Dale Partridge - Genesis 3_20-21 - We’re Adam and Eve Christians

00:00:00.000 Well, by God's grace, we are here and we are in Genesis 3 and I prepared this sermon basically

00:00:11.360 yesterday and this morning because I didn't realize I'd be preaching until 5 a.m. this

00:00:15.760 morning. But by God's grace, I think we'll be fine. I love this text. It's so important.

00:00:21.560 It's such a great passage of scripture and it allows us to start what I'm going to be

00:00:27.220 turning into a two-part series. I was hoping to finish this in one section, but again, I didn't

00:00:31.200 have enough time to do that. So we're going to be breaking this up into two sections, verses 20

00:00:36.120 through 22, and then 22b through 24 next week. And so if you remember, we just finished this

00:00:45.040 three-part series discussing the fall of man, and it was God's curse on the serpent and his

00:00:52.420 judgment on the sexes. And we saw God's consequences for Satan, for Eve, and for Adam.

00:01:00.960 And theologically, we know the section is called the fall. It's the fall of mankind.

00:01:07.080 It's foundational because it answers a variety of very important questions, questions that your

00:01:12.580 children will ask, questions that many people will ask in your everyday life, questions that

00:01:18.060 philosophers have tried to answer. And those questions are, you know, what was man's state

00:01:23.860 before sin? What is sin? What is, who is our enemy? What is our, why is our relationship

00:01:36.020 between men and evil, or men and women, have such an evil connotation? There's such conflict

00:01:41.900 between men and women, and men and men. Why is life so difficult? Why do people suffer?

00:01:50.140 Why do people get sick? Ultimately, why do people die? All of these are answered

00:01:56.360 in some form or another here in Genesis chapter 3. It becomes a very formative text

00:02:02.560 to interpret not only the rest of the Bible, but also life.

00:02:06.500 now in my last sermon we look closely at God's judgment on Adam Adam was last in that list

00:02:13.100 we know that the Lord brought consequences and curses upon the serpent and then to Eve and then

00:02:18.220 to Adam and we look closely at this judgment on Adam and how before the fall humanity essentially

00:02:26.060 lived to work and to eat, and it was a joyful thing. But after the fall, we work and eat to

00:02:36.240 live. It was this shift. It was this massive shift. Essentially, sin shifted us from the joyful

00:02:44.640 existence to painful survival. That's what happened. You have joyful existence in the garden,

00:02:51.660 And then outside of the garden, it is a painful survival.

00:02:57.880 I mentioned last week that if you strip all of life's comforts away,

00:03:02.360 that's exactly what life boils down to.

00:03:06.700 Painful survival.

00:03:09.820 Now, outside of Christ, that's all people have.

00:03:13.600 And that is why we have such high rates of depression and suicide and crime and pain and death.

00:03:22.640 The text said, if you remember, it says,

00:03:24.760 Cursed is the ground because of you.

00:03:27.540 In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life,

00:03:31.120 thorns and thistles that shall bring forth for you,

00:03:34.240 and you shall eat the plants of the field.

00:03:37.480 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread,

00:03:40.460 until you return to the ground,

00:03:42.480 for out of it you were taken, for you are dust,

00:03:45.180 and to dust you shall return. 0.99

00:03:47.740 It's a death sentence. 0.67

00:03:50.020 It's a sentence of pain and survival and difficulty.

00:03:55.000 But interestingly, in the backdrop of this painful struggle,

00:03:59.540 this painful struggle to work, to obtain food, to survive,

00:04:05.580 it actually shows the value of Jesus' words in the New Testament.

00:04:11.860 His invitation in Matthew 11, 28, it says,

00:04:14.800 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

00:04:22.160 When you start to see that Jesus is coming to essentially fulfill the curse of the fall,

00:04:29.660 it becomes this beautiful reality of the second Adam accomplishing what the first Adam could not.

00:04:38.500 We also read John 6, 55 through 58.

00:04:41.500 it says, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds in my flesh and

00:04:49.780 drinks my blood abides in me and I in him as the living father sent me and I live because of the

00:04:56.740 father. So whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down

00:05:03.860 from heaven. Not like the bread, the father's ate, speaking of the manna and they died. Whoever feeds

00:05:10.640 on this bread will live forever. So you can start to see how Jesus is intentionally coming in and

00:05:18.140 dealing with the realities of the fall and absorbing those realities and saying they are

00:05:24.360 fulfilled in me. And so it points this fallen nature of Adam to this beautiful reality in the

00:05:33.700 second Adam, that is Christ. Now, most importantly, last week we saw how not only the good things

00:05:42.000 are fulfilled in Christ, but the tragedy of the fall is actually shown most fully

00:05:47.700 in the relationship between the first Adam and the second Adam. Let me give you a few examples.

00:05:54.560 Adam's suffering in the fall is then placed on the title that we give to Christ, the suffering

00:06:01.340 servant. Adam's sweat from his labor is now placed like drops of blood sweating from Christ's brow.

00:06:12.000 We know that Adam's thorns that come from the ground as a result of the curse that he brought

00:06:17.020 upon creation, these thorns are now pressed upon Jesus's head when he puts this crown of 0.90

00:06:25.940 thorns upon his face. And we know that Adam dies because he eats of a tree. And then we know that

00:06:32.720 Christ allows us to live through death on a tree. And there's again, this beautiful parallels between

00:06:38.880 the first Adam and the second Adam that we want to see constantly. Because if you read the gospels

00:06:44.280 without the backdrop of Genesis, you're going to miss so much that's going on. You have to

00:06:49.960 understand that when Jesus comes in to fulfill his ministry, he is fulfilling much of what is

00:06:55.880 discussed here in Genesis 3. That's the lens and the understanding that you need to have

00:07:00.700 as you study the Gospels, as you understand the epistles. And so Christ becomes the one

00:07:10.140 who absorbs all of the fall.

00:07:15.240 And it is the recovery, the reversal of the fall that we have in Christ.

00:07:23.040 1 Peter 3.18 says,

00:07:25.460 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,

00:07:29.860 that he might bring us to God.

00:07:31.900 The separation that we have from God in Adam is now brought near in Christ.

00:07:39.940 The number of scriptures that I could speak to that would put us way over time.

00:07:45.480 But today we're going to be looking at verses 20 through 24, really through 20 through 22,

00:07:51.580 which again come off the heels of this very devastating experience of curses and judgments.

00:07:57.980 Now, if you remember what it felt like to be disciplined as a child,

00:08:02.100 if you just think back, you know, you just did something wrong.

00:08:06.300 You're sitting there before your father.

00:08:08.800 He's angry.

00:08:10.380 You're upset.

00:08:13.000 If you ever stood before a judge, maybe because you've committed a crime,

00:08:17.480 or you have a misdemeanor, or you're having some sort of sentencing,

00:08:21.160 you know what this moment feels like.

00:08:24.920 It's that space between the sentencing and the consequences.

00:08:30.960 It's a painful place.

00:08:32.560 It's a pause where the shock settles in.

00:08:36.860 You were just given the sentencing for what you've done, and the shock settles in.

00:08:44.980 It's where you begin to reflect.

00:08:48.080 Dread starts to come in.

00:08:52.280 And I believe that's the emotional context of Adam and Eve in this particular moment.

00:08:57.300 They're facing the weight of their rebellion, and they're bracing themselves for what comes next.

00:09:04.880 They just got rained down consequences, curses, and judgments.

00:09:10.740 And they're about to be removed from the garden.

00:09:14.980 And they don't know exactly what that means yet.

00:09:19.780 And the text says, the man called his wife's name Eve.

00:09:25.400 because she was the mother of all living now there are a few interpretations of this passage

00:09:35.020 two in particular and the first one i think is borderline ridiculous it's at the very least a

00:09:42.860 stretch and the second one i believe is certainly a better exposition of the context but i'm going

00:09:48.500 to give you the first one because you may have heard it before it comes mostly from jewish

00:09:53.200 scholars, though there was a revival of this position in the early 20th century. And it states

00:09:59.360 that in the Hebrew and the Aramaic, the name Eve is spelled, well, specifically Hebrew, very

00:10:08.980 similarly to the word serpent or the word for serpent. And they would argue that Adam is

00:10:16.360 essentially naming her with a name and subtly rebuking her because she, like the serpent,

00:10:23.660 deceived him and he is giving her this name. That is one interpretation that has had a little

00:10:31.420 bit of traction throughout history. Essentially, I see that view is that it's Adam throwing all

00:10:38.820 the responsibility on her. She's the mother of all the living and she's about to be the mother

00:10:44.340 of essentially the living that die.

00:10:47.120 It's a very strange interpretation.

00:10:49.400 In fact, I think when you disconnect yourself

00:10:51.400 from the greater systematic theology,

00:10:54.640 when you disconnect yourself

00:10:56.240 from the biblical, historical, contextual hermeneutics,

00:11:00.660 you arrive at places like that

00:11:02.560 that I don't think fit with the theme of the gospel

00:11:07.760 or the context of this passage of Scripture.

00:11:10.260 Here's what I think is the proper interpretation

00:11:14.960 God has just spoken

00:11:22.140 About what?

00:11:26.060 Well he just spoke about childbearing 0.67

00:11:27.960 He just spoke about the seed of the woman 0.96

00:11:30.820 The promise of a future baby to be born 0.92

00:11:33.520 And he also spoke about the certainty of death

00:11:37.200 now in that context adam is naming his wife eve which means the mother of all living it means life

00:11:46.080 and here's the difference i don't believe that adam is offering a judgment upon his wife

00:11:54.020 i believe that this is actually an act of faith i believe that adam actually has faith and believes

00:12:03.000 what God has said of Adam and Eve. So I want you to catch this with me. Here we have Adam,

00:12:10.340 and he's standing under essentially a death sentence, a judgment and a death sentence from

00:12:16.400 God. But he's trusting in God's promise that through Eve, there will be a Redeemer born,

00:12:26.500 that she will be the mother of the living. 0.88

00:12:33.380 And that is that he believes that life will come through the woman

00:12:37.280 and that a child will be born and conquer death

00:12:41.520 and restore order and restore humanity back to its relationship with God.

00:12:45.860 I believe that's why Adam is calling his wife's name Eve.

00:12:50.980 It's an act of faith, not an act of judgment.

00:12:53.920 In fact, if you remember in Genesis 2.23, Adam calls his wife Esha, which means woman or out of man, means woman.

00:13:05.520 But here, again, he calls her in the Hebrew Shavah, which means life giver.

00:13:11.180 It means life giver.

00:13:13.020 And biblically, again, name changing is significant.

00:13:16.780 Name changing is significant.

00:13:18.060 It's always actually, it's a positive throughout scripture.

00:13:21.540 We have a variety of examples.

00:13:23.620 Just to name a few of them, we have Abram to Abraham.

00:13:26.160 We have Sarai to Sarah.

00:13:27.380 We have Simon to Peter. 0.67

00:13:28.760 We have Jacob to Israel.

00:13:30.500 We have Saul to Paul.

00:13:33.120 And all of these are marking a significant change that has to do with faith.

00:13:39.320 With faith.

00:13:41.320 And so again, I see this verse as a seed of faith in Adam.

00:13:47.020 It's a seed of faith in Adam.

00:13:48.800 He believes God.

00:13:49.780 He believes what God has said.

00:13:52.060 Even in the midst of the judgment, he goes, there will be a seed coming from you, woman,

00:13:58.820 who will bring us and restore us back to Eden.

00:14:06.200 It's also why I believe that Adam and Eve are the first saints added to the church.

00:14:10.940 And I think that's important because it shapes up a very confused view of the church.

00:14:18.440 A lot of people go, oh, the church started at Pentecost.

00:14:22.560 That was when the Christian church began.

00:14:25.600 No, no.

00:14:28.640 The church began as people began to have faith in God.

00:14:34.920 And so is David a part of the church?

00:14:37.120 Certainly.

00:14:37.660 Is Moses part of the church?

00:14:39.440 Yes.

00:14:40.360 Is Abraham, the father of faith, part of the church?

00:14:43.460 Yes.

00:14:43.700 So the early church was not Pentecost.

00:14:45.600 the early church was Genesis chapter 3.

00:14:53.240 In fact, you're going to see more faith from Adam and Eve

00:14:57.000 and the early people of his time in Genesis chapter 4

00:15:02.240 as they began to call upon the name of the Lord,

00:15:05.620 trusting and waiting upon God to fulfill the promise

00:15:10.360 that Eve would bear a son. 0.54

00:15:12.340 And so the text goes on to say

00:15:17.040 It says in verse 21

00:15:18.280 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife 0.97

00:15:21.720 Garments of skins

00:15:23.460 And clothed them

00:15:26.760 So even in the midst of a judgment

00:15:29.860 Even in the midst of a judgment

00:15:31.600 We have a good and loving father

00:15:33.640 He extends mercy

00:15:36.620 By clothing Adam and Eve

00:15:38.940 With garments of animal skins

00:15:40.940 you could just read right over this if you just weren't paying attention

00:15:45.760 now if you remember earlier in genesis chapter 3 verse 7

00:15:50.720 they had attempted to cover themselves with fig leaves okay one these are just inadequate coverings

00:15:57.020 right they're not comfortable they're not functional uh they're insufficient to hide

00:16:02.700 themselves from the Lord. And here we have God stepping in and providing something first that's

00:16:13.740 way more functional. And second, that is very prophetic, is very prophetic. I want you to

00:16:21.920 notice that God affirms their shame. That's point number one. Just take a second here. And God just

00:16:28.360 affirms that they are shameful. They are to be shameful and that they need to be covered.

00:16:34.140 And why is that important? Basically, because he is agreeing that to be naked in a fallen world

00:16:41.540 is not good. Okay? It's a message that this generation certainly needs to hear

00:16:47.560 because we have people that are trying more and more and more to become naked and to make it

00:16:54.580 less shameful. But here we have God affirming that being naked is actually not good. And I will

00:17:01.540 affirm that by covering you, by covering you. And so in a sense, we have one point is that God is

00:17:09.440 establishing his first affirmation of modesty. This is the first affirmation of modesty. Modesty

00:17:14.620 is good. It is shameful to be naked in public. And again, we don't have all the clarity, but

00:17:22.360 essentially it's clothing that conceals, it's clothing that protects, it's more sufficient

00:17:26.460 for life, it's more functional, and essentially that does not provoke men to evil.

00:17:33.740 Now, but more importantly, I want to talk about this element that is prophetic. His statement

00:17:38.200 and his act of giving Adam and Eve skins is a prophetic act. 0.99

00:17:44.500 it's prophetic

00:17:48.200 it acts as a

00:17:50.600 prefigure of the gospel

00:17:52.320 and the doctrine of what we call

00:17:54.940 penal substitutionary atonement

00:17:57.180 it's a very important doctrine

00:17:58.720 you should know it

00:17:59.660 I don't think you can get to the gospel

00:18:01.120 without understanding this doctrine

00:18:02.420 at least portions of it

00:18:03.440 God clothes them

00:18:06.760 or covers them

00:18:09.500 or atones them

00:18:11.960 the word atone means to cover

00:18:14.720 So God atones them. 1.00

00:18:17.120 But he atones them with animal skins. 0.93

00:18:21.040 Now, ultimately, what we see here, if you just zoom out for a second, what happens?

00:18:26.120 Ultimately, innocent life, or if you want to say animal life, is sacrificed so that the guilty could live.

00:18:38.520 One life was taken so that another life might live.

00:18:44.040 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.

00:18:58.820 And this is why when Jesus' blood spilt, his life spilt, we need blood to die in our stead.

00:19:09.180 We need a substitute.

00:19:11.520 When you sin, something needs to die. 1.00

00:19:14.740 Either you die or something else dies in your place.

00:19:19.060 And that was the historical understanding, the Old Testament sacrificial system,

00:19:22.880 is that because you sin, something needed to die.

00:19:25.600 Because you ought to die, but something will die in your place.

00:19:29.040 It was constantly preparing us for and pointing us to Christ, 0.73

00:19:34.040 the ultimate lamb, the ultimate sacrifice,

00:19:37.180 The one who would die in our place.

00:19:44.260 And so, this is a very important image, prophetically, that Christ, it's a pointing to, it's looking forward to that one day.

00:20:01.380 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.

00:20:11.420 We're not going to be clothed in that day with our own skins, with our own failed sinfulness in nature.

00:20:21.700 But we will be covered with the robes of Christ.

00:20:26.860 Isaiah 61, 10 prophesies of it.

00:20:29.220 It says, He has clothed me with the garments of salvation.

00:20:32.620 He has covered me with the robes of righteousness.

00:20:36.200 Zechariah prophesies of it as well.

00:20:38.220 Remove the filthy garments from him. 0.62

00:20:40.000 Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.

00:20:46.300 Revelation prophesies of it as well.

00:20:47.940 They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

00:20:51.980 Over and over again you have this clothing that God gives you,

00:20:59.560 this perfect clothing of righteousness that's imputed to us through faith

00:21:04.500 and that the sacrifice is not of an animal but of the perfect Lamb of God.

00:21:10.640 You understand now why John says,

00:21:13.160 Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

00:21:17.600 It's just this beautiful fulfillment.

00:21:19.680 you are the one that fulfills that entire sacrificial system

00:21:25.000 from Genesis chapter 3

00:21:26.740 where they're wrapped in the skins of animals

00:21:30.300 all the way through the sacrificial system

00:21:32.940 we've been waiting for you

00:21:34.600 the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world

00:21:39.240 verse 22 says

00:21:43.260 the Lord God said behold

00:21:45.380 the man has become like one of us

00:21:50.340 in knowing good and evil.

00:21:55.320 This will be our last verse that we get through here today.

00:22:00.060 Here God is speaking

00:22:01.740 either within the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

00:22:07.480 or He's speaking in the Godhead in addition to the angels' presence,

00:22:12.460 but you can't ignore the plurality of the statement.

00:22:15.680 You see it right there.

00:22:17.880 Behold, the man has become like one of us.

00:22:22.380 Well, who's the us?

00:22:23.980 Well, again, it's either the Godhead

00:22:25.360 or it's the angelic beings in addition to the Godhead.

00:22:33.340 Interestingly, in this verse,

00:22:35.960 God confirms that Satan was telling the truth.

00:22:38.760 we kind of have to give credit where credit is due here

00:22:42.640 well what did Satan say to the woman

00:22:46.620 if you eat of it 0.97

00:22:49.080 you're going to know

00:22:51.740 and be like God knowing good and evil

00:22:56.500 and he was right

00:22:59.060 he was right

00:23:01.460 which begs the question

00:23:05.100 Is it sinful for Adam and Eve to know good and evil?

00:23:09.580 Well, they already knew good.

00:23:11.500 Okay, so we know that.

00:23:12.900 Is it sinful for Adam and Eve to know good and evil?

00:23:19.000 That was a question that I had to work through in preparation here.

00:23:23.680 Because if it is sinful, then God and the angels both know good and evil.

00:23:29.060 And how are they not sinful?

00:23:31.180 Right, so we have a conundrum there.

00:23:32.520 Well, we know that the angels know, but at least Satan knew, who was a fallen angel.

00:23:37.840 He knew.

00:23:40.300 Here's my position.

00:23:43.340 It wasn't sinful for Adam and Eve to possess the knowledge of good and evil in itself.

00:23:48.420 It wasn't a sinful thing to have that information.

00:23:53.400 The sin was how they acquired that information.

00:23:57.680 How they acquired that information.

00:24:00.380 It wasn't through divine revelation.

00:24:02.280 It wasn't God giving them understanding by His will, but it was through their own revelation.

00:24:11.040 Not only did they acquire an understanding of evil, but they acquired it through a participation of evil.

00:24:18.920 So it's very different. It's a very different thing here.

00:24:22.340 So they acquired the knowledge of good and evil through what?

00:24:25.100 Well, through self-willed, through disobedience, and through experience, this is what was sinful.

00:24:34.040 Was it sinful to actually have the information?

00:24:36.860 No, it was sinful because they disobeyed God in how to attain that information.

00:24:46.640 And this is what corrupted them.

00:24:50.500 This is what stripped them of their righteousness and their holiness.

00:24:55.100 In essence, they came to know evil by doing evil.

00:25:01.540 That's the issue.

00:25:03.060 It's not that they came to know evil because God revealed it to them so that they might stay away from it.

00:25:08.980 No, they came to know evil because they actually committed evil.

00:25:13.140 They knew it experientially.

00:25:17.480 Which is like us.

00:25:21.040 We don't just know about evil.

00:25:23.680 We know evil.

00:25:25.100 because we have committed evil,

00:25:28.460 because we have experienced evil.

00:25:33.320 And this, as a result, made them evil.

00:25:38.580 And it made us evil.

00:25:43.300 Now remember, to be righteous is to be without sin.

00:25:49.900 To be righteous is to be without sin.

00:25:54.120 Now, I'm speaking in absolutes.

00:25:55.420 To be absolutely righteous is to be absolutely without sin.

00:26:00.380 You can do a righteous deed.

00:26:02.060 You can be righteous for a day.

00:26:04.800 But to be righteous according to God's standard is that you have no sin.

00:26:10.840 You have never sinned.

00:26:16.920 Now, the problem is this.

00:26:18.520 A perfectly righteous being, person, who commits even one sin, is just as corrupt as the person who has committed many sins.

00:26:32.960 Now we know that's true because James 2.10 says,

00:26:37.120 For whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point, has become guilty of all of it.

00:26:44.700 so it's talking about absolutes the way that god views a purchase a person

00:26:50.740 is are you righteous or unrighteous there is no in between

00:26:55.220 there is not well i lived 99.9 percent of my life righteously and then that 0.1 percent i failed and

00:27:05.880 sinned, God says you're unrighteous.

00:27:11.720 It's absolutes. There is

00:27:14.160 no middle ground. You are either

00:27:17.740 like God, or you either are not like God.

00:27:21.780 You are either able to be in the presence of God because you are wholly like 0.66

00:27:25.960 God, or you are a sinner and ought to be

00:27:29.460 vanquished from the presence of God. 0.98

00:27:33.300 In the same way, a single drop of poison corrupts an entire gallon of water.

00:27:44.280 Adam and Eve's single act of rebellion corrupted humanity's entire nature.

00:27:52.060 They went from one category to another category.

00:27:57.640 And their problem was not merely that they, again, committed one sinful act.

00:28:03.300 It's that that one sinful act fundamentally changed them.

00:28:08.500 It changed their affections.

00:28:10.340 It changed their moral state and reality.

00:28:14.560 It changed their wills, their nature.

00:28:19.920 Remember, the will is defined as man's highest desire.

00:28:24.940 Your highest desire is your will.

00:28:27.780 and prior to sin your highest desire is to give glory to God

00:28:33.660 but after sin and a fallen and corrupted nature

00:28:37.560 your highest desire is self

00:28:40.520 your will is self

00:28:44.740 and so many people

00:28:51.440 struggle to understand that this is a moment

00:28:55.240 of life to death that's really what happened here we are seeing life to death it's easy to go

00:29:05.920 it's just it's just this one sin shouldn't there be some sort of cascading scale how did they go

00:29:14.260 from perfectly holy to utterly and catastrophically corrupt it's it's hard for us to grasp that

00:29:23.460 train of thought.

00:29:28.320 We want to minimize it.

00:29:30.660 But we can't.

00:29:32.360 We can't minimize it.

00:29:34.860 Because scripture doesn't

00:29:36.160 minimize it. I'm going to give you a handful

00:29:38.060 of scriptures. Isaiah 64, 6.

00:29:40.760 It says, we have all

00:29:41.920 become like one who

00:29:44.000 is unclean. And all

00:29:46.100 of our righteous deeds

00:29:47.260 are like filthy rags.

00:29:50.340 We all fade like a leaf 0.92

00:29:52.200 and our iniquities are like the wind, they take us away.

00:29:57.300 1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural person,

00:29:59.860 this person that's dead and it's in the flesh,

00:30:02.000 it's not in the spirit,

00:30:03.320 does not accept the things of the spirit of God

00:30:05.760 for they are foolishness to him

00:30:07.460 and he is not able to understand them 0.82

00:30:10.960 because they are spiritually discerned

00:30:14.020 and you're spiritually dead.

00:30:16.100 You can't even hear them.

00:30:17.800 You can't see them.

00:30:19.160 You can't sense them.

00:30:20.460 You are blind. 1.00

00:30:21.680 You were deaf. 1.00

00:30:22.740 You were dead. 1.00

00:30:25.020 Genesis 6-5.

00:30:26.520 The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth

00:30:29.500 and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart

00:30:33.520 was only evil continuously.

00:30:40.060 That's the catastrophic nature

00:30:43.300 of what fundamentally, categorically changed

00:30:47.360 from this one sin.

00:30:50.060 It's not just one sin.

00:30:52.320 It's life to death.

00:30:55.200 And then death reproduces death, death, death.

00:31:03.840 Romans 3, 10 through 11.

00:31:06.520 As it is written, none is righteous.

00:31:10.520 No, not one.

00:31:13.020 No one understands.

00:31:15.320 No one seeks for God.

00:31:17.360 it's so vital to just read this passage of scripture and go oh that was the fall

00:31:24.920 it's like no this is this is a funeral this is death this is tragedy this is a point of

00:31:34.340 of no return without a redeemer romans 8 7 for the mind that is set on the flesh

00:31:41.920 is hostile to God,

00:31:44.400 for it does not submit to God's law.

00:31:47.540 Indeed, it cannot.

00:31:50.080 It cannot.

00:31:54.160 When you bump into a person who doesn't know Christ,

00:31:57.520 you need to understand

00:31:59.180 that description is who they are.

00:32:04.020 That description is who you were.

00:32:08.900 And that should really help you.

00:32:10.440 You cannot change a person.

00:32:13.600 You cannot intellectually persuade a man to Christ.

00:32:18.880 It really alleviates a lot of weight.

00:32:23.480 Because you realize pretty quickly, I can't convert this person with information.

00:32:29.400 I can't make this person better because I can't raise the dead.

00:32:37.800 What it does is it takes the weight off and you realize,

00:32:40.440 all I can do is present the gospel

00:32:43.380 because faith comes by hearing

00:32:45.760 and hearing by the word of Christ.

00:32:47.700 Therefore, I will preach Christ

00:32:49.020 and let the Holy Spirit do the work.

00:32:51.660 That's all we have.

00:32:54.260 And so if you preach Christ

00:32:56.020 and that person doesn't come to Christ,

00:32:58.160 it's not on you.

00:32:59.460 It's because God did not choose to save that man.

00:33:05.060 And on the other side,

00:33:06.640 if you preach Christ

00:33:07.800 and that person actually comes to faith, 0.86

00:33:10.440 Praise be to God.

00:33:12.660 All I have done is been faithful.

00:33:16.160 But it's God who does the heavy lifting.

00:33:22.720 So before the fall, Adam and Eve knew God and they knew good.

00:33:28.960 And they naturally desired to do good.

00:33:32.860 But after the fall, they still knew what was good.

00:33:37.660 but their affections were bent.

00:33:41.460 They were, the will again had changed.

00:33:45.880 Their will was primary

00:33:47.940 and they were no longer able to do good

00:33:53.620 the way they could before.

00:33:58.440 Matthew Henry says,

00:34:00.100 they knew good but were no longer able to do it.

00:34:02.720 They knew evil and could do nothing else.

00:34:05.720 I'm going to read that one more time.

00:34:07.660 Because it's very important, and I'm going to go into a little teaching on this.

00:34:11.260 It says, they knew good, but were no longer able to do it.

00:34:17.100 They knew evil, and now could do nothing else.

00:34:22.180 This brings us to a theological concept called the Augustinian Matrix, or the fourfold state of man.

00:34:30.500 It's a theological description for the four states of redemptive history.

00:34:35.600 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.

00:34:54.220 And it's very important because it'll help us interpret and bridge the gap from the garden to the fall

00:35:01.000 and bridge the gap from the fall to the redemption in Christ

00:35:04.540 and bridge the gap from redemption in Christ to the glorification in heaven.

00:35:08.980 This is very important.

00:35:10.360 It's called the Augustinian Matrix.

00:35:12.060 It was actually popularized in the 17th century by Thomas Boston,

00:35:16.440 who was a Presbyterian, by the way,

00:35:18.140 and his book, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State.

00:35:23.980 So number one, I'm going to give you four quadrants, okay?

00:35:28.080 All right, one, two, three, four, okay?

00:35:31.440 The first quadrant, in the garden, mankind was able to sin and able not to sin.

00:35:42.880 Okay, the first quadrant, man is able to sin and able not to sin.

00:35:48.820 okay the will of man was righteous and he had both liberty and ability to obey

00:35:56.880 okay quadrant number two after the fall mankind was still able to sin but no longer able not to

00:36:09.220 sin this is very important he is no longer able to not sin what i mean by that is this

00:36:16.500 the will of man was now enslaved to evil and while he had the liberty he did not have the ability

00:36:24.360 because his nature was corrupted and what i mean by that is that in a fallen state

00:36:30.500 every everything that a person does everything that a person does outside of a relationship

00:36:36.460 with god will be done to the glory of self and not to the glory of god so even your good things

00:36:42.120 even your charitable things

00:36:44.480 are not done to the glory of God

00:36:46.340 they're done to the glory of self

00:36:47.600 and therefore make those good things evil

00:36:49.760 so even your good things

00:36:51.820 are like filthy rags

00:36:53.160 as what Isaiah says

00:36:54.180 does that make sense

00:36:55.620 so quadrant one

00:36:58.600 you can sin

00:37:00.680 and you cannot sin

00:37:01.520 quadrant two

00:37:02.880 you can only sin

00:37:04.260 you cannot do good

00:37:06.260 even your good things are not good

00:37:08.480 and that's why you see

00:37:11.680 someone making a million dollar donation to the children's fund?

00:37:16.520 You think that's good, but God looks at that heart

00:37:19.900 and goes, it's not to the glory of God, it's to the glory of self, and it's

00:37:23.940 wicked. Now, in and of itself, intrinsically, is it

00:37:27.980 good? Yeah, you can argue that there's a good effect from that,

00:37:32.260 but the posture, the nature, the heart

00:37:35.500 in which that comes from is not good.

00:37:38.740 quadrant number three

00:37:41.620 after redemption in christ believers are free

00:37:47.240 from the bondage of sin and return to a kind of like a garden-like

00:37:52.320 state able to sin and able not to sin by the power of the

00:37:58.340 holy spirit okay the will of man is restored to some

00:38:03.200 degree but he lives in a fallen world with a

00:38:06.600 fallen body. That's the dilemma, right? So your will

00:38:10.440 is restored because you're no longer enslaved to sin. Now your will is

00:38:14.380 enslaved to Christ. But you live in a fallen world

00:38:18.120 and in a fallen body, which makes you constantly stumble. That's why

00:38:22.320 Paul goes, oh, this wretched body of death, get it off me.

00:38:27.420 And creation groans for the restoration

00:38:29.620 of the world. Number four, fourth

00:38:34.300 quadrant, down here. Man is fully conformed to Christ, free from the power of sin, and there will

00:38:42.080 be no ability to ever sin again. Okay, so essentially we're made perfect and holy, even in a greater

00:38:54.080 state than Adam and Eve were. And we will have the liberty and ability to only obey.

00:39:04.300 And so, again, you have these four states.

00:39:06.320 You have kind of this integrity, depravity, redemption, glorification.

00:39:12.180 Those are the four states.

00:39:14.340 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.

00:39:25.280 We're bridging a gap.

00:39:27.400 Chapter 3 in a garden state to chapter 4 in a fallen state.

00:39:32.720 and this will have the interpretive lens to make sense of the Old Testament

00:39:37.980 and the purpose and need for the New Testament

00:39:41.780 and the purpose and need to go to heaven and be glorified with Christ.

00:39:46.380 It gives us all of that understanding.

00:39:51.000 And so next week, we're going to finish the last two verses of chapter 3

00:39:56.980 and we're going to prepare to move in to the post-garden chapters of Genesis.

00:40:05.460 Amen? Amen. Let's pray.

00:40:08.500 Father, we thank you, Lord, for redemption.

00:40:16.540 Lord, that you have provided us a way to be redeemed.

00:40:23.000 lord that you have given us an understanding of redemption

00:40:27.340 lord we ask that you would help us to understand how christ fulfills more and more of the old

00:40:33.260 testament that we might see the miraculous and beautiful narrative that makes us grasp the

00:40:41.640 supernatural reality of your ways father we thank you for christ in jesus name amen

00:40:53.000 Thank you.

Dale Partridge - December 03, 2025

Genesis 3_20-21 - We’re Adam and Eve Christians

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