About this sermon
A Morning Instruction class on the Adamic covenant in Genesis 3, part of a study of O. Palmer Robertson’s The Christ of the Covenants. The serpent questions God’s word, and Adam fails to guard the garden and drive out the enemy. God’s curses fall on all three parties, but only the serpent is cursed without blessing; Adam and Eve receive curse and blessing together, because God suspends the final judgment. The promise that the woman’s offspring will crush the serpent’s head points to Christ, who defeats Satan.
Sermon transcript
Let’s begin our time of morning instruction by reading a good portion of Genesis chapter 3. I should read the version that you have in front here. Genesis chapter 3. In past weeks, and in weeks to come, we are studying O. Palmer Robertson, Christ of the Covenants. We have some new people here.
O. Palmer Robertson was a, he’s been a pastor, he was a professor at Westminster in Philadelphia. He’s actually a seminary professor in Uganda. Is that still true? I think it is. I believe it is. I have a look of shock in the back.
What we’re doing is, studying each and every one of the covenants. In past weeks we’ve looked at each covenant, excuse me, we’ve looked at the covenants broadly speaking, just some attributes that we find in all the covenants and in some of the covenants, but now we’re going to be focusing on one covenant at a time. So today happens to be the Adamic covenant, the original covenant, and after this will be Noah. So let’s read God’s word from Genesis chapter three. I’m gonna get out of the sun’s glare.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord had made. And he said to the woman, indeed has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But from the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, you surely will not die.
For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. 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 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband, and her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed thick leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the wrath 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 you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and so I hid myself. And he said, “‘Who told you that you were naked? “‘Have you eaten from the tree “‘of which I commanded you not to eat?’ “‘The man said, “‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, “‘she gave me 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.’ 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 you will go, and dust you will 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 and childbirth, and pain you will bring forth children. Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will 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. Curse it is the ground because of you, In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, and 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. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord said, behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.
Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out. At the east of the Garden of Eden, he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword, which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. That ends God’s holy, inspired, inerrant word.
Let it be blessed to us all. Sure. It is on? OK. Hopefully she can hear us. OK. This is what we want to highlight, some things that we want to talk about this day. Two weeks we’re spending on the Covenant of Adam, also called the Covenant of Works. Now just for purposes of review, just to kind of catch people up because this is Covenant of Works or Covenant of Adam or Covenant of Creation. It has multiple names, a lot of different names that people will use for it. Last week we talked about the fact that we don’t want to be super narrow and only be focusing upon the tree because there was something broader going on with what Adam and Eve had to do. And there were three words that we used to talk about that. Other than not eating the tree, what was their life composed of?
Anybody? Agriculture or labor. There was work put into the pre-fall era. There was also, what’s that? Marriage. Marriage is not a result of the fall. It is a covenant blessing that God has even in the pre-fall order. And then also, Sabbath. We want to emphasize that in the same sense that Sabbath is built into the pre-fall order. It’s not something that pertains only to the Jewish theocracy, to the Old Testament people. It is something that, it’s a theme that sets the course, or it’s like a thread that runs through all of scripture. We could say that, Christ is our rest, and we talked about that, the way that Jesus is our rest, we talked about the way that the Sabbath is a, a Sabbath remains for the people of God. So this is life, this is life in the pre-fall order.
Now, What are we to make of Adam? What are we to make of him? Who he was? I’m not asking about his personality, his likes and dislikes, or anything like that. But some theologians of late, and it’s something that has been very much a part of biblical theology, people who will take a theme at one portion of Scripture and trace that theme throughout all of the rest of Scripture, they would say, and I think that they are absolutely right, that Adam was a prophet, a priest, and a king. Ever think of Adam as a prophet, a priest, and a king?
I mean, when we have been dealing with our our system here that we’ve been going with, where we have the protological, the protological son, this is Adam, he’s the protological son, he’s called the son of God in Luke’s genealogy. He’s a son of God, traces back to God, and then we have this era, which we would call the typological sun.
This is the time from the fall, which happens right about here, all the way until the time when Jesus comes. And a type is just an earthly picture of a heavenly reality, or an earthly picture of something that is to come later. And what ultimately comes is the time of Christ, And there’s a reason I’m making these shapes here. This, what we have is the This is the eschatological son, and we have his two comings, his coming in humiliation and his coming in exaltation.
So this is the structure that we have, and we could say this is the structure that we have for God’s word. Now if you are, if someone is a theological liberal, we’ve talked in weeks past, theological liberals don’t really think that the Bible’s They’re perfectly glad to say that God is, the Bible is not literally true when we would say it’s intended to be literally true. What we have then is an era here where we have, it’s composed of prophets, priests, and kings, right? And we have Christ, the ex-catalogical son who is, the eschatological king, the eschatological priest. He is all three, eschaton, and eschaton just means the end, or the finish, or the goal.
So this is what all of scripture is looking toward. Now, there is nothing wrong with, and we ought to be perfectly willing to let things that happen either in the typological age or in the eschatological age to read those back into the first part, the protological. And I’m sorry for that being so chicken scratchish. We can read back into this era.
I mean, what is the function of a book? who, not everyone, but they were one who, a priest was one who beholds the face of God. He lives his life, in the Latin, before the face of God. He lives his life. Corum Deo. How is it that Adam begins life? How does Adam begin life? He begins life by God looking to him face to face and breathing life into him. He begins life as a priest. So what then was the job that Adam was to do? He was to work, he was to have marriage, he was to take rest, and notice that these compose what the week was to be made up of, six days of labor, one day of rest, and the same thing that God had done.
Now, let’s just think about this era, and this spans the time of Moses, Noah, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, everything, this is the time that Christ comes. This is what we call the fullness of time, Galatians 4. A couple of weeks ago, dear Kathy had a really good question.
Why is it that God says to go in and just wipe out the Canaanites? Really the question is, how is that justified? We would say, a lot of people in our age would say that people have rights and there was no concept of human rights going on there. They were to go and exterminate the Canaanites. And not just the men, the men, the women, the children, even the animals.
And some of us might look at that and say, That’s just a little bit harsh, right? Sometimes the Bible is offensive, right? Well, that’s good that the Bible is offensive. I remember listening to one theologian, a man who we would have many disagreements with, but this was a man who, for 30 years, read a book a day, six days a week. And he also wrote magazines and books. He was quite remarkable. It does. What does it offend in us? It offends our fleshliness and our sin. So there it is. God says to go in and wipe them out. Now we don’t see any Christians doing that, and that’s right, but Christians ought not to do that. So why is it that they’re able to do so at this time under Joshua? Moses comes. He leads the people for 40 years, and he’s succeeded by Joshua. Joshua is to go in and exterminate all the people.
Now, some people would look at that and say, well, that didn’t really happen. Well, that could be tempting for us if we’re really offended by it. But that’s really not an option for anyone who takes the Bible seriously. Well, let’s hold on to that just for a minute, and the way that if we read Joshua, the book of Joshua, the way that they were to exterminate the people, to take the land back for God. What I wanna show you is that God cares about many things, but one in particular that’s necessary for us today is that God cares about, what he wants is a holy people and a holy realm. and he wants to have them have a holy leader. What Adam wants to do was to be that holy leader, to have the holy land, or the holy sacred area, the sacred sanctuary, and what he wants to do was to protect that.
There are times in the typological era, the Old Testament time, when The priests, well, if we read sometimes, when we read these long lists of what goes on, the jobs that are given to different people, in the time of the Old Testament, the priests were to guard the temple. They were to be somewhat as armed guards. I mean, there were many types of guards. made music, they played the psalms to the Lord. There were those who were to compose music, there were those making sacrifices. They had a little bit of land. A lot of people say they had no land. They had just a little bit of land.
But if anyone unclean comes into the temple, to the sanctuary, what are they to do? They’re to What do you think Adam was supposed to do when the devil comes? He’s supposed to obey God. He’s supposed to cast people or anything that would make this holy sanctuary garden unclean, he’s supposed to cast it out. I would put forward to you that what Joshua does to the Canaanites is what Adam ought to have done to the servant.
What I’m trying to show you is that holy war, holy war, is built into the pre-fall structure of mankind. We are to have holy war against that which is opposed to God. Now, I’m not saying that we’re going to take up arms at all. If that’s where you’re going with your mind, don’t think that. We’ll get there.
But he was to defeat the devil. He was to cast him out. He ought to have said, Eve, what are you doing? God said, and he shouldn’t have killed the serpent. He should have put it to death. He probably should have. burned it and made it a sacrifice. And he said, this is sin, this is a holy offering of all that is opposed to you. But he did not. He did not do that.
We see the same, we see in the land, the geographical land at the time of Abraham, they’re doing what he should have done. Now, As a consequence of him doing that, he falls into sin, and all of the children of Adam and Eve come after that time as sinners. We sin in Adam, the Bible tells us, in any number of places. Now, he failed, but we have to ask ourselves, what would have happened if he had not failed.
If he had obeyed God concerning labor, marriage, Sabbath, not eating from the tree, we have these two eras here, right? We have protological, typological, and eschatological. This is how it would have looked. It would have just been two eras. It would have been protological and eschatological. He would have entered right into that. He would have brought on the Eschaton, he would have brought on the kingdom. It would have been a glorious end of the age. This is the kingdom that was put forward to him. He fails, and then we have the rest of the story.
We have what God gives us, the rest of scripture. When I read Genesis 3, 8, some of you might have picked up on something. I changed the words just a little bit. Listen to what Genesis 3, 8 says. It says, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. It’s very common for our Bible to say, in the cool of the day. It starts at the King James time. I wouldn’t want to let you think that the Bible is not faithfully translated. It is, but sometimes things can be even more faithfully translated. Someone like David Doyle might be able to tell you and show you that there’s no word for cool in there. There’s no word for cool there at all. I can’t find it. Nobody can find the word cool. It just wasn’t there.
Now some people will look at this kind of nostalgic and to walk in the garden with God in the pool of the day. How great that would be. Well, I don’t think that’s what we ought to think, okay? This is why. We, in this time, and also in this time, typological era, eschatological era, we are looking forward to the judgment day. And the Judgment Day is going to come in holy fire and wrath and thunder and lightning. It is going to be an awesome day.
Now, I know I use the word awesome, and that’s a word that’s probably overused by some, especially our youth, and I’m guilty of it. Not everything is awesome, right? Not everything. There are only some things that are awesome. God is awesome. God’s glory and his wrath, those are things that are awesome, right? Not everything is awesome. That day is going to be awesome. The old English, they would say, it is awful. It had a good connotation. It was a good thing, but it was, it is going to be awful. We’re going to be amazed by it, right?
What I want you to see is that they weren’t walking in the cool of the day. Remember, this is the time when they’re afraid. They’re scared to death. The rustling of the leaves is probably making them very scared. There’s no, oh, look how long that is.
Now, what’s happening is, and the word structure, David Doyle will show this to you, it says, basically, And if we were to trace that kind of same structure, that sentence structure, talking about day, through the rest of our Hebrew Old Testament, what we would find is it’s talking, whenever here they use the same kind of sentence structure or phraseology, they’re talking about judgment day. So what a lot of Reformed people would say, especially ones who have really looked at it and traced it out, would say, this is not the cool of the day and just relaxation and a cool breeze.
This is holy vengeance and judgment being brought down upon Adam and Eve. God is not saying, where are you? thunderous voice screaming at them. That’s just Judgment Day is coming down upon them. But, God, in his wonderful, matchless grace, decides not to bring Judgment Day upon them. What he decides to do is suspend Judgment Day. And he pushes Judgment Day all the way back to here. That’s what Judgment Day is going to happen.
And what he does at this point is he institutes something that we would call common grace. We have common grace. What we would say is there are believers in Christ who are going to go to heaven, And there are non-believers who are not going to go to heaven, and the rain falls upon both the same way. It’s indistinguishable. It’s not as if God puts rain clouds to just go over the non-elect, the sinners who don’t believe in Christ, but then God puts sunshine or a cool breeze on those who are in Christ. There’s no concept of that.
God gives common grace. There are people who, I mean, I go to seminary. I think God’s calling me to be a pastor. There are people who I know who read Greek and Hebrew and get way better grades than I do. I don’t think they’re even believers. Why is that? Because there’s a common grace.
God will allow for non-believers even to make major contributions to medicine and sciences and history and literature, things that we don’t even think of, it’s actually Things that help us sometimes. Sometimes a Christian believer is operated upon for heart surgery or something by someone who’s not a believer. Sometimes, in this era of common grace, those who are righteous in Christ suffer. We have many difficulties, medical problems may come on us out of nowhere, and then you have someone who is a non-believer, say like a Bertrand Russell, who has 98 years of life. Why is this common grace? God sends it back that way. He pushes it off. All things are normalized, we could say, right? That’s what God is doing in Genesis 3. He’s bringing the judgment day, but then he decides to push it back. This is what some would call the primal Parousia. That is, we believe that Jesus is coming in the parousia. Parousia just means coming. But we would see this as the primal parousia, the primal judgment day.
But God in his grace sends it back. Now, there are times when it is God’s desire or his choice to bring something from the Judgment Day and bring it upon certain people, right? That’s what we would say about the time My dear Kathy asked in weeks past, why is it that they were to put to death all the Canaanites at that time? We don’t want to say that didn’t happen or it was just a mythology, just a story. What we want to say is that they actually and really did that and it was right for them to do it. It’s often called in our time Canaanite genocide. That’s the Hebrew people committed Canaanite genocide, and it was right for them to do it. Now, if anyone were to commit genocide in our time, no. Wrongo. Epic fail. Do not do it. Very bad.
But what I want you to see is that for the wicked, because of our DNA, how we’re made, they have an understanding of holy war. Why are Muslims killing, why did Muslims and atheists kill more people and more Christians in the last century than all the 19th centuries before? Why is that? Because they have an understanding built into them of holy war. Now, it’s sinful and wicked and wretched, holy war, but I mean, if you listen to the rhetoric of Hitler, he’s I mean, he was a speaker. He preached about the resurrection of Germany. I mean, all biblical imagery.
I have a friend who is from Uzbekistan. They used to worship Stalin. Uzbekistan is the former Soviet Union, one of the, it’s its own, Sovereign country now, but it was part of the former Soviet Union. They worshipped Stalin. They worshipped their leaders.
We are inherently religious, and we are to have holy war. For Satan, excuse me, for Adam, holy war was against the devil. For Joshua, holy war was against anyone within the borders of of Canaan, anyone within the borders of this holy land was to be put out, was to be taken care of. Jesus is in a holy war against Satan. And you are in a holy war against Satan. Not men, Ephesians 6. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. And we are to be good Samaritans, good brothers and sisters to all of the human race. We are to hope for their salvation.
But what happens with what Cathy asked is, Sometimes this judgment day, God allows to suspend common grace, he suspends it for a short time, and put to death all the Canaanites. Or, sometimes, like what we had, I’ll come back to you, I see your hand. Sometimes, when we read the Psalms, and the Psalms are just full of this praise to God, and it’s glorious and wonderful, but then, We read some things that are not so nice. The psalmist calling to rain down vengeance upon the people. That is something that is made for the holy land and for the holy people. It’s a breaking forth of the judgment day. in time and space upon a few people. I mean, it happens a little bit in our New Testament, just a little bit.
You know, you look at Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter five, people who said that they sold all their property and gave it to the people of God, but they held back just a little, and they weren’t fully committed to the way, the cause of Christ. judgment day in a sense comes upon them. And of course they’re going to, like anyone else, wait for judgment day. And they’ll be resurrected, judged, and sent to hell. Or for people who die, obviously, we’re waiting. to be reunited with our body and our soul. So that’s really what we have going on. It is for redemptive history, people being put to death because they’re polluting the land.
The land is polluted. Outside of Canaan, there’s no holy land. Nobody in America is making the land dirty. Even homosexuals, they’re not making the North American continent dirty so that the sun doesn’t shine and the clouds don’t give rain and things. This is what was happening. At this time, if they’re having sinful people in the army or in their land and they’re not putting them to death, then plagues happen and locusts and all kinds of bad things. Yes, Kathy. Amen.
Yes, they didn’t fully do it, though they should have. And here we have fail, ultimately, The prophet, priest, and king was unable to keep the land pure. The prophets, priests, and kings were unable to keep the land fully pure. So because of the failures of the protological sun, failures of the typological sun, and then because of those, the eschatological sun. priest, king, prophet comes, and he has cleansed for himself a holy land.
And that is what Paul talks about in Galatians 4, that is the Jerusalem that is above that is free. When you look at the end of the book of Revelation, we see that God has purified the sanctuary. See, heaven, the heaven is coming down, as a holy sanctuary, and what’s significant about it, read the last three chapters of Genesis, it says that nothing impure will enter into this city, nothing.
It’s not even gonna get past the first steps, nothing. The revelation at the end says outside are the dogs, outside are the sinners, outside are those who are outside of Christ. But inside, there are those who are in Christ. So you’re absolutely right.
They weren’t able to fully defeat the enemy. The main reason I talk about Joshua is to highlight what Adam ought to have done. So that is kind of the structure of biblical history, what would have been the case, and what was the case. We would say, and we ought to say, that we continue in this war against Satan. But it’s not taking up arms, not taking up guns and swords and bazookas or anything like that against people. We are to pray for those who persecute us. We continue with a holy war. And that is what Ephesians 6 tells us. Why is it that Paul uses the imagery that he does in Ephesians chapter 6? What’s the imagery? Put on the full armor of God. You are continuing in a holy war.
Romans 8 talks about the fact that it is our job to put to death the sins of the flesh. There’s a man named John Owen, he wrote a book, a whole book, all on one verse from Romans 8 talking about putting to death the sins of the flesh. And so, we continue in that holy war, but we just have the specifics then of what God says to Adam after he suspends the judgment day and after he curses Adam and Eve and the serpent, or Satan.
There are many people who would want to tell us that this is all a myth. the idea of a talking serpent. It’s all something that was made up. Back in the olden days, in ancient times, people didn’t have science like they have now. Science has told us. Don’t let anyone ever tell you, science has told us. Science has its own problems when we study the philosophy of science. I mean, I’m not anti-science, but We have to take it with a grain of salt and ask, how did you come to those conclusions?
There are those who would want us to say, to think that in a pre-scientific age, people were scared of the lightning, they were scared of snakes, so they would ask themselves, how is it that the snake slithers. Why is it that it does that? And they’d say, well, let’s talk about a story that’s been handed down for generations called the Garden of Eden.
This is common even among liberal seminaries and it sometimes encroaches upon conservative seminaries as well. Some of us know, well, our denominational history comes out of people who were denying that the Bible really meant what it said. We believe that Satan was a real, is a real being and he, there really was a talking serpent. And what we see in verses 14 and 15 is the enmity that is brought between the two.
The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go and dust and dust you shall eat in all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. There is enmity between the two.
Now, it’s very clear from the Hebrew, it’s even more clear from a translation of the Hebrew called the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation that this is talking about a person. A person is going to come who is going to bruise the head of the serpent and the serpent is going to bruise the heel of this son. What we are seeing is not some myth from the ancient world, Babylonian myths that have been hijacked by the Hebrews, as many people would say. What we are seeing is the continuation, in one sense, but in another sense, the beginning of a cosmic fight and a cosmic war between good and evil, of which God is fully in control of. Who are the seeds of the serpent? Is it all snakes? There are those who would have us think that it’s all snakes. Who knows the story of St. Patrick of Ireland? What did St. Patrick do? Chased all the snakes out of Ireland, right? Okay, snakes aren’t in and of themselves more evil or wicked than any other beast.
I mean, Jesus Christ is willing to have a picture of himself in this time put on staff and held up, and anyone who looks upon that serpent is saved. And Jesus refers to that in John chapter 3. So it’s not that snakes are in and of themselves wicked, but we would say that especially that one was, and he was commanded, cursed to crawl upon the ground. The idea of crushing and bruising, this is something that goes through God’s word, it’s like a thread that we can trace throughout.
One of the places that we see that Opalma Robertson talks about is, he talks about the fact that in Joshua 10, Joshua 10, there are five kings that all get together, and these five kings desire to to fight against the people of God. And in the fight against the people of God for these five kings, what happens is they lose and they’re all chased into a cave basically. And the holy people of God pull them out and they are to step on them. They are to step on their necks, these five kings.
And in Joshua 10, 22 to 25, it says, for thus shall the Lord do to all your enemies against whom you fight. God is saying, in the same way that I’m crushing the heads or the necks of those who are wicked, I’m going to ultimately do that. all of his enemies. The same thing we have in Psalm 110 verse 6. That psalm that is an exaltation psalm about Christ and his kingship and his session at the right hand of God. Him sitting there ruling and reigning. What he does is, there’s the idea of him smashing the head.
But For our age, for the time between the first and second coming of Christ, we don’t wage holy war against physical people, because we know that Jesus has won the holy war against Satan himself. As in Colossians 2, 14 and 15 says that he despoiled the principalities and powers. and he made a public spectacle of them openly.
What it is telling us is that Jesus embarrassed Satan and the demons at the cross. It’s not something that we should shrink back from or something that we ought to to be ashamed of at all. The cross is something that is glorious because it is ultimately for the defeat of Satan, the first defeat coming at the humiliation of Christ, and the last defeat of Satan coming at the exaltation and the coming of Christ.
So, Satan is cursed, the devil is cursed, that particular serpent, not making all serpents evil or wicked. We also have the cursing of the woman and the cursing of the man. But there is blessing first. Notice that in these cursings of all three parties, Satan is not blessed at all. He’s cursed only. Adam and Eve are both cursed and blessed. Cursed, but blessed. Blessed because God is suspending the judgment day. He says about the cursing of, well, the blessing of the woman that she will have fruitfulness in the domestic setting. And also that the woman is part of the redemptive role is given to womankind.
It is not as if woman or women or womankind is something that is subservient totally. I mean, there’s a difference between us. There’s a division of labor, but one is not more significant than the other. In terms of how we are to live our lives, one is to be the leader. Certainly, we wouldn’t dispute that.
But in terms of their qualities, of who they are before the face of God, we are equal, especially we see that in Galatians 2.28.
So they are Woman is blessed with having fruitfulness in the domestic setting and also having a part in the cosmic conflict. But she is cursed as well by having many pains and sorrows in childbirth. He says that your desire will be for your husband. Now this could have a good connotation. Your desire will be for your husband. It doesn’t sound all bad, but There might be something more to it. This is the temptation of woman can be to control, to possess, to dominate her husband.
That’s probably what it really is saying, because when we read in a couple of chapters later, actually just one chapter later about Cain and Abel, we have Cain, when he is being cursed, He is told that sin crouches at the door, and unto you shall be its desire, but you shall rule over it. The same way that Cain is to try to rule over sin and to dominate it and defeat it, the same word is used. But ultimately the husband shall rule as a consequence of the fall.
And there is a curse. Part of the curse is a marital imbalance. Sometimes there can be a struggle for power. Sometimes that struggle is far more prevalent in one marriage than another. We have to understand these things so that we can keep these desires, these sinful desires at bay with the help of God.
To the man, briefly, as we have just a few more moments, and then we’ll have any questions if we have any, if we need. To the man, he is blessed. How is he blessed? because he will eat bread. Obviously the woman will eat bread too, but the man is blessed because of the substance of the earth. God is going to provide for mankind. He’s not bringing judgment today. He’s giving mankind the ability to continue to eat from the land. That’s what he would have done, or that’s what he did do for who knows how long in the Garden of Eden. He continues to do so by God’s grace. And then also the curse is that you’re going to eat by the sweat of your face. You’re going to eat bread.
Labor is not a curse. I know some people who are glad to talk about labor, work, being It’s a bad thing. I just wish we hadn’t had to have work. And some guys, I’ve even heard say, if Eve hadn’t eaten that apple, we wouldn’t have to work. Well, no. You had to work in the pre-fall time, and it was a blessing. It is a blessing to work in all time. There are curses that accompany it here, but it is a blessing to do so. And don’t be surprised if we go to heaven, to new heaven and new earth, and we have work to do. It’ll be a blessing we won’t have the thorns and the thistles that we have at our time.
But also I would put forward to you, lastly and briefly, just glorious things said at the very end At 324, he drove out the man 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. So God casts them out, and who is guarding the garden? An angel. Cherubim. And what do they have? A flaming sword.
You can’t get into that garden in order to partake of the tree that would give eternal life. You can’t do that. Nobody can do it. Because if Adam and Eve had said, no, I’m gonna try it again, and I’m gonna pick myself up by the bootstraps, I’m going in, he would be sliced to ribbons by the flaming sword. He can’t do it.
How is anyone going to get into that or into a holy sanctuary, any kind of holy sanctuary, how is he going to do it and still be able to live? How is anyone going to enter into that? Well, we have before us, I think, very clearly the fact that the next person, in fact, the only person who can get in and enter into the holy place, into the sanctuary, and partake of the tree, that gives eternal life to his posterity, only one can do that, and that’s Christ himself. The next one who would enter into a holy sanctuary and be able to give us that which was necessary for us to have eternal life had to die himself.
Jesus died. so that we could have eternal life, so that we could eat of that tree of life. And that’s exactly what we do, Jesus having Christ and being in Christ. The idea of a tree at the end of the earth, at the end of time, is picked up right at the end of Revelation in 22, where the tree appears again. Through Christ, we all are able to partake of that tree. And that is the gift that God gives us, not giving, not bringing judgment upon us, but allowing us to live.
Hebrews 2.8 says, At present, we do not see everything in subjection to him. We don’t see everything in subjection to him. Everything is. But on that day, when Christ comes back, we will see everything. in subjection to Him, and we will sing praise to God for what He has done.
The Lamb who died and rose again, that we might have eternal life. He undergoes the wrath of God for you and me. Any thoughts as we end? It’s 1042, and if anyone has a quick question, Okay, come and see me after if you do, and we’ve got about 18 minutes before we assemble again to worship. Let’s pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the intricacies and the power and the glory of your word.
We thank you that it is so simple that we can pick it up and understand it the first time we read it. And sometimes we don’t understand it the first time. We ask that if you would give us the ability to continue in it if we do not understand. Help us to be Bible readers and to understand what you give to us in it.
Thank you for the amazing ways that you have revealed yourself. What an encouragement it is. to see the flow of redemptive history and what an encouragement it is to be in Christ and to have Christ in us, which is the hope of glory. Amen. Thank you everyone.
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