The Fall and Salvation of Man
Christianity 101 series
CCCAG September 29th, 2019
Scripture- Genesis 3
Video- A graphic representation of the first sin committed by humanity.
Podcast- YouTube search- The Fall of Man
I liked it so much I wanted you to see it, and it will help introduce our subject and save some time from me having to go through it again as I know we have been talking about Genesis 3 a lot.
If you have been here most Sunday’s this month, it might seem that we are touching the same subjects over again.
That’s on purpose. This series is Christianity 101, and we have to build the right foundation so that when we get to the harder things about our faith, we are building on a firm foundation of biblical truth. - you don’t grab some wood and build a house on an empty plot of land- you have to build a foundation first otherwise that house will fall over at the first heavy rain or wind.
The same is true with spiritual things- we have to have a firm foundation to build on, so in this series we will refer back to Genesis 3 a lot because everything else in the bible is a response to what happened in the beginning.
That video was great example of what happened in the beginning and showed what we call the fall of humanity.
But the good news of Christianity- God didn’t leave us fallen- God loved us so much that he provided a way for us to be saved.
Let’s ask His blessing this morning-
Prayer
I want to start by answering a question that is asked by the world to us in the church- the people who follow Jesus and believe in the bible-
I. What was the big deal about them eating fruit of the forbidden tree?
But that’s not even the real question- underlying that question is this question-
“Is God really so petty as to condemn all of humanity because of one seemingly very little mistake? Wasn’t this a huge over reaction?”
We saw in the movie fruit was an apple- that’s just Tradition. It’s not found in the biblical record so it’s conjecture of exactly what type of fruit it was. However, it’s wrong to focus on the tree, or it’s physical fruit.
When God gave that command- “do not eat of that tree”. God was speaking to Adam. What was Adam? Was he merely human made of flesh- a higher form of animal like everything else around him?
No, God created Adam, and then Eve in His image, and in His likeness. God is not a man, God is a spirit. Therefore, when God was speaking to Adam He was speaking to a spirit inhabiting a physical body. Part of God’s image with Adam and Eve was a close, intimate connection with the Holy Spirit- the third person of the trinity. In essence, the source of their spiritual life was plugged straight into God.
I don’t know if you noticed in the video, but after they both ate of the fruit, the light within and around them disappeared. That was a dramatic representation of the spirit of God leaving them. The bible says their eyes were opened- that is true as for the first time they saw the world only through their physical eyes and not with their spiritual eyes.
That was the fruit, or consequence of their actions- there was no physical poison or power in that tree or it’s fruit, therefore their consequence wasn’t immediately physical.
The consequence came spiritually. Their spirits were created with the image of God stamped upon their entire being, and when they lost connection to that source of power- it was like trying to run an electric oven off of a 9 volt battery. It won’t even power the oven light. That’s why the consequence of that seemingly minor act of disobedience grew within them and their family, and within one generation a simple bite of a fruit turned into murder with Cain and Abel.
That’s the consequence of the fall. It wasn’t about the fruit, or the tree.
Ultimately, The fall of humanity happened because Adam and Eve failed to believe God’s word was true.
The whole rest of the Old Testament is God progressively revealing Himself to humanity again and putting into action a plan that would eventually allow humanity to exist, intimately connected with HIM again.
One of the ways we see this progressive revelation in God putting His salvation plan into action is within something called dispensations.
Dispensational theology is one of the tools for interpreting the bible.(as it something called covenantal theology)
Break down the bible into Dispensations are a way to understand how God progressively revealed Himself to humanity again. This tool explains why God seemingly, several times, changes what is required of humanity to gain his favor. Most of the dispensations are found in the book of Genesis.
In each dispensation, you have condition to be met, and then a consequence for failure to meet that condition.
The video we watched was the first dispensation- that of innocence. Adam and Eve were completely innocent upon creation as they had only known that which was good and right. They had one condition to remain in God’s intimate presence and favor- don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The consequence for disobedience was death.
The death was seen when the Holy Spirit left them, and because of their sin, none of their offspring could ever reconnect with God- in essence they infected all of their future offspring with this terrible disease.
Again, in one generation- biting a piece of fruit- the next murder. The fruit of their actions was the complete and utter ruin of the image of God that was stamped into our being. The consequence, at least in our behavior, we became little better than the animals.
God then started a process to teach us about the futility of salvation apart from Himself. You saw it in the video- the preincarnate Jesus killing an animal to clothe Adam and Eve- making them directly witness the consequence of their rebellion- letting that animal take the penalty for their sin, foreshadowing His death covering our sin and guilt before God.
After the dispensation of innocence was the dispensation of conscience. The condition was that humanity got to do things as they saw fit according to their own conscience. We know how that turned out- human conscience apart from the influence of God’s the Holy Spirit will always chose selfishly. Humanity became so wicked that God pushed the reset key and sent the flood to wipe out all but Noah and his family.
After that, came the dispensation of Human Government. Humans got to rule themselves under government structures that they set up. That didn’t last long, as they all banded together and attempted to repeat satan’s rebellion by trying to build a tower to reach heaven and try to dethrone God. God mixed up their languages and they all scattered from that area, which explains the variety of skin color and ethnicities we see today.
The next dispensation was that of promise- given to Abraham that God was going to set apart a people for Himself and give them the best land on earth. This lasted through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and 400 years of slavery until the time of Moses, when the dispensation of the Law takes us through the rest of the Old Testament- the condition there was that humanity had to prove themselves worthy by strictly following 613 commands or offer a ritual sacrifice for breaking them.
Every single dispensation up to this point- roughly 4000 year of human history failed to change the heart of most people to want to follow God wholeheartedly.
That brings us to our current dispensation, the dispensation of grace.
What all these previous dispensations failed to do was to address the central sin that was involved in the garden of Eden.
That sin that cause all this heartache, all this suffering and all of this tragedy that is human history was that we failed to believe what God told us was true.
It’s the root of the same sin we as a species commit today
The serpent's temptation of Eve was very deliberate in that Satan knew exactly where to hit God to hurt him the most.
In the past, we used to say that a man's word is his bond. That’s saying that if a man gives his word and breaks it- he isn’t really even a man and has a very small amount of character.
Multiply that thought to Infinity and you begin to understand our creator.
God's entire being is wrapped around this truth that HE is holy, perfect, without spot or stain, and is completely righteous and all of his actions.
Satan's attack here was an effort to plunge a knife into that very intimate part of who God is by attacking his greatest creation- a creation made in His own perfect image, and that's you and me.
The serpent lie made us doubt the Word of God, and God is His Word.
It's a very tragic truth of church history that God gave us such a perfect plan of Salvation and yet after the death of the Apostles and Early Church Fathers, this perfect plan of salvation given to us by Jesus Christ was largely rejected for 1500 years and instead we went back, at least in practice, to the dispensation of law mixed the dispensation of human government.
This era was called the dark ages in which the light of true Christianity was almost extinguished until in 1517 a German theologian at a seminary training future priests was translating the book of Romans from the Latin vulgate into his native German so that his students could read the bible in their own language.
Prior to this Martin Luther had done all of the religious exercises that the Catholic Church prescribed for those who want to become holy in God's sight. He had even traveled to Rome to Saint Peters church and crawled all those stairs on his knees because he was told if he did that all of his sins would be forgiven. He wrecked his knees completing the exercise but on the inside, he still felt condemned because he still felt there was something missing in his walk with God.
That is until he started this translation of Romans.
He got to chapter one and verse 17 were it said that the righteous be justified by faith. To put that in simple English it means that those people who please God will actually believe that which he tells them.
Luther said in that moment-
“When I discovered that, I was born again of the Holy Ghost. And the doors of paradise swung open, and I walked through.”
Suddenly this highly intelligent, well-educated man with a doctorate in theology understood the Bible for the first time. He saw the love of God and felt it enter into his soul like he had never felt it before with all of his religious exercise, with all of his following of ceremony and ritual and with being obedient to the papacy.
A few hundred years later, Charles Wesley wrote of this experience like this in his Hymn “And Can It Be”-
Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.
Suddenly verse’s like John 3:16-20 came into focus in Luther’s spirit as the central point to the gospel message. Let's look at those
John 3:16-21
16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
NIV
With everything we talked about this morning- I want to take a look at these verses and perhaps you will be like Luther and see and understand them in a new light.
John 3:16 says For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Let’s break this down-
In this verse what is God's action? Giving His one and only son. Jesus became our substitute and bore the consequences for our sin
What is our Required action? Believe.
Back up 6000 years-
What was the requirement in the Garden of Eden?
To believe
Over 6000 years later, what is the requirement today in this dispensation of grace?
To believe
What will be the requirement a billion years from now?
To believe.
Verse 18
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
This word believe is not talking just about an intellectual consent that this might be the truth.
If you actually believe what is being said here it changes everything.
God doesn’t give you an excuse for not believing- Jesus HIMself tells us how to be saved, but then he also tells us the motives behind why so many refuse to believe
Jesus said
19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
People ask all the time how can a God of love send people to hell.
Jesus gives us the solemn answer- because those people loved Darkness more than light.
Period
They chose to believe the lie , the same lie that Satan told Adam is the same lie they are believing today. And the Bible even gives the motive because they love their evil deeds more than they love God.
How can a God of love send people to hell?
My answer to that is how can a god of love force you to spend an eternity with him when you hated him here on earth by not believing who He is, and what He has done for you.
Let’s all rise
Heb 2:1-4
We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?
NIV
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