Episode 227 – Seriousness of Sin – Part 6 – The First Sin Continues Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: The LORD said to the man, “…the ground will be under a curse because of what you did. As long as you live, you will have to struggle to grow enough food. Genesis, Chapter 3, verse 17, Contemporary English Version

******** VK: Hi! Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m Victoria K. We’re so happy that you are able to join us today on Anchored by Truth as we continue with the series we are calling “The Seriousness of Sin.” Thus far in this series we have seen that despite the world’s desire to deny the reality of sin the denials are always unsuccessful. The world can deny that sin exists but they cannot escape the consequences of its existence. As he has been throughout this series, to help us continue to think through hard truths that accompany sin’s existence we have RD Fierro. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, how can we all be sure for ourselves that sin exists? RD: People can readily determine that everything the Bible says about God, sin, and judgment is true for themselves by thinking about one word. Guilt. As we mentioned in one episode guilt is God’s gift to man to assure us that He exists, that sin is real, and that there is a coming judgment. VK: For most people the emotion of guilt is not very pleasant and it can produce all kinds of very unpleasant sensations and even painful behavior. Most people probably don’t think of guilt as being a gift from God. RD: But it is. Think about what the concept of guilt implies. For guilt to be present there must first of all be an offense. For an offense to occur there must be a law or standard that defines permissible behavior or activity. And for there to be a law or standard there must be a lawgiver or standard maker. And none of that would be perceptible if human beings did not possess the ability to understand the existence of laws or standards and the implications of violations. So, guilt assures us that somewhere there is a lawgiver who has established standards so pervasive that when we violate them we have a keen awareness that we have violated them. None of that would be possible if we were all just the result of the random collision of inanimate bits of matter. VK: Guilt is an emotion experienced by a personal being who isn’t just aware of their environment but also aware of moral and ethical obligations. Lesser animals can and do respond to stimuli in their environments including emotional stimuli. Your pet dog or cat can detect when you are happy or sad and can even act to provide a comforting response. But your pet does not know whether you are sad because a friend of yours just died or you’re miserable because you just got caught breaking the law and now you’re facing the consequences. But another person can know and can understand the difference. Another person shares the awareness that we all have moral and ethical obligations. We may try to deny that we do but even the denial is self-defeating. If the obligation isn’t there what would be the point of denying it? RD: Right. Moral and ethical obligations to which we are all subject are real. So is the fact that we all fail to live up to those obligations. We are all aware of the obligations and we are all aware of our failure. Guilt is the consequence of that awareness. Guilt is therefore evidence of sin because sin is our failure to honor the obligations that our Creator has established for us. We can deny the Creator. We can deny the obligations. But what we can’t deny successfully is the experience of guilt. VK: And guilt has been present ever since the first sin in the Garden of Eden. Chapter 3 of Genesis is clear that Adam and Eve immediately experienced regret which is why they tried to cover themselves and subsequently hide from God. Guilt is the awareness of wickedness within us. Adam and Eve hid just as Proverbs, chapter 28, verse 1 says. “The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” Adam and Eve fled from God’s presence even before God pursued them. RD: Correct. The introduction of guilt in their minds was one of the consequences of that first sin but, of course, there were many other consequences. In our last episode we talked about the fact that the introduction of death into the created order was another of the consequences of that first sin. VK: And that episode of Anchored by Truth is available from our website, crystalseabooks.com as are all of the episodes of Anchored by Truth. RD: But death and guilt were by no means the only consequences of that first sin. VK: And that’s what we want to spend some time discussing today – some of those other consequences of the first sin. So, what is another of those consequences? RD: Well, we heard about two of the other consequences of the first sin in our opening scripture – man’s labor, man’s work was cursed and even the ground, the created order was cursed because of that sin. VK: We have been living in a “sin-stained” world for so long that it’s hard to remember sometime that work was not always a burden to people. When Adam and Eve were first placed in the garden they were given the job of tending it. Tending the garden was their work, their job. But, initially, their work was not cursed. Their work was for them as God’s work was for Him when He created the heavens and the earth and shaped everything to be suitable for mankind. God is creative and productive and He created people to be creative and productive. But the burdensome nature of work did not arrive until after Adam and Eve sinned. We see that in God’s pronouncement to our first parents that “As long as you live, you will have to struggle to grow enough food.” Before the first sin Adam and Eve could eat freely from the trees in the garden except from one tree. After the first sin they now had to struggle to get enough food. RD: Yes. So, we see that it makes sense that God cursed the “ground” as well as man’s labor. If the ground, the created order, had remained the same it would have continued to supply the same fruit and other food as before. And it’s not hard to see that would easily have contributed to man being able to multiply his sin, his rebellion, even further. VK: I am reminded of one of the verses from one of your poems, The Genesis Saga. One of the stanzas in The Genesis Saga says, “Fertile soil [that] had been so friendly now brought forth noxious weed. Only by sweat of weary brow would man be able to feed.” I love that phrase – “noxious weed.” What you are saying is that if the ground had not started bringing forth, in the words of Genesis, chapter 3, verse 18, “thorns and thistles” Adam and Eve would have had a lot more free time on their hands. Anyone who has ever tried to grow a garden knows how much time and effort it takes to control the weeds. RD: Exactly. Part of the reason God made Adam have to spend more time supplying their food was because that reduced the amount of time and energy he would have on mischief. And those patterns continue today thousands of years later. Think about it. It is very hard to get tomatoes, peppers, beans, corn, etc. to grow to maturity and be suitable for food. But it takes no effort whatsoever for weeds to cover every vacant inch of ground in a yard, or park, or forest. Why is that? Why is it so hard to grow food crops but it takes no effort for weeds, thorns, and thistles to come forth? No one cultivates weeds yet they appear everywhere. The ground bringing forth noxious plants without any encouragement as does the need for man to struggle to produce enough food to sustain people. Genesis, chapter 3, provides a very clear explanation for why that is true. VK: And we see this awareness of the cursed nature of creation continued in other parts of scripture. For instance, in Romans, chapter 8, verse 22 the Apostle Paul writes, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” We know that this idea is objectionable to our contemporary society but the entire fabric and operation of our world is entirely consistent with scripture. The fact that God cursed the ground so Adam and Eve would have to struggle for their daily existence would certainly have limited their time for – as you said – mischief. But it would also have limited their energy for mischief. Just about every person who transitions into adulthood realizes that one reason your lifestyle changes is that it takes a lot of energy to hold down a job, manage a house, and put meals on the table. So, in a way God’s curse on the ground was part of God’s plan of redemption – to limit sin and to promote man’s dependence on God. RD: Yes. And God’s curse on the ground also had another benefit for man. Hard work is the best physical fitness program there is. In an agrarian society - which is certainly what existed in Adam’s time - growing food, building shelters, making tools, caring for animals was hard physical labor. That would have helped Adam, Eve, and their children stay in good physical condition. VK: I see where you are going. Before the first sin death didn’t exist in the created order. So, in a certain sense, Adam and Eve didn’t have to worry about their health. But that changed when death became a part of their world. Now things could go wrong with their bodies. So, they needed to be concerned that would never have troubled them before sin. RD: Exactly. Despite the claims by some popular pop-culture preachers we really have no idea what Adam and Eve looked like. It’s reasonable to believe that before the first sin they were the best possible specimens of the human beings possible. Though many do, it is useless to speculate about their size, skin color, eye and hair color, etc. They were probably beautiful insofar as our standards of human beauty were concerned but we have no idea what their actual appearance was. But we can, I think, be fairly sure that they were very physically fit and their bodies were healthy initially. This is before many pollutants and contaminants entered the world, before bacteria and viruses had mutated into causing sickness, and before genetic mutations in their own DNA had started posing problems. VK: Well, according to Genesis, chapter 5, verses 3 and 4 Adam did live to be 930 years old. That’s a pretty good run – especially by our standards. RD: Right. So, Adam and Eve would have been healthy initially. But if they didn’t have to work physically to supply their needs, that could have changed pretty quickly. Imagine how most of us would look if we had all the food we wanted available at no cost and didn’t have to do any work to get it. VK: So, by cursing the ground God was actually teaching Adam and Eve some valuable lessons – lessons that we’re necessarily pleasant ones but things they needed to know for the future they had created for themselves by sinning. RD: So, a couple of immediate consequences of that first sin was that work was now cursed and the ground by which food would be produced was also cursed. In time that would have produced other impacts on Adam and Eve. VK: Like blisters, sore backs, aching knees, bruises, scrapes, etc. That wouldn’t have been any fun for people used to living in a paradise whether nothing could hurt them. RD: No it wouldn’t. So, the consequences of that first sin were going to continue to multiply as time went by. But another immediate consequence of the first sin was Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. And, believe it or not, that was necessary for God’s plan of redemption. VK: Why is that? RD: Because the Bible tells us that “the wages of sin is death.” Said differently, ultimately for restoration and redemption to be possible Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God was going to have to be punished by death. We had the first hint of what was coming when the first innocent animals were killed to make clothing for Adam and Eve. VK: That’s Genesis, chapter 3, verse 21 which says “Then the LORD God made clothes out of animal skins for the man and his wife.” It’s important to note that even from the beginning God initiated the sacrifices that would be necessary to redeem man. God sacrificed one of His animals that He had made to make clothes for the people who had sinned. God had made the animals. The animals that were sacrificed belong to God not Adam and Eve. So, God took the first action to remediate sin and made the first sacrifice. This is a strong statement that salvation originates with God and is completed by God. Man is the beneficiary, but salvation from first to last is an activity of God’s. RD: Right. So, God making the first clothes for Adam and Eve was a foretaste of what was to come. Death was going to be a necessity to cover Adam and Eve’s sin. Ultimately it was going to have to be the death of God’s anointed Son who was going to have to be able to represent man as well as God. That’s why Jesus had to come in the flesh to make the final, perfect sacrifice for sin. But Jesus couldn’t have died if Adam and Eve had remained in the Garden. VK: We learn that from verses 22 through 24 of Genesis, chapter 3. Those verses say, “The LORD said, ‘They now know the difference between right and wrong, just as we do. But they must not be allowed to eat fruit from the tree that lets them live forever.’ So the LORD God sent them out of the Garden of Eden, where they would have to work the ground from which the man had been made. Then God put winged creatures at the entrance to the garden and a flaming, flashing sword to guard the way to the life-giving tree.” That’s from the Contemporary English Version. If Adam and Eve had remained in the Garden of Eden and eaten from the Tree of Life they could not have experienced physical death. In effect, they would have lived perpetually in their sinful state – estranged from God because spiritual death had come upon them. But the fact that they were expelled from the garden and would experience a physical death meant that physical death would also be possible for their descendants – including the One who would die an atoning death to save His people from their sin. RD: Yes. So, God expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden that contained the Tree of Life was a necessary step in the plan of redemption. They would experience a physical death for their own sin. But their far distant descendant would experience a physical death for the sins of others because Jesus had no sins of His own. No other human being could ever atone for the sins of anyone else because as Romans, chapter 3, verse 23 says, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Everyone but Jesus dies for their own sins. Jesus committed no sin. So, in the plan of God which had existed before the foundation of the world Jesus could offer to die for the sins of others. VK: It’s important to remember that we are only still talking about the consequences of the first sin. We rarely stop and think about the enormous price that has been paid just because of that one sin. Death entered the created order because of the first sin. Man’s labor was cursed because of the first sin. The ground, the created order itself, was cursed because of the first sin. And the first sin set in motion a plan that would someday require the death of God’s only Son, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, in order to redeem fallen sinners and creation. This is a staggering price when you think about it. RD: Which is exactly why we wanted to do this “Seriousness of Sin” series. We rarely think about all of the consequences that attach to sin. But in the next few episodes we are going to take a look at other examples from the Bible that God has given us to tell us how seriously God takes sin – examples such as the flood described in chapter 6 through 9 of Genesis and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. VK: But before we close for today are there any other consequences that you want to point out that resulted from that first sin. RD: Well, so far we’ve talked about the entrance of death into the created order, the curses that God put on the ground and on man’s labor to produce food, and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden. And even though we’ve covered these consequences I want to point out that we have done so quickly because we only have so much time in our broadcast and podcast episodes. But there is a great deal more that could be said about what happened as a result of that first sin. From a purely physical standpoint we can see that pain, illness, and disease entered creation as a result of that first sin. From an intellectual and emotional standpoint we can see that worry, misery, and guilt came from that first sin. VK: And all those sad consequences weren’t limited to mankind. Initially men and all the animals were to live on a vegetarian diet. In Genesis, chapter 1, verses 29 and 30 God said to Adam, “I have provided all kinds of fruit and grain for you to eat. And I have given the green plants as food for everything else that breathes, including animals, both wild and tame, and birds. And so it was.” That’s from the Contemporary English Version. But, as time went by, all that changed. Animals eventually began to kill and eat other animals and after the worldwide flood God told Noah that certain animals were now suitable food for people. So, a world initially at peace became a world filled with violence and aggression. RD: Yes. It’s accurate to say that everything in the physical creation changed as a consequence of that first sin. But things also changed in the spiritual realm as well. In ways that we probably can’t fully comprehend that first sin probably made it possible for Satan and the demons to have increased access to this creation and especially to people. At a minimum that first sin certainly opened the door to increased warfare between humans and the demonic order. VK: Well, Genesis, chapter 3, verse 15 does record God speaking to Satan and saying, “Because you have done this, I will put enmity (open hostility) Between you and the woman, And between your seed (offspring) and her Seed; He shall [fatally] bruise your head, And you shall [only] bruise His heel.” So, God tells us that because of the first sin he was going to put hostility between people and Satan and his followers. There are many passages in the Bible such as Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 12 that tell us about the war. That verse says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this [present] darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) places.” Both of those verses are from the Amplified Bible. RD: Scholars debate when the angelic order, which includes the holy angels as well as the demons, was created. It seems highly likely that the angels were in existence before humans and we can be certain that Satan had already fallen before he encountered Eve. But note that Satan’s temptation to Eve came from the outside. Satan spoke to Eve using some kind of language. But later in the Bible we have clear descriptions of demons being able to “possess” people – meaning the demons now have the ability to interact with people’s minds and emotions rather than being limited to acting outside of them. Demons can now tempt people from the inside rather than just the outside. We don’t have any information about the mechanics of how that happened but that change certainly followed the first sin. VK: And, if nothing else, it seems quite likely that the pace of warfare between the holy angels and the demons likely escalated after the first sin. Certainly, the remainder of the Bible contains descriptions of confrontations within the angelic realm that are tied to actions occurring on earth. The book of Revelation is filled with descriptions of things occurring in heaven that are tied to events taking place on earth. And Daniel, chapter 10 contains a description of an angelic messenger that was sent to Daniel but was held up for 21 days by a demon who is described as “the prince of the kingdom of Persia.” Many scholars think that both the demons and the angels seem to have special spheres of authority for parts of earth. The archangel Michael seems to have, or at least had, some special responsibility for Israel. RD: So, that first sin didn’t just affect things on the earth. It also affected the heavenly realm. We can’t know what would have happened if Adam and Eve had resisted temptation but we can be very sure that profound changes occurred throughout earth and heaven because of the first choice to disobey God. Such is the seriousness of sin. Satan’s sin had apparently compromised the harmony of heaven before he came into the garden. Adam and Eve had a chance to avoid importing that conflict into the physical creation but they didn’t. They drew Satan’s spirit of rebellion into a cosmos that had been created pure and good. Sin compromised the peace and harmony of this earth just as it had previously compromised the perfect peace of heaven. We rarely think about sin’s tendrils but the plain fact is that sin is never just an isolated act without repercussions. As we will see in our next few episodes sin is a viral contagion that once it occurs sweeps multitudes to destruction. The first sin did that. All sin does that. That’s why we need to seek the Lord’s power to quench sin in our own lives. VK: So, the big idea that we wanted to introduced last time and continued today is that to properly understand the seriousness of sin we must look at where sin started. The first sin in the garden had a multitude of consequences, none of them good. The first consequence was the admission of death into a creation that had been very good. That was followed by curses on work and the land and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. And the effects of that first sin continued to ripple outward reaching even into the heavenly realm. Sin is serious. We must acknowledge sin as being serious if we ever want to be able to effectively combat it in our own lives. This sounds like a great time to pray. Today let’s listen to a prayer of adoration for the Creator God who originated a very good creation and one day will restore its perfection. The restored creation will then remain untainted by sin for all eternity and everyone who has accepted Christ as their Savior will live in that eternally blessed land. ---- PRAYER FOR ADORATION OF THE CREATOR (GWEN) VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!” (Opening Bible Quote from the Contemporary English Version) Genesis, Chapter 3, verse 17, Contemporary English Version

What is the noetic effect of sin? What is the effect of sin on the mind? (carm.org) The Noetic Effects of Sin | Reformed Bible Studies & Devotionals at Ligonier.org | Reformed Bible Studies & Devotionals at Ligonier.org