No exposition of the Atonement can be complete without looking at the story of Adam and Eve. Many Bible students have delved deeply into this chapter, and some have extrapolated from it certain ideas which go beyond what we read in the text. Perhaps one difficulty we have with the story is that it is so other-worldly, speaking of things beyond are experience like the talking serpent, the idyllic setting of the garden of Eden, and life before sin and death had conquered mankind. But what are the real practical lessons from Gen 3 and the fall of man? Well consider what Paul says about it in the book of Romans:
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom 5:12).
That verse and its context is at the centre of many controversies, like the doctrine of Original Sin which says that we are tainted with Adam’s sin which needs to be atoned for as well as our own personal transgressions. It’s hard to get your mind around such a concept, especially against the backdrop of the rest of Scripture which says things like “the soul that sins, it shall die” (Ezek 18:4) teaching we are responsible for our own sins and our sins alone. It also speaks against the doctrine of Substitution which says that Christ died instead of us. So what does Rom 5:12 mean in its simplicity? Read it carefully. It says death passed upon all men “for that all have sinned”. In other words we don’t die because Adam sinned. We die because we’re just like Adam and we sin too, and that’s true for the entire human race (which Paul proves in Rom 3). The only man who broke this rule was the Lord Jesus Christ and that’s why Rom 5 contrasts Adam with Christ. Suffice it to say Paul tells us in Rom 5 that Adam is the typical man. Adam is just like us, and by extension so is his wife Eve, and we’re just like them. This means when we’re reading Gen 3 we’re reading the story of our own lives. We’re reading about our own experiences. We’re reading about the process of sin and death we’re all a part of and for that reason Gen 3, far from being something outside our experience, is eminently practical.
In last month’s article we had a look at the fundamental concept that the righteous shall live by faith. Well the story of Adam of Eve is the antithesis of that — how lack of faith brings death. Instead of putting their faith in God they trusted a serpent. When it comes down to it, that’s what Gen 3 is all about: do we trust God or do we trust the serpent?
Whatever we think of the serpent the most important thing to understand is what he represents for you and me. And the apostle Paul provides two Bible echoes where there are obvious links to the serpent of Genesis:
“Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen” (Rom 16:17-20).
Here Paul is talking about false teachers and he uses the imagery of the serpent throughout. Paul makes a firm connection with the serpent by alluding to Gen 3:15 when he talks about Satan being bruised under their feet. He also says they serve their own belly, which reminds us of the serpent being cursed to slither along on his belly (Gen 3:14). But what does that mean? How do we serve our own belly? By listening to our instincts instead of listening to God. If you think about it you obey your belly quite often and in fact the phrase “gut instinct” recognizes this fact.
Also Paul says these false teachers use good words and fair speeches to deceive the hearts of the simple, or naive. That’s exactly what the serpent did, enticing Eve with his half-lie about the tree. This isn’t the only place where Paul uses language of the serpent to describe false teachers:
“For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things” (Phil 3:18-19).
Again we have reference to the belly and the final destruction of the serpent, which ultimately is connected with a certain mindset — minding earthly things. That’s where the serpent’s mind was one hundred percent of the time because he was just an animal and animals can’t raise their thinking above the earthly level. A false teacher is someone who follows in the footsteps of the serpent and speaks out of the thoughts of their earthly hearts instead of the spiritual words of God.
But that’s not to say serpent thinking is an obvious thing to spot and counter in our own lives. We can be our own false teachers when we rely on what the flesh is telling us (our gut instinct) instead of what the Word of God says, and it’s subtle. In fact we know that the serpent is described as more subtle than the other animals God created. But that word is actually a Hebrew word most commonly translated prudent and is more often than not a positive attribute, especially in the book of Proverbs. The question is, though, where does our prudence or wisdom come from? Let’s see what Proverbs says:
“The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit” (Prov 14:8).
That word translated “prudent” is the same as the word used to describe the serpent as “subtil”. In a sense the serpent was no fool. He analyzed the situation and gave his summation of God’s commandment, concluding that it was wrong. You don’t die from eating fruit, you see, and since it was named by God “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” then it was worth eating its fruit because you would grow in wisdom. Without faith in God’s commandment that seems reasonable, and that’s how the flesh thinks. We make what can often seem like very prudent decisions but without them being driven by God’s word they are going to be wrong, as far as eternal life is concerned. And quite often what God says is so against our natural fleshly desires that it sounds wrong. However faith says God is right and the just shall live by faith, and that’s what Adam and Eve lacked. Look at what the Proverbs go on to say just a few verses later:
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov 14:12).
There are a lot of things that seem right, especially when we go with our gut instincts. And very often in this world gut instincts actually work. Research has shown, for instance, that going with your gut when choosing what stocks to invest in can often be more successful than trying to analyze all your options. But as far as eternal life is concerned things are different. We can’t go with our gut, we can’t be ruled over by our belly; we have to trust in God even when the other way seems so right. Eating the fruit seemed right to Eve: it looked good, it tasted good and it promised wisdom. But it was wrong and it led to death. This world is full of serpent teaching, not just in a religious context but in so much of the advice this world offers. It’s all based on earthly thinking and instead the motto of our lives should be “let God be true, and ever man a liar” (Rom 3:4).
After Adam and Eve sinned we’re told “the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen 3:7). What does that mean? We can’t take it literally unless we suppose they were blind before they sinned. It’s actually an experience we all go through when we taste something pleasurable for the first time. For instance when you let a baby taste chocolate for the first time you see their eyes widen as they contrast it with the bland taste of baby cereal. Their eyes have been opened and there is no going back. It’s the same with sin. Once we have tasted the pleasure of sin (or anything pleasurable like eating) the nucleus accumbens (a part of our brain) releases a chemical called dopamine and our memory system associates the activity we are doing with this feeling of pleasure. And so Adam and Eve, due to their experience, gained a propensity to sin and we follow suit. We are hardwired to sin because survival is based on gaining pleasure from advantageous behaviour. That’s all well and good as far as this world is concerned but once again it’s minding earthly things. Faith doesn’t release dopamine from the nucleus accumbens but it does promise eternal life.
Adam and Eve, ashamed of themselves, tried to cover up their sin with fig leaves (Gen 3:7) but then came their education. God doesn’t want us to have a fig-leaf religion. He wants us to have a religion based on sacrifice, and so he clothed the pair with animal skins. What is the difference between these two pictures? Why animal skins instead of fig leaves? Well when we do something wrong we have the natural desire to want to cover the nakedness we feel. Often this comes in the form of self-justification and that’s what a fig-leaf religion is, a religion based on trying to cover our sins with man-made solutions. We might try to justify ourselves by saying what we did wasn’t wrong, or we might try to balance things up by doing what we think are good works to make up for it.
But that’s not God’s way. God’s way is sacrifice and this was what he was teaching Adam and Eve when he made them coats of skins. He was teaching them, and us, that in order to be right with him we have to die. This was what the sacrifices under the Law of Moses taught and it is what the death of Christ should mean to us too. What is means on a practical level, as we see throughout Scripture, is that we need to live by faith if we want to be righteous. Living by faith is trusting God and that means sacrifice. It means saying “no” to the serpent even though it seems right. It means denying ourselves the pleasures of sin despite the intense desire we have for the dopamine effect. And it means putting the survival of others ahead of our own — or in other words loving our brothers and sisters and giving up our lives in service to them. These things are all against our nature and require us to sacrifice the things we want to do.
Faith is the battle between the nucleus accumbens we’re born with and the spiritual pleasure of doing God’s will which is not based on earthly thinking. Gen 3:15 describes that battle; the battle between those who desire to do God’s will but are confronted by the serpent, whether it be our own gut instincts or the world around us. Both constantly draws us away from God’s truth with ideas that seem right but lead to death. This is the doctrine of the atonement, demonstrated finally upon the cross where Jesus showed his supreme trust in the living God and utterly denied the natural thinking of the flesh.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One