Part One: Paradise Lost
Genesis 3
This year on the beach mission, we are trying to communicate the “big story” of the Bible, starting in Genesis and running all the way through the Old Testament to Jesus, and his life, death and resurrection, and the fact that he will return to judge the world and usher in the new heavens and the new earth.
This morning we’ve just heard two moments from that story, two moments of change – a kind of “before” and “after”. What’s more, the Bible’s story helps us to understand our own lives and understand some of life big’s questions.
Questions such as “Why is there evil and suffering in the world?” An old question, and one that each generation has to struggle with. Different religions and philosophies give different answers. perhaps there things are a punishment for sins in a past life. Or maybe what we call “pain” and “evil” are no more than blind chance in a meaningless universe. But the story of Adam and Eve gives a different answer – what does the Bible say the problem is?
The answer is quite simply us. Some years ago, The Times posed this very question of what is wrong in the world. Christian writer G K Chesterton wrote in with a short and simple reply: “Dear Sir, I am”.
You see, the story of Adam and Eve isn’t just a story about an event that happened once in the past, but also a story that describes what happens in the hearts of each one of us. We’ve all followed in the footsteps of our first father and mother, and turned away from God.
But what exactly is the problem? Why is what Adam and Eve did so serious? One of my university tutors, while lecturing on Paradise Lost, jokes that Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden from “scrumping”, for stealing apples. On a rather more serious note, author Philip Pullman argues in the His Dark Materials trilogy that the Fall was the first step towards wisdom, and that religion keeps people in a state of ignorance.
To really understand why sin is such a problem, we need to turn our minds to the nature and character of God. We need to seek to fire up our imaginations so we can glimpse something of the burning radiance and glory of God. God who had effortlessly created a marvellous, incredible universe, one that he judged to be “very good”. He gave life to Adam and Eve, entrusted them with the care of this beautiful creation, giving them everything in the Garden to enjoy (with one small exception). Most amazingly of all, God Himself walked with them in the Garden. They had the pleasure and privilege of knowing and serving and delighting in him in this amazing world.
Doesn’t that show you something of the goodness and beauty of God? If we begin to see that, we begin to see that Adam and Eve’s rebellion was far more serious than just scrumping apples. We can see three reasons why their decision to disobey God and eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil was so serious, and why our decisions to disobey God are so serious.
Firstly, sin denies the truthfulness of God.
The snake began his subtle attack by creating doubt about God’s word. “Did God really say…?” (Now we need to be careful to recognise that questions are not in themselves bad – in fact they are very good, important and necessary. But there’s a world of difference between asking “What did God really say?” in order to discover God’s will and obey it, and asking “Did God really say?” in order to deny God’s will and disobey it.) But Eve did not answer indignantly this slight on God’s character by giving all the many reasons they had to trust God, but instead listened to the snake. She was then ready to swallow the snake’s outright lie: “You will not surely die”.
But God not only tells the truth, he is Truth. He is the ultimate reality which underlies and sustains all that there is. So to deny God’s truthfulness is a terrible, terrible thing. But every time we sin, we call God a liar.
Secondly, sin denies the goodness of God.
For his next trick, the snake denies the goodness of God. He insinuated to Adam and Eve that God was keeping something good from them, that God did not have their best interests at heart.
We believe exactly the same lie whenever we sin. If we really believed God to be good, we would know that following him is always, bar never, the best course of action. We act as if God is out to spoil our fun, even if we never think of our sin quite that crudely.
But not only is God good, God is Goodness. What’s right and good and moral finds its definition in the character and nature of God. Sin is an attack on the person who is Goodness and Morality and Honour and Love and Justice himself.
Thirdly, sin denies the supreme beauty of God.
The second lie was that God does not want to give us good things. But God wants to give us the best thing possible: himself. He made us to enjoy him and glorify him forever. The third reason that sin is so serious is that it elevates something that is not God above God. We choose not-Gods, idols, instead of him.
Despite what Pullman might say, the problem was not that Eve desired wisdom. The Bible says that fruit of the tree was indeed “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom”. The problem was seeking this outside of the parameters God had set, of desiring the fruit more than desiring God, to love him through obedience to his commands.
God is not only the most supremely beautiful being, he is Beauty itself. Like Goodness and Truth, Beauty is rooted in his very character and being. God deserves our worship supremely, but whenever we sin, we deny him the praise and honour and love he deserves.
So God is the one where goodness, beauty and truth are one. The answer to the age old question of “What is the meaning of Life?” is that he created us to find life and purpose and happiness in following him. But we refuse him day after day, moment after moment. And when we consider the mind-boggling greatness of our God, that’s a terrible, awful thing.
Sin has consequences, and affects every are of our lives:
- Sin breaks our relationship with God
- Sin breaks our relationships with other people
- Sin breaks our relationship with creation
- Sin breaks our relationship with ourselves
DEATH enters into every area. This is why there is so much brokenness and pain and evil in our world – it all flows from that broken relationship with God. This is the story of Adam and Eve. This is the story that we find ourselves in by nature.
Is this the end? It might give some kind of intellectual answer to why there’s evil, but little comfort and little hope. But there is another story. The Bible doesn’t just give us an intellectual answer, but a personal response.
Next: God’s Kingdom Restored