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hello my name is dawn Carson you're

watching the second in a series of 14

talks designed to help you discover what

the Bible says about a century ago The

Times of London certainly at that point

in history the most prestigious

english-language newspaper in the world

hosted various fascinating discussions

in its columns and on its editorial

pages at one juncture the editors

invited a number of well-known writers

and thinkers to contribute a piece on

one designated topic what is wrong with

the world opinions were diverse and

learned GK Chesterton proverbial for his

clear-headed wit weighed in with a

simple letter to the editors to answer

the question what is wrong with the

world he wrote dear Sirs I am your

sincerely GK Chesterton this talk

centers on how the Bible would answer

that question

the second part the God who did not wipe

out rebels and the passage that we will

focus on especially is Genesis 3 now you

may recall I said at the end of the last

hour that Genesis 1 and 2 sets the stage

for what goes wrong and in general terms

of course that was that was correct what

I neglected to say however is that

there's a particular element in chapter

2 that sets the stage for chapter 3 that

is chapter 2 in verse 17 records one

prohibition that God gives to Adam and

Eve they are to enjoy the garden all its

fecundity they're to work at it enjoy it

it's a place of delight but they are not

to eat of the tree of the knowledge of

good and evil there is a prohibition and

if you do eat of it you will die now

we'll consider in due course why God

bothered to give a prohibition wasn't

that sort of setting them up for failure

we'll consider that in due course but

without that prohibition we cannot

possibly understand chapter three let me

begin by reading chapter three right

through then making a couple of comments

about how to understand it and then work

it through again this is what the Bible

says now the serpent was more crafty

than any of the wild animals the Lord

God had made he said to the woman did

God really say you must not eat from any

tree in the garden the woman said to the

serpent we may eat fruit from the trees

in the garden but God did say you must

not eat fruit from the tree that is in

the middle of the garden and you must

not touch it or you will die

you will not certainly die the serpent

said to the woman for God knows that

when you eat of it your eyes will be

opened and you will be like God

knowing good and evil when the woman saw

that the fruit of the tree was good for

food and pleasing to the eye and also

desirable for gaining wisdom she took

some and ate it she also gave some to

her husband who was with her and he ate

it then the eyes of both of them were

opened and they realized they were naked

so they sewed fig leaves together and

made coverings for themselves then the

man and his wife heard the sound of the

Lord God as he was walking in the garden

in the cool of the day and they hid from

the Lord God among the trees of the

garden but the Lord God called to the

man where are you he answered I heard

you in the garden and I was afraid

because I was naked so I hid and he said

who told you that you were naked have

you eaten from the tree that I commanded

you not to eat from the man said the

woman you put here with me she gave me

some fruit from the tree and I ate it

then the Lord God said to the woman what

is this you have done the woman said the

serpent deceived me and I ate so the

Lord God said to the serpent because you

have done this cursed are you above all

livestock and all wild animals you will

crawl on your belly and you will eat

dust all the days of your life and I

will put enmity between you and the

woman and between your offspring and

hers he will crush your head and you

will strike his heel to the woman he

said I will make your pains and

childbearing very severe with pain you

will give birth to children your desire

will be for your husband and he will

rule over you to Adam he said because

you listen to your wife and ate from the

tree about which I commanded you you

must not eat of it cursed is the ground

because of you through painful toil you

will eat of it all the days of your life

it will produce thorns and thistles for

you and you will eat the plants of the

field by the sweat of your brow you will

eat your food until you return to the

ground since from it you were taken for

dust you are and to dust you will return

Adam named his wife Eve because she

would be

the mother of all the living the Lord

God made garments of skin for Adam and

his wife and clothed them and the Lord

God said the man has now become like one

of us knowing good and evil

he must not be allowed to reach out his

hand and take also from the tree of life

and eat and live forever so the Lord God

banished him from the Garden of Eden to

work the ground from which he had been

taken after he drove them out he placed

on the east side of the Garden of Eden

cherubim and a flaming sword flashing

back and forth to guard the way to the

Tree of Life

how should we understand this chapter in

quite another part of the Bible one that

we're not going to have time to explore

in detail the account is told of King

David who seduces a young woman next

door and when he is caught out he

arranges to have her husband killed so

you have a powerful man and a weak man

and the thing that is desired in this

case the woman when the Prophet Nathan

is sent by God to confront King David

for this cleverly concealed adultery and

murder because the king is at the end of

the day an autocrat Nathan approaches

with a certain amount of care and he

tells a parable your majesty he says um

something's gone wrong upcountry there's

a really really rich farmer Hertz and

cattle flocks you wouldn't believe a

next door is a Dirt Farmer one little

and that's it

well he doesn't even have that anymore

some people came by to see the rich dude

and he went and swiped the one poor

little lamb from the dirt farmer so a

very powerful man a weak man and

something that's desired initially David

doesn't see the connection but

eventually he does and he's exposed and

he's crushed by it and so forth but you

can see what the parable is doing it's

getting to an analogous situation by

telling something similar in an account

do you see a rich man a weak man and

that which is desired and yet if you

compare the stories you also see

differences what's desired in the first

instance is a woman what's desired in

the second instance is Al and in the

first instance it's that which is

desired which is killed it's rather the

weak man that is

it's the it's the weak man who is killed

so that David can hide his sin in the

second instance it's that which is

desired that his killed the lamb itself

the stories are not parallel if they

were exactly the same of course it

wouldn't be an analogy it wouldn't be a

parable so sometimes when stories are

told they get the grist of the thing out

there but they may be sufficiently

cymbal Laden that you have to work your

way through things so here we'll see in

due course that this serpent may be the

embodiment of Satan or he may be the

symbol for Satan and the Bible doesn't

really care to explain which it doesn't

care what it does say about Satan can be

delineated pretty precisely but exactly

what the communication arrangements were

in Eden we cannot understand exactly now

with that introduction let me suggest

four things that emerge unmistakably

from this chapter number one the

deceitful repulsiveness of that first

rebellion especially verses 1 to 6 the

deceitful repulsiveness of that first

rebellion were introduced to the serpent

now according to later scripture again

the last book of the Bible

we're told that Satan himself stands

behind this serpent in some sense in

revelation 12 moreover his smooth talk

aligns and with another description of

Satan where we're told that he goes

about as an angel of light deceiving if

it were possible the very chosen ones of

God a smart-mouthed we're also told that

he was made by God the serpent was more

crafty than any of the wild animals the

Lord God had made in other words the

Bible does not set Satan up or the

serpent up as a kind of

anti-god like matter and antimatter with

exactly the same power and potency and

when they collide they explode and

there's nothing there is not God and

then an equivalent anti God a bit like

the light side and the dark side and the

force and you lean one way or you lean

the other way that's just not the

picture the picture is that even Satan

himself is a dependent being a created

being this passage does not tell us how

or when he fell elsewhere

he's clearly part of the angelic number

who rebelled against God the angels had

their own forms of rebellion we learn

elsewhere but none of that is described

here he just shows up we're told in our

English versions that he was the most

crafty of the wild animals that God had

made now I was brought up in French

Canada and learned English in Canada and

lived in Europe for many years so that

my ears don't always hear things exactly

the way American ears hear things but

does the word crafty to you suggests

surreptitious nests and sneakiness does

it have negative overtones it does to me

but the word that it's used here in

Hebrew can be either positive or

negative depending on the context in

many places it's a it's rendered

something like prudence for example in

proverbs 12 a prudent man keeps his

knowledge to himself

it doesn't mean a crafty man sneaky

little blighter it means someone who's

wise and prudent do you see or again

proverbs 14 the prudent are crowned with

knowledge doesn't mean the crafty are I

suspect that the image then in the very

first verses of this being who was

crowned with more prudence than all the

others but in rebelling it became

craftiness the very same virtue that is

such a strength once twisted becomes a

vice in any case he approaches the woman

what the modes of communication were I

have no idea and he does not begin by a

denial or a direct temptation he begins

with a question did God really say that

did God really say you're not to eat of

the fruit in the garden no notice what

he's doing it expresses just the right

amount of skepticism a slightly

incredulous can you really believe that

God would say that like an employee can

you imagine what the boss is done this

time except that the person whose word

is being questioned is the maker the

designer God the sovereign in some ways

the question is both disturbing and

flattering it smuggles in the assumption

that we have the ability even the right

to stand in judgment of what God has

said and then the devil has made it

worse by exaggeration

God did forbid one fruit the way he

frames the question did God forbid you

to eat any of the fruit in the garden

mm-hmm which casts God as the cosmic

party-pooper God basically exists to

spoil my fun I might want a snack but

God says no I want to do something God

says no no no he's just the cosmic party

pooper can you believe that God said

that she replies with a certain amount

of insight wisdom and grace at least

initially she corrects him on his facts

she says

God did say you must not eat from the

tree that is in the middle of the garden

but we may eat from the trees in the

garden his exaggeration is set aside but

then she adds her own exaggeration over

against what the devil says we may eat

from the trees in the garden but God did

say you must not eat fruit from the tree

that is in the middle of the garden and

you must not touch it God hadn't said

anything about not touching it it's

almost as if the prohibition to eat has

got her sufficiently riled up that she

has to exaggerate the meanness of the

prohibition and then comes the first

overt contradiction of God you will now

certainly die the first doctrine denied

in the Bible is the doctrine of judgment

it's often the case because if you can

get rid of that one then you're free to

do anything there are no consequences

indeed God knows that when you eat of it

your eyes will be opened and you will be

like God knowing good and evil

here is the big ploy the toady

temptation the heart of the vicious

deceitfulness in what the serpent

promises is partly true and totally

false it's true after all

her eyes will be opened and in some

sense she will see the difference

between good and evil she will determine

it for herself God Himself says so at

the end of the chapter

after all God says verse 22 the man has

now become like one of us knowing good

and evil

and yet

God knows good and evil with the

knowledge of omniscience

he knows all it has been all it is all

that will be all that would have been

under different circumstances he knows

it all she comes to know it by

experience my wife is a cancer survivor

she's had a double mastectomy

they still watch her very closely the

oncologists know an awful lot about

cancer from the outside

she knows cancer from the inside God

knows all there is to know about sin but

not by becoming a sinner she'll find out

about the knowledge of good and evil

from the inside it's a total lie indeed

the expression in Hebrew the knowledge

of good and evil is often used in places

where to have the knowledge of good and

evil is to have the ability to pronounce

what is good and pronounce what is evil

that's what God had done if you recall

he had made something it was good he

made something else it was good he made

the whole thing and it was very good for

God has this sovereign grounded an

infinite knowledge ability to pronounce

what is good and now this one wants this

godlike functional God says it's not

good to eat that fruit you'll die but if

she does she's pronouncing her own good

and evil

she's becoming like God

claiming the sort of Independence that

belongs only to God the self existence

that belongs only to go to be as God to

achieve it it in fact by outwitting him

or to rebel against him it's an

intoxicating program that means that God

Himself will henceforth be regarded

consciously or not at least as a rival

and maybe as an enemy because I

pronounce my own good thank you now I

suppose we need to think a little bit

more about this tree what was the fruit

there is no text that says it was an

apple as if God really hates apples but

is rather partial towards some

pineapples and pears

it's not even necessary to suppose that

the apple is a kind of magical thing

such that by ingesting this particular

fruit whatever it is that suddenly a

switch goes on in the brain the

chemistry changes and now you suddenly

start pronouncing good and evil that's

not quite the point regardless of what

it is it's something that is an

inevitable test if God makes image

bearers and pronounces what is good and

what is evil he orders the whole system

then to come along at any point and say

no I will declare my own good what you

say is evil I will declare to be good

what you say is good I will declare to

be evil makes that thing the knowledge

of good and evil that's why it's called

the tree of the knowledge of good and

evil it's not the kind of true fruit

that is crucial

it's the rebellion it's the standing

over against God it's the de guarding of

God it is in short

idolatry it wasn't sex

either through the history of the

Christian Church many people have argued

that the the tree here is really a

symbol for for for sex but in fact when

God brings the man and woman together in

this first marriage he thinks it's all

very good and long after this chapter

toward the end of the Bible one of the

writers says marriage is honorable in

all of the bed undefiled there's nothing

in the Bible that says that sex is

intrinsically evil though like all of

goods God's good gifts it can be abused

and distorted and twisted perverted no

this is not simply an invitation to

break a rule or arbitrary or otherwise

that's what a lot of people think that

sin is just breaking a rule what is at

stake here is something deeper bigger

sadder uglier more heinous it's a

revolution

it makes me god and thus de God's God

and when the woman saw that the fruit of

the tree was good for food and pleasing

to the eye and also desirable for

gaining wisdom physically appealing

aesthetically pleasing sappy and chilly

transforming transforming by wisdom she

took some and ate for those of you who

know the language take and eat which

Christians recite at the Lord's Supper

it's impossible not to think that take

and eat language so simply act so hard

the undoing as someone has said this

take and eat language won't be connected

with salvation and forgiveness and

transformation until someone has died in

our stead but that's much farther down

the line and she gave some to Adam and

he ate it apparently he was with her in

all of this here's the ugliness of the

whole thing and then secondly the

initial consequences that erupted from

this first rebellion what there is

initially is a massive inversion God

makes the man who loves his wife who

comes from him and together they are to

be vice Regents over the created order

now instead one of the created order the

serpent seduces the woman who hauls in

the man and together they defy God

there's a massive inversion of the whole

thing and of course there's death it's

not too surprising if God is the creator

and gives life then if you detach

yourself from this God if you defy this

God what is there but death he's the one

that brought it all into being in the

first place he didn't bring it into

being that it might be completely

autonomous from him

so if one walks away from him what is

there but death if you pronounce your

own good and evil and decide for

yourself what is up and what is down

then you have detached yourself from the

God who made you and there is nothing

but death what kind of death Christians

have wrestled with this one in the

fourth century there was a Christian

thinker by the name of Agustin who wrote

if it be asked what death God threatened

them with whether bodily or spiritual or

that second death

that's language that is used for Hell

itself we answer it was all God

comprehends in this not only the first

part of the first death when the soul

loses God we die we hide from God we're

dead to God but the second part also

where our body returns to the ground and

our very being before God is is lost and

condemned or even the ultimate death the

last of deaths eternal following after

all you cannot cut yourself off from the

God of the Bible without consequences

but note the results that are

immediately emphasized by the text we're

told verse 7 their eyes were opened they

knew they were naked

and in consequence they sewed fig leaves

together for a covering

now one level the serpent kept his

promise but this new consciousness of

good and evil this determination to

specify what is good and evil in our own

little world is not a happy result its

insight is demonstrable but it results

in massive and grow

esque anticlimax there's no pleasure

finally but shame guilt now they have

something to hide

so they so fig leaves which is meant to

be a bit silly

you can't hide moral shame with fig

leaves but it's also a way of saying

that there's no way back to Eden you

can't undo that sort of thing if you

commit a theft

you can return what you've stolen in

that sense you can undo it but the stain

in your own being can't be undone if you

commit adultery you can't undo it if you

are I defy God we cannot undo the

defiance it can't be undone there's no

way back we're now covered in shame

and so as a result there's this broken

fellowship with God and verses eight to

ten instead of enjoying God's fellowship

whatever it meant to say that God walked

with him in the cool of the day he met

with them and they enjoyed him

throughout all of Christian experience

in every religion there have been

elements of human experience that have

tried to connect with God to feel him to

enjoy some sort of mystical experience

with God of the gods or the other or the

transcendent these people knew this kind

of intimate connection with God their

maker in unsurpassed joy and the most

intimate communion and delighted in it

and now it was gone you catch some small

small glimpse of it if you've been

married for 10 years in a really really

really good marriage and then you slip

up and you you sleep with somebody you

shouldn't sleep with and you know it and

your spouse knows it you can't look in

the eye anymore their shame you hide the

certain things you can't talk about

anymore

that's why throughout the Bible in fact

sometimes humans sin before God is

described in terms of sexual betrayal in

one Old Testament writer Hosea both the

eighth century before Christ God is

presented it's hard to believe as the

ultimate cuckold the ultimate betrayed

husband because his own people abandon

him and she saw the gods even though

he's given them life

and there's broken fellowship with each

other too it's it's almost funny in a

sad degenerate sort of way

have you eaten from the tree that I

commanded you not to eat from the woman

you put here with major fault not the

last time some character has blamed his

wife but she's no better not my fault

god I mean that serpent I mean he really

fooled me one of the things that happens

where there is this kind of rebellion of

course is that you don't take

responsibility you just duck and then

comes in the third place the explicit

curses that God pronounces in the wake

of this rebellion verses 14 and

following there are three God says to

the serpent because you have done this

cursed are you above all livestock and

all wild animals you will crawl in your

belly and you will eat dust all the days

of your life and I will put enmity

between you and the woman and between

your offspring and hers he will crush

your head and you will strike is healed

now there are some people who think that

this is a kind of fairy tale what's

called an eighty illogical myth a

just-so story how the serpent lost his

legs now that's what this story is

really about you see once upon a time

snakes were really serpents and they all

had legs and and then this is how the

serpent lost its legs is that what's

about

who knows but I do know this

sometimes God picks up something that is

already there and uses it in a new

symbol Laden way in the last hour this

evening will be introduced to this chap

Abraham and Abraham is told to introduce

circumcision to the men in his family

and clan but you must understand that

circumcision wasn't invented by God or

by Abraham circumcision was practiced

throughout the ancient Near East it was

not an unknown right but when God

imposed it for reasons we'll see shortly

when God imposed it it had a new special

symbol laden as' in the context of his

relationship with Abraham it wasn't a

brand new phenomenon but it had a new

symbol relationship to reality so also

here this snake may well have been

squirreling along the ground but now it

becomes a deeply symbol Laden thing the

devil himself is cast out and is

rejected a slimy thing rejected running

along the ground as it were and the

symbolism of the Bible keeps along those

lines

the prophet Isaiah late 8th century for

example in a 65th chapter describes a

day coming when the wolf and the lamb

will feed together the lion will eat

straw like the Ox and dust will be the

Serpent's food because serpents are

somehow less moral and lions but in the

symbolism of the day the serpent was

connected with the devil with all that

was slimy and lowdown disgusting when

we're told I will put enmity between you

and the woman between the servant of the

woman and between your offspring and

hers this does not mean that all women

will hate snakes

now I know some that do including my

wife my wife whatever her many gifts and

graces was not called to be a

herpetologist but there are some women

herpetologists this is probing at a

level much beyond mere women and snakes

in fact the text immediately goes on to

say not only the women but the offspring

between your offspring and hers that is

between all human beings and all snakes

so that we all like in which case we

can't have any air pathologists now

that's not the point at all no from the

woman from the human race will come

ultimately a seed we're told that will

crush the Serpent's head did you see The

Passion of the Christ the Mel Gibson

film oh it had its strengths and his

weaknesses but did you see the opening

scene where Jesus is in an agony in the

garden praying and in the context of his

praying a snake starts crawling over one

of his limbs Jesus stands up and

suddenly times his head down his foot

down on the Serpent's head the symbolism

was right out of here by going to the

cross Jesus will ultimately destroy this

serpent this devil who holds people to

sin and shame and guilt he will go and

cross the Serpent's head by taking their

guilt and shame and himself this verse

is sometimes called in Christian circles

the protei fan galleon that is the first

announcement of the gospel the first

announcement of good news it's pretty

doom and darky too loud but now there's

promise that from

the woman seen from the human race will

arise one who will crush the Serpent's

head

in fact that can be extended to

Christians in Romans 16 a letter written

by the Apostle Paul about the middle of

the 1st century to Christians in Rome in

the 16th chapter he writes to Christians

in Rome and he says the Lord will crush

the Serpent's head under your heel there

is a sense you see in which Christians

by living under the gospel by being

reconciled to God because of the gospel

they are destroying the devil and his

work already a seedbed sold countless

years earlier in Genesis 3 then to the

woman he said I will make your pains and

childbearing very severe with pain you

will give birth to children your desire

will be for your husband and he will

rule over you now the first categorical

command that had been given to the man

and the woman in chapter one had been be

fruitful and increase in number fill the

earth and subdue it but even this most

fundamental of rights and privileges

part of their very being now becomes a

pain filled thing the whole created

order is out of whack it's it's bound up

with loss your desire will be for your

husband and he will rule over you that

passage has been interpreted in many

different ways as you can imagine it is

worth reflecting on the fact that the

two verbs that are used your desire will

be for your husband he will rule over

you are used together as a pair in only

one other place within the first five

books of the Bible Genesis Exodus

Leviticus numbers Deuteronomy hundreds

of pages is used in only one other place

namely in the next chapter so that if a

first reader were coming along and

reading this thing boy

what's going on here the reader only has

to press on a few more verses and that

reader will stumble across the same

verbs again and then say AHA that makes

sense it's in Chapter four where we find

out that one of the sons of Adam and Eve

Cain wants to kill the other son we have

the first murder their first homicide

and when the Lord is explaining to Cain

why God is angry with him he says to him

chapter 4 verse 7 if you do what is

right will you not be accepted but if

you not do not do what is right sin is

crouching at your door now the two verbs

sin desires to have you that is to have

you in the sense of control you to

manipulate you to boss you around

but you must rule over it so also here

in the wake of the fall the woman

desires to have her husband precisely

now to control him and he rules over her

that is with a certain kind of brutality

there is sin on both sides she wants to

control and physically he's stronger

than she isn't he he regularly beats up

on her well what we have now is the

destruction of the marriage relationship

itself

because of sin in this world and then

you read on through the following

chapters the first homicide verse double

murders the first polygamy eventually

the first genocide on and on and on and

on and on all because at the very

beginning someone said I will be God

and likewise Adam because you listen to

your wife and ate from the tree about

which I commanded you you must not eat

of it that is you listen to her instead

of to me at the end of the day our prime

allegiance must be to God himself cursed

is the ground because of you that is the

whole created order of which you are a

part is now not working properly it's

under a curse subjected by God himself

to death and decay through painful toil

as a result you will eat of it all the

days of your life it will reduce thorns

and thistles for you and you will eat

the plants of the field now we could

press on but we must observe the last

step in this chapter the long-term

effects that flowed from this rebellion

the Lord God made garments of skin for

Adam and his wife and clothed them now

that's interesting

they used fig leaves if he uses garments

of skin then there has been the shedding

of blood a sacrificial animal now at

this stage there is no system of

sacrifice that comes later a priestly

system with with sacrifices and

prescribed animals and a tabernacle or a

temple we'll come to that none of that's

in place none of its in place but God

knows they need to be covered they have

so much shame to hide he doesn't say

take off those stupid fig leaves if you

just expose yourself and be honest with

one another we can all get back together

again and live happily ever after

there's no way back he covers them with

something more durable but at the price

of an animal that sheds its blood and

his slain

the first of long trajectories of bloody

sacrifices that reach all the way down

to the coming of Jesus who was announced

by one who comes just before him as the

Lamb of God who takes away the sin of

the world that is by his bloody

sacrifice by his death we are covered

over our shame and our guilt addressed

because he dies in our place a lamb

can't do that here it's just a picture

of what's coming but it's the first step

of a whole institution of sacrifices

that point us finally to the supreme

sacrifice and what Jesus did to take

away our sin and cover up our shame

now then let me conclude I want to

reflect on how this fits into the Bible

and into our lives number one

Genesis 3 describes willful rebellion

not sociobiology it describes willful

rebellion not sociobiology you see one

of the hard things that a strict

materialistic Darwinism must face is

where do morals come from where does

meaning come from where do notions of

right and wrong come from but in the

last two or three decades there has

arisen a field of scientific

philosophical endeavor now commonly

labeled sociobiology one writer has

entitled his book The Selfish Gene in

which he argues because of the way we've

developed along evolutionary lines we

have genes that that protect us those

genes which move us toward certain

behavior our art are going to keep alive

those people that have the genes that

perform the behavior that is most

advantageous to living those that don't

have this advantageous behavior will

drop away and therefore statistically

you will get a higher and higher

percentage of those that have these

kinds of genes that are nicely adaptive

and that very selfish gene might learn

somewhere along the line that

cooperation with other people with

similar genes is better than merely

going it alone so now you have a genetic

predisposition towards working

cooperatively and sharing which might

not fit some simplistic view of the

survival of the fittest but at the

corporate level as sociobiology it makes

a whole lot of sense that is to say you

can develop a whole bias towards certain

behavior that you call good

or evil just on the basis of the various

selection of genes that that the time

and experience teach you generation by

generation in other words there is a

systematic attempt today to explain

notions of right and wrong purely at the

genetic naturalistic level and I would

be the last person to want to argue that

there is no connection between our

morals and our bodies between our wills

and spirits and our heritage and

background including our genetic makeup

we are whole beings all of them interact

together but it is very very difficult

to imagine people volunteering

volunteering to sacrifice their lives

for the sake of others taking pain in

their place a person in Auschwitz

pretending that he or she did the

terrible deed that would get another

hanged just to take their place

it's hard to think of that as merely

adaptive behavior so that nowadays

entire books and essays have begun to be

written back the other way

saying sociobiology cannot possibly

explain this conduct and that conduct

and the other conduct if you're

interested in such matters I'll be glad

to give you more bibliography

there's a chap called Pete Loman who

wrote a long way east of Eden you recall

how when they left the garden they went

east of Eden simply to show that the

account of the fall makes much more

sense of the dilemmas and perversions

and twisted livings in the world than

any other explanation or the

sociologists Christian Smith moral

believing animals but secondly Genesis 3

does not think of evil primarily in

horizontal terms but in vertical terms

you see when we do think of evil finally

depending on who we are we tend to think

of evil at the horizontal level

horizontal level probably none of us

here would want to deny that outch bits

was evil probably we we don't want to

deny that too raping a little child is

evil probably we don't want to deny that

operating a huge Ponzi scheme that rips

people off of billions is evil we don't

want to deny that and certainly the

Bible has all kinds of pretty condemning

things to say about horizontal evils

that is evils amongst ourselves but in

the Bible

what is said to make God angry most

frequently is idolatry it's the vertical

dimension the person who is most

offended here is God it's not that Eve

is really ticked because Adams blamed

her in the first instance where the

guilt is is guilt before God it's in the

D Godding of God so that yes you could

read the prophet Isaiah who warns

against vicious money-grabbing all

who will pay fair wages but pages and

pages are devoted to idolatry

it's the supreme evil it is what makes

all the other evils supremely evil and

that means in the third place that

Genesis 3 shows what we most need if

you're a Marxist what you need are

revolutionaries and decent economists if

you're a psychologist what you need is

an army of counselors if you think that

the root of all malfunction and disorder

is medical what you really need is

endless numbers of Mayo Clinic's but if

our first and most serious need is to be

reconciled to God a God who now stands

over against us who pronounces death

upon us because of our willfully chosen

rebellion then what we need the most

that we may have all of these other

derivative needs what we need the most

is to be reconciled to him we need

someone to save us you cannot make sense

of the Bible until you come to agreement

with what the Bible says our problem is

if you don't see what the Bible's

analysis of the problem is you can't

come to grips with the Bible's analysis

of the solution the ultimate problem is

our alienation from God our attempt to

identify ourselves merely with reference

to ourselves this idolatry that de God's

God and what we must have is

reconciliation back to this God or we

have nothing

and it's in that context that already

this chapter looks forward to the coming

of the woman's seed I attended a funeral

not long ago a neighbor died brain tumor

and on the card that was handed out at

the door we found these words from this

neighbor may those that love us love us

and those that don't love us may God

turn their hearts and if he doesn't turn

their hearts may he turn their ankle and

we shall know them by their limping cute

eye I couldn't help thinking how tragic

the man had just gone to meet his maker

and his last words for us of the funeral

were scoring points on people who didn't

like him still thinking at a horizontal

level in the 17th century the great

thinker Pascal wrote what sort of freak

then is man how novel how monstrous how

chaotic how paradoxical how prodigious

judge of all things feeble earthworm

repository of truth sink of doubt and

error glory and refuse of the universe

he understood Genesis one two and three

or a contemporary thinker writes who a

human beings are a mystery to ourselves

we are rational and irrational civilized

and savage capable of deep friendship

and murderous hostility free and in

bondage the pinnacle of creation and its

greatest danger we are Rembrandt and

Hitler Mozart and Stalin

antigone and Lady Macbeth Ruth and

Jezebel Shakespeare says of humanity

what a work of art and Arthur Miller and

after the fall says we are very

dangerous we meet not in some garden of

wax fruit and painted leaves that lies

east of Eden but after the fall after

many many deaths now you understand the

plotline of the whole Bible who will fix

that you