Genisis 3: 1 – 24 - The Fall

Genesis 3: 1 – 24 - The Fall

Last week we looked at the story of creation in the book of Genesis. How God created a People, and he placed then in a beautiful garden to be the Land in which they lived, and as they carried out his purposes to spread that garden throughout the would, they would know his Blessing.

This week we are looking at the story of Adam and Eve to see what it can teach us about God, ourselves, and our relationship with God.

This is fundamental stuff, because these are fundamental questions about ourselves, which effect how we live our lives, how we treat others, and how we treat ourselves. This is literally the stuff of life and death.

It is no accident that Genesis is the first book in our bibles, because it tackles the BIG questions of life that are asked by every generation.

“Where do we come from? Why are we here? Why are people the way they are? Why are people mean to me?” If you have children or grandchildren you have no doubt been asked these same questions by very young enquiring minds. How did you answer?

One of my first jobs was working in life insurance. I quickly realised than many people in the industry where ripping people off, to take the big commissions, for their own selfish gain. But not everyone, some people were genuinely using insurance to help people, to enhance their lives and bring them stability. This often meant turning down the big bucks in favour of smaller commissions. I was faced with a dilemma : should I pursue wealth at the expense of other people, or should I use insurance to help people as it was intended? Attempting to answer this question took me on a journey, which ultimately led me to become a Christian.

One of the things that really troubled me, was how my first thoughts were always to be selfish, or always to lie to cover by own back. And how much effort and conscious thought it took to do things differently. But even when I made the effort, I couldn’t do it consistently, and would always lapse back into those first instincts. Was it just me? A result of my upbringing? Or were other people like that too?

What I discovered, is that absolutely everyone is like that. Scientists at the time called it ‘The selfish gene’. “Great,” I thought, “it’s natural. I don’t have to worry about it. I can just get on and make myself rich.”

But, what REALLY bothered me, is that the few Christians I knew, were different. How come they were not selfish, if selfishness was natural?

This is when the idea of sin and the story of Adam and Eve really started to make sense to me. It’s a simple story, but it explains clearly why I am the way I am, and is still the only explanation that makes sense to me.

The Apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 7: “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” This clearly summed up how I was feeling.

The story of Adam and Eve is very simple: They are created by God in His image to enjoy the blessing of His creation. They rebel against God’s ways and sin takes over their lives. They are exiled from God’s presence until they can learn to trust God again.

This cycle of ‘God’s People rejecting God’s ways and being exiled from the land he has provided; unable to enjoy His blessings until they have learned to trust Him again,’ is a reoccurring cycle throughout the Bible. It starts in the Garden of Eden and continues into modern times, when God’s people reject the Messiah. “He came to his own, but His own did not recognise Him.” John 1.

The rest of the Bible, in very simple terms, is the story of how God seeks to reconcile humans to himself. It’s not just a matter of saying “Humans I forgive you, come back into my blessing”: God is holy. Holiness and sin reject each other in the same way that the North Poles of two bar magnets push each other away.

I’m sure we all did this experiment at school. Each magnet has one blue end and one red end. The blue ends are north poles and the red ends are south poles. Even if we force the two blue ends together with all our might, they will still push each other away as soon as we let go. What we need to do is flip one of the magnets from north to south – bring a blue end and a red end together so they attract each other. But how can we simply flip sin to holiness?