Invocavit --- Lent 1

Jesse Jacobsen

Time-stamp: <Sat Feb 12 16:43:21 2005>
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Genesis 3:1--24



Then the serpent said to the woman, ``You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.''

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, ``Where are you?''

So he said, ``I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.''

And He said, ``Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?''

Then the man said, ``The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.''

And the LORD God said to the woman, ``What is this you have done?'' The woman said, ``The serpent deceived me, and I ate.''

So the LORD God said to the serpent:

``Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.''

To the woman He said:

``I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
In pain you shall bring forth children;
Your desire shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.''

Then to Adam He said, ``Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, `You shall not eat of it':

``Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.''

One God alone stands above us all

When I was about ten years old, there were two kinds of ants in our backyard: black and red. The black ants built impressive homes in the ground, digging elaborate caves that you could see right below the surface of the ground. They would range far for bits of leaves and other food that they carried back to their little castle. The red ants were different. They would dig deep, bringing the dirt and sand to the surface, and piling it high around the entrance to their labyrinth. All you could see of their home was the dark, gaping hole leading downward, with bright red bodies sweeping through in single file.

I liked the black ants, but despised the red ants. It didn't help that the red ants would sting you like a wasp if you upset them. So I acted as the god of the ants, stomping the red ant holes shut or pouring in water to flood them out. I gathered leaves and bits of food for the black ants. The black were good, and the red evil, because I said so.

That's the kind of thing children do, at least in the Arizona desert. But there are limits. Below a certain level, we have some freedom. Above the limits placed upon us, there is one God and Lord, and we must obey His will alone. He determines what is good and what is evil, not us.

Sin is a clash: God's will against our will. He calls something bad, but we call it good. So any temptation to sin is a temptation to be our own god, to say what's best for us. We like to think it works, that we can get away with living how we want. ``Break the rules, and be your own God,'' Satan advertises. And his advertising is effective.

But the fact is, we can't compete with the true God in heaven. His will prevails in the end, and His enemies will all be defeated. One God alone stands above us all: so that the will of God is always best, and so that He alone may provide mercy for justice.

So that the will of God is always best

The things described in our text, Genesis 3, really happened. ``Sin entered the world, and death through sin.'' Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were immortal. Death was not a factor. Maybe you think it's naïve to believe this, in light of all those who find evidence for evolution. This isn't the time to give the reasons, but it's an either/or. Either evolution is true and we are not God's creatures, or the Bible is true and we did not evolve. We have to accept one or the other, not both. The real evidence supports the Bible, and the Bible is God's Word.

So Adam was really made by God from the dust of the earth, and Eve was really made from one of his ribs. They really lived in a garden called Eden, which we also call Paradise. They were perfect, and God really commanded them not to eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden.

Why did God command that? He hasn't told me everything, but I can see what effects His command had. It was a fruit tree, like many others. There was no obvious reason why it should be different. The only difference was the command from God. So this one command gave Adam and Eve an opportunity to keep God's Word simply because God had spoken it.

If someone tells you, ``don't drink that water,'' and it smells sulphury and looks a strange color, then you will be inclined to take the advice. But if the water looks clear and sweet, and you are thirsty, then your actions will depend upon how much you trust the person who said, ``don't drink the water.''

God wants our trust. He will not share our trust with other gods. He wants us to accept His will, and will not share our obedience with anyone or anything else.

Does that mean it's wrong to have a king or president, a governor, a father or mother? No, because God has provided them. When we obey them, we obey God indirectly.

But God will remain God. When we disobey Him or run against His will, then we are trying to replace Him with ourselves. We are telling Him, ``God, you may have said that this is good and that is bad, but I'm changing all that. Now, I know what's best, and I will say what is good or bad.''

So God's command not to eat from the tree in the midst of the garden was not so much about the tree as it was about the command. Eating from that tree was an evil act, because God had forbidden it. But the tempter said otherwise, and Eve believed the word of the tempter instead of the word of God.

Let's look at that temptation a little more closely. Satan said, ``You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'' How much of that was true? In a way, most of it was true. After Adam and Eve ate the fruit, we're told ``Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked.'' They also did become more like God, but not in a good way. By disobeying God, they were setting themselves up against Him, to be their own gods, to establish their will in place of His. They wanted to define good and evil on their own, independent of God's own definition of good and evil. This was spiritual death. So was the tempter telling the truth at all? Yes, but he was using it to deceive.

What Eve did understand was that the serpent wanted her to break God's commandment. That should have been enough. How about temptations since that time? Ever since, we all have fallen for the temptation that we know better than God. Maybe without even realizing it, we set ourselves up as gods. Maybe we still pay God lip service in the process. Maybe we actually think we are obeying Him. But whenever we do what is right in our own eyes instead of what is right in God's eyes, no matter what our intentions may be, we are repeating the Fall of Man.

King Saul had been chosen by God as King of Israel. But you might recall from Sunday School or from your own Bible reading that Saul began to do things his way instead of God's way. Without even trying to, or knowing the full meaning of his actions, Saul was setting himself up in place of God. The same thing has been repeated time after time, even to this very hour in our lives.

How can we resist temptation? Step one is to realize that there is one God above us all. Realize that this means we have to pay attention to what He says. If we don't know it, then we must learn it. He is our God, and we are His creatures. He says what is good and what is bad, not us. We will do His will, or else. By definition, the will of God is always best.

So that He alone may provide mercy for justice

One God stands above us all. It means that His will decides between good and evil, right and wrong. Sin is a rebellion against God, but since He is our omnipotent Creator, every sinner must fear His judgment. You can't break God's rules and expect to get away with it. Of course, that's exactly what Satan was implying when he said ``You will not surely die.'' Those are weasel words. It's like saying, ``That depends upon what your definition of `is' is.'' But no matter what we do or say, God's perfect justice is waiting for us in the end.

We might think Adam and Eve were being silly for trying to hide from God, but remember that this was the only thing left for them to do. They couldn't run. They couldn't hide, but they could try. Imagine our nakedness before God! He knows every square inch of our bodies, and every thought running through our minds. This knowledge gives rise to fear in the heart of a sinner. You can't truly escape, but if you are foolish enough to want what God forbids, then you are probably foolish enough to try. They would have preferred Old Navy, I'm sure, but all they had were fig leaves. How pitiful! What a deadly deception! They were not truly gods themselves, but they had tried to replace God's will with their own. What a failure! We should know.

The only question left is what, exactly, God wants to do with us. He began by leading Adam to admit what he had done. Adam was responsible as the first of all human beings. He admitted his sin, but he blamed Eve instead of himself, and he blamed God for putting her there. ``It's not my fault!''

The same with Eve. She admitted her sin, but cast the blame elsewhere. She had been deceived by the serpent. True enough, but she knew all along what God had said. She had simply stopped trusting His Word.

The serpent had no excuse. He was already damned forever, because he was really Satan in disguise, the once-glorious angel recently fallen into darkness and rebellion, and cast out of heaven. God addressed each of them in reverse: first Satan, then Eve who stood for all women, and then finally Adam who stood for all humanity.

The serpent got exactly what he deserved. But God now spoke a promise that the Fall of Man would one day be reversed. It was a bitter pill for the tempter, but it brought unexpected hope to the hearts of the humans: ``And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.'' This is the first Gospel, the first time God revealed His plan to redeem Man from the Fall.

Then God turned to Eve. At that moment, her heart must have been beating like a drum, thoughts of God saving her tumbling through her brain. At the same time, she must have begun feeling true shame, remorse, and repentance in the knowledge that God was going to be merciful. The Gospel provides us the strength we need to face the hardships we must bear.

To Eve, God described not so much a punishment, but a natural consequence of her sin. He was telling her what she had to expect now that the will of man had been set against the will of God. What she heard was meant for all of her daughters, too. Original sin was going to affect her relationships: with her children, and with her husband. There would be suffering.

To Adam, God again spoke the natural consequence of his sin, for all humanity. God described the frustration and hardship of life's labor. It takes enormous work just to feed ourselves, even in a land of blessing. Our work is not always joyful, as it was in Paradise. The ground itself is cursed. But the hardest part for man to face is death. It is a constant reminder that we are not gods. We are dust. The soul may live on, but our bodies will die. That is the consequence of original sin.

There is a sense of high tragedy in this entire history. We can't escape it. Something wonderful beyond words was forever lost when Adam and Eve fell into sin. Yet the great glory of God is not only that He created us. He had mercy upon us. He even used death to our benefit. And now, the seed of the woman has bruised the head of the serpent.

In the midst of a fruitful garden, where Adam was allowed to eat almost anything, he took the forbidden fruit. In the midst of the wilderness, after fasting forty days and nights, Jesus denied the Tempter and kept the Word of God.

As the King of all Creation, Adam listened to his wife and tried to make himself equal to God. Later, in the form of sinful man, the very Son of God chose to be obedient to His Father in all things.

When Adam had the wisdom and understanding that comes only when you are taught directly by God, he quit the true worship of God, and listened to the voice of the tempter instead. But later, Jesus did not take the easy path to glory. He sent the tempter away empty by clinging to the God's Word.

Jesus stood in place of us all, as our champion. He bruised the head of Satan. Then, as the perfect Man, Jesus went to the cross, where He also died our death. So the Seed of the woman was bruised in His heel, to reverse the terrible effects of the Fall of Man and reunite us with God forever. His task is finished, for He rose again on Easter morning.

There are many gods on earth and under the earth, but only one true God. Only one God has the power to say what is good and what is evil. He alone can judge. But He provides mercy for justice. That's the kind of God He is, and we will find our salvation only in Him. Therefore, let us gladly acknowledge that one God stands above us all: our Savior, the Lord God of heaven and earth. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!

This document was translated from LATEX by HEVEA.