Last week we explored the foundations of Man’s Identity. Psalm 8:3-9 says, “When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, 4 what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?” This question—"what is a human being”—has driven people mad for ages. It’s not that people haven’t tried to give an answer--it’s that no answer less than Genesis 1-2 is sufficient.
A naturalist will say you are animal. You are a biological, DNA-reproducing machine. You are an infinitely, improbable, 4.6 billion years-in-the-making mutation of star dust. You only have the cold, dead, breathless, lifeless, unconscious, non-sensory, impersonal, non-lingual, amoral, non-rational, non-loving, non-volitional, non-intentional, non-purposeful “Universe” to thank for the magic of “whatever” your existence might mean, and you imagine it to be!
And yet “what if” it's not the Universe we have to thank at all, but the majestic God of Genesis? If we were created in the image of the Universe, we would most be like any other material elements we find floating around out there in the darkness, without form… function… meaning… purpose, life… or future. . .
But the reason we humans bear non-materialistic attributes is because we were created in the image of a personal God. We are warm, fully alive, living, breathing, fully conscious, fully-aware, fully-perceiving, fully-sensing (seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, feeling, intuiting), personal, lingual, moral, rational, loving, volitional, intentional, planned, thoughtful, creative, powerful, ruling, purposeful. . . we are all these things because we were created in the God’s image.
We are unlike anything the material Universe is, or was, or ever will be! Psalm 8:5-9 (which echoes Gen 1-2) is the only sufficient answer. We are not “whats” but “whos.” “5 You made [humankind] a little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all the sheep and oxen, as well as the animals in the wild, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas. Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth!”
A naturalist will tell you we're all animals. They will vehemently deny that we bear God’s image. Yet if you treat them as anything other than the image of God they will cry foul and punch you in the nose!
So, this morning we turn our attention to the madness of history. Genesis 1-11 is truly ancient history. We will be unpacking this history in the coming weeks but this morning I want to talk about one of the single most significant events in all of history. An event that in time, would be overshadowed by the cross of Christ.
Genesis 3:1, “Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”
No sooner does God fashion man, and along comes Satan. Now let’s set some context. In Genesis 2, God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden along with two trees: The Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil, and as we will soon see, the Tree of Life. Think of them as the “Tree of Morality” and “Tree of Immortality.”
Now, what is the deal with these two trees? These trees teach us two crucial lessons. The first crucial lesson is that Morality and Immortality are inextricably bound up in one another. Any affront to morality is first and foremost an affront life and immortality—your own as much as anyone! Romans 6:23 is Genesis 2:16-18 incognito, “For the wages of sin is death. . .” You destroy moral principle, you sin, you disobey, you set yourself against good, you die.
Genesis 2:16-18 says “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
The second crucial lesson is that morality and immortality aren’t just inextricably bound up in one another… they are bound up in fellowship with God. God is holy. God is moral, righteous and good. God is also life. To be in fellowship with God is to enjoy true wisdom and knowledge, and true life—everlasting life!
So along comes a serpent who contradicts God, Genesis 3:1b, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” Genesis 3:4-5, “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Who is this serpent? Genesis isn’t giving us exhaustive knowledge. Ezekiel the prophet fills in some gaps. Ezekiel 28:14 says Satan was “anointed a guardian Cherub” (Angel!) Ezekiel 28:15 says Satan was once “blameless in your ways” until “wickedness was found within him.” Ezekiel 28:12b says Satan was “the seal of perfection,” “perfect in beauty.” Ezekiel 28:13 says he was , “…in Eden, the garden of God. Every kind of precious stone covered you: carnelian, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and emerald. Your mountings and settings were crafted in gold; they were prepared on the day you were created.”
But something changed. Ezekiel 28:16 says of Satan “you were filled with violence, and you sinned.” Ezekiel 28:17, “Your heart became proud because of your beauty; For the sake of your splendor you corrupted your wisdom.” Ezekiel 28:18, “You profaned your sanctuaries by the magnitude of your iniquities.”
Therefore God expels Satan from his holy mountain. He casts Satan to the ground, making a spectacle of him, he causes fire to come out from within Satan. This is why Satan is called a great dragon. The fire within him doesn’t just consume others… it consumes his very own existence, reducing him to ashes. You’ve heard the expression ashes to ashes, dust to dust. This is the destiny of all who sin. And our sin doesn’t just consume our life, it consumes others as well.
So Satan is a great dragon. He’s been set on fire, and breathes fire, because he’s being consumed by the fiery wrath of God. Satan is not God. He is not equal to God. Satan is not divine. God and Satan aren’t Ying and Yang. Satan was created good, just as Adam was created good. But neither is Satan man. Satan is not human. He is of another non-human “kind,” like the wild animals. In Genesis 3 he is embodies as a wild animal—as are all Satanic figures throughout all Scripture.
Now it seems apparent to me, and I might be very well be wrong, but it appears Satan is already in rebellion when he enters the garden. His character and behavior is cunning, deceitful, manipulative, murderous. Now how might a spiritual being like Satan go about affecting physical and biological man?
In John 8:44 Jesus says of Satan, “He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” [this is his character] “When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.” [this is his methodology]. The devil’s method has always been to deploy words, conversation, ideas, thoughts. With his words he denies Truth, he manipulates with half-truths, he de-forms and de-creates.
Genesis 3:6, “The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
Satan’s character is that he lies. Satan’s methodology is words. Satan’s historical mission is to kill and destroy. In John 10:10 Jesus says, “a thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” So in Genesis 3 Satan comes into the Garden with nefarious intent. To destroy moral principle. To destroy true knowledge and wisdom. To steal away their very life. To destroy Adam and Eve’s trust and fellowship with God.
Today people ask three questions. (1) Where is God? Who or What am I? (2) What is true Truth? What words are moral, right, and good and true, and trustworthy? (3) Where can I find true, everlasting life? Friends, if God is dead, soon morality is dead, and finally man himself is dead. Who can save him now?
Satan’s attack is comprehensive. Francis Shaeffer summarizes the catastrophic results of sin. First, Adam’s relationship with God was fractured. He was separated from God and sub-sequentially true knowledge and true life.
Second, Adam’s relationship to himself was fractured. Wickedness was found within, his heart became utterly deceitful like that of Satan. Though once blameless Adam becomes filled with sin, shame, guilt, depressions, anxieties, fears, despair, psychological abnormalities, self-deceit, identity dysphoria, and loneliness.
Third, Adam’s relationship to his fellow man was fractured. Satan corrupts Eve, Eve corrupts Adam, Adam corrupts himself. Adam & Eve’s offspring Cain takes on the same murderous character as Satan.
Last, Adam’s relationship to world was fractured. His body would bear profound pain, genetic defects. He would be exposed to disease, true hardship, profound danger, natural disaster, environment calamity, and eventual death.
Human history at its core is tragic. It’s filled with violence against God, against one’s own self, violence against fellow man, violence against creation, yes the environment, and against all the human cultures and ethnicities on the earth. You might ask yourself, how could such relational calamity possibly be God’s plan for humankind? The short answer is that it wasn’t.
Josephus, a Jewish historian in Jesus’ day, eloquently describes Adam and Eve’s sin. “When God came into the garden, Adam, who was wont before to come and converse with him, being conscious of his wicked behavior, went out of the way. This behavior surprised God; and he asked what was the cause of this his [evasion]; and why he, that before delighted in that conversation, did now fly from it, and avoid it.
When Adam made no reply, as conscious to himself that he had transgressed the command of God, God said, “I had before determined about you both, how you might lead a happy life, without any affliction, and care, and vexation of soul; and that all things which might contribute to your enjoyment and pleasure should grow up by my providence, of their own accord, without your own labor and painstaking; which state of labor and painstaking would soon bring on old age; and death would not be at any remote distance; but now thou hast abused this my good will, and hast disobeyed my commands; for thy silence is not the sign of thy virtue, but of thy evil conscience.”
When Adam and Eve sinned I mentioned he began to ask three questions: (1) Where is God? Who or What am I? (2) What is true wisdom and knowledge? (3) Where can life and immorality be found? But the most important questions aren’t the questions we ask of God, but the ones he asks of us!
In Genesis 3:9, God calls out to the man, “Where are you?” The answer is because of sin, we find ourselves without God and without hope. We find ourselves without wisdom, knowledge, and moral discretion. We find ourselves threatened by the cruelty of our fellow man, of our chaotic and corrupted universe. We’ve learned a hard lesson indeed. That morality and immortality are inextricably bound up in one another, and bound up in fellowship with God.
Here is the good news. Knowing Satan’s character, God has acted in history to thwart his nefarious schemes. In Genesis 3:15 God says to Satan, “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Here in Genesis we have a foreshadowing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Satan struck a deathblow to humankind, by first deceiving Eve. But God would raise up one of her offspring to strike a deathblow to Satan. Notice… its not an offspring (the seed) of Adam who would crush Satan’s head, but rather an offspring (the seed) of Eve. How could God here speak of a woman’s offspring?
The mystery of salvation would soon be disclosed. Mary would find herself with child, not of any man, not of Adam, but conceived of the God’s Holy Spirit. This would be a sign that Satan’s head would soon be crushed. Paul's prayer in Romans 16:19b-20, “I want you to be wise about what is good, and yet innocent about what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” The madness of Satan, the madness of history will soon come to nothing. The peace of God will reign through Christ Jesus our Lord!