Today I would like you to turn
in your Bible to the book of Genesis. We'll be preaching this
morning from the book of Genesis. Let's read chapter 3, verses
14. Genesis chapter 3, verses 14
and 15. And 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. I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Now in Genesis 3,
God has given to us the first gospel message ever preached
upon the earth. Jehovah himself, God himself
is a preacher, and the whole human race, and Satan himself
is God's audience. It is most worthy of our attention
to look at Genesis chapter 3 and consider the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. In this chapter we see the three
R's of the gospel, the three R's, ruin, redemption, and regeneration. Someone has rightly said that
every message preached should contain these three truths, these
three R's. For how can a sinner seek salvation
in Christ Jesus if he does not understand something of his sin,
something of his depravity, something of his nature, something of his
ruined condition in Adam? All died. Where else is there
redemption from all sin revealed and found but in the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ? It's the blood of Jesus Christ
that makes atonement for our soul. He obtained eternal redemption
for us with His own blood. And how else is this salvation
experienced but being made by God the Holy Spirit, being made
new creatures in Christ, being quickened by the Spirit? The
Apostle Paul wrote this, if any man be in Christ, and that's
a work of God's grace, the work of the Holy Spirit. He is a new
creature, a new creation. Old things are passed away, and
behold, all things have become new. Now, God help us this morning,
and may God be our teacher this morning, to learn something of
the gospel of God's grace as it is revealed in the Scripture.
These three things, ruined in Adam, What happened in the garden? Ruined in Adam. Redemption in
Christ Jesus. What happened at the cross? And
regeneration. God making us new creatures.
God quickening us by the Holy Spirit. It's the Spirit that
quickeneth, the flesh profiteth. Nothing. Now let's go back and
look at these three. And we'll take our text from
Genesis chapter 3. What happened in the garden?
Have you ever really considered this question? What happened
in Adam? What happened? Well, in Adam
we see that Adam fell and in Adam all die. What we believe
about what happened as a result of Adam's fall will determine
what we believe about all of salvation. If we're wrong on
the fall, If we're wrong in the garden, we'll be wrong in all
our theology, all of our thinking. If we start out wrong, we'll
end up wrong. Now, let's look at Genesis 3
and look at the Scriptures of God and see what happened in
the garden. Now, the first thing we know
is this. Adam was created in a state of perfection. God made
the man. We read in Genesis 1, 27, so
God created man in His own image. In the image of God created He
Him. Male and female created He them. In verse 31 of chapter 1, we
read that God saw everything that He made, and behold, it
was very good. Very good. Adam was placed in
a garden under the rule of God. Adam was created upright in perfection. Everything God does is good and
right. God placed Adam under His rule, under His authority,
and told him not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil. This tree was a visible reminder
of God's authority over him. Remember in chapter 2, God said,
the day you eat, you may eat of every tree of the garden,
but one. And the day you eat of this tree,
you'll die. Now, the second thing we know,
Adam willfully, deliberately and knowingly disobeyed God and
partook of the tree. Eve ate of the fruit and gave
unto her husband, and he did eat." Now there were serious
consequences involved in Adam's rebellion and sin against God.
We see that judgment fell on Adam and his family immediately. Immediately upon the entrance
of sin, spiritual death was manifested by several things. By his shame,
he tried to hide himself from God. The second thing, he was
afraid of God. At one time he had communion
and fellowship with God, but now he runs and hides. And he
said, I heard thy voice in the garden. I was afraid because
I was naked and I hid myself. He was full of shame, full of
fear. These are the fruit of the fall
of Adam's guilt and judgment before God. Shame, fear, and
guilt. before God. Also we see in Genesis
3 that judgment fell on the man and all his family. God cursed
him and cursed the ground and said, in the sweat of thy face,
all the days of your life That's, you'll eat bread. Now, Adam didn't
die physically that day, did he? We know that. But he certainly
died. He died spiritually. God said,
in the day you eat, you'll die. He was separated from life and
communion and fellowship with God. That's what spiritual death
is. Separation from God. We read in Isaiah 59 verse 2
that our sin has separated us from God. Now listen to me carefully. What does all this mean? How
does all this have meaning to me? And what's the relationship
of Adam to us? Now listen carefully. By God's
own arrangement, Adam was a representative man. The theologians said he
was the federal head of his race. When Adam stood, we stood. When
he fell, we fell. All men sinned in Adam. We read
in Romans 5, for by one man's disobedience, many were made
sinners. All men everywhere were condemned
in Adam. We read again in Romans 5, "...by
the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation."
All men died spiritually in Adam that day, that time. Romans 5
again, "...for by one man sin entered into the world, and death
by sin, so death passed upon all men in whom all sinned."
Every member of the human family is born with a corrupt nature,
a sinful heart born in sin, shaped in iniquity, with a mind full
of evil thoughts continually." God says this so plainly throughout
the Scripture. In Genesis 6, verse 5, God saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of his thoughts, the thoughts of his heart, was
only evil continually. All men are absolutely helpless
to improve their standing before God. We have no ability, we have
no more ability to obey the gospel than we do to obey the law of
God. Unless God, by His sovereign
grace, intervenes and rescues us from this state of ruin and
total depravity and total ruin, we'll die just as we're born
without hope, without life, without God, without Christ in this world. What happened in Adam? Ruin.
Sin. Depravity. Separation from God. That's the state of all men everywhere. Now, the second thing. we see
in Genesis chapter 3, we see redemption. We see the gospel
of God's grace, redemption through the Lord Jesus Christ. And we
know that we're redeemed with the blood of Christ. We know
we are redeemed with the seed of the woman, and that's the
Lord Jesus Christ who brews the serpent's head. That's what happened
at Calvary. That's how redemption took place. in Christ with His blood. Now,
in all the Old Testament, there is hardly a place where the grace
of God is displayed more clearly than in this chapter. Sin had
barely done its awful work when God in grace appears on the scene. No sooner was Adam lost and hiding
from God than a Savior was seeking him out. God came walking in
the cool of the day, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. God
came and God said, Adam, where are you? You see the Savior seeking
the sinner. Now this clearly sets forth the
way God saves sinners. Adam wasn't seeking God. Adam
was running from God. Adam was hiding from God. It
was the Savior who sought him out. And this clearly sets forth
the pattern how God saves sinners. By His Word, the Word of God,
the Gospel, The Lord Jesus Christ does call out His sheep to Himself. He said, My sheep, hear My voice.
I know them, they follow Me. It is God seeking the sinner.
It is God calling the sinner. Paul wrote this, this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into this
world to save sinners. He came to seek and to save that
which is lost. He came to seek out His elect,
His church, His bride, His chosen. And my friend, He cannot fail.
Something else we know about this gospel of redemption and
His grace, grace doesn't ignore sin, but brings it to light and
deals with it and confronts the sinner with his sin, just as
God did with Adam that day. In verse 11 of Genesis 3, God
said, Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee
that thou should not eat?" My friend, the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ doesn't just gloss over our sin, it exposes our
sin for what we are. We have all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Grace proclaims the gospel how
God can be just and justify the ungodly. That's what we see in
verse 15 with the woman's seed bruising the serpent's head. That's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, His incarnation, Him coming into this world to
conquer sin, to conquer Satan. And He did. He came once in the
end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
He defeated Satan. He crushed the head, crushed
his power at Calvary. Yes? Satan and sin did bruise
his heel, did bruise his humanity, but he crushed the power, principalities
of sin. And he fulfilled the law. He
said, I didn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. And
he won the victory over death. He's a victorious, conquering
Savior. The seed of the woman, the Lord
Jesus Christ, crushed the serpent's head. That's what happened at
Calvary. Sin was put away. All the sin
of God's people was laid on the Lord Jesus Christ, and He put
them away. Now, the way of redemption is
also set forth in verse 21, whereby His justice is honored and mercy
is exercised. In verse 21 we read, And unto
Adam, also unto his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skin,
and clothed them. That's another picture of redemption.
God shed innocent blood to cover sin, the sin of the guilty. And
that's the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered
once for our sin, the just for the unjust, that He might bring
us unto God. God is infinitely, unchangeably
holy, and sin can never be passed over without a full payment to
satisfy His justice. We're justified freely by His
grace, but never forget this, through the redemption that is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's redemption, and that's
a picture of God's redemption. God took an innocent victim and
sacrificed them to cover the guilty. That's what happened
at Calvary. The third picture of the gospel
we see, we see in ruin, ruined in Adam. We see redemption in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And thirdly, we see a picture
of regeneration. You hath he quickened who were
dead. In verse 21, I believe we see
again a picture of regeneration. God took coats of skin and clothed
them. And that's what happens when
God saves a sinner. He gives him a new heart, a new
nature, and clothes him with the righteousness and blood of
Jesus Christ. Now notice verse 21, that God
didn't simply make this covering available for them to exercise
their free will and to cover themselves. No, He slew the animal,
He provided the animal, He clothed them. Any sinner that is made
righteous in Christ is not made so. by chance, human effort or
merit, but by God's purpose and God's grace. It's God who saved
us and it's God who called us with a holy calling. God made
coats of skin that day and God covered them. God clothed them.
And that's what happens when God saves a sinner. It's all
by His purpose and all by His grace that He makes us new creatures
in Christ. And it has to be that way. If
you understand something of sin, you understand something of God's
salvation. If you don't understand what
happened in the garden, you'll never understand what happened
at Calvary or what happens in regeneration. Because of our
condition by nature, spiritually dead in sin, separated from God,
enemies, aliens, and ignorant of God's salvation, ignorant
of God, salvation therefore must be by the grace of God. A spiritually
dead person cannot perform any function of spiritual life. He
cannot believe. He can't believe God. Face the
gift of God. He can't come to Christ. He said,
no man can come unto Me except the Father which sent Me, draw
him. He cannot repent of his sin.
We only believe, repent, and trust Christ because He has given
us and made us new creatures in Christ. Listen to this Scripture,
1 John 5.1, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born
of God. This shuts us up to two conclusions.
The new birth is absolutely necessary. He said, except you're born again,
you cannot see. Except you're born again, you
cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And secondly, it's obviously
all a work of God's grace, but of Him. Are you in Christ Jesus? Who of God? is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." Again, we see
that salvation is of the Lord. Where sin abounded, and it did
in the garden, didn't it? Sin abounded, but also we see
grace does much more abound in the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I hope this has been helpful
for you today, and I would pray that you would think over these
three things. ruin, redemption, and regeneration in the Lord
Jesus Christ.