Creation and the Fall

Well, good evening. It is hard to believe we've already come to chapter number six. I haven't been here for all of these, but I've had the privilege of being here for many of them. And this is, as was said earlier today, the bad news chapter. I mean, it really is the bad news chapter. But there's no good news without the bad news. Amen, And so we will work our way through this chapter. It's titled of the Fall of Man of Sin and of the Punishment thereof, Of the Fall of Man of Sin and of the Punishment thereof. And as we begin, as always, it's important to say a word or two about confessionally in general. Many of us, most of us, did not grow up in confessional environments, and in fact, most of us grew up in very anti confessional environments. Amen. Most of us grew up in environments where people looked at confessions with suspicion. The confessions are the words of men, right, and so you'll hear things that there are major objections. Main objections to confessionalism are these. Number One, people will argue that we don't need confessions because we have the Bible, and on its face that that sounds reasonable, right. We don't need confessions. We have the Bible. In fact, we believe in sola scripture. We believe that the Bible is our final and ultimate authority on all matters of faith in practice. You know what's interesting about that. That's a confessional statement. To say that the Bible is our final and ultimate authority on all matters of faith in practice is not quoting a verse. It's actually making a confessional statement. Not only that, but when people argue, you know, we don't need the confession because we have the Bible solo scriptura, I just ask them, okay, fine, so over in mccabees when it says no no no no no no no no no no no maccabees. That might be in the Catholic Bible, but that's not in our Bible. When we say Bible, we mean the sixty six books of the Old and New Testament. Guess what That's a confessional statement. When you explain what you mean by Bible, you're making a confessional statement because there is no verse of scripture that says these sixty six books comprise the Bible. I'll give you one more. There are those people who say things like, well, well, for us, there's no Creed but Christ. They love that one boy. No no Creed but Christ. That sounds great, and you could probably get to Jehovah's witnesses to sign on to that statement. No no, no, no, no, no no no, because when we say Christ, what we mean is guess what you just did. You just got confessional again. You're explaining what you mean when you say Christ, as opposed to what other people mean when they say Christ. Okay, So our confession are just statements clarifying what we believe the Bible says. Because the Bible is a big book. Amen. There's a lot of stuff in the Bible. And even when we say Bible, we have to explain what do we mean when we say Bible. What's part of the Bible, what's not part of the Bible. The other thing is this, we say, you know, confession, and we're a confessional church. And some people will argue that, well, that that's binding people's conscience. We believe in liberty of conscience, especially just Baptist folks. We believe in liberty of conscience. And so you have this confession and you're binding people's conscience, not unless there's some law that says you have to be a part of a particular church. If there's no law, no edict that says you have to be a part of a particular church, then that means you can actually go join another church, which means your conscience is not being balid. You're free. In fact, I would argue that you have greater freedom because you see, there's no such thing as a church that's not confessional. There are churches that have written confessions that can be seen by all and evaluated by all, and then there's churches that have unwritten confessions. They'll say they're not a confessional church, but there are things that they believe. There are things most surely believed among them, and if you get sideways with them, they'll tell you what those things are. They may even discipline you over those things. And so you can come into a church that doesn't have a written confession and you have certain convictions, and all of a sudden, you know, down the line somewhere your convictions come up against those convictions, and we've got a problem. Whereas in a confessional church, what's being said is here's who we are, here's what we believe. You can have access to it, you can evaluate it and you can even test what we say against it, because this is what we're saying is a faithful summary of the doctrine to which we hold. So there's that. We always have to start there because there's always folks you know, who're coming in there, like, you know, it's fine conference whatever, but you know this confession stuff. What are we doing? What are we talking about? And in this first session I want to demonstrate the validity of what I just said. If you look with well, sorry, all right, Chapter six second London Baptistan fashion. I'm sixteen eighty nine, really sixteen seventy seven, but you know who's counting paragraph one? You have it there. We're doing paragraph one tonight, and let me just give you this other last disclaimer before we move on. There are a lot of things that we'll deal with that will unfold over the course of our time this weekend. So if there are things that I bring up and you say, boy, I really wish you would have explained that more, just keep coming, amen, just keep coming. Tonight we look at paragraph one, and then the next session paragraph two. Although God created man upright and perfect and gave him a righteous law which had been unto him, life had he kept it and threatened death upon the breach thereof. Yet he did not long abide in this honor. Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to seduce Eve, then by her seducing Adam, who without any compulsion, did willfully transgress the law of their creation and the command given unto them, and eating the forbidden fruit, which God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory. One of the beautiful things about this and about the confession in general, is the wisdom that is used in terms of what is included and what is not. There are questions that everybody has not everybody everybody has that are not included here in this statement. Why because the Bible doesn't really clearly answer those questions. You see, our confession is about the things that we are convinced of and convicted of according to the scriptures. There are things that we hold to. Usually we talk about three different levels, the level of conviction and persuasion and opinion. Right conviction is the Bible says this, and I'll go to the mat for it. It's clear. It's there. We'll divide over conviction. Then there's persuasion. The Bible doesn't absolutely clearly say this, but I am persuaded by what we do have in the scriptures that this is the case. Now, I'm not going to divide over it. Amen, we can we can be friends, we can be brothers, we can we can clash over it or whatever. I'm not going to divide over it because it's not a conviction for me. It's a persuasion for me. Then there's opinion. Those we keep to ourselves. Amen, I've got lots of opinions, but they don't even rise to the level of persuasion. And it's interesting here the things that are not addressed in this paragraph or in this chapter, for example, the different views of how God's sovereignty interacts and interfaces with what happens here in the Fall, our lapsarian views for those theology nerds, superlapsarianism and interlapse arianism, and these various views that that that explain this interplay between God's sovereignty and what happened here in the Fall. Because we have questions. The Confession doesn't get into that because that's persuasion level stuff. It makes a general statement at the end if you caught that. The general statement at the end is which God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purpose, to order it to his own glory. Well, why did he permit it for his own glory? Well? Well why did he? Why did he even have that tree in the garden? What? Why? Why is the serpent there? Why? The Bible doesn't answer those questions. That's not the purpose of what we have here in the text. The purpose of what we have here in the text is to give us exactly what God gives us, and so the confession doesn't go beyond that. The authors of confessions of the Confession have positions on some of those issues, undoubtedly, but persuasion level convictions, Now that would be binding the conscience. Amen, you've got to agree with me on even my persuasions. No, no, you don't. The other thing is, if we look at this, it's clear that we're just following what happens in the text. Let's look at it together. Although God created man upright and perfect, where's that? Well, I mean, that's Genesis one. Look at Genesis one twenty six. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, of the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and overall the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image and the image of God. He created him male and female. He created them. Then God blesses him. He tells them to going to be fruitful and multiply. But then look at this in verse thirty one. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning the sixth day. Everything that God made was very good. This is what we mean when we said, although God created man upright and perfect, how do we know that Adam was upright and perfect. Because everything was upright and perfect in creation. There were no flaws in atom. There were no faults in atom. And this is actually important to be known that what happens later doesn't happen because of faults in atom or flaws in atom, which is why the confession later says that Adam, who without any compulsion, did willfully transgress the law of their creation. He made a choice. His will was free, and because of his exercise of his free will. No human being has ever been born with a free will since Amen, somebody upright and perfect, the perfect representative of humanity. There could not have been a better representative of humanity. Which means that if God had substituted you or anyone else for Adam, the fall would have still happened. It would have just happened faster, maybe with more flair. This is important because, as we'll see, and we'll talk about this more as we go along, there's an important theological principle in this chapter, this principle of federal headship. Again, this will be developed as we go on through the weekend, but it's important to note that Adam represented all of humanity. He was the perfect representative of all of humanity, upright and perfect, and there could not have been a better representative of all of humanity. And all of humanity was in him as our federal head. The next line says, and gave him a righteous law which had been unto him life had he kept it, and threatened death upon the breach thereof. And it's interesting there's a couple of things that we put together here. If you go down now to chapter two and look at chapter two, verse nine. Out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden. There's the promise of life. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So we have these two trees here, the tree of life and the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. And it's a few verses later that we understand the nature of these trees in terms of this offer of life and the warning of the punishment of death. Look at verse fifteen. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of eating to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. There is this precept that God gives to Adam, this perfect upright representative of all of humanity. Humanity's federal head is given this law, this precept, this command from God. And the command is do not eat from that tree of all of the other trees you may eat, but do not eat of that tree. By the way, be careful here and remember that Adam is perfect and he is upright. He is not like you. You are falling. Adam was not falling. So what that means is we have to fight the urge to think that it went like this, All of these trees you can eat from, Adam, don't eat from that one. And then all of a sudden, he's like somebody seeing a wet paint sign. You can go your whole life and never want to touch a park bench, but if you walk past it and it says wet paint, do not touch, it's one to check. Adam didn't have that. Please don't miss that. Adam didn't have that. Adam's not spending the rest of his time in the garden sitting there twiddling his thumbs, fighting hard against his temptation to eat from the tree that God said not to eat from. He is upright, He is perfect. He is our perfect representative and our federal head. Again, don't try to make the text say what it doesn't say. And the beauty of the confession here is that the confession doesn't try to make the text say what it doesn't say, just these clear, concise statements about what's here. Yet he did not long abide in this honor. That's an understatement. Genesis one, you have this poetic presentation of creation, and Genesis two we slow down and we get, you know, more of a micro view of what God's doing in creation with the creation of man. Man is created upright and he's created perfect, and we see that there in Genesis chapter two. And the fall happens in Genesis chapter three. We barely get started and the wheels fall off. And I love the way the confession states it. Yet he did not long abide in this honor. Why well, confession says Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to seduce Eve, then by her seducing Adam, who without any compulsion, did willfully transgress the law of their creation. So let's look at that verse Chapter three, Verse one, serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And again, this is a seductive statement, because God absolutely did not say that. This is seduction. The woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die again. This is seduction, first a suggestion, then an outright denial, now a defamation of God's character. For God knows that when you eat it it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Here's the great irony, This outright character assassination contains a kernel of truth. It's absolutely true that when they eat it their eyes are open. It's absolutely true that they have this awareness of good and evil. But it's the meat of a lie wrapped in the skin of the truth. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise again, we learned this from John, and first John right, there's nothing new under the sun. Temptation always takes the form of the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh, and the boast were pride of life. That's exactly what happens here. She took the fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sold fig leaves together and made themselves loinclothes. Again, look at the confessional statement, Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to seduce Eve, then by her seducing Adam, who without any compulsion did wilfully transgress the law of their creation and the command given unto them, and eating the forbidden fruit. The text of the confession doesn't add anything to it. Now, we often like to add things to it in very dangerous ways. For example, you know how many of us have heard this text preach where you know, somebody talks about Adam's first sin being that he did not protect his wife from the serpent. Anybody, anybody, anybody heard this one right, that that that was his first sin. Well, the problem with that is that if that was his first sin, that that means he sinned before he fell. That's destroying the whole message of the Bible by reading into it things that are just not there. Adam didn't do anything wrong before he ate. He was upright and he was perfect, and he made a choice. Our upright and perfect federal head made a choice. Well, what about this idea of Eve and her seduction of Adam. Is that something that's been read into the text? Look at verse eight. They heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. Again, just one of those verses. This is in the Bible that we often run by way too quickly. Sin, sin makes you stupid. Amen, sin makes you stupid. God's coming, quick hide, Come. On now where you know what's even worse, because they've eaten, they're now under the penalty of death, and there's only one being in the universe who can save them from that penalty, and they're hiding from him. The Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you trust me? He knew, He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. Again. We already see Senate work. Well, there'll be more about this in other sessions, but just notice that there's not a direct answer to the question. This is. Mankind's first instance of okay. What had happened was simple question where are you? The answer, I heard the sound of you in the garden, I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. And in all of those statements he never answered the question. An answer would have sounded something like this, Adam, where are you? I'm over here behind the rock. And then verse eleven, he said, who told you you were naked? What an amazing statement, Adam, where are you? I heard you? I got scared, I ran, I hid myself because I was naked. Really, because newsflash, you've been naked your whole life. You didn't just get naked, but you just got aware. You just got guilt and shame, and guilt and shame taught you a new word. Naked wouldn't even have been a word. Why would naked have been a word? There was nothing besides naked. There was nothing other than naked. Who told you were naked? There's only one way that guilt and shame comes into the world, and that's off sin comes into the world. Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat. The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I eight. So we go from the first case of what happened was to the first case of actually it's not my fault. It it's that woman. You remember, you remember, you remember that, you remember that time of day when I went to sleep and then I woke up, and then you know she was her. She gave it to me, and I ate, hmhmm. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me, and I ate. So these statements put together, give us that picture of this seduction that takes place, This seduction that takes place by the serpent toward Eve, and this seduction that takes place we don't get. We don't get a picture of it. We don't get what the words are, we don't we don't get an insight into how it happened. But then there's this seduction of Adam, and then there's further evidence of this seduction, if you will, in the curses that are laid down. The Lord God said to the serpent because you have done this, cursed to you above all livestock, above all livestock, and above all the beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put tea between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain and child bearing, and pain you shall bring forth children. Your desires shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you and to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife. So there's more here than just she's eating, and it looked delicious. Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, there's the picture, and have eaten of the tree, of which I command to you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you and pain. You shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face. You shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken for your dust, and to dust you shall return there. It is as simple and straightforward as that. The confession says, no more than the text of scripture says. It just takes this long narrative and puts it into succinct statements. But there's another statement. I already alluded to it. There's another statement here that's a very important statement, that last phrase, which God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory. This is a statement that's not particularly in this text, But this is a statement that that subtext. This is a statement that looks at what God does in redemptive history and says that whatever the answer to those questions, and we've all got those questions, why this, why that? Why like this? We all have those questions. Whatever the answer to those questions may be, Ultimately those answers are going to point to the same thing that everything in creation points to, and that is the fact that it maximizes the glory of God. Why why the tree in the garden? It maximizes the glory of God. Having man made in the image of God and giving him the opportunity of an actual volitional choice, no tree, no choice. Amen. And the other thing is again God put all all of the players in the game. If you go back to where we were in chapter two. In chapter two we see look again at verse fifteen, or at look at verse nine. Out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to sight, good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden. The tree of good and evil is there. Look at verse eighteen. Then God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. From that statement we get Eve. Amen, the one who seduced him. God made her. But then look at the very next verse. Now to the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the heaven, all the beasts of the field. That gets us a serpent. All of these things made by the hand of God, who made all of creation, who made it very good. For some reason, cease fit to have the fall fit into his plan, and we get a hint as to why there in chapter three. Look at verse fifteen again, speaking to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. There are a number of things here that give us insight into God's plan. First, it's interesting what does not happen. God says, you eat of the tree, you will surely die, and eventually Adam dies, eventually Eve dies, but not today. That's the way it could have gone. They eat the fruit of the forbidden tree, and God gets rid of them and starts over. But that's not the way it went. And God, who does all things in accordance with his perfect, infinite will, determines number one that they're not going to die today. Secondly, he says, I'm gonna put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He determines that whatever he's going to work out, he's going to work it out multigenerationally. There's going to be a human race proceeding from Adam and Eve, and God is going to work out whatever he works out by means of this human race that he brings forth through Adam and Eve, Adam being our federal head. Now there's a problem here, and the problem is that this race that is going to come forth from Adam and Eve, this these offspring of Adam and Eve are going to be fallen human beings. Again, we'll open that up more as we go along this weekend. But we inherit our sin nature from Adam. We inherit sin guilt from Adam. But watch this. I will put enmity between you and the woman. Pause. I'll put enmity between you and the woman. Is there going to be enmity between him and the man? Yeah, there's going to be inmity between him and the man. But God's doing something here that is significant as it relates to the woman. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head. That's a death blow. You shall bruise his heel, that's just a wound. There's going to be, according to this text, a male offspring of the woman who will crush the head of the snake. And it's interesting here when we read the rest of Redemptive history, this male offspring of the woman who crushes the head of the snake is not the offspring of a man, because if he was, he would have inherited the sin of Adam. And if he inherits the sin of Adam, then Adam is his federal head as well, and he is guilty and needs someone to rid him of his sin guilt. But because he's born of the seed of the Woman and of the Holy Spirit, he is fully man and yet fully God. He is therefore the seed of the woman who can crush the head of the snake. But more importantly, he can be bruised by the serpent and survive. So right here within the text the fall, that's not the only thing that happens Fast Chapter one, Chapter two, BAM, chapter three, the wheels fall. Often we have the fall, but also in chapter three we have a promise of redemption and the promise of a redeemer, and essentially the promise of another federal head, the promise of another Atam. So whatever the answers to those questions that all of us just just love to ask, and I get those questions on somebody asked me a question yesterday about that why why? Why? Why do you go if you have kids? If you have kids, amen, somebody, if you have kids, you get these questions, do you not? And there's nothing wrong with us having those questions, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with us exploring those questions theologically. There is something wrong with this getting bogged down in those questions. Amen. There is something with us raising those things to the level of the clear things. There's something wrong with that. But whatever the answer to those questions, what we know is that God did what he did in creation with a view toward what he would do in redemption. And God will be glorified not only through the redemption of repentant sinners, but God is also glorified in pouring out his wrath on unrepentant ones. So even the fall of man in the presence of sin points us to the glorious righteousness and holiness of all Mighty God. So whatever we do with those other why questions, they all have to a there. Let'll give you a couple of points here of application. Why Why is this important? Why does this matter? And you're you're going to hear this again and again over the course of this weekend. Right, This matters because sin is real and sin is consequential. This matters because sin is real and sin is consequential. And and we do we live in a day in an age where people are either arguing that that sin is not real. Right, we we we we don't sin well, we we make mistakes, we we we have conditions, afflictions, whatever. But but but but not sin, either that it's not real or that it's not consequential. This idea that if there is a God, he's just a forgiving God and there is no need to fear his wrath. And in fact, those people who believe in a wrathful God are people who are misrepresenting and blaspheming the name of our kind and forgiving God. They're terrible people, which is ironic because essentially they're saying that we're the sinners. Nobody else is. There's the second reason this is important. This is important especially you know, we hear all these babies in here and see all these children in here, and it's just glorious. Amen, those are just glorious sounds. But we need to be reminded them as parents that we are raising children who are under Adam's federal headship. And their greatest need is not behavioral modification. Their greatest need is redemption. They are little sinners. Amen. As I've often said, and as people love to repeat in the press, that's not a little angel as a viper and a diaper. Again, anybody who does not believe in the doctrine of original sin does not have kids. And it's incredibly important for us to be reminded of that. Our child's greatest need is not behavioral modification, it's spiritual transformation. They need the Gospel, Amen, They need the Gospel. Does that mean that we don't address their behavior? You better, But in and of itself, that is insufficient. They have a need that is greater. They have a need that is greater. Finally, not only on that level and in that way, but in a broader sense. The greatest need of all men, the greatest need of our culture, the greatest need in our need is not better leaders and better laws, but it's redemption. It's redemption. And it's ironic. Again, we'll hear about this again, but we talked about this at at lunch. The idea that that Gavin Newsom, governor of California, you know, putting billboards up and different places in the country that are outlawing abortion, basically inviting people to come to California. And in the fighting print he's he's quoting the words of Christ about loving neighbor. Here's what's interesting. We've heard for a generation now separate church and state, separation of church and state. And what Christians have done for a generation now is we've tried to make political arguments that don't rely on the Bible. I know this because I get this all the time, right people, when on the on the abortion issue, it was you know, you know, how do we make an argument that that that doesn't rely on the Bible because we got to run away from the scriptures. On the same sex marriage issue, how do we make an argument against same sex meriage that doesn't rely on the Bible? You see, because because they don't believe in the Bible. And so when we come, we have to come without our Bible because they don't believe in our Bible. And so for a generation now we've been trying to do battle in the public square in the name of Christ, the word of God. Without the word of God. We've become ashamed of the word of God. We've become ashamed to say this would be good law, and this would be good policy, because this is what God says. We're ashamed of that. Kevin Newsom's not. He proudly put a Bible verse on an ad campaign saying, if they won't let you kill your babies there, come kill your babies here. He'll say that in the name of the Lord. But we're ashamed to say marriage is between a man and a woman in the name of the Lord. Or we're ashamed to say, no, actually, a woman is an adult female human. Amen, two sexes, two genders, just too, just too, that's all. No more than that, just too. We won't say that. Isn't it interesting? You know, when the vaccine mandates were coming, what was Madame Vice President telling us? She was quoting scripture, unashamedly quoting scripture, saying this is the right thing to do. I'm glad they're doing it. I am because it gives us an opportunity to say, oh, wait, so now you're agreeing that the Bible is relevant for public morality. That's what we're saying now. Right, Because I got a couple of things. These are crazy days, they are wicked days. And in the midst of these wicked days, we need to be reminded that this wickedness exists because we're falling in atom, and that the only answer for this wickedness that exists because we're falling in Atom is for us to be redeemed in Christ, to go from the federal headship of our father Adam to the federal headship of our redeemer Jesus. That's our only hope. Are it's good governance important, You better believe it is. Good law is important. You better believe they are. But they are woefully insufficient in terms of dealing with man's ultimate problem. So you know what the right position is. We crave good laws and good governance so that we might have the opportunity to proclaim the Good Gospel, because that's where I hope is found. Let's pray