Defeat Through the First Man In Eden (continued)
Black Week - In Eden (continued)
"She gave also unto her husband." "Also." Sin is never single. It breeds like a guinea pig. It always seeks company. The sinner invariably invites another to sin with him.
"And he did eat." The man, who might not have listened to the voice of the serpent or responded to his direct appeal, did listen to the voice of his wife and responded to her appeal (Genesis 3:12-17). Oh! how necessary it is to have our Lord's discernment and to be able to detect the voice of satan through the human voice. Oh! what a difference it made to the whole human race, when satan spoke through Peter, trying to dissuade our Lord from the pathway of the Cross and He said unto Peter, "Get thee behind me, satan; thou art an offense unto me: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Oh! what a difference it would have made to you, to me, and to the whole human race, if Adam had said to Eve, "Get thee behind me, satan; for thou savorest not of the things that be of God"!
Could and should Adam have known that there was an alien voice speaking through Eve, even the voice of an enemy of God? Let the Word answer. It says distinctly that Adam was not deceived but that his sin was an out-and-out disobedience to the clearly stated command given directly to him, even before Eve's creation, and given primarily to him who was the federal head of the race in creation. "The Lord God commanded the man."
That God held Adam primarily responsible for obedience to that command is seen in His questioning of him as He brings him to trial. "Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou should not eat?" (Genesis 3:11). Later in pronouncing judgment upon Adam, God with crystal clearness placed the primary guilt upon Adam for disobedience to His clearly revealed Word. He had listen to another voice than God's.
Genesis 3:17: Unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it.
Both Adam and Even were guilty: both had sinned. But Adam's sin was the more culpable and awful in its consequences. Eve had been deceived and beguiled into sin; Adam had deliberately disobeyed, knowing full well the awful penalty for such disobedience. God leaves him without the slightest excuse in the world where He tells him that he listened to another voice than His. In so doing he had sinned both against the truth and the God of truth.
In the day that thou eatest therefor thou shalt surely die.
God is speaking to "the man" - and he did eat. And "In that day" he died. The very instant he sinned, Adam's union with God was broken. Sin is not merely personal: it is collective. The whole human race in creation was latent in Adam, its federal head. So in his sin and resultant death he took the whole race into sin and death.
Romans 5:12: 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.
Romans 5:19: For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners.
Through yielding to satanic temptation both Adam and Eve became sinners. They then gave birth to their first child and it was not Cain. It was sin - the sin of self-will: the will of satan pitted against the will of God in deliberate rebellion. Sin had now entered into that beautiful self God had made in His own image and put it into reverse. God then called it by another name, "flesh". Drop the "h" and spell it backward - "SELF." satan of hatred to God which could only express itself in disobedience and defiance; satan's spirit rather God's Spirit ruled in and over Adam and Eve and their progeny. The heinous, hateful character of this satanic spawn is described in perfectly intelligent language in God's Word.
Romans 8:7: Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.
This deadly principle of sin permeated every part of the life of Adam and Eve, and reigned over it. Sinful self now became the very center of their lives; self-love, self-pleasing, self-will, self-exaltation, ruled. Adam and Eve had been told by God to "be fruitful and multiply." Their posterity was to have been like them, "created in the image of God." But now they have both become sinners. The sinless human nature with which God had endowed them had become altogether sinful. So their children would inherit their nature and be made like them.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 21)
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