The Problem… People!

Missio Dei—The Mission of God Part #1

The first step in our understanding of the mission of God is coming to grips with the problem.

Why is the world the way it is? Why is it so messed up? We all can see that there is something wrong. Tragedies and trauma, disasters and disease, war and waste, arrogance and abuse are commonplace. Some use the condition of the world as an argument against the existence of God. However, the very fact that we know something is wrong is perhaps a better argument for God than against him. The Bible teaches that God didn’t make the world the way it is now. When God made the world, he said it was “good” six times, and then after making humans declared that it was “very good”—all in the first chapter of the Bible (Gen. 1). So, what happened to bring about such a drastic change?

The first people decided to trust their own senses more than the Creator’s loving command. As a result, they brought sin and death into the world, and their failure has echoed down through history like a bad rhyme or an alliterative sermon outline (e.g., Sin shames, Man blames, God flames and reclaims).

1) Sin shames us and enters through:

Wrong Teaching (v.1-5) Eve listened to the tempter's false teaching. She initially disagreed with it but it began to ease her towards the place of deception, through the nurturing of an inappropriate desire. The lie was couched in an indictment of the character of God’s love for them “God is holding out on you.” The tempter’s appeal sought to activate in Eve a sense of pride and self-esteem, implying the ancient yet frighteningly contemporary, "You deserve better!" What can we do to avoid such wrong teaching in our lives?

• Know what God has said—spend enough time in the Scriptures to get the big picture of what God is like and what he has done—the enemy always wants to twist it.
• Don’t make stuff up (Pro. 30:6). Eve added the part about not touching the tree, probably as a human effort to contain desire. There is a big difference between what God said and what we say he said.
• Seek the answers you need through a relationship with the Lord himself, not through the addition of outside “technology.”

Wrong Trusting (v.5-6a) As Eve listened to the wrong teaching she began to wrongly trust her increasingly deceived senses, rather than God's Word. So, we too become deceived when we begin to listen to the voice of temptation and begin to decide for ourselves what is "good for food", etc. Eve made the mistake of dwelling upon what God had expressly forbidden, rather than on the abundance and beauty of that which God had freely supplied. How often do we also miss "the way of escape" we have in our relationship with the Lord (1 Cor. 10:13)? James in his epistle describes the process of temptation, desire, sin, and death. As it is written, "each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full‑grown, gives birth to death."  (James 1:12-15) 

While we don’t know how long the process took, Eve came to trust in her own wisdom and discernment, of what was best for her life, rather than the loving command of her Creator and Adam followed suit. Note the three steps in v. 6,

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, 

she took of its fruit and ate, and

she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Wrong Taking (v. 6b) The woman’s misplaced trust led her to transgress the clear command of God, taking and eating the fruit in an effort to be like God. She quickly gave some to her husband so that he might share her "knowledge". How typical that is of human behavior; how quickly we seek others to share in our sin as if it would somehow make us feel less guilty. Adam was not blameless here, for he transgressed the command as well. What was the result?

Wrong (Fallen) Thinking (v. 7-10) While the wrong trust was also a type of wrong thinking, here we learn how sin immediately shamed them and tainted their reasoning. They now felt naked and ashamed of who they were. What God had made in his own image and had declared “very good” they now saw apart from that relationship and were ashamed. Secondly, they attempted to hide their nakedness with fig leaves, a poor substitute for the garment of innocence. They also became afraid of God and tried in vain to hide from his presence. Sin always affects how we think about God. How quickly they forgot that God created everything and that he was everywhere that his creation was, maintaining and caring for it. Psalm 139 poetically explores the truth that nothing is hidden from God, yet in their new “knowledge” they forget that and tried to hide from Him.

One time when I was a teenager, my brother and I had friends over to spend the night. We were playing Risk. A heating duct connected the basement with my parents’ room and our noise was keeping my dad awake. We had been told to turn the lights out and go to sleep several times. However, we thought we could hide the fact that we were still up (after all, we only had one small table lamp on) until the door burst open and there stood my dad and he looked mad! He began, "What are you..." but in mid-sentence, one of my friends turned out the table lamp in hopes that the dark would hide us. There was a pause, then my dad, calmly turned on the overhead light and finished his sentence, "What are you still doing up? Get to bed NOW!" While our situation was humorous, the situation in the Garden of Eden was not. That first sin and all sins since bring at least four unwanted things into our lives:

• Sin brings shame to our nakedness (v.7 contrasts 2:25 "unashamed"). It damages our horizontal relationships with others and ourselves and leads us to hide behind social masks, defense mechanisms, and accusations of the other.
• Sin brings a belated fear of God (not the right kind) (v.10). It damages our vertical relationship with God and produces a flight response—a shrinking back from the Lord instead of desiring to please the One who loves us.
• Sin brings a distorted perspective (v.10). That we think we can hide from God. Our understanding of the goodness, power, and scope of God’s presence is vastly diminished. We—in Adam and Eve—bought the serpent's proposition of enlightenment without relationship and found out that in a far more pervasive way we became blind. We still deceive ourselves on this point. The more we think that we can see, and have no need for a relationship with God to make sense of it, the more we prove we are blind (See Rev. 3:17-20).
• Sin brings guilt and death (Gen. 2:17; Romans 6:23) “for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die” ...wages of sin is death.

2) Man blames others (v.11-13)

A brother in the church where I used to serve is a police chief and he told me a bit about the interrogation process of a suspect. There are three stages a person goes through:

• Denial: hiding from the truth (and God), or running, taking no responsibility for their actions. Martin Luther's "Table Talk," told the story of an officer in the Turkish War who told his men that if they died in battle, they would sup with Christ in Paradise. During the battle, the officer fled. When asked later why he did not wish to “sup with Christ”, he said that he was fasting that day. This is an illustration of denial.
• Minimization: in this stage, the suspect admits some guilt but not all; they tend to blame others or to compare themselves favorably with any others involved. Both men and women are given to such minimization, however, there are differences. Men seem to minimize how much they did, giving only the barest details while women often minimize their responsibility for the act in the sense of “cause and effect.” The great poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is credited with writing, "It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong."
• Point of Surrender: In this stage, the suspect finally gives a full confession and admission of guilt.

Mankind, since that first sin, always tries to rationalize or minimize his sin. When faced with the act that had been committed, God asked a couple of simple follow-up questions: “Who told you?” And, “Have you eaten?” How do Adam and Eve respond? Let’s follow the blame train…

• The man blames the woman (v.12) “The woman…” Can you imagine Adam pointing to Eve as he blames her? However, he didn’t stop there but blamed God.
• The man indicts God (v.12) "the woman whom YOU gave to be with me...". Can you see Adam now pointing his finger at God and then perhaps realizing that such a strategy would not work and redirecting his blame toward the woman?
• The man again blames the woman "...SHE gave me fruit of the tree and I ate." Note that the man minimized his involvement by relating the minimum amount of detail. As I picture it, God then moved on to face the woman and Adam perhaps breathed easier.
• The woman blamed the serpent (v.13) "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." She doesn’t deny her involvement but minimized her responsibility by emphasizing the serpent’s deception. God then moved on to face the serpent and the woman perhaps breathed easier.
• The serpent, in utter rebellion to God, said nothing.

The first man tried to hide his sin with fig leaves, excuses, and blaming others. In many ways, we still try to do the same thing today. We are quick to place the blame for our sin—and our situation—on others, on our parents, or on our own "low self-esteem," but these excuses have no power with God. The Scripture says that,

"He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy."  (Proverbs 28:13) 

3) God flames excuses & reclaims His people (v.14-24)

God, for all his mercy and love, doesn’t like excuses—because they keep us from being set free from our sin and having our relationship with God restored. He doesn’t want our self-deception to come between us. So, when I say “God flames” I am speaking not only of his righteous wrath at sin but how, in persistent love, he shoots all our feeble excuses down in "flames". He burns up minimization so that, as a gift of his mercy, we might come to confess our guilt and return to him in relational repentance. In this light, his judgment is not merely just, it is kind.

God cursed the serpent (v.14,15) God's punishment of the serpent was in a way that was certainly symbolic of the way in which he had spiritually affected man. The serpent had promised an exalted life but brought spiritual separation, humiliation, and death. God’s judgment upon him fit the crime— "an eye for an eye" so to speak.

God judged the woman (v.16) After he finished with the serpent, we can picture God turning to the woman and pronouncing judgment upon her, yet it is a gracious judgment for she did not die. Her punishment was also according to her crime. She was now subject to the rule of her husband, no more to lead into sin, and as her pride had led her into sin, so the bearing of children was to become painful (due perhaps to the large head of the child?). Yet there was the hope of a victorious redeemer in the future.

I imagine that at this moment, Adam started to sweat again as he sensed God's wrath would soon turn upon him and man hasn't stopped sweating since.

God judged the man (v.17-19) The man did not escape the wages of his own sin for his life was burdened with toil and frustration. Just as he had surrendered his sovereignty to be ruled by others, now creation itself was in rebellion to his rule. This constant struggle is a reminder to man of what he had lost and of his need for a Savior.

Yet God is merciful and he reclaimed his people. Even at that moment, at the fall of humanity, God graciously began the redemptive process rather than abandon us to the death that we deserved.

Sin can never be explained away, but guilt can be removed.

There is always a penalty for our going rogue. This takes the form of the judgment already described in v.14-19. It highlights that there is a need for a redeemer.  This redeemer is promised in Gen. 3:15 and is progressively revealed through the rest of the OT until seen fully in Jesus Christ.

We see right at the beginning that redemption (reclamation) comes through sacrifice (v.21). Where did the “clothes of skins” come from? God sacrificed animals to clothe them, but animal sacrifice just covered sin, and that only temporarily. Jesus Christ is the one who removes the stain of sin completely and brings a robe of righteousness. The whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament looked forward to Christ’s death for us.

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."  (Romans 5:8)

Another lesson that we can learn from this passage is that discipline involves consequences: (v. 22-24).

           Then the LORD God said,

“Behold, the man has become like one of us

                                             in knowing good and evil.

Now, lest he reach out his hand

                                     and take also of the tree of life and eat,

                                                                          and live forever—”

     therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden

to work the ground from which he was taken.

      He drove out the man,   and at the east of the garden of Eden

      he placed the cherubim and

                             a flaming sword that turned every way

                                 to guard the way to the tree of life.

Perhaps we don't often think about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden as an act of mercy, but it was.  It would have been a terrible curse for them to eat of the tree of life and live forever in their fallen, sinful separated state. Our loving God desires that we live forever in righteousness—which we receive only through Jesus Christ.  When we humble ourselves and come to the Lord in confession and repentance we are forgiven (1 John 1:9). If we are forgiven, then we are not cursed to live forever in our fallen condition. There are loving (though usually unpleasant) consequences we experience when we sin.  God, in his love for us, often allows us to experience the consequences of our sins so that we might learn the truth of Proverbs 13:15, "Good understanding giveth favour: but the way of transgressors is hard." (KJV)

Scripture says that God's discipline is never pleasant at the time but that in the end, our coming to repentance, is the result of God's love and kindness.  The grace that God showed to mankind in the Garden of Eden is still available today.  As it is written, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 6:23)

God desires that we might come to our senses and repent.  He is extremely patient and doesn't want anyone to perish, yet we are not to test the Lord God.  We cannot put off dealing with any sin that might be in our lives, even if our circumstances seem to be just fine—it could start to "rain" at any time.  We read in Isaiah 53:6, that,

"We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Because our iniquity has been laid upon Jesus Christ, I pray that none of us fail to receive the forgiveness that has been offered.  Let what Peter wrote be true of us,

"For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." (1 Peter 2:25)

Jesus Christ is our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Shepherd.  He comes to seek and save those who are lost. Do you see him?