Studies

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Studies in Genesis
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The Seriousness of Sin Gen 3v14-24
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Introduction
When AI Capone the American gangster was arrested
and put on trial he did not think he deserved the
title, 'public enemy No 1. He could not
understand why there was such a hue and cry to
bring him to justice. This is what he said, I
have spent the best years of my life giving
people the lighter pleasures, and I get all this
abuse the existence of a hunted man". He was
not unique in finding it hard to face the
seriousness of his sin. His difficulty is one
that is shared with a great many people.
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Sin Defined
Today, many attempt to play down the seriousness
of their sin. First of all, the language
currently used to describe sin is designed to
make it appear less heinous than it really is.
People talk about being economic with the
truth' instead of lying. Selfishness has been
replaced by 'standing up for ones rights'.
Theft is 'helping oneself to the perks of the
job! Immorality has become sexual
experimentation' or 'the fulfilment of
unsatisfied appetites.' However, there would
be an uproar if a chemist trivialised the nature
of drugs and wrote on a bottle of arsenic the
caption, 'a most effective anti-depressant'.
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Sin Defined
Men deceive themselves by saying that sin is not
quite so sinful as God says and they are not so
bad as they truly are. Our reluctance to face sin
is not only seen in the language we use to
describe it but also in the reasons we provide
for its practice. Some see it as a no more than
human weakness and so seek to absolve
themselves of any responsibility for their
behaviour. Imagine someone arguing that if a
vacuum cleaner blows dust out into the air,
then the manufacturer must be to blame and it
has nothing to do with the person operating it!
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Sin Defined
Others have suggested that sin is a disease a
chemical imbalance in their body so that they are
not responsible for their actions. Someone wrote
recently People are no longer sinful. They are
only immature or underprivileged or frightened
or, more particularly, sick. Modern
philosophers have tried to solve the problem by
saying there is no such thing as sin and help
needs to be given to those experiencing guilt
feelings. Man is not responsible for his actions.
These same people see no contradiction in
complaining about the wrongs and injustices of
society when their own lives are under threat.
This attempt to play down the seriousness of sin
is the response of a society that fails to take
God and his Word seriously.
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Sin Defined
Unless we see our shortcomings in the light of
the law and the holiness of God, we do not see
them as sin at all. For sin is not a social
concept, it is a theological concept. We never
know what sin really is until we have learned to
think of it in terms of God and to measure it not
by human standards but by the yardstick of his
total demand on our lives. " JAMES PACKER How
do we begin to measure sin in terms of God? We
could examine some of the biblical words used to
describe sin. One speaks of missing the mark,
aiming at some target of righteous behaviour but
failing, again and again.
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Sin Defined
Another word speaks of a deliberate perversion
or twisting. It describes not some accidental
or unwitting act of wrongdoing but an action
which is quite deliberate. Another speaks of
overstepping a recognised boundary. Another
speaks of a breach in a relationship, an act of
rebellion, a revolution. It is perhaps the most
profound of the O.T. terms and sees sin as
nothing less than a rebellion against God's
Lordship. The list goes on but the most
characteristic feature of sin in all its aspects
is that it is directed against God.
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Sins Consequences
How can we tell if God views sin seriously? By
asking how he responded to the sin of our first
parents. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they
had been warned of the consequences of
disobedience. Thomas Jefferson, former
president of the USA said, Indeed I tremble for
my country when I reflect that God is just".
Unlike Jefferson, Adam and Eve failed to
tremble! They failed to take the justice of God
seriously. Perhaps they hoped, as many do today,
that the justice of God was little more than an
empty playground threat, not to be taken
seriously. Or did they think, "One sinful act is
not so serious!"
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Sins Consequences
John Bunyan wrote, One leak will sink a ship and
one sin destroys a sinner. Gen3.14ff makes it
very clear that the justice of God is very real.
When man sins he invites God's justice to move
against him. He sends an invitation with the
letters R.S.V.P. in bold print. However, we must
not make the mistake of confusing justice with
some kind of arbitrary vengeance. God is no
heavenly tyrant with a thirst for blood. He
does not send an angelic hit squad after the
rebellious couple. God's aim here is however, to
show that we cannot break the rules without
paying a price.
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Sins Consequences
First, notice how God deals with Eve in v16. She
is to experience increased pain in childbirth. If
there had been no fall there would have been no
need of hospital labour suites. Childbirth, one
of woman's greatest joys was to be clouded by
this painful reminder that she has rebelled
against God who should have been the object of
her greatest joy. Secondly, we discover that
her relationship to her husband is to take on a
new turn. It is to become one of increasing
dependency.
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Sins Consequences
What then does God have to say to Adam his vice
regent on earth? cf v17, 19. His work which
previously had been one of his greatest pleasure
was now to be characterised by hard graft. In
Rom. 8.20 ff Paul speaks of 'creation subjected
to frustration not by its own choice" and of
creation groaning awaiting its liberation from
its bondage to decay. The whole of the created
order was plunged into disharmony by Adam's sin.
Creation underwent a transformation not just
In the reduction of soil fertility, Adam no
longer had the same easy access to food. Indeed,
the introduction of pestilence, disease and
competitive crops like thorns and thistles
Created an upheaval of such magnitude that man
would be continually confronted by the need of
hard backbreaking work.
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Sins Consequences
What is said of agricultural work in the Genesis
text has of course a far wider application. Work
as such is not a punishment, it existed prior to
the fall and was part of Gods good creation. The
punishment lies in the difficulties and
frustrations involved in the accomplishment of
the work. There was to be no rest from these
burdens throughout life.
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Sins Consequences
Human life was also cut short by physical death.
The death process had begun. Cf. Rom.5.12.
"just as sin entered the world through one man
and death through sin.." However, the most
serious punishment of all is found in v24.. both
man and woman are driven out of the garden.
They were excluded from the intimacy of
communion with God and cut off from the
possibility of reaching the tree of life by
their own endeavours. They are dead to God in
the sense that they are separated from him,
spiritually cut off and removed from the source
of eternal life.
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Sins Consequences
Paul described the condition of the Ephesians
prior to their conversion in the following terms,
"dead in your transgressions and sins 2.1. And
again his description of the unbeliever in 4.18
as "separated from the life of God." By excluding
man from the garden and placing at its entrance
an angel with a flaming sword, God made it
impossible for man by his own efforts to access
the tree of life. Someone has said man sins on
the instalment plan. The bills may come in later
but come they will, for sin makes us pay
handsomely and relentlessly.
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Sins Consequences
Not only is the Bible clear about what sin is, it
is also quite clear about why we sin. We sin
because we are sinners. The rebellion we express
by our sinful actions is consistent with our
sinful nature. Just as an apple tree quite
naturally produces apples and not bananas because
by nature it is an apple tree, so man, when he
sins is expressing what he is by nature - a
sinner. William Golding wrote, I know I am born
with a great capacity for evil and a warped
ability to enjoy it. He recognised he was not
born morally neutral but with a sinful nature,
-i.e. original sin. There is within our hearts a
natural bias towards wrongdoing. It is not
environment or education that truly shapes
behaviour but the natures we are born with.
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Sins Consequences
You may have seen the film based on Goldings
book, 'Lord of the Flies. It describes a group
of boys from 'good homes' whose plane crashes on
a desert island. They are free from external,
harmful influences but also from the restraints
of society. Their behaviour becomes increasingly
bestial. I wrote Lord of the Flies after the
war. I remembered my experience as a
schoolmaster when a class of boys was left to
organise itself, and I remember the gangs of
Russian children after the revolution, who
roamed the streets murdering people. I wanted
to say to the English, 'You think you've won the
war and defeated Nazism so you're all nice
decent people. But look out the evil is in all
of us. 'Original sin'. William Golding
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Attitude to Sin
There is one final question we need to answer.
'How serious is sin to me?' Sometimes people
object to the teaching of the word of God because
they think that somehow it makes them appear to
be the worst of criminals. They argue, 'I am
basically a good person, I am not a murderer, a
bank robber or a rapist. However, to argue in
this way is to take refuge in the knowledge of
the sins we have not committed in order to
excuse those they have.
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Attitude to Sin
We talk about our small sins as if they were of
little importance. But no sin is small. No grain
of sand is small in the mechanism of a watch. You
do not need a missile to burst a balloon, it only
takes a pinprick. In Jas. 2.10 we read, 'whoever
keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one
point is guilty of breaking all of it.'
Perfection is God's standard and 99 in his exam
is viewed as a failure. Some argue that, 'we are
no different from anybody else'. But there is no
safety in numbers. The fact that everybody sins
does not make sin excusable. The attitude of
some towards sin is to persuade as many others
as possible to join in as if a majority view
could outvote God cf Rom. 1.32... They are
deceiving themselves.
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Conclusion
It is easy to persuade ourselves that we have
become God's friends by our best religious
efforts. You may protest that you do not hate God
but if you live in sin, you are among God's
enemies. You stand under Satan's flag and have
enlisted to serve hid cause. You may wish you
were elsewhere. But our attitude to sin reveals,
where we stand in relation to God! John Owen, one
of the greatest Christian minds of a previous
generation writes I cannot understand how a
man can be a true believer for whom sin is not
the greatest burden, sorrow and trouble. Is
that our attitude to sin?
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Conclusion
Do we make light of sin or treat it seriously?
God takes our sin seriously! Only when we begin
to view it as God does will we see how badly we
need someone to deliver us from its awful penalty
and power. Only then will the cross of Christ
find a truly central focus in our lives. The
sinner and sin must quarrel if he and God are to
be friends.
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