Chapter 2: The Fall

What is the nature of sin and why does it matter?

Every good story is carried by conflict. Think of all the books and movies you have ever read – the story is propelled by the conflict in the story. Frodo needs to destroy the One Ring in order to defeat the evil Sauron. Harry’s whole life story is dictated by his conflict with Voldemort. It is the conflict between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy that propels the romance in Pride and Prejudice. Every story needs a conflict that needs to be resolved.

In the Garden to Garden City story, the conflict is sin. Sin is the taint that affects the good creation God had made to such an extent that God no longer enters into his creation the way he did in the Garden of Eden. Sin so broke creation that the good, peaceful and ordered world we saw being created in chapter 1, no longer functions the way it should.

So how did sin, the main ingredient in our conflict with God, come to enter the world? Genesis 3 tells us.

Genesis 3:1–24 (CSB)

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’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” 4 “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.” 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. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” 11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 So the Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. 15 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. 16 He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children with painful effort. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you. 17 And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.” 20 The man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them. 22 The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.

‌

This passage shows us the nature of sin, its consequences, and how God will deal with it. These three things ultimately form the foundation upon which the whole rest of the story of Scripture is built. Let's look at each in turn:

The nature of Sin

So how exactly did the world fall into sin? The Bible shows us here that the Serpent launched a four-step attack against Eve and led her through a series of interconnected and progressive temptations to reject God's rule and authority over her.

Step 1: Undermining God's Word

The Serpent directly asked Eve, "Did God really say…?" Eve here was being tempted to disbelieve God's word, and whenever we doubt God's word or go against what he has revealed in Scripture, we are falling into this same trap. We do, however, have to give the Serpent credit for his cleverness and cunning. As we saw last week, we believe that God's word is absolutely true and totally without fault. In fact, as we saw, God's Word is the literal power that built the whole universe. So by tempting Eve to question God's word, the Serpent was striking at the very root, the very foundation of reality.

This tactic will be a staple weapon in the Serpent's arsenal throughout Scripture. In fact, when you read Luke chapter 4, where Satan tempts Jesus in the desert, it is this very same tactic that Satan uses against Jesus. It worked on Eve, it often works on us, and Satan tried it on Jesus too. But we are getting ahead of ourselves...

Step 2: Making God’s Word feel too restrictive

The Serpent doesn’t just tempt Eve to doubt God’s Word, he does so by making God’s Word feel too restrictive. He says, “Did God really say you must not eat from ANY tree in the garden?”. In fact God did not forbid them to eat from any tree, just one. God had actually given them immense freedom in the Garden of Eden. They had everything in creation under their authority, Adam and Eve were rulers over the animals, they had been given the task to bring order to the earth, to fill it and subdue it. God only restricted them from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Serpent wanted Eve to feel as if God was being unfair in restricting them, to make them feel as if God was a tyrant, a despot, one who should be overthrown. He wants them to feel that God’s good and just laws were oppressive. So he exaggerates the restriction to make his point.

Did Eve fall for the trick? She did… She answers “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden, but the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die’”.

She too started exaggerating God’s law and it felt oppressive. All of a sudden God’s good Word doesn’t seem so good anymore.

Step 3: Make disobedience seem desirable

“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...”

Anyone who has lived for any length of time has experienced this temptation. We have all felt this temptation to do something we know is wrong, but when we do we think “Oh it’s not so bad. In fact it looks kind of fun, and I know this will be good for me, even though I know God’s Word says no”. The Serpent’s tactic here seems to be “God is stopping you from living your best life now”. Eve falls for it, and so do we.

Step 4: Instill a desire to be our own God

“In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Having worn down Eve’s defences, the Serpent gets to the core of sin – the desire to be our own God. He tempts her with the possibility of becoming more than she is, more than she was made to be. He specifically tempts her to be like God.

As Victor P. Hamilton (a commentator on Genesis) notes:

“Deification is a fantasy difficult to repress and a temptation hard to reject”.

‌Do you see the cleverness of the Serpent’s final ploy? Instead of God deciding what is good and evil, instead of God giving guidance and direction, instead of God ruling her life, Eve will become Godlike and she will be the one who gets to decide what good and evil really are for herself.

But do you note the irony: Eve, is already made in the image of God. She is not meant to be her own God, but she is meant to reflect God. The Serpent had taken what was already true of Eve (that she was the image of God) and twisted that truth to make her want to be Godlike.

That is the nature of sin. It is to miss the mark ever so slightly and get it completely wrong.

It is this temptation, to be our own god that characterises our society, perhaps more than any other time in history. Today everyone gets to decide for themselves what good and evil is. Objective rights and wrongs, we are told, no longer exist. We have swallowed the Serpent’s lie hook, line and sinker. We have all become Godlike deciding for ourselves what good and evil are, and forsaken our God-image bearing nature.

And in so doing, Adam and Eve, turn the perfectly ordered creation with God at the head as our ruler, the decider of good and evil, upside down. ‌Sin enters the world, and corrupts every aspect of creation.

The consequences of sin

The consequences of the fall into sin are massive and far reaching. The natural world itself is broken (emphasis mine):

Genesis 3:17

And he [God] said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you.

We simply need to look at the news to see all the ways in which the world has been broken. Most of the time when we look at our world, we don’t see order and peace as we did in the Garden, rather we see pain and suffering, we see chaos and disorder, we see evil and exploitation. On a global scale, there is the devastation caused by wild weather events. In just the past few years we think of the tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 2004. We think of Hurricane Katrina which caused around $100 billion dollars worth of damage in 2005. As I write this the full extent of the damage of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria (2023) is not yet known. As it stands the death toll is around 53,000.

This does not look like the ordered, beautifully formed and filled space of Genesis chapters 1 and 2. This is what it means for the ground to be cursed because of sin.

But not only is the creation broken but the very nature of work is also broken.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.

Have you ever wondered why, even after working really hard at something, you sometimes still fail to succeed? Or why even extremely gifted individuals need hours and hours and hours of practice to master their craft. Why your work often feels exasperatingly slow and arduous? Why even when you pursue a career you are passionate about, frustration in your work still comes. These are all effects of our fall into sin.

The relationship between Adam and Eve is broken too. Human relationships don’t work because of sin. Adam blames Eve instead of taking responsibility. Adam blames God for giving him Eve. Eve blames the serpent. Arguments break out. Sin breaks good relationships.

But worse still, the relationship between mankind and God is broken.

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.

Adam and Eve realised they were naked, and they had to cover themselves. When God comes to talk in the garden, they now feel the need to cover themselves up and hide from him among the trees. They can no longer stand before God without shame. They start experiencing for the first time, what humans have known ever since: we cannot stand before a holy God, without something covering us. Our sin separates us from God. Because God is so holy, so perfect and so righteous, no unclean thing can stand in his presence. So to deal with this Adam and Eve try to cover themselves up with fig leaves. Leaves, which incidentally would have itched and burnt their skin. Even their attempts to cover themselves from God, ultimately ended up hurting them.

So at every level, sin corrupted or destroyed God’s good creation. It is a pretty bleak picture.

So now what?

God launches his rescue plan

Despite the tragedy and destruction that occurred as a result of the Fall, God promised restoration. In the midst of the chaos and brokenness that followed the Fall, there was a glimmer of light shining through. This promise, also known as the protoevangelium, was the first bit of good news in the Bible after the fall.

Genesis 3:15

"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."

The church has always understood this promise as a pointer to Jesus on the cross. I like to call this the Snake Stomper promise because it is a promise that one day God will triumph over the serpent, Satan. The second Adam, Jesus, the only person ever to have lived a sinless life, dies, and yet through his death, he crushes Satan's rule over the world.

God then proceeds to give Adam and Eve another gift, pointing to how they will be saved. His rescue plan is evident in the way He covers Adam and Eve's nakedness with animal skins. Instead of the silly fig-clothes that Adam and Eve had tried to use to cover themselves, God provides them with a proper covering made of animal skins. This act of sacrifice would become the symbol in Israel of forgiveness of sin.

This sacrifice points us ultimately to Jesus himself, the ultimate sacrifice to cover us properly. He, Jesus, is the God-provided covering to cover our shame, and His sacrifice covers us completely for our fallen sinful nature.

Even though creation has fallen into chaos and humanity has been cut off from God's presence due to sin, God has launched his rescue plan.

Exactly how that will work is what the rest of the Old Testament is all about.