Genesis 3: Biblical Definition of Sin
by Kandice Barley
Before we discuss anything, I want to remind you all that we are walking through the Story of Scripture. There is a great importance here that needs to be emphasized so that no matter who is teaching each week, you may have in the back of your mind that you are learning HIS story. We are giving you a card each week highlighting the part of the story we are in. Study it, lay your cards out and piece them together. Learn to live in His story...the Story of Scripture.
Last week, T’Naya focused on Creation. She mentioned that there were significant P’s in the Garden: God’s Presence, His People, their Purpose. She relayed the fact that in the garden, Adam and Eve were literally the image bearers of God and were told to be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth and have dominion over it. All of these were positive commands. The only negative they were told was to NOT eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that is where we pick up this week, with the Fall.
My family lived in Farmington, NM at one point when I was a small child. As a 7 year old, it was so awesome to me that we lived in a house that had two stories. But our two story house was different, because mine and my brother’s rooms were actually in the bottom story that was underground. Under the stairs in this basement-like, bottom story was a small storage room that my brother and I turned into a secret hideout, a tiny getaway from the world. And it was where we would make an EPIC mistake. You see, as most 6 and 7 year olds are, we weren’t all that smart. We loved to get those paddles that had the rubber ball attached by a rubber band-like string. Once that string snapped and that ball broke free, our mom would use that paddle to whip our behinds when necessary. So, my brother and I started stashing all the broken paddles in our secret hideaway. And you guessed it, at one point, my mom found them and we were in so much trouble. Not for breaking the cheap toys, which was inevitable, but for being deceitful, sneaky, and for ultimately lying to our mom. We were in trouble because we were sinning.
To talk of the Fall, we must talk of sin. So let’s start by defining what sin is. John Piper defines sin as follows: “sin is irrational. If you were rational, you wouldn’t sin. Sin is suicidal. It is destructive. It ruins people. It ruins you. It displeases God. There are ten thousand reasons not to sin and no good ones to sin — just stupid, lying ones. And we all do it because sin is irrational, and Satan is infinitely smart and stupid, smart and irrational. You know people like that — people who are brilliant and will look like absolute idiots on judgment day. Isn’t it tragic — gifted brains all being invested in folly of opposing the king?” Essentially, sin is any act or thought that opposes God and His will. Sin happens when we stop seeking out the simple goodness and grace of God, and start to seek out anything else thinking it will satisfy us. Sin separates from God, who is perfect. 1 John 3:4 says “Everyone who commits sin practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.” And while we want to give weight to different sins, God sees all sins (except blaspheming the Holy Spirit) the same. Sin is sin. Sin is separation. Sin is death! Gossip is death. Lying is death. Adultery is death. Stealing is death. Jealousy is death. To God they all look the same, they carry the same weight, they equal separation and death.
Let’s look at Genesis 3 where sin entered the scene. In Genesis 3:1 the serpent, which we know to be Satan from other verses in the bible most namely Revelation 12:9, takes God’s words and twists them. He says to Eve: “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden?’” The enemy knew what God had spoken. He knew God had said they could not eat of one particular tree, yet he plants a seed of doubt in Eve’s mind. And in 3:2-3 we see that doubt take root. Notice Eve’s response here-- “The Woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it nor touch it, or you will die.’” At this point the enemy had a point of attack. The Father of Sin, knows God’s words. From the very beginning he has been manipulating the words of the Almighty to bring doubt, shame, confusion, and ultimately separation from God.The serpent lies to Eve and tells her that by eating the fruit she will become as knowledgeable as God. She would be like God. But here is where the problem lies, she forgot WHO she was. She was already like God because she was made in His likeness. She was His image bearer. Here at this moment is where sin was born into the world. She eats and does not physically die and she leads her husband into sin as well. Hear me out here, Eve gets a bad wrap because Adam could have said no, but he didn’t and therefore, their eyes are opened and they see that they are naked. We know in this moment they are ashamed because they cover themselves.
In Genesis 3:8 is a passage worth deliberately looking for God’s attributes. Go through it with open eyes, search for and mark His attributes. Be mindful of who He is even in the face of the Fall of mankind. When you do you will see that in the face of man’s huge downfall, God is still Omniscient, Just, Creator, Gracious, Loving, Provider, Merciful, Redeemer, and Sovereign? God knew they were naked and where they were hiding, yet He asked who told them they were naked. God knew who had led them into sin, yet He asks what they had done, “Why?” Because we were created with a purpose remember? Man is created to glorify God in all we do and in order to do that we must have a relationship with Him. God asked because He values the relationship with His creation. In 3:21 we see the first sacrifice made for sin, and it was provided by God to literally cover Adam and Eve’s shame. “The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and He clothed them.” Blood was shed so that their sin would be atoned. God also gave mercy to man by shutting them out of the garden. Remember sin meant death and not just physical death, but far worse was the spiritual death and separation from God. Genesis 3:22 says: “Then 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.’” God had a plan. He had a redemptive plan from the foundation of the earth, and that redemption had to be Jesus. But here is the beauty in the plan, our God is love. He loves us man so much that he wants us to CHOOSE him. He gave Adam and Eve the choice; it was an act of obedience. Trust God and all He had provided or the alternative, to trust one’s self. Banning humans from the tree of life was an act of mercy. It allowed for redemption rather than a life of perpetual sin in an unredeemed state, and so they were sent out of the garden.
Cain and Abel
Have you ever noticed that it was after the exile from the garden that Adam and Eve fulfilled the original commandment the Lord had given them? Once outside of the garden, they conceive first Cain and then Abel, thus being fruitful and multiplying. One aspect of importance here is that Cain’s name in the Hebrew means “acquired,” and it’s as if Adam and Eve are saying here he is, the one who will crush the head of the serpent God told us about in Gen. 3:15. But they were mistaken, instead of holding the redeemer, the one who would rectify man’s sinful nature, she was holding a murderer.
Genesis 4:3-7 says: “ In the course of time Cain presented some of the land’s produce as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also presented an offering—some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he looked despondent. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” It wasn’t the grain that made Cain’s offering unacceptable to the Lord. In fact later in Leviticus 2, Moses explains how grain offerings should be presented. It also wasn’t because Abel brought a lamb, or even because it was the firstborn of his flock, or even because he also brought the fat (which was like a luxury item, a hot commodity). Hebrews 11:4 tells us by faith Abel offered up a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. It was one brother’s lack of faith in God, and the other’s whole-hearted faith in God that made their offerings either acceptable or unacceptable.
When Cain’s countenance falls we see that his heart is rooted in pride and anger, not faith. Yet God is loving and gentle, always providing correction in sin. He deals gently with Cain. He lovingly confronts him wanting Him to simply confess. God was explaining to Cain through gentle questioning that he could in fact resist sin and find blessing or cave in to sin and find destruction. God commands Cain, and all of us here, to rule over sin. I would argue that through Cain’s story we learn that we should also rule over our emotions for they can often lead to sin. God cares about how we wield our emotions because we either use them to glorify the Father or they become a foothold for sin to enter our lives. In Cain’s case it all rooted from jealousy out of God’s blessings when it came to him and his brother Abel. God was more pleased with Abel’s offering than Cain’s and from this seed of jealousy grew fury. (Gen. 4:3-6) Just like Cain, if we are not careful to control our emotions sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for us, but we must rule over it. We cannot be like Cain and walk in complete defiance of God’s Word using our emotions as an excuse. Instead, we must pray for the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen us so that we may rule over our emotions and use them for His glory just as He intended all along. And just like Adam and Eve we have a choice, choose God or choose sin. We have to choose one master. Cain makes his choice and in Genesis 4:8 we see Cain blatantly planned Abel’s murder. He ignored God.
Jude 1:11 warns of the way of Cain--a way of unbelief and empty religion that leads to jealousy, anger, and persecution of the truly godly. But let me regress for just a moment and point out that Genesis 4:9 echoes 3:9-13 here. Again, we see our Omniscient God asking His creation to confess what each has done. Although our God is all-knowing, once again He asks because it’s about the relationship with His creation. All God was seeking was a repentant heart. But Genesis 4:9-15 states: “Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s guardian?” Then he said, “What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground! So now you are cursed, alienated from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood you have shed. If you work the ground, it will never again give you its yield. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”But Cain answered the Lord, “My punishment is too great to bear! Since you are banishing me today from the face of the earth, and I must hide from your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, whoever finds me will kill me.” Then the Lord replied to him, “In that case, whoever kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” And he placed a mark on Cain so that whoever found him would not kill him. Then Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” Am I my brother’s keeper? My punishment is too great to bear! Cain doesn’t cry out to God in a form of sorrowful remorse like say David in the Psalms or Peter after realizing he had done as Jesus said he would and denied he knew Him three times. Instead we see the anguish of punishment. And yet God is merciful because He puts a mark on Cain so that all may know him and none will kill him.
The Wickedness and Judgment of All Mankind
Once banished, God is again merciful and gives Adam and Eve Seth. From Seth came Noah. While Angie will speak more of Noah next week, let’s briefly go to Genesis 6 and discuss the progression of the sin from the fall to this point some 9 generations later. Genesis 6:5-8 reads: “ Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” There are two very important points here to be made. 1.) The intentions of every heart were evil. I always find it odd that people complain that we are living in one of the most sinful generations of all time or that things are worse now that they’ve ever been. But here we see quite the contrary. Not only had sin infiltrated the earth, but all of mankind had turned their hearts away from God. In just a few generations, we see a progression from eating a forbidden fruit (3:6), to murder (4:8), to polygamy and mulitple murders (4:23), and finally to worldwide preoccupation with evil (6:6). 2.) The Lord was grieved in His heart and sorry He had made them. Do not mistake this for God making a mistake. Our God is Sovereign and actually sees the story from end to beginning. He is Omniscient and knows all things. God saw this coming. He was not taken by surprise. In fact God allowed all of this to happen for a reason. Colossians 1:15-20 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” Every bit of the story, from Genesis to Revelation points to Jesus. It is all for Him.
The question we must ask is--what is the root of our sin. What is the root cause of Eve’s sin, of Cain’s sin, of the sinful hearts of all humanity before the flood, of your sin, of my sin? Self-salvation is the notion that we know better or can do better than God. As crazy as that sounds, think about it for just a moment. Why did my brother and I hide all those paddles knowing all along that we would eventually be caught, because we thought we knew a better way. We thought we were smarter. Why did Eve sin in the first place? Because she and Adam had stopped enjoying all the beautifully perfect gifts God had surrounded them with, given them, and instead wanted to know better than Him. Why did Cain kill Abel? Because he thought God had gotten it wrong in showing favor to Abel’s offering. He thought he knew better than Him. Think about the sin you are dealing with in your own life right now...can you trace the root back to the fact that you simply aren’t trusting God to handle it and instead are trying to do it on your own--that is self-salvation; that is sin. Repent. Because here’s the big picture...sin creates a false story where you are the leading character. Sin leads you to live in a false story. Instead, surrender to Jesus and live in HIS Story.