he's never gonna find out
on his own, naturally, how sinners can be saved from sin and live
forever in the blessedness of, that has to be revealed from
heaven. That has to be a revelation from God. But God, when he created
man, he gave man that sense of eternity, that sense that we
want to live forever. The animals don't have that.
I don't care how, you know, they talk about teaching monkeys how
to talk and all of that. They don't have that. You don't
see dogs and cats sitting around worrying about what's going to
happen to them after they die. You don't see dogs and cats and
monkeys talking about is there a God or is there not? They don't
have that kind of reason. That's given to man. And Adam
had that. Now with that in mind, go to
Genesis 3. Genesis 3. Well, let me give
you this too. When God created man and gave
him dominion over the earth, I believe that's the language
of a covenant. This is God, he's the head of
all things, he's the creator, and here's man, and he says,
now Adam, this is what I give you, this is what you're to do.
And then look across, we're in Genesis three, but look right
across the page to Genesis two and verse 15. Now listen to this,
he says, and the Lord God took the man, put him into the Garden
of Eden to dress it and to keep it, And the Lord commanded the
man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou
shalt surely die. And y'all have heard that literally
that means dying, thou shalt die. That's the words of a covenant. These two trees, now I believe
they were literal trees. in the Garden of Eden, but they
had symbolic significance. The Tree of Life, what does that
represent? Eternal life. What does that
represent for us? That's a picture of Christ. Who
is our Tree of Life? Where do we get life from, life
everlasting? Eternal in Christ. He that hath
the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son hath
not life. So he's already established,
as we read in Romans chapter five, sin deserves and will end
up in death. That's what sin deserves. The
wages of sin is death. In the day that you eat thereof,
in the day that you break this covenant, break this law, you
shall surely die. The wages of sin. Righteousness
demands life. For by grace are you saved. And
grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. So in order for us to be saved,
this question of sin has to be taken care of. Sin has to be
removed some way. Righteousness has to be established.
Christ accomplished both. And that's why we can have life.
That's why we have life. Now, the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, what does that represent? Well, here's what
I think it represents. It represents God's sovereign
right to determine the rule of what's right and what's wrong.
You see, what's the problem with man in sin? We want to determine
for ourselves what's right and wrong. Remember the last verses
in the book of Judges, how he summarized man's problem? Everyone did that which was right
in their own eyes. And that's what happened when
Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he's declaring
his autonomy from God, his independence from God. He's saying, I have
the right to choose for myself what's right and wrong. And what
do we have today in society? If it feels good, it must be
right. That's man's way. But God is
the one who determines what's right and what's wrong. And what
has God determined that what is right concerning salvation? Well, we have to measure everything
by God's standard, which is Christ. God's gonna judge the world in
righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained and that he
hath given assurance unto all men and that he hath raised him
from the dead, Acts 17 31. And that's why I say to people,
whatever is your ground of salvation or my ground of salvation, if
it does not equal the perfection of righteousness that can only
be found in Christ, it's no good. No good. It will not stand in
the judgment. And whatever gives me assurance,
if it does not equal the perfection of righteousness that can only
be found in Christ, It's a pipe dream. And so this tree of the
knowledge of good and evil is God's sovereign right, saying,
Adam, I'm the creator. You're the creature. You go by
what I say. I make the rules. I tell you
what's right and what's wrong. Isn't that the way it is in your
household when you're raising your children? They don't make
the rules, do they? Well, if they do, you got a turmoil
in the house. Well, what happened? Over in
Genesis 3, here's the serpent. Verse 1, the serpent was more
subtle than any beast in the field which the Lord God had
made. And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said. Now here's
Satan appearing to Eve in the form of a serpent. And the first
words out of his mouth, what did he do? He questioned God's
word. He brought up a question. Hath
God said, did God say, you shall not eat of every tree of the
garden? The woman said unto the serpent, verse two, we may eat
of the trees of the garden, of the fruit of the trees, but of
the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
hath said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch
it, lest you die. Now a lot of people make a lot
about Eve saying not to touch it. Well, she went further than that,
but that's the way she understood it. Verse four says, the serpent
said unto the woman, you shall not surely die. Now, what did
he do? What is Satan's method of operation? Deny the word of God. What is the method of Satan's
false prophets? Deny the word of God. Over in John chapter 8, when
Christ was talking to the Pharisees, listen to what he says of them.
Now you know the Pharisees were religious now. Outwardly, Christ
said, they appear righteous unto men. That's how they appeared.
He said, but inwardly, full of dead men's bones. They were religious. They were looked up to. They
were models of society. And here's what Christ said in
verse 44 of John 8. You're of your father the devil.
And the lust, the unlawful desires of your father you will do. What
were they doing? They were trying to get right
with God by their works. They were trying, as Paul wrote
in Romans 9, to be righteous by their works of the law. That's
an unlawful desire. Why? Because God says this is
the only way of salvation, Christ, by his grace, not by your works. So any sinner who's trying to
work their way into God's favor, into God's blessings, into salvation,
is fulfilling an unlawful desire inspired by Satan. He says this,
he was a murderer from the beginning. Now that's what we're reading
about in Genesis 3. And how did he murder? Did he take out a
knife and stab Eve? Did he take out a machine gun
and shoot her? No. Look at, he abode not in
the truth. Because there's no truth in him.
And when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own. What that
means is that he's speaking what's natural to him. That's what Satan's
doing. He's a liar. For he is a liar
and the father of it. So he lied. You shall not surely
die. You know that's basically the
title of every false preacher's message? When they look at people,
and say, if you'll do this, or you'll do that, or if you'll
decide this, or you'll decide that, you'll be saved. They're
actually saying, you shall not surely die. You see, salvation is not based
on your decision. Salvation is based upon the blood
of Christ. It says in verse 5, for God doth
know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall
be opened and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
You'll be able to determine for yourself what's right and what's
wrong. And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food and it was pleasant for the eyes and
the tree to be desired to make one wise, She took the fruit
thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her,
and he did eat. Now, the Bible tells us that
Eve was deceived, but Adam knew full well what he was doing.
Knew what he was doing? He was taking sides with Satan and his
wife against God. That's what he was doing. And
that's what every false preacher does. when he tells sinners that
they can be saved in any other way but by the sovereign grace
of God based upon the blood of Christ. He's taking sides with
Satan against God. Well, over here in Genesis 3,
as you know, the eyes of them both were open, their consciences
were now defiled, and immediately the process When God said, in
the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Well, the
process of physical death began, but spiritual death came immediately. And what is spiritual death?
It's the absence of spiritual life. Adam now had no capacity
and no desire for communion with God. He actually became ignorant
of the reality of God. They hid themselves from God.
Well, you can't hide from God. We know that. And they were aware
of their nakedness. They became ashamed. And nakedness
in the Bible is a metaphor for lack of righteousness. and their
conscience became defiled, and what did they do? They sewed
fig leaves together to cover themselves. That's all they could
do. They could just cover over the reality of nakedness. They couldn't cure it. They couldn't
remedy the problem now, but they covered. That's what religion
does. That's what false religion does. It just covers the problem.
It just hides it from view for a while. but it cannot cure it. Like Christ told the Pharisees,
you appear righteous unto men, but inwardly you're like an open
grave, the stench of death. And so, realizing their nakedness,
they hid from God, they sewed fig leaves together, that's a
picture of man trying to work his way into favor with God.
And the Bible tells us, That in that state, there's none righteous,
no not one. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. There's none that seeketh after God. Now, from
here on, God pronounces three curses. First of all, he pronounces
the curse upon the serpent. And he says, look at verse 14
of Genesis 3. The Lord God said
unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed
above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy
belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of
thy life. And look at verse 15. This is
part of the curse upon the serpent. I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. And then he pronounces
a curse upon woman and the curse upon man. That verse 15, many
of the theologians say that's the first literal prophecy and
pronouncement of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the woman
seed. And what God is teaching here,
telling here, revealing here, that the only remedy Against
the fall of man the only remedy of the fall and sin and death
is the woman seed and that's Christ Why is he called the woman
seed? Because he is both God and man
in one person. He's not born of man He's born
of the woman the woman that that God the Holy Spirit entered her
and he He was conceived, Christ was conceived in His holy humanity
in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And He came forth from the womb
as a babe. Who is He? He's God manifest
in the flesh. And He would come and do a work,
a work of grace as the representative of His people as we read in Romans
5. And He would put away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself
And we learn in the Bible that all of this was according to
God's sovereign will and purpose before the world began. Before
there was a sinner, there was already a savior. God, before
there was a covenant of works made with man, There was a covenant
of redemption of grace made before the foundation of the world between
the father and the son and the spirit in which the father chose
a people to save and gave them to his son and made his son the
woman seed to be their surety, their substitute, their redeemer. And in the fullness of time sent
him into the world. to redeem them by his blood,
to pay the price for their sins and secure their salvation. Now
that's what the fall of man is all about. The only restoration
that we can have before a holy God is Jesus Christ crucified
and risen from the dead. It's by his blood, his righteousness
alone. And we'll pick up there next
week.