The First Sin

The first sin Genesis 3:1-7

Last week I made a comment about who was responsible for the very first sin and the Pastor asked me to deal with this issue before I moved on to the rest of John eleven. And so this is what I’m going to do but first I want to set the stage so you’ll see that the doctrine of sin’s beginning is explained clearly in the scripture but it’s not that easy to just sum it all up in a sentence or two. And so, before I get to how sin entered this world you’ll have to bear with me, as I try to explain the origin of sin and then how the first couple sinned and then how that sin has affected the rest of us. And if you have any questions at all when I’m finished, then please feel free to see the Pastor before church.

Now, before God created the world we know that He created the angelic world and we also know that there were millions of them because in Revelation 5:11 John says, “I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” And to really understand this verse you have to know that in the Greek language the number ten thousand was the largest number that ever existed. O.K, so the highest you could count to was ten thousand and John says that there were ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands and thousands. So, basically he’s saying that the number of angels that were and will be worshipping God in heaven are innumerable as far as we’re concerned. And from the original group we are told that a third of them left heaven in rebellion when Satan did. Now, I’ll get to them in a minute but of the angels that are around the throne there are several different levels of authority among them and this is described for us in different parts of scripture.

For instance, there are the archangels and these are the chief of staff and then we have the cherubim and we are told in Ezekiel 28:14 that this was Satan’s position before the fall. And then we have the seraphim who are in charge of the worship of heaven according to Isaiah 6 and then there is a category who are simply called the sons of God and these are mentioned in Genesis 6 and Job 38 but we have no idea what they do and then finally we have the angels and these are mentioned 268 times in scripture. And all of these were and are in heaven. And Job which is the oldest book of the Old Testament says “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” And I think here he is describing a time before the rebellion of Satan and his followers. Heaven was filled with shouting and singing.

And then if we were to take the time we could go to Isaiah 14 and we could study the fall of Satan and find out where the first sin began in heaven as we’d see the intention of his heart which was to exalt himself above God Himself. And then after the fall he was thrown out of heaven and was followed by a third of the angels and then both he and the fallen angels seemed to organize themselves and the apostle Paul gives us a description of what he calls the ranks of wickedness over in Ephesians 6.

Now, Satan whose name means adversary is the head of the whole group and he’s the adversary or enemy of both God and man and throughout scripture he’s called by many names such as the deceiver, the devil, the destroyer and several other titles and here in Ephesians 6 we have a list of those who are under him. Now, some of them are referred to as the principalities and these would be the five star generals and by this title we would assume that under Satan they are basically in charge of everything. And then there are what are called the powers and these are the ones who are supposed to carry out the commands of the principalities by ordering those under them to do what has to be done in order to disrupt and destroy everything that belongs to God. And then we have the world rulers and these are in charge of government influence and we have some insight as to how this happens in the book of Daniel. And then finally we have the demons and these are simply called spiritual wickedness which tells us they do everything and anything to cause disorder and destruction among the human race. And there are many who believe that the selfishness and self-centeredness among this evil crowd stops them from ever really getting anywhere. And yet, in spite of their incompetence they can still cause a lot of grief and at the end of time they’ll get more organized and they’ll really cause a lot of grief for everyone.