The Gospel & Salvation: The Consequences of the Fall - Part 1

The Consequences of the Fall – Part 1

Genesis 3:7-13

 We are spending some time looking at the gospel and the work of salvation. I have explained why this is important. The outcome of our eternal destiny depends on the reality of God’s work of salvation. We need to understand that work of salvation so we can accurately discern whether or not that work has been applied to us. Satan loves to deceive those who are lost by convincing them of the work of salvation when the work has not occurred. This has been a problem from the earliest days of man.

We are spending a lot of time early in this series understanding the issue of sin. Salvation is the work of God by which He rescues us from His own wrath. His wrath is the appropriate and just penalty for man’s sin. The Bible tells us that the soul that sins will die. The wages of sin is death. Man needs salvation because of the awful malady which is sin. Because of sin, man must be saved from the wrath of God to come, or man will endure that wrath.

Our efforts to understand sin have taken us to the place where sin began, at least among mankind. We are looking at Genesis 3 where the problem of sin first started. Read Genesis 3:1-21. We have really only studied verse 1. It was in verse 1 that we found the origins of sin. Adam and Eve did not sin when they ate the forbidden fruit. The eating of the forbidden fruit was the outward manifestation of a heart in which sin had already been conceived. It was in verse 1, when Eve entertained the question of the serpent, that she revealed a serious flaw in her heart. Eve’s willingness to listen to the question reveals that she did not love the Lord her God with all her heart, soul, and strength. He bought into the idea that she, as the creature, had the right to sit in judgment of the word of her Creator.

As we examined the earliest stages of this event, we really developed an understanding of what sin is. Sin is the violation of God’s moral law. God’s moral law is summed up in the greatest commandment. Jesus told us what the greatest commandment requires. It requires that we love God with all our heart, soul, and strength. With all we are we are to love God supremely. If this had been the condition which existed in Eve’s heart she would have soundly rejected the idea that God’s word could be questioned, let alone disobeyed. And it must also follow that Adam loved Eve, and he loved the idea of being like God, more than he loved God. He disobeyed not because he was deceived, but by an act of outright rebellion against the revealed will of God. He knew God’s prohibition of the forbidden fruit. He certainly did not love God as required.

Like the first couple, we fail to fulfill the moral law of God when we fail to love God as we should. Lying, stealing, adultery, coveting, and idolatry are all sins. But the issue, as explained by Jesus, is the heart. We commit the outward manifestations of sinful behaviors because our hearts do not love God supremely. Obviously, the bar is set high enough that we are all guilty as sinners. This is why we need a Savior. This is why Paul explains in Galatians 3:24 that “the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.”

I will be the first to admit that these are not “feel good” messages. The truth about how easily we fall into sin is just one of many indicators of how sinful we are. I don’t feel good about myself when I think about how easy it is for me to fall into sin. I don’t feel good about myself when I consider how often I sin. I don’t feel good about myself when I consider how sinful God considers my sin. Here is my heartfelt conviction. We should not be allowed to feel good about sinning against a holy God. In fact, the worst thing we can do is to help the sinner feel good about being a sinner. That is what the world wants to do. But if you look at the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18, the guy that felt good about himself was headed for hell and the guy who understood his sinfulness didn’t necessarily feel good about himself but he went home justified.

I have long appreciated the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” The fear of which Solomon speaks is not the kind of fear that requires us to be afraid of God. The proper fear of God is the reverence, respect, honor and awe that results from knowing who He is and what He is like. True wisdom begins with the understanding of who God is and what He is like. Wisdom and knowledge for life begins with a proper and biblical view of God. A biblical view of God results in the reverence, honor, and respect He deserves. The case could be made that Eve did not revere God as she should. She did not honor and respect Him as God or she would have defended God’s character and declared her undying love and unwavering commitment to obey His word.

Now that we understand the nature of sin and how and where it all started, I want to move on to the consequences. What were the results of this first act of disobedience to God? To move on to the consequences we will be skipping part of Genesis 3. There is a lot of important truth in verses 2-6 of Genesis 3. I owe it to you to come back and teach through these verses because they teach so much about temptation and the strategies of Satan to entice us to sin. We did look at these verses when we studied James. They teach a lot about the motivation of Eve to question God. But for now I want to fast forward a little and focus on the consequences of the sin of the first couple. We know when and where it started. That tells us that we are all prone to sin. It is also going to be important to understand the consequences. 

I’m sure you have all seen video of an avalanche of snow cascading down from a mountain peak. I hope all you have seen is the video. If you have witnessed an avalanche first hand, and you witnessed it from below where it started, you are very fortunate to be here to tell about it. Something triggers an avalanche and the avalanche destroys most everything in its path. The event we are looking at in Genesis 3 triggered an avalanche of sin and very destructive and devastating consequences. None of us have immunity from these consequences.  We have been buried in the avalanche. These consequences will continue until sin is completely destroyed when Jesus returns.

Let’s begin with the immediate consequences. To understand the immediate consequences we need to loot at verse 7 of Genesis 3. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.” “Then” tells us that the consequences were immediate. The first of these consequences is that the eyes of both of them were opened. Opened to what? What do they now see that they did not see before? They now know both good and evil. They got what they thought they wanted. This was what the serpent had promised.

Before they fell in sin, the first couple knew only good. This is because everything God had made was good. Even the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was good. It was among the creation of God that had been declared by God to be very good. There wasn’t some magic potion in the fruit that made them sinful.

Now they know evil and good. The serpent had promised that their eyes would be opened and they would be like God knowing good and evil. Let’s understand this. Does God know evil? The answer is “yes.” Because God is all-knowing, of course He knows evil. He is not the source of evil. He is not the cause of evil, but He knows evil. There is a dramatic difference between how God knows evil and how the first couple now know evil. God knows evil like an oncologist knows cancer. An oncologist knows cancer. An oncologist has studied cancer and understands cancer. His specialty is treating people afflicted with cancer so they can beat it and live. Even though the oncologist knows cancer thoroughly, he or she does not know cancer like the cancer patient. The cancer patient knows cancer experientially.

Adam and Eve now know both good and evil. As soon as they sinned they began to feel things they’ve never felt before. They begin to see things differently than they have ever seen them before. They now knew they were naked. They had been naked all their lives, they just didn’t know it. There were no problems with their nakedness when they were innocent. Now they are aware of their nakedness. They are self-conscious. They are embarrassed. They feel shame. They are fearful. They are dealing with a brand new reality in life. That new reality is guilt.

Because their innocence has been shattered and they are now different than before, they have experienced an awakening of the conscience. Now they know they are naked and they now experience thoughts that lead to shame. Their purity was now tainted with evil. They are in the same garden they had always lived in, looking at the same creatures, and looking at one another as they always had, but now something is very different. They feel the need to cover parts of their body. The part of their bodies which had been created for pleasure and procreation and intended to provide perfect oneness between the man and his wife is now the source of guilt and shame. They sowed fig leaves together in an attempt to cover themselves. We will come back to this later in our series.

The first consequence of their shattered innocence is the experience of guilt and shame. They had never known guilt and they had never felt shame up to this point. There is something significant to point out about these new experiences. This is the point, I believe, when grace and mercy appear. You remember last week I said that many people think the time of the first sin was when Eve at the forbidden fruit. I said it actually manifested itself in verse 1 because Eve revealed at that point that she did not love God with all her heart. Sin shows up in this passage much earlier than most realize. If I was to ask you where God’s grace first appears in this story, some would point to verse 21 where God killed that animal to make the clothing for the couple. Some might point to verse 15 and the promise of the seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent’s head. Some might even point to verse 9 where God confronts the man but does not kill him on the spot. Those are manifestations of grace.

However, the first manifestation of God’s grace is found in verse 7. The consequence of guilt and shame are provisions of God’s grace. The presence of guilt and shame are the first indicators that sin as happened. The guilt and shame are the first indicators of the reality of the need for repentance and reconciliation. Guilt and shame are God’s designed blessings. They act as a spiritual warning system telling us something is drastically wrong. Something needs to be fixed. If God had not ordained shame and guilt how would man know there was anything wrong? Man would continue to violate God’s moral code and heap judgment upon judgment.

But what does the world say about guilt and shame? The world tells us that these are bad. These destroy our self-esteem. Because guilt and shame are elements of God’s gracious provision for man, and they are good for man, they are targets of the evil world system that lies in the power of the evil one. One example of this is how the world seeks to eliminate the shame associated with nakedness. Our culture celebrates nakedness. It should be the source of shame but it is celebrated. The culture seeks to eliminate guilt and shame by redefining what is sinful. The evil world system wants to silence, suppress, dismiss, and overrule the feelings of guilt and shame.

It should be very obvious that where guilt and shame are ignored, sin abounds more and more. Where sin abounds the consequences of sin grow in severity. Today we are focused on the immediate consequences of sin, but as we move forward to the longer term consequences, we will see this illustrated in the life of Cain, the judgment of mankind at the Flood, and the judgment of God on Sodom and Gomorrah. The longer sin goes unchecked, the greater the consequences. Guilt and shame are gracious provisions of God to signal the need for repentance.

Guilt and shame are the evidences of the existence of our conscience. Our conscience triggers the feelings of guilt and shame that serve as the alarms that we are out of order regarding God’s moral law. The conscience is hard-wired into every human. This is the point of Paul in Romans 2:14-15. “For when the Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing  witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.”

The conscience and the resulting feelings of guilt and shame are one of the ways we are created different from animals. Mankind is able to consider our actions and make moral evaluations. Our conscience works within us evaluating our actions against the highest moral standard we understand. This is why it is important to know God’s moral code. God’s moral code is the standard by which man is judged, so it is important to know God’s moral code so we are evaluating our actions against the right standard. When we do something we know is wrong, our conscience is activated and feelings of guilt, shame, regret, anguish, anxiety, disgrace and fear are triggered. These are gracious provisions of God that remind us of our need to repent and seek restoration.

In 1984 an Avianca Airlines plane slammed into the side of a mountain in Spain killing everyone on board. The cockpit recording revealed the cause of the tragedy. The elevation warning system detected a mountain in front of the plane and was saying “Pull up, Pull up!” The pilot was convinced that the warning system was malfunctioning. His voice is heard saying, “Shut up, Gringo!” He then turned the system off. Because the pilot ignored the warning system, tragedy struck. The same is true when we ignore the work of our conscience.

Adam and Eve did respond to their conscience. They now knew they were naked so they attempted to cover themselves. We will come back to this action later in the series when we start looking at man’s attempts to deal with sin.

The first consequence was the opening of their eyes to know they were naked. The feelings of guilt and shame were evidence that the conscience had been activated. This was really a gracious act of God. The second consequence we understand from verses 8-9. This is the consequence of separation or alienation from God. Read verses 8-9. This is so insightful because it reveals the results of sin for the sinner. It also reveals the response to sin by the Seeking Savior.

Later that fateful day, after the sin and the awakening of the conscience and the feelings of guilt and shame that caused Adam and Eve to take fig leaves and sew coverings for their loins, God came to the garden for His usual visit in the evening. Up until this day, when the Lord came to visit, the first couple would have rejoiced at His appearance. They would have looked forward to the fellowship. They would have joyfully anticipated His presence. They would have been eager to hear His voice. Now everything has changed.

Now they run away from God’s presence. They hid themselves among the trees of the garden. Why did they hide? They hid because they knew God was holy. They knew God had warned them of the consequence of disobedience. They had disobeyed and maybe they expected God to carry out the sentence of death. They probably did not understand death. Up to this point in the Garden there had been nothing that died. Sin brings forth death and since there was no sin there had been no death, so they likely didn’t comprehend death fully. But they had been warned and maybe they hide because they expected to have to pay the price of their sin. Listen, God would have been perfectly just if He had killed them on the spot.

Their hiding is indicative of something else that has changed. The first couple are now are alienated from God, separated from God, and as sinners they now want nothing to do with God. They hide from God because of shame. They know they are guilty. Their conscience is awakened. They now know good and evil. God is holy and they are not, so they want nothing to do with God. They hide from His presence.

This is one of the primary reasons I believe God initiates the work of salvation apart from anything man does. I think if there was anything in the sinner that would compel him or her to seek reconciliation with God, it would have been included in this account. If man were able to seek out God to be restored, it would have happened here. We don’t see Adam and Eve even peeking out from behind the tree confessing their failure. They don’t peek out and say, “We’ve blown it. We were wrong. We are sorry. We know we have changed and we see now that everything was much better before we disobeyed and ate the forbidden fruit. Is there anything that can be done to fix this?” There was none of that. There were only sinners running from the presence of holy God.

One of the consequences of the Fall of man into sin was an alienation that makes the man want nothing to do with God. Sinners want no part of fellowship with holy God. Mankind is characterized by a desire to run away from God. Man does all kinds of foolish things to escape from God’s presence. Atheists try to escape God’s presence by pretending He doesn’t exist. They are no more successful in denying the existence of God than they would be denying the existence of gravity by stepping off the edge of a ten story building. Cultist try to escape the true God by distorting Him and making Him into a god of their own liking, one who can be appeased by human effort. Even the culture’s effort to remove the Bible from the public square is another example of man’s attempts to escape the presence of God.

God’s response to the sinner’s attempt to hide is another magnificent manifestation of the gracious and merciful nature of God. God doesn’t come in anger. He doesn’t come executing judgment with the death penalty. Yes, the sinner is now going to die, but God doesn’t execute His just wrath immediately. His wrath is contained, restricted, and held back. In stead, there is mercy and grace. God is seeking the fallen sinner. God is extending mercy and grace.

I just finished reading through Exodus this past week. I am fascinated by the miracles of Exodus and the deliverance of the people of Israel from Egyptian bondage. I am intrigued by the man Moses and his ability to survive on Mt. Sinai in the presence of God for 40 days without food. But one of my favorite parts of Exodus is the description of God when He revealed Himself to Moses in Exodus 34. Exodus 34:6-8 says, “Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.’ Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship.”

It was following this declaration that Moses begged God. He said beginning in verse 9, “If I have found favor in Your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go along in our midst, even though we are so obstinate, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your own possession.” My friends, we must rejoice in the fact that even though we are sinners who want nothing to do with God, God is compassionate and gracious. He is slow to anger. He is abounding in lovingkindness and truth. He is willing to forgive, even those who run from Him and hide. Nothing is really hidden from His sight. God is a seeking God who loves to seek and save that which is lost. Jesus told Nicodemus in Luke 19:10, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” God has, from the beginning, been a God who seeks the sinner and initiates the work of restoration and reconciliation.

God asked Adam in verse 9 saying, “Where are you?” God never asks a question because He is seeking information. God is omniscient. He knows everything. He knew exactly which tree Adam and Eve were hiding behind. God wasn’t asking for His benefit. God was asking Adam for Adam’s benefit. He was asking Adam about his condition. He was asking Adam to confess the reason for the alienation and separation. He is inviting Adam to repent and seek restoration. The question isn’t regarding location. The question is regarding condition. “Where are you now Adam? What is your condition? What has happened to produce this fear that makes you hide from My presence?”

This is an invitation from God to Adam to admit his sin. Adam will not do that. Adam acknowledges that the nature of the relationship with God has changed. “I heard the sound of You walking in the garden and I was afraid…” Adam’s view of God has changed. God is now a God to be feared. Adam’s view of himself has changed. Adam said, “I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.” What Adam will not do is just come right out and say, “I have sinned and I was wrong and I need to know if there is something that can be done to make everything right again.” Adam will not confess his sin.

Even when directly confronted by God in verse 11, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” In his response Adam said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” This is the worst coming out in Adam. Adam, on the surface, appears to blame his wife. If you look closely you will see that he is really blaming God. This is another of the consequences of the Fall. Man will not confess. Man will not seek restoration to God. It is God who will initiate the reconciliation with the sinner. That we will save for later in the series. 

So transformed is Adam’s condition that he, in effect, blames God for being the bad guy. He didn’t pick Eve for a wife. He laid down to take a nap and woke up with this woman beside him whom God had created and given to him for a wife. God was at fault.

You talk about God being gracious. Adam was the problem. Adam was the sinner. Adam is blaming God for the problem and God is beyond patient.

The immediate consequences of sin show us two important realities. First, they show us how messed up man is because of his fall into sin. The sinner, even though God made the consequences obvious with the opening of the eyes of the sinner, either won’t, or can’t see his way to cry out to God in repentance. His conscience is working. He feels guilt and shame. He is aware of what he has done and what the results will be. But he won’t cry out to God to see if there is a remedy.

In fact, the sinner runs from God and hides from the presence of God. The sinner wants nothing to do with God. The sinner is fearful but not tearful. There is no sorrow, no repentance, no brokenness. There is nothing about the sinner that makes him or her worthy of restoration and redemption. The sinner doesn’t desire it and he certainly doesn’t deserve it.

That is the condition of every person who has not been born again through faith in Christ. These are the ones whom a seeking Savior is willing to save. This is the other reality we have seen. The sinner can’t do much worse than he did in this text. Yet, God’s mercy and grace are on prominent display. In the guilt and shame that are the products of a conscience that illuminates the need for repentance, the mercy and grace of God are clearly seen. In the withholding of immediate judgment of death, the mercy and grace of God are clearly seen. In the gracious and merciful God seeking the hiding sinner we see the mercy and grace of God.

No wonder Paul penned these words in Romans 11:33. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable are His ways!”

Let’s pray.