Genesis 3_20-21 - We’re Adam and Eve Christians
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Summary
In this sermon, Pastor Ken teaches about the fall of Adam and Eve, and how God's curse on the serpent and his judgment on the sexes led to the fall, and the consequences for Adam, Eve and the rest of the world.
Transcript
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Well, by God's grace, we are here and we are in Genesis 3 and I prepared this sermon basically
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yesterday and this morning because I didn't realize I'd be preaching until 5 a.m. this
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morning. But by God's grace, I think we'll be fine. I love this text. It's so important.
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It's such a great passage of scripture and it allows us to start what I'm going to be
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turning into a two-part series. I was hoping to finish this in one section, but again, I didn't
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have enough time to do that. So we're going to be breaking this up into two sections, verses 20
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through 22, and then 22b through 24 next week. And so if you remember, we just finished this
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three-part series discussing the fall of man, and it was God's curse on the serpent and his
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judgment on the sexes. And we saw God's consequences for Satan, for Eve, and for Adam.
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And theologically, we know the section is called the fall. It's the fall of mankind.
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It's foundational because it answers a variety of very important questions, questions that your
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children will ask, questions that many people will ask in your everyday life, questions that
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philosophers have tried to answer. And those questions are, you know, what was man's state
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before sin? What is sin? What is, who is our enemy? What is our, why is our relationship
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between men and evil, or men and women, have such an evil connotation? There's such conflict
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between men and women, and men and men. Why is life so difficult? Why do people suffer?
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Why do people get sick? Ultimately, why do people die? All of these are answered
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in some form or another here in Genesis chapter 3. It becomes a very formative text
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to interpret not only the rest of the Bible, but also life.
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now in my last sermon we look closely at God's judgment on Adam Adam was last in that list
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we know that the Lord brought consequences and curses upon the serpent and then to Eve and then
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to Adam and we look closely at this judgment on Adam and how before the fall humanity essentially
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lived to work and to eat, and it was a joyful thing. But after the fall, we work and eat to
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live. It was this shift. It was this massive shift. Essentially, sin shifted us from the joyful
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existence to painful survival. That's what happened. You have joyful existence in the garden,
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And then outside of the garden, it is a painful survival.
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I mentioned last week that if you strip all of life's comforts away,
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Now, outside of Christ, that's all people have.
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And that is why we have such high rates of depression and suicide and crime and pain and death.
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In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life,
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thorns and thistles that shall bring forth for you,
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for out of it you were taken, for you are dust,
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It's a sentence of pain and survival and difficulty.
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But interestingly, in the backdrop of this painful struggle,
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this painful struggle to work, to obtain food, to survive,
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it actually shows the value of Jesus' words in the New Testament.
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Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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When you start to see that Jesus is coming to essentially fulfill the curse of the fall,
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it becomes this beautiful reality of the second Adam accomplishing what the first Adam could not.
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it says, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds in my flesh and
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drinks my blood abides in me and I in him as the living father sent me and I live because of the
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father. So whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down
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from heaven. Not like the bread, the father's ate, speaking of the manna and they died. Whoever feeds
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on this bread will live forever. So you can start to see how Jesus is intentionally coming in and
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dealing with the realities of the fall and absorbing those realities and saying they are
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fulfilled in me. And so it points this fallen nature of Adam to this beautiful reality in the
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second Adam, that is Christ. Now, most importantly, last week we saw how not only the good things
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are fulfilled in Christ, but the tragedy of the fall is actually shown most fully
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in the relationship between the first Adam and the second Adam. Let me give you a few examples.
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Adam's suffering in the fall is then placed on the title that we give to Christ, the suffering
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servant. Adam's sweat from his labor is now placed like drops of blood sweating from Christ's brow.
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We know that Adam's thorns that come from the ground as a result of the curse that he brought
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upon creation, these thorns are now pressed upon Jesus's head when he puts this crown of
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thorns upon his face. And we know that Adam dies because he eats of a tree. And then we know that
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Christ allows us to live through death on a tree. And there's again, this beautiful parallels between
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the first Adam and the second Adam that we want to see constantly. Because if you read the gospels
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without the backdrop of Genesis, you're going to miss so much that's going on. You have to
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understand that when Jesus comes in to fulfill his ministry, he is fulfilling much of what is
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discussed here in Genesis 3. That's the lens and the understanding that you need to have
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as you study the Gospels, as you understand the epistles. And so Christ becomes the one
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And it is the recovery, the reversal of the fall that we have in Christ.
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For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,
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The separation that we have from God in Adam is now brought near in Christ.
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The number of scriptures that I could speak to that would put us way over time.
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But today we're going to be looking at verses 20 through 24, really through 20 through 22,
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which again come off the heels of this very devastating experience of curses and judgments.
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Now, if you remember what it felt like to be disciplined as a child,
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if you just think back, you know, you just did something wrong.
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If you ever stood before a judge, maybe because you've committed a crime,
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or you have a misdemeanor, or you're having some sort of sentencing,
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It's that space between the sentencing and the consequences.
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You were just given the sentencing for what you've done, and the shock settles in.
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And I believe that's the emotional context of Adam and Eve in this particular moment.
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They're facing the weight of their rebellion, and they're bracing themselves for what comes next.
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They just got rained down consequences, curses, and judgments.
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And they're about to be removed from the garden.
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And they don't know exactly what that means yet.
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And the text says, the man called his wife's name Eve.
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because she was the mother of all living now there are a few interpretations of this passage
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two in particular and the first one i think is borderline ridiculous it's at the very least a
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stretch and the second one i believe is certainly a better exposition of the context but i'm going
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to give you the first one because you may have heard it before it comes mostly from jewish
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scholars, though there was a revival of this position in the early 20th century. And it states
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that in the Hebrew and the Aramaic, the name Eve is spelled, well, specifically Hebrew, very
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similarly to the word serpent or the word for serpent. And they would argue that Adam is
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essentially naming her with a name and subtly rebuking her because she, like the serpent,
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deceived him and he is giving her this name. That is one interpretation that has had a little
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bit of traction throughout history. Essentially, I see that view is that it's Adam throwing all
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the responsibility on her. She's the mother of all the living and she's about to be the mother
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from the biblical, historical, contextual hermeneutics,
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that I don't think fit with the theme of the gospel
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Here's what I think is the proper interpretation
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now in that context adam is naming his wife eve which means the mother of all living it means life
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and here's the difference i don't believe that adam is offering a judgment upon his wife
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i believe that this is actually an act of faith i believe that adam actually has faith and believes
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what God has said of Adam and Eve. So I want you to catch this with me. Here we have Adam,
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and he's standing under essentially a death sentence, a judgment and a death sentence from
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God. But he's trusting in God's promise that through Eve, there will be a Redeemer born,
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that she will be the mother of the living.
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And that is that he believes that life will come through the woman
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and that a child will be born and conquer death
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and restore order and restore humanity back to its relationship with God.
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I believe that's why Adam is calling his wife's name Eve.
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In fact, if you remember in Genesis 2.23, Adam calls his wife Esha, which means woman or out of man, means woman.
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But here, again, he calls her in the Hebrew Shavah, which means life giver.
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And biblically, again, name changing is significant.
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It's always actually, it's a positive throughout scripture.
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Just to name a few of them, we have Abram to Abraham.
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And all of these are marking a significant change that has to do with faith.
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And so again, I see this verse as a seed of faith in Adam.
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Even in the midst of the judgment, he goes, there will be a seed coming from you, woman,
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It's also why I believe that Adam and Eve are the first saints added to the church.
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And I think that's important because it shapes up a very confused view of the church.
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A lot of people go, oh, the church started at Pentecost.
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The church began as people began to have faith in God.
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Is Abraham, the father of faith, part of the church?
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In fact, you're going to see more faith from Adam and Eve
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and the early people of his time in Genesis chapter 4
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as they began to call upon the name of the Lord,
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trusting and waiting upon God to fulfill the promise
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And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife
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you could just read right over this if you just weren't paying attention
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now if you remember earlier in genesis chapter 3 verse 7
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they had attempted to cover themselves with fig leaves okay one these are just inadequate coverings
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right they're not comfortable they're not functional uh they're insufficient to hide
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themselves from the Lord. And here we have God stepping in and providing something first that's
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way more functional. And second, that is very prophetic, is very prophetic. I want you to
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notice that God affirms their shame. That's point number one. Just take a second here. And God just
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affirms that they are shameful. They are to be shameful and that they need to be covered.
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And why is that important? Basically, because he is agreeing that to be naked in a fallen world
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is not good. Okay? It's a message that this generation certainly needs to hear
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because we have people that are trying more and more and more to become naked and to make it
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less shameful. But here we have God affirming that being naked is actually not good. And I will
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affirm that by covering you, by covering you. And so in a sense, we have one point is that God is
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establishing his first affirmation of modesty. This is the first affirmation of modesty. Modesty
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is good. It is shameful to be naked in public. And again, we don't have all the clarity, but
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essentially it's clothing that conceals, it's clothing that protects, it's more sufficient
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for life, it's more functional, and essentially that does not provoke men to evil.
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Now, but more importantly, I want to talk about this element that is prophetic. His statement
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and his act of giving Adam and Eve skins is a prophetic act.
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Now, ultimately, what we see here, if you just zoom out for a second, what happens?
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Ultimately, innocent life, or if you want to say animal life, is sacrificed so that the guilty could live.
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One life was taken so that another life might live.
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We know that God has given us, according to Leviticus, blood, that the life of a particular being is in the blood, and he has given it to us for atonement.
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And this is why when Jesus' blood spilt, his life spilt, we need blood to die in our stead.
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Either you die or something else dies in your place.
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And that was the historical understanding, the Old Testament sacrificial system,
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is that because you sin, something needed to die.
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Because you ought to die, but something will die in your place.
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It was constantly preparing us for and pointing us to Christ,
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And so, this is a very important image, prophetically, that Christ, it's a pointing to, it's looking forward to that one day.
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It's not going to be a bull or a sheep or a lamb, but it's going to be the perfect righteousness and the perfect blood of Christ.
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We're not going to be clothed in that day with our own skins, with our own failed sinfulness in nature.
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But we will be covered with the robes of Christ.
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It says, He has clothed me with the garments of salvation.
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He has covered me with the robes of righteousness.
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Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.
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They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
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Over and over again you have this clothing that God gives you,
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this perfect clothing of righteousness that's imputed to us through faith
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and that the sacrifice is not of an animal but of the perfect Lamb of God.
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Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
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you are the one that fulfills that entire sacrificial system
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the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world
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This will be our last verse that we get through here today.
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either within the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
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or He's speaking in the Godhead in addition to the angels' presence,
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but you can't ignore the plurality of the statement.
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or it's the angelic beings in addition to the Godhead.
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we kind of have to give credit where credit is due here
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Is it sinful for Adam and Eve to know good and evil?
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Is it sinful for Adam and Eve to know good and evil?
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That was a question that I had to work through in preparation here.
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Because if it is sinful, then God and the angels both know good and evil.
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Well, we know that the angels know, but at least Satan knew, who was a fallen angel.
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It wasn't sinful for Adam and Eve to possess the knowledge of good and evil in itself.
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It wasn't a sinful thing to have that information.
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The sin was how they acquired that information.
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It wasn't God giving them understanding by His will, but it was through their own revelation.
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Not only did they acquire an understanding of evil, but they acquired it through a participation of evil.
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So it's very different. It's a very different thing here.
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So they acquired the knowledge of good and evil through what?
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Well, through self-willed, through disobedience, and through experience, this is what was sinful.
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Was it sinful to actually have the information?
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No, it was sinful because they disobeyed God in how to attain that information.
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This is what stripped them of their righteousness and their holiness.
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In essence, they came to know evil by doing evil.
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It's not that they came to know evil because God revealed it to them so that they might stay away from it.
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No, they came to know evil because they actually committed evil.
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Now remember, to be righteous is to be without sin.
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To be absolutely righteous is to be absolutely without sin.
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But to be righteous according to God's standard is that you have no sin.
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A perfectly righteous being, person, who commits even one sin, is just as corrupt as the person who has committed many sins.
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Now we know that's true because James 2.10 says,
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For whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point, has become guilty of all of it.
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so it's talking about absolutes the way that god views a purchase a person
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is are you righteous or unrighteous there is no in between
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there is not well i lived 99.9 percent of my life righteously and then that 0.1 percent i failed and
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You are either able to be in the presence of God because you are wholly like
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In the same way, a single drop of poison corrupts an entire gallon of water.
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Adam and Eve's single act of rebellion corrupted humanity's entire nature.
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They went from one category to another category.
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And their problem was not merely that they, again, committed one sinful act.
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It's that that one sinful act fundamentally changed them.
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Remember, the will is defined as man's highest desire.
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and prior to sin your highest desire is to give glory to God
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but after sin and a fallen and corrupted nature
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of life to death that's really what happened here we are seeing life to death it's easy to go
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it's just it's just this one sin shouldn't there be some sort of cascading scale how did they go
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from perfectly holy to utterly and catastrophically corrupt it's it's hard for us to grasp that
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and our iniquities are like the wind, they take us away.
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does not accept the things of the spirit of God
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The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth
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and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart
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it's so vital to just read this passage of scripture and go oh that was the fall
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it's like no this is this is a funeral this is death this is tragedy this is a point of
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of no return without a redeemer romans 8 7 for the mind that is set on the flesh
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When you bump into a person who doesn't know Christ,
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You cannot intellectually persuade a man to Christ.
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Because you realize pretty quickly, I can't convert this person with information.
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I can't make this person better because I can't raise the dead.
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What it does is it takes the weight off and you realize,
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It's because God did not choose to save that man.
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So before the fall, Adam and Eve knew God and they knew good.
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But after the fall, they still knew what was good.
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they knew good but were no longer able to do it.
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Because it's very important, and I'm going to go into a little teaching on this.
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It says, they knew good, but were no longer able to do it.
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This brings us to a theological concept called the Augustinian Matrix, or the fourfold state of man.
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It's a theological description for the four states of redemptive history.
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And it's very important, and I want you to know this, because it will help us understand the quadrants of redemption and how they go from in the fall, or sorry, in the garden to the fall to redemption to glorification.
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And it's very important because it'll help us interpret and bridge the gap from the garden to the fall
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and bridge the gap from the fall to the redemption in Christ
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and bridge the gap from redemption in Christ to the glorification in heaven.
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It was actually popularized in the 17th century by Thomas Boston,
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and his book, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State.
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So number one, I'm going to give you four quadrants, okay?
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The first quadrant, in the garden, mankind was able to sin and able not to sin.
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Okay, the first quadrant, man is able to sin and able not to sin.
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okay the will of man was righteous and he had both liberty and ability to obey
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okay quadrant number two after the fall mankind was still able to sin but no longer able not to
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sin this is very important he is no longer able to not sin what i mean by that is this
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the will of man was now enslaved to evil and while he had the liberty he did not have the ability
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because his nature was corrupted and what i mean by that is that in a fallen state
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every everything that a person does everything that a person does outside of a relationship
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with god will be done to the glory of self and not to the glory of god so even your good things
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someone making a million dollar donation to the children's fund?
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You think that's good, but God looks at that heart
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and goes, it's not to the glory of God, it's to the glory of self, and it's
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wicked. Now, in and of itself, intrinsically, is it
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good? Yeah, you can argue that there's a good effect from that,
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from the bondage of sin and return to a kind of like a garden-like
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state able to sin and able not to sin by the power of the
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holy spirit okay the will of man is restored to some
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fallen body. That's the dilemma, right? So your will
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is restored because you're no longer enslaved to sin. Now your will is
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enslaved to Christ. But you live in a fallen world
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and in a fallen body, which makes you constantly stumble. That's why
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Paul goes, oh, this wretched body of death, get it off me.
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quadrant, down here. Man is fully conformed to Christ, free from the power of sin, and there will
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be no ability to ever sin again. Okay, so essentially we're made perfect and holy, even in a greater
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state than Adam and Eve were. And we will have the liberty and ability to only obey.
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You have kind of this integrity, depravity, redemption, glorification.
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And it's very important because this framework has to be understood to understood what happened as we go from chapter 3 to chapter 4.
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Chapter 3 in a garden state to chapter 4 in a fallen state.
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and this will have the interpretive lens to make sense of the Old Testament
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and the purpose and need to go to heaven and be glorified with Christ.
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And so next week, we're going to finish the last two verses of chapter 3
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and we're going to prepare to move in to the post-garden chapters of Genesis.
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Lord, that you have provided us a way to be redeemed.
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lord that you have given us an understanding of redemption
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lord we ask that you would help us to understand how christ fulfills more and more of the old
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testament that we might see the miraculous and beautiful narrative that makes us grasp the
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supernatural reality of your ways father we thank you for christ in jesus name amen