The Fall of Man (3)

We have kind of been camped out the last couple of weeks in Genesis chapter 3. And there's a good reason for that. We're in a study of what the Bible teaches about man and sin. And we've come to that part of the scriptures that deal with how we got in this mess to begin with. The fall of man into sin. And so it's such a foundational chapter of scripture and such a basic concept and teaching that we've decided just to camp out here for a little while. We've been here a couple of weeks. We'll probably be here a couple more weeks before we finish up all of the consequences of the fall of man into sin. And all that that means the results of that for us even up to today. So we began by talking about the importance of Genesis chapter 3 to the whole Bible. And understanding the fall is critically important. Nothing else in the Bible makes sense unless you get Genesis 3. If you mess up on Genesis 3, then the rest of the Bible doesn't make sense because God's plan of redemption, which spans the whole of the Bible, is rooted in what happened in Genesis 3. And so a lot of what we understand about man's condition and so forth is rooted here in this chapter. So it's very foundational. We also have talked about how we're going to approach this chapter and we kind of laid the ground rules for a conservative literal biblical approach to Genesis chapter 3. We actually jumped into the Genesis account, talked about the way that Satan used the snake or the serpent. We talked about the strategy of this temptation to cast doubt on the Word of God, deny the Word of God, and attack the goodness of God. And then we talked about the actual temptation in the three lusts of the flesh, lust of the eyes, proud of life. So that's kind of where we've been. We also last week talked about the immediate consequences of the fall, the sense of shame. When Adam and Eve fell, they wanted to cover themselves. They wanted to hide from God. So a sense of shame, guilt, and then an avoidance of responsibility. They wanted to shift responsibility elsewhere. So that's where we've been. We're going to pick up at that point tonight, but let me ask first of all before we jump into the new material for tonight, does anybody need an outline? We've got a few more people here than what we normally do. I think everybody got a little stir crazy this weekend. If you do not have an outline and you want one, you may not want one, but if you want one, hold your hand up and Jim is here to get you one. Just keep your hand up. Wave your hand a little bit. Come a little back to coastal. Jim will get you a couple of here. Jim, thank you for running those off. Anybody else? Just raise your hand. Okay, Jim McKenzie needs one. Yes. Jim passed them all out. Didn't keep one for himself. All right. Anybody else? Great. What we're going to do now is look at the far reaching judgments or consequences of the fall. And we began looking at the first one last week, but we're going to look at 10 over the next couple of weeks, 10 different far reaching consequences of the fall. Some of them are more basic and tied to this chapter. Some of them sweep across the range of scripture. The first one we began looking at last time in Genesis 3 and verse 14 was the judgment upon the snake. And we talked about the fact that that God did pronounce judgment on the snake itself, the creature. And we explored why would God judge an immoral creature, a creature that is not responsible for moral choices. And we went through some things about that. One of you mentioned to me or someone mentioned to me afterwards last week that it really shouldn't be a surprise or need any explanation that the snake was judged because all animals were judged in the flood. All animals are under the curse. And that is true. I actually meant to mention these verses last week had them on the outline, didn't use them. So let's look at them this week. Romans 8, 20 and 21. They'll be on the screen for you. For the creation, the whole creation was subjected to frustration. That's God's curse, judgment upon all of creation. The creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into freedom and glory of the children of God. Romans 8 is talking about the groaning of creation. We'll look back at a couple more verses later on that from Romans 8. The groaning, the frustration, pain, the struggle of all of creation. It was not intended to be that way. That was not God's original design, but it came about as a result of the fall. But in this passage, specifically the snake because of its role and the temptation is singled out for judgment. Okay, now let's jump into entirely new territory tonight. There's also judgment upon Satan in verse 15. So if you're with me in Genesis 3, we're just going to kind of move through these verses. Verse 15, God said, and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. Now, obviously still speaking to the snake that continues on from verse 14. So in the most literal, most basic sense, God is still describing here the antagonism that results between people, specifically women and snakes. And most of you women would say, yep, that's right. He's got it right here. I believe in the integrity of scripture because of that verse right there. But there's no doubt more here than just the fear of a snake. There's obviously more here because of the way that the end of the verse reads, put enmity between you and the woman between your offspring and hers. Now that starts reaching a little further. It seems, but the end of the verse, he, the woman's offspring will crush your head, the serpent's head. And you will strike his heel. And so it seems to go beyond just people, specifically women and snakes, to the one who used the snake Satan and his followers, if you will, if you take seed in that kind of loose way, his offspring or seed in that way. And then the woman's offspring. And many believe that this is kind of a veiled first mention or prophecy of the Messiah, that the Messiah will come from a woman. And certainly the last statement in this verse seems to point to a more cosmic, a more spiritual battle than between women and snakes. There is a statement made that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. And the serpent will strike his heel, which seems to be an expression or reference to what happened at the cross. That Satan would cause Christ to suffer temporarily. He would strike his heel. But in that same action on the cross, where Jesus is temporarily put the death, that very act, Jesus will crush the head of the serpent. And so that a mortal eternal death blow to Satan was accomplished at the cross. And so that seems to be kind of a veiled reference to that eternal battle, which climaxed at the cross with Satan trying to do harm to Jesus and succeeding, but it was only temporary. And so that was the last statement from it, if you will, in the resurrection. But the ultimate blow of judgment came to Satan through what Christ did on the cross. And Paul seems to be referencing this passage in that sense in Roman 16 verse 20. Look at this verse. Roman 16 20. Is it not there? Okay. All right. I wouldn't sure if I put it on the screen or not. But Roman 16 20. Paul is closing out the Roman epistle. And he says, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. This is a prophecy of the ultimate victory over Satan that believers will have through Christ. The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus to be with you. Paul says in Roman 16. So this verse does seem to go beyond just women and snakes to the more spiritual, eternal focus of the victory that Christ wanted to cross. Over Satan and his attempt to temporarily inflict harm upon the savior. Okay. So that is the far reaching judgment upon Satan himself, which seems to be indicated in verse 15. Let's pause for a moment in questions, comments you may have on that verse. Now that's still pretty bad. Yeah, especially depending on what kind of snake it is. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's look at the next one then and the next two we're going to get a little more involved with some various views and explanations of these concepts. The next judgment that's mentioned in verse 16 in the first half of the verse is is upon Eve and women. Actually, there are two different judgments mentioned in the the curse or God's judgment because of the fall. The first one is painful childbirth. Painful childbirth is a part of the curse. It would not have been that way. Had it not been four man's fall and descend. Notice how it's described in verse 16 to the woman. He said, I will make your pains in childbearing very severe with painful labor. You will give birth to children. Now, if you have a King James, I want to make reference to this because it does it does affect how you interpret this passage. If you have a King James version, you'll notice that it really divides this first part of the verse into three sections. It reads this way. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow. That's number one. And thy conception. That's number two. In sorrow, thou shalt bring forth children. That's the third. So many because of the way this is worded in the King James, I've seen three actual judgments upon Eve and women here. And that is multiple sorrow, multiple conception. And what that means and how that would have differed from what would have happened with the before the fall is a subject of much conjecture. I don't want to get into that tonight. But it is quite possible if that's the understanding of the verse. I don't think it really is. But it is possible if some have said that women would not have had as many children if there had not been sin. You can take that anyway you want to, but I'm not not going to follow up on that. And then the third one has to do with sorrow and childbirth. But most modern translations handle this a little differently like the way I read it. I will make your pains in childbearing very severe with painful labor. You will give birth to children. Here's a reason why one of the benefits of more modern translations. If they are good translations now, faithful to the original text of the Hebrew is the advances in understanding the Hebrew language. For instance, archaeology has given us new insights as to the meaning of certain words or the meaning of certain constructions in Hebrew ancient texts that had been discovered help Old Testament scholars to understand better how the Hebrew language was used. And so you've got a much broader range of things to compare than just what you have in the biblical text. I'm talking about as far as the way the language is used. So we know now, which really wasn't as well known back in the 1600s when the King James was done, that the way this is put together, this particular construction of Hebrew is called a hindiadis. And a hindiadis basically means that the second term after an and, after the word and, the second term more fully describes the first term. And we know that better from recent studies in the Hebrew language over the last 150 years, that this is that kind of construction in the original language. So the multiplication of sorrow is further explained by the second term, which has to do with conception. So those two go together. It's not that they are two separate judgments. The multiple sorrow is found in conception, which every modern translation couples those two together as I'm reading in the NIV, I will make your pains in child bearing very severe. The child bearing and the pain are put together. It is the conception or the child bearing that explains the pain. And that's very clear from the original Hebrew text. So the NIV, the New American Standard, I checked them all, the ESV, the New Living Translation, the Holman Christian Standard Bible, all the major, the five major modern translations translate that this way or something similar to it combining those two. So really the second part of the verse is a restatement for poetic effect. If you have a Bible like I have, this is set off in poetic meter and the way it looks, the reason is Hebrew poetry often repeats the same thing for emphasis. And that's exactly what verse 16 does. I will make your pains in child bearing very severe and he says it a different way. With painful labor, you will give birth to children. So the idea basically is child bearing will now be painful, which would not have been the case if there had been no fall, if there had been no sin. And by the way, the word for pain here, painful labor means burdensome labor. It's the same Hebrew word comes from the same root as the painful toil that man will have as he works the ground. So it is full of the picture of sweat and hard work and pain and all of you women who have had children understand that completely. So that is a part of the judgment, the curse of God, the result of man sin as it affects Eve and women, painful childbirth. Okay? Comments or questions there? Yes, Bob? The second comment in the verse with painful labor, you will give birth to children? I think by way of application and extension, you can certainly see that here. It's certainly true that because of man sin, not only is the process of childbirth bringing a child into the world painful, but even the relationships are tainted with sin. And everything from there on tends to carry that pain with it. Certainly that's true. Whether or not it's directly implied here or you can just kind of read it by extension, certainly true that we bring each other pain in relationship because of sin, because of the fall. Certainly very true. Okay? Good. Anything else? Steve? Okay. Good. And I would add my plug to that plug for the E412 class on hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the science of interpreting the Bible and depending on what type of literature reading like poetry or prophetic scripture or a narrative, a story or didactic teaching, which is commands teaching like Paul's epistles, you understand those differently. And one of the best examples of that is Proverbs 226. Train up a child in the way you should go when he's old in that department. That is not a command. That's Hebrew poetry. It's wisdom literature and wisdom literature is not a promise. It is wisdom literature is clearly all of the things being equal. This will be true. But there are exceptions. And you can find that throughout the book of Proverbs in talking about if you do this or that you will live a long life. Well, that's generally true. But it's not a promise. It's a proverb and a proverb is a different kind of literature than a promise. So, yeah, Steve is making a good point that you interpret different kinds of scripture a little differently, whether it's symbolic or that kind of thing. So that's important to keep in mind as well. Alright, let's move to the next part of verse 16. We're going to spend a little bit of time here because this is really critical. Foundational again, the second judgment upon Eve and women is a changed relationship with her husband. Notice the last part of the verse, your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. Now, the key concepts here are found in the word desire and rule. The wife will desire, woman will desire, the husband, the man will rule, have a tendency to rule. Now, there have been a variety of interpretations of this passage. Let me give you four. The first two are not really controversial, although I don't think they're the proper way to look at the passage. It is the last two that really create a lot of controversy that is still with us today and is becoming even more of a controversy in the culture in which we live. But let me explain the first two to begin with. There are some who interpret this passage, your desire will be for your husband particularly, that that has to do with sexual attraction. And so what they say, this text is saying, the pain of childbirth, which is just mentioned, is offset by sexual desire and your desire will be for your husband. That's one way to look at the verse. I don't think it's the correct way. The second way to look at this verse, the second way it's interpreted, is that the desire has to do with a close relationship, the word we would use today would be intimacy. But it may include, but it's not limited to sexual desire. So the first two understandings of this verse have to do with either sexual desire or desire for a close relationship. Now, while both of those things are true in human relationships, that probably is not what this passage is referring to. There are two other interpretations. And these are the two that form a key battleground in the debate on women's role in the church and in the home. So let me take a little bit of time to explain these two. There are those who believe that this passage that your desire will be for your husband is describing the beginning of a woman's submission to her husband. There are those who say, well, this is where that started. Your desire will be for your husband in the sense that you will be tied to him. Your life will be bound up in him. And you will be submissive to him. There are those who say, this is where submission to your husband began. It's a part of the curse. And thus, because submission is a part of the curse, it was lifted by the cross and is no longer applicable today. Now, as you can readily see, those who really push this view are a group called the Christian feminists. They are really pushing a more feminist ideology, but trying to use this verse to support what they teach. So basically, they say, well, the submission and headship, that whole thing, that's a part of the curse. God never intended that. That's a part of the curse. And so Christ died to release all of creation from the curse. So the curse has been lifted. There is no such thing as headship and submission anymore. So women have every right to have any position in the church, including pastor. And women do not need to be submissive to their husbands. That's old antiquated thinking. That pretty much is the idea. It's called egalitarianism. It's the name that's often given to this movement and view of really Christian feminism. I don't think that's what this passage is saying. Primarily, for this reason, we'll look at the fourth interpretation in a moment and we'll see how to more literally interpret the word desire. But primarily, because headship and submission were already established in creation, they were not established here in the fall. Paul makes that point very clearly. If you're here on Sunday mornings and you remember way back when we were in first Timothy before Christmas, and we did first Timothy 2, Paul roots his argument for women not being the pastor teacher in a church in the fact that in creation, Paul says it very plainly in first Timothy 2, in creation, God established an order by creating man first and then creating woman to be his wife. He's a helper one who would compliment him. So Paul understands and he does the same thing in 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Corinthians 14. He ties the headship submission debate or the origination of it all the way back to creation. So God's order for the home and the church is not a part of the curse that's been lifted and eradicated by the cross. It is a part of God's creation order. So let me move to the fourth interpretation of this passage, which I think is the most clear and correct. And that is that the word desire here has to do with a desire to dominate a desire to have the mastery over. You see what says your desire will be for your husband. If you have an ESV, an English standard version, they put a footnote in the English standard version, which says that the Hebrew preposition can also be translated against your desire will be against your husband. But probably the main reason for understanding the word desire in this sense, this word has only found a handful of times in the Old Testament, but one of them is in the very next chapter. In chapter 4, verse 7, when God is talking to Cain, in verse 6 he says, why are you angry? Why is your face downcast, verse 7? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must rule over it. So in a short span, Moses uses the same word desire in basically the same context. And it's used very rarely in the Old Testament. So most Bible scholars believe the idea is not a desire for in the sense of an attraction to or a desire in the sense of being submissive to. It's a desire to have a mastery over just like sin desires to have a mastery over Cain. And he has to fight against that. So Eve, because now she's infected with a sin nature, will have a desire to dominate her husband, a desire to have mastery over her husband. And remember that was part of what led to sin in the first place. She took that role of leadership away from her husband when she took the fruit and then gave it to him to eat. And Adam abandoned his role of leadership in the home by being submissive to what his wife had done. Now, remember that since headship and submission is already established in creation, according to 1st Timothy 2 and 1st Grinth in 11, this is probably the best way to understand the word desire that he's talking about a desire on the part of a woman to dominate and have mastery over her husband. She had assumed that position of leadership in the fall by persuading Adam to eat of the fruit. Adam had forsaken that place of leadership by giving in. And so God is reminding her of her position of submission to her husband's spiritual leadership, but also letting her know that because of her sinful nature now, she will tend to resist in her fallen state. She will tend to resist that. You say, well, is woman the only one affected by this? Uh-uh. Do you see what? See what he says in the last part of the verse? Your desire will be for your husband. You'll have this desire to have mastery over him and he will rule over you. That is not a command that husbands should rule over their wives because the word rule here is used in a harsh and oppressive way. The point is, part of the curse on women is that man will now tend to pervert his position of leadership because of our depraved nature. We have a tendency to dominate our wives, to be the boss, the general, the one who cracks the whip and says, you better do this, you better fall in line. And that is an abuse of God-given leadership. Remember, Paul clears this up in Ephesians 5 when he says in relationship, the headship and submission after he deals with that in 22 to 24 in verse 25, he spends about 10 verses, 9 verses actually describing a husband's love for his wife, which is to be like Christ. Christ, yes, is the head of the church, but Christ loved the church and he gives five examples of the way Christ loved the church in Ephesians 5 verses 25 to about through verse 29. And all of them have to do with a self-sacrificial giving for the good of the church. And so we are to love our wives with a self-sacrificial giving for their good. Because of our sin nature, we have a tendency to pervert that position of leadership into a rule over you, kind of authoritative, domineering position, and that is never what God intended. That is an abuse of that authority. Sin messed up the marriage relationship because of our sin nature. Women will have a tendency to want to have the mastery over their husbands and husbands will have the tendency to want to rule an authoritative, dictator-type way over their wives. Neither one of those is what God intended. And that messing up of the relationship can be redeemed and restored properly in Christ. And that is why Paul gives commands about how marriage is supposed to look in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3. That is how it is supposed to look when we are in Christ and we are being renewed in the image of our creator and not living under the control of the sin nature. But a part of the curse, a part of what we struggle with because of Adam and Eve sin, is now there is a changed relationship between husband and wife. It is really a part of the curse on the woman. She will have a tendency to have the mastery and her husband will respond by having the tendency to put her in her place. And neither one is what God intended. God intended a Christ-like relationship of love, leadership out of love, and the woman responding to that with helpful support and encouragement. That is what Ephesians 5 teaches. This is a critical verse, not just in understanding the consequences of the fall, but this verse is a key battleground verse in the whole issue of Christian feminism today. And over throwing what I believe to be the biblical positions of God's order in the church as far as leadership is concerned and the home as far as leadership is concerned. Okay, Steve. Right. Yeah. And the whole example that Paul is using is of Christ giving himself and his sacrifice on the cross for the life of the bride, the church. All that is rooted in what Christ did at the cross. Yeah. Well, the curse is lifted by the cross, but it is not all in effect yet. Yeah. And the reason they picked that part of it is what if they always go to Galatians 3.28, they in Christ, there's neither male nor female, bond or free. You know, those kind of distinctions and they take that to mean there is no gender distinction as far as headship and submission is concerned in Christ. Well, actually, it's referring to the what Christ has done for us in his death on the cross as far as our equality before God is concerned. In the body of Christ and our relationship with God in spiritual relationship with God and spiritual privileges is the word I'm looking for. There's no distinction between male and female. You know, male and female can be equally blessed and encouraged and used by God. So that's what Galatians 3.28 is talking about in our position in Christ, their spiritual equality. Okay. Yes, Angel. Well, they would still hold to that part of the verse. Well, they're just interpreting differently. I think in a way that fits what they've already decided to believe. The last part of the verse, they're choosing to interpret it in a way that fits what they believe. And I don't want to be, I don't want to paint them all as rank liberals. There are a lot of evangelical, Bible believing people who take that position. I think they're wrong, but they take that position in interpret passages like this in Galatians 3.28 in those ways. The difficulty that position has, the Christian feminist view, is how are you going to deal with 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2? And boy, they've got some really dance moves to get around those things. They really got some fancy footwork around those two passages. And basically what they end up saying is, well, Paul was just addressing local issues that were true of the culture in Corinth and in Ephesus with 1 Timothy. And those were just local issues. There's no application to the broader realm of Christianity. That's how they deal with those two. Because you cannot escape the clear wording in 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2 about headship and submission in the home and in the church, in church leadership. So they kind of have to dance around that one. Pardon me? Because of that, they can deal with the way of the religious person is something that you can have to take away from. Well, we have to be real careful with differences in interpretation. When John says in Revelation 22, people who take away from the word, they're basically, he's talking basically about substituting some other authoritative book or message for the word of God like cults do. Okay, yeah, we believe this is the Bible, but we also have this book. And this book really is our authority. So it substitutes for the word of God. It's that kind of flagrant adding or taking away. I don't think John was talking about differences of interpretation. That gets to be a pretty, slippery slope as to who we would say is saved and unsaved because really, I think these folks are wrong, but there are a lot of good brothers and sisters in Christ who take the third position that I described on this passage. Okay, I saw a couple hands. Let me get the Randall and then to Michael. So, if you're just trying to tell us what you're doing, do you want to hear the written, what you're doing to make it like small? Well, in many ways marriage isn't equal partnership. You know, Paul begins the whole passage on the home and ending the passage on the results of spirit filling in Ephesians 521 by saying, submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of God. Now, the way a man practices that humility is through loving his Christ or loving his wife as Christ loved the church by giving of himself sacrificially for her good. Okay, so in that sense that could be described as a form of submission, but and there is that equality, but that does not negate the fact that God has established a leadership position in the home and a position of helping the husband to fulfill that leadership role. Okay, there's still that dynamic. Michael just answered it. Wow, two for one. That's great. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If we can just keep in mind the relationship between Christ and the church that that helps us to understand how headship and leadership is to be demonstrated. Jesus always said it's to be in a servant fashion. So I'm to serve my wife. Now, some people would say, well, that's a position of submission. Now, it's a proper spirit and form of leadership is to lead as Christ leads with a servant spirit with a desire for the good of my wife. If you understand that, that beautiful picture that the Bible gives us of Christ and the church, that really helps understand. And the church is submissive to Christ, not in any beaten down kind of faction. Wow, the greatest privilege and joy we have is being under his leadership because it's perfect. It's godly leadership. And to the extent that husband expressed that kind of leadership, there is no more blessed life than a woman who supports and is enriched by that kind of godly leadership in a home. So that's the way it's supposed to work. And if you keep that model in mind, it really helps how to sort things out. Like dominion. Yeah. Give himself a sheet lays his life down for the sheep. Yeah. Another another figure or picture of his kind of leadership. Okay. Kisti. So I think that's the only thing that I can do is to get a heart. Yeah. Okay. Kisti's mentioning the fact that there is a group of Christian feminists, a section of Christian feminists that do reject outright the teaching of Paul. And there are. There among loosely called Christianity, there are liberals and others of their persuasion. Some far left evangelicals, they would call themselves evangelicals who would would deny outright the teaching of Paul in 1st, 22 and 1st, 1st, 10, 11. When it gets to that point, I don't see them as evangelicals anymore because of their view of scripture. When you begin denying in erency and the authority of scripture, you're no longer an evangelical in the real sense of that word. The true sense of the word of being a Bible believer, one who believes in the inspiration of scripture. So but there are people in the so-called Christian feminist camp who do outright reject the teaching of Paul. Yeah. And they understand what it's saying. They just say we don't think that's right. Okay. If we don't let out, it will actually be the children who are in charge of everything. So we better stop. Let's pray.