Paradise Lost Series

Paradise Lost

Genesis 3:22-24

Rev. Brian Bill

April 1-2, 2023

Many of you know that I have four sisters and no brothers. Do you feel my pain?

Growing up, the only good thing about this arrangement was that I’m the oldest. Being a brother, I was always on the lookout for ways to bother my sisters. It didn’t take me long to figure out that if I teased Cathy she would scream loudly and then she would get in trouble for screaming, at which point I would casually exit the room with a big grin on my face.

Cathy has tried to pay me back over the years. For example, my wife Beth received a birthday card from her with these words, “To a Great Sister-in-Law. Now that you’ve been in the family a while, you’ve discovered our funny little secret…in fact, you’re married to him!” Real funny.

One of my goals growing up was to get all four of my sisters to cry at the same time. This was actually quite challenging, but I’ll never forget what happened when I finally accomplished my goal.

One Friday night, we were driving in our 1966 yellow Ford station wagon (with no radio, air conditioning, or power steering), to visit our grandparents in the Promised Land. Before we left, my dad warned me not to irritate my sisters, but after about 30 minutes, I decided this was a good time to launch my attack.

I pinched Cathy, pulled Jeannie’s hair, insulted Mary, and teased my baby sister Beth. As I sat there with a big grin on my face while they all cried in surround sound, my dad, who is normally a soft-spoken man, said, “All right. That’s it.” Then, he pulled over to the side of the road, slammed on the brakes and with dust flying from the loose gravel, shouted loudly, “Get out. We’ll pick you up on Sunday!”

I stared at him in disbelief. As I got out of the car, I pleaded for mercy only to hear my dad exclaim, “Get out and close the door behind you.” I couldn’t believe it! I had finally accomplished my elusive goal and here I was standing on the shoulder of a deserted country road in the middle of Wisconsin. As I shut the car door, my dad pulled away and drove off…

My sense of abandonment that Friday was nothing like what Adam and Eve experienced when God told them to get out of the Garden and shut the door on them. Let’s give our attention to Genesis 3:22-24: “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—’ therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”

Here’s our main idea: Because of our sin, we can’t come in; but since Jesus died on the cross to take our sin, we can now come in. As I reflected on this passage, three words jumped out at me – misery, mercy, and mission. We’ll use them as our outline.

1. The misery of man. Verse 22 is one of the few unfinished sentences in the Bible: “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever --’”

The word “then” means “now” or “since.” The word “behold” is used in an emphatic way to get our attention and means, “Look now!” We see again how God holds Adam ultimately responsible for their sin as the representative head of the human race, though the consequences applied also to Eve. When he sinned and was sentenced, so were we. The use of the plural, “like one of us” is an allusion to the Trinity, which takes us back to Genesis 1:26.

The statement “knowing good and evil” means Adam and Eve intellectually knew the difference between good and evil because of God’s command to not eat of the tree’s fruit. But, when they chose to disobey, they also knew evil experientially because now evil had been unleashed within them.

Now they see themselves as judges and arbiters of what is right and wrong. Instead of allowing God to be the measure of all things, they have usurped His role. In essence, they’re saying, “We will not submit to God, but instead we will be God ourselves.” Anytime a person believes he can decide for himself what is right and wrong, he or she is acting like God.