This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 22, 1992.
We are in Genesis chapter 3 this evening. Genesis chapter 3. And we begin reading at verse 8. Listen to the word of God. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the spirit of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?
And he said, I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. And God said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field.
On your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.
Then to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying you shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall grow 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, because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Now the man called his wife’s name Eve. because she was the mother of all the living. And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. And now lest he stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he stationed the charioteer and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. Father, you are sovereign in all the affairs of our lives. You are sovereign with respect to your word and to the end to which you have dispensed that word.
Lord, we are those who would have life, we would not reside in a deadness of spirit, we would not clothe ourselves in a dead orthodoxy. Father, we would have a vibrant living faith, one that is exercised continually with respect to your promises, with respect to yourself. Father, strengthen your church. Grant your church good and strong leaders. May it please you, Father, to raise up those who will preach with integrity, who will preach out of the love of your word and for a love of you. We ask, Lord, that they might not be turned aside by the promise of gain, gain in this world. May they give themselves so as to follow in the steps of their Savior, who was a faithful shepherd and gave himself for the sheep. We ask it through Christ, truly, the Good Shepherd. Amen.
We have been studying the fall of man, the account of the fall here in the early chapters of Genesis. And recently we have watched on as the Lord God has come upon that garden sanctuary of his making, the garden which he had planted, the Garden of Eden. We have watched on as the Lord God has come upon that garden in the spirit of the day of judgment. We have contended that that is how we are to understand the opening portion of that eighth verse in Genesis 3. It is not so much then that the Lord appears after the fall of man. for a casual stroll in the garden in the pool of the day. No, the Lord has come in all of his fury in the spirit of the day of the Lord, the day of wrath and judgment. We have then witnessed the Lord’s interrogation.
He has set up his own inquisition. He is the inquisitor, the grand inquisitor, far removed from any that might appear in literature. The Lord interrogates our first parents, but in that interrogation, despite his onslaught in the form of judge and in the fury of his judgment, He portrays himself also as pastor to these members early on in the history of his church. He approaches them then pastorally in search of penitence, in search of repentance, but their response to his interrogation to his approach, to even his gracious approach, their response to him is to indict themselves with full testimony of their newly acquired depravity.
For every word that crosses their lips will further deepen their guilt. blames his wife. She, in turn, blames the serpent. But behind this respective shifting of blame on their part, they both, behind their words, cloak a charge against God. They would implicate God in their sin. and thus lay the blame for their sin directly at the feet of the Lord.
The Lord has come with pastoral intent. He has come, even in the midst of his fury, with pastoral entreaties so as to draw from them, elicit from them, repentance, and let they had responded in this fashion. The Lord then in the face of such deliberate evasion and quote blasphemy in charging him with their sin, in the face of such response from these unrepentant sinners, he then The Lord God proceeds to judgment and the passing of sentence.
The serpent is first, although bypassed in the interrogation. He is first because behind him looms Satan’s darkened figure. But the Lord now deals with the servant in such a way so as to keep in place Satan’s concealment. That concealment serving as something of a binding of Satan, a limiting of him. Satan then will not be permitted to step out from behind his disguise.
He would love to do so. He would love to strut now in the full light of day and throw his victory directly into the face of God. And even more, he would love to step out from behind his disguise so as to capitalize upon his gain, his gain over man, in a demonstration of the revelation of his beauty. The beauty of Satan, portrayed now before the sinful pair, will be something that they will not be able to resist.
The serpent through which Satan has acted is now the one through which Satan is addressed. And he is told of his final demise, though he hardly believes it, does he ever believe God? Told of his final demise through those, even those he had hoped to claim for himself. Through those, Adam and his wife, whom he had hoped to claim for himself. Satan’s thorough and consistent wickedness, the perfection of evil in him, is compounded through his appetite which is insatiable. In his lust for dominion, the ones over which he had wished special dominion namely the man and the woman, will prove to be his own undoing, for he who worships power is himself in the end overpowered and crushed.
As for the woman, Think of her now and the curse and judgment that has read out upon her. That which was to be for her joy and blessing, namely children and childbirth, becomes expressive of the curse that rests upon her. She is told by the Lord that her pain will be multiplied, multiplied in childbirth. This pain then intensified and compounded in her. Remember how Satan’s own wickedness is compounded in him. But now, for the woman her pain intensified and compounded by her desire, her appetite, that which she wants and longs for.
In her quest to dominate, to have power and authority beyond the rule which God had placed upon her and for her, In her quest to dominate, she now will be dominated. She will be dominated by her husband, whom she desires and from whom she cannot escape. Her desire itself being testimony to that.
Modern methods Lamaze and otherwise. Modern methods and modern medications do not eradicate the pain multiplied to the daughters of Eve. Those modern methods and medications presuppose that pain and are necessitated by it. And further, Liberation movements and modern feminism does not eradicate either the desire the woman has, nor the domination, the domination which the man has over his wife. Rather, liberation movements and modern feminism presuppose that very desire and that denomination which is irrefutable fact.
So much for the woman. What of the man? Satan betrayed by his desire The woman’s plight compounded by her desire, so it is for the man also. He has his desire. In itself there is nothing evil about it any more than there is something evil in the desire that a woman would have for her husband. The man’s desire being That which is directed toward the earth and dominion over it in keeping with the commandment of God. But now as with respect to the desire of the woman, so also with respect to the desire of the man, it has all gone bad. The man sought to take the world through disobedience. And now he sees his desire frustrated because of the interposition of God.
The earth, we are told, will triumph over him, and this one who has been taken from the dust will return In this sentence there is another note to be heard, one more frightening still, one as devastating as any consideration that rises from Adam’s moral culpability and his depravity. It is the note of utter futility. the threat and the dread of dissolution and nothingness that a life could be lived and then see all of its efforts dissolved into dust not only the efforts but the one who put forth the efforts so then to man’s moral culpability and depravity is now added the excruciating weight of the futility of existence, the threat that it could all be for nothing. So thorough is this futility, in fact, that no moral effort by man in his ruined and sinful state can remove its threat. So thorough is this futility that no moral effort by man in his ruined state can remove its threat.
Oh, how man tries. Oh how man, through moral renovation and effort, tries to remove the threat of futility and emptiness. But even this is a testimony to the triumph of futility, for man’s moral efforts, in his ruined condition, are themselves futile. It is against this background, now.
It is against this background that we hear the expressed promise by God. God coming on into the garden in the spirit of the day of judgment, yet in the midst of that fury, pastorally ministering to this couple. And even here, as he pronounces judgment, there is heard, through the sentence, pronounced the word of grace, the promise by God, a promise that is directed toward and against the serpent.
And in its veiled implications to our first parents becomes the proclamation, the proto-proclamation of the gospel, the good news, the message of good hope through grace. in which God assures his creation that despite the pain and suffering, despite the threat of futility, despite the moral culpability of man, the great good for which God made all things shall in fact be reached by no other means than by his achievement. Something that he will bring about in those of his choosing, when they shall be clothed with eternal bodies suitable for fellowship with him eternally. The great goal then for which God made all things shall be achieved through his effort, which he shall bring about in those of his choosing, to the end that they shall be clothed with eternal bodies suitable for fellowship with him eternally.” And here, then, as the story progresses, we have evidences of God’s regenerating work precisely unto that end. The spirit with which the Lord comes for judgment is also the spirit of renewal, the spirit for the regeneration of those dead in their sin.
Adam and his wife then are people of God’s choosing. to be saved by grace, not by their works. Adam will give testimony to this in the twentieth verse of that third chapter. His response there is one that issues forth from a heart that has now been worked on, ministered to graciously by God. If there wasn’t the hearing of the Lord in the first instance, as Adam sought to shift blame, there is now testimony that he has heard, and that evidence of the working of grace in him. The word of God has come. And the word of God has done its work in regenerating this one who is as good as lost, as good as damned.
Adam’s response, then, is one of faith. That is why it appears here in verse twenty, after the pronouncement of the judgment against him. His response is one of faith, faith in the expressed promise of God. The promise through which he, that is, Adam and those who believe like him, will be delivered from the curse that has been pronounced.
Adam now looks upon his wife with new eyes. He looks upon her with the eyes that have been regenerated, and he sees in her the channel for the bestowal of life according to the purpose and intention of God. His confession reaches beyond the hope of mere biological life.
The bestowal of life that comes through the woman will in fact touch the tree of life and its promise. He calls her then, Life. That’s what her name means. He calls her Life. Eve. the meaning of that name being life, for he sees in her now the mother of all those who shall live with God.”
Adam believes the promise. It is an expression of faith, this naming of his wife, its intrusion at this point in the story. It is an act of faith born of the regenerating grace of God in the life of this man. And as we would expect, so is it true here. This faith expressed is not devoid of the deepest humility.
For Adam has witnessed God’s forbearance by that work of grace. Now Adam perceives grace, and he understands his own unworthiness. The fact that he is left standing there to draw another breath is a testimony to him of God’s grace to him. He has been, as it were, cast himself upon the mercy of the one who has shown such benevolence to him.
And in the naming of his wife, as he does seeing her with new eyes, there is the signal of the intrusion of a new age. Not an age of death under the sentence of the law, but an age of life through the grace of the gospel. Adam’s faith and his humility, Adam’s faith and repentance are indications to us that he is vitally connected to the new world, the new age which shall come in which life triumphs over death. How gracious God is in continuing on as we read in that twenty-first verse. For Adam and his wife are not left without direct intrusion by the Lord, such intrusion and action which underscores his graciousness. and the end to which now they themselves are constrained to press.
God provides for them garments. Were they not already clothed? Had they not already made for themselves clothing? But that was the problem, wasn’t it? It was clothing of their own making to cover the fact that they stood short of the glorious bodies for which they were destined.
God’s intrusion now will reinforce his positive intention. He doesn’t mean merely to withhold his wrath and thereby allow them time to effect their own redemption through natural means. Rather, he intends to directly intervene, deliberately to act on their behalf in a demonstration of the triumph of grace in the overthrow of the religion of works.
We will cover ourselves. We will construct an approach to life which is of our own making. We will construct our own resolution to the predicament that we find ourselves in. This which we shall do shall be a testimony to the religion which we have now embraced, a religion which broadcasts that we can, after all, save ourselves.
God, then, does not merely withhold his wrath, thereby allowing them time to effect their own redemption through natural means. He intrudes, he intervenes, he deliberately acts in such a way as to underscore the fact that the triumph of grace shall be his doing, and that unto the end of overthrowing every pretense of a religion of words. God shall provide the covering. the covering for their shame. And though it may not look like much from the text that we have in front of us, what a covering it is, for that covering presumes, presupposes, the shedding of blood, the taking away of an innocent life, the life of an animal slain for the procurement of those skins. And this covering for their bodies shall be to the end, that they should not be found naked, but clothed in God’s sight and that for eternity.” Symbolic of that which is coming.
Eventually God will make explicit the connection between the innocent animal slain and the seed begotten by the woman spoken of in verse fifteen of this third chapter. Eventually he will make explicit the connection between the clothing made of animal skins and the clothing of a resurrection body, such clothing as shall never wear out. And eventually God will make plain the connection between the life found through Eve in the child of promise and the very tree of life whose way is now guarded by the angelic host. What might yet be obscure for Adam and for Eve is not obscure to you.
And for all of those connections have been finally and wonderfully drawn before your very eyes. You know the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. You know that you shall not be found naked. in the day of God’s visitation that you shall be clothed with an immortal body and you know that that life found within the child promised through the seed of the woman is the life that is symbolized in the tree of life meant for you, for your partaking. All of these connections now you have been privileged to see in the full light of day.
My prayer for you, that you may stand amazed at the grace of God that you may stand amazed at his faithfulness and the mercy resident in Jesus and that standing amazed you would observe then the wonderful differences that all of this makes to you in your lives.
Father, we marvel at what you have set in place so as to magnify your grace. Sin has in fact abounded, but grace has abounded all the more. And Lord, we with amazement behold the perfect pattern of your care and love, your purpose and intention. We are overwhelmed, Lord, by what we see, our own unworthiness, your magnificent love availed for us. Encourage us in our love for you and for your son, and may we not depart from this path upon which you have placed us, so as to claim credit for our salvation, as if our religion were a religion of works. Instead, Father, may we see the fruit of your regenerating work in us, our continuing faith, our humility and repentant spirit before you. And bless us, Father, so that all this would be evident to those about us. We then demonstrating the fact that we belong to you by what we say and do.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.