Genesis 3:1-7
The First Judgment

The First Judgment
Man has been created and the Sabbath established.
God has rested from his work and invited man to share that rest
Man has been created to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
Man has as well been given the task of tending and guarding the garden.
Woman has been created to complete the man and help him
The man has been given everything he needs
God has proved himself attentive to those needs as one who acts in man's best interest
What more could the man want? What more could the woman desire?

The Anti-God Comes
(Just as history ends with an AntiChrist, it begins with an Anti-God, one who sets himself up as an alternative to God, crying "Hear me instead of Him!")
1. The Nature of the Serpent
  1. This is no ordinary serpent, but the Devil himself
    1. So Revelation 12:9, among other places, interprets: "The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world-he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him."
    2. The Devil has taken on the form of a serpent because the serpent is cunning
      1. It's sinuous movements back and forth indicate the subtlety of logic with which Satan will approach the woman
      2. It's ability of camoflauge indicates Satan's ability to disguise his true purpose until he may strike
    3. In other words, this is not suggesting that ordinary snakes - as they were created - could speak.
  2. Thus the first Hater of God has entered the Garden of Eden
    1. He has lost that communion with God and now jealously hopes to bring man down into his same misery
    2. And he hopes to strike at God's very heart by destroying that which is most precious to him
    3. And, as we're about to see, he hopes to make a pre-emptive strike
      1. He knows the man has been created to judge him
      2. He hopes to compromise his judge and buy himself some time
2. Why God Allowed Him into the Garden
  1. God is not impotent, these things are not beyond his control
    1. He has deliberately brought this serpent to the man
    2. Just as he brought all the animals and finally the woman
    3. He is forcing a confrontation between the most righteous creature of his creation and the most wicked.
    4. He does this so that Adam may win the day
  2. This is Adam's purpose for which he was created
    1. To rule with an authority second only to God's
    2. To judge with the very judgment of God
  3. This is why God created the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and put it in the center of the garden
    1. Because Adam's central purpose is to discern between good and evil, retaining the good and throwing evil out on its ear
    2. He has been created not to think independently but to think God's thoughts after him.
    3. He has discerned the good
      1. Adam discerned the character of each animal, naming it in accordance with the way God created it. The animals were good for other things, but not a suitable helper for him.
      2. So he named the woman "bone of my bones", echoing God's judgment of her as the helper suitable to him
    4. Now he must discern evil as evil
      1. And now he must name the serpent, Satan, the Anti-God and judge him with the judgment of God
      2. In this as well he must think God's thoughts after him.
    5. This explains Paul's statement that we will "judge angels." That's what we were created for.
  4. In a move as desperate as it is brash, Satan is about to draw man's attention to that very tree
    1. He is about to use that tree for the very opposite of its intended purpose
    2. The tree is there so Adam may judge according to the judgment of God, calling good good and evil evil.
    3. But Satan wishes to teach man to judge for himself, to "know good and evil" according to his own God-independent standards.
    4. For that is the sin by which Satan himself fell from glory, having exalted himself to the level of God
    5. If he can use the tree for this purpose, then God's purpose will be frustrated.
    6. How can man judge Satan if man himself stands in need of judgment?
  5. We must not believe that God has brought the serpent to man in order to tempt the man and cause him to fall
    1. God does not tempt anyone
    2. Nor does God purpose evil toward the man
    3. So is God powerless to stop what happens next?
      1. May it never be! He has ordained it
      2. This is a deep mystery, and we cannot explain it fully
        
        But remember that God fore-ordained the crucifixion
        
        Yet that act was heinous and wicked, and God hated it and desired that it should not be done, and those who crucified Christ were guilty before God
      3. So here. God is not out of control. But he hates what is about to happen and desires something different.
    4. Adam has been created perfect and righteous
    5. He has every ability in the world to complete this task
The Temptation and the Fall
1. The Serpent Subverts the Natural Order
  1. He goes to the woman rather than the man
    1. The man has been created to declare the word of God, yet the serpent asks the woman
    2. The woman has been created to help the man, yet the serpent encourages her to make decisions on her own
    3. She has not been created as the judge, He has
    4. The moment she is deceived into answering the serpent rather than handing the serpent over to Adam as a judge... that's the beginning of the end.
    5. And where is Adam in all this?
      1. v. 6 at least suggests the possibility that he is standing right there, observing and failing to intervene.
      2. But whether there or absent, he is proving ineffective in his task of guarding the garden and protecting his wife
  2. He encourages man to serve the creature rather than vice versa
    1. Both man and woman have been been given authority over all the beasts of the field (2.28)
    2. Yet this beast of the field is about to ask that they listen to him
  3. He presents himself as a rival Lord
    1. God says one thing, he says another
    2. He presents this fact as though that does not necessarily make him wrong. One might plausibly listen to him rather than God
  4. So here it is, the entire order that God just created... turned upside down
    1. The creature makes himself equal to God
    2. He encourages the woman not to consult her husband's authority
    3. And encourages those in authority over him to submit to him
2. He Teaches the Woman to Think Independently
  1. First by questioning God's word
    1. Has God actually said...?
    2. The very form of the question implies an unreasonableness on God's part
    3. The serpent can scarcely believe his ears
    4. This encourages the woman to question whether God has exceeded his authority or stepped out the bounds of logic
    5. Oh, Christian! Does he not come to you the same way now?
      1. he hasn't changed his tactics in all these years
      2. Why should he? The current tactics work so well.
      3. Has God really set aside one whole day in seven as a day of rest and worship? Come now, be reasonable! We have important things to do.
      4. I can't believe that God would really expect me to remain married in such circumstances. He will understand if I divorce.
      5. Every day he comes to you, pretending that God's word is unclear where it is clear, difficult to understand where it is easy.
      6. Every day he comes to you suggesting that God has required what is unreasonable and therefore you have the right to behave differently.
    6. Oh, Unbeliever!
      1. Every day you commit this sin.
      2. You behave as though what you think is reasonable is more important than what God commands.
  2. Then by adding to it
    1. ... not to eat of any of the trees in the garden?
    2. By expanding the command, he does make it severe and unreasonable
    3. Again, doesn't he do this every day?
      1. Has God really said that you must be so busy on the Lord's Day in public and private worship that your body becomes exhausted?
      2. (And you see how well it works. Our minds, being deceived, become resentful of God for something he didn't say, just because someone suggested he did. Oh, the deceitfulness of sin!)
    4. The woman falls for it, making her own addition
      1. Don't even touch the tree
      2. Here it is clear that she has begun to chafe under God's command.
      3. And she has not spoken what is true of her Lord
  3. Then by taking away
    1. You shall not surely die
    2. He has revealed his true character clearly now.
    3. Why does she not say, "Get behind me Satan!"
  4. This adding and this taking away will not be corrected until the coming of Christ
    1. God's word to Adam in creation was complete, lacking nothing.
      1. Nothing needed to be added
      2. Nothing needed to be taken away
    2. But when Adam allowed the word to be twisted, a new declaration was necessary
    3. He will at last speak the final and definitive word of God
    4. And Scripture will end with paradise restore and a curse on anyone who adds to the word or takes away from it.
  5. He tempts her to a wrong understanding of what it means to bear the image of God
    1. As though it means to become another God
    2. When in fact it means to conform oneself to God's image, judging according to his standards, calling evil what he calls evil and good what he calls good
  6. He tempts her to be jealous of God and to suspect that God is jealous of her
3. The Woman Judges for Herself, as Does the Man
  1. Oh beware the deceitfulness of sin!
4. The Immediate Consequences
  1. Their eyes are opened
    1. ironically, just as the serpent predicted
    2. Yet what do they see? Not that they are like God
The Second Adam and the Last Judgment
1. Christ must come to do what Adam didn't
  1. Christ must come to overcome the temptations of the Devil
  2. And then he must judge truly, according to the word of God
2. And only those in Christ may resist temptation and survive judgment

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Genesis 3:1-7 The First Judgment

Genesis 3:1-7
The First Judgment