Latest / Reformed Thinking / Did God Actually Say? Speech, Sin, and Shame (Genesis 3:1–7)

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Did God Actually Say? Speech, Sin, and Shame (Genesis 3:1–7) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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Today we're doing a really crucial deep dive, looking right
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into Genesis chapter 3. Those first 7 verses.
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We're aiming to trace, well, the precise sequence, the tritic
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steps from that first seed of doubt right through to the ACT
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itself, and then the immediate, honestly terrifying fallout.
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That's exactly right. And we want to understand this
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whole event through that covenantal lens, you know,
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specifically the covenant of works.
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We really need to grasp why this single act led to such universal
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ruin for, well, all of humanity. And critically, how Adam's
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failure right away points towards God's ultimate sovereign
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remedy in Christ. This isn't just ancient history
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we're talking about, it's the legal bedrock for the entire
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story of redemption. OK, absolutely.
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So let's unpack this right from the start.
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I mean, if we're understand the breach, the fall, we have to get
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the context right. What was life like in Eden
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before everything went wrong? What did God actually establish
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in Genesis 2? Yeah, that initial context is,
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well, it's everything because it defines the nature of God's
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rule, His character, really. God's own speech, His words,
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they emphasize His generosity. First, the sources we're looking
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at point out His bounty is like this lavish grant, and only then
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comes the clear boundary. The key phrase is you may surely
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eat of every tree of the garden. Right.
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So the default was abundance. Permission was incredibly broad.
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The prohibition was extremely narrow.
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It wasn't a life primarily defined by don't, but by do, by
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enjoy. Precisely.
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God comes across immediately as this generous king, a covenant
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Lord. Adam didn't have to, you know,
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earn his keep or figure out morality from scratch.
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He received everything, provision and boundaries,
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directly from the king. And that one restriction, the
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tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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It was visible, singular. It provided a really simple,
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clear test of allegiance. We often forget that, don't we?
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That the test wasn't set up primarily for failure or
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punishment, it was actually designed for what?
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Confirmation maturity. Exactly.
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Obedience to that simple single boundary was the path to
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confirmed life, to maturity and fellowship with God.
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The test was straightforward, visible, totally manageable.
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True wisdom wasn't about grabbing the fruit and trying to
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invent your own morals. It was found in obedience, in
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recognizing that the fear of the Lord.
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That's the beginning of wisdom. If Adam had just patiently
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stayed within that command and he would have progressed, moved
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towards confirmed immortality. OK, and to really feel the
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weight of the disobedience that follows, we have to see this set
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up not just as a casual garden rule, but as well a binding
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legal reality, what we call the covenant of works.
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Yes, this is the legal foundation.
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It has to be. We read Genesis through this
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lens, the covenant of works, because it defines Adam's role.
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He wasn't just standing there for himself.
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He's acting as a public person, or what theology calls a federal
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head. God, in His condescension,
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entered into this specific legal arrangement, and Adam was bound
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to personal, complete, exact obedience.
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OK, let's pause there on Federal head.
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Yeah, because for listeners maybe encountering that term for
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the first time, why is it so critical that Adam acted with
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corporate weight? What does that really mean?
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It's absolutely essential because it's the only way to
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explain the universal reach of the consequences.
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If Adam had just acted privately as an individual only, well,
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then only he would have faced the penalty, only he would have
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died. But because he was the federal
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representative, the publicly designated head of the entire
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human race, his legal status and the consequences of his actions
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were imputed or reckoned to everyone he represented.
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His failure wasn't just personal, it was corporate.
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He was given the mandate, the responsibility to stand for all
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of us. And when he fell, legally
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speaking, we fell in him. That really does make the stakes
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just astronomical. And the sanction the penalty got
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attached was equally clear, wasn't it?
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It was an emphatic judicial warning.
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Oh. Absolutely certain.
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The Hebrew construction God uses for that warning is MO tamoot.
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It literally translates something like dying.
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You shall surely die, or maybe you shall certainly die.
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There's no ambiguity. It signals that any moral
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revolution bolt against that single command wasn't just a
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mistake or a minor slip up. It was high treason against the
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king, a capital offense. And the flip side, if he'd
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obeyed, what did the Tree of Life signify?
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It signified confirmed permanent life.
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That Tree of Life was the sign and the seal of the reward
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promised in the Covenant of Works.
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If Adam had persisted in obedience through that
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probationary period, he would have eaten from that tree and
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entered into a state of irreversible, eternal fellowship
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and blessedness, living under God's perfect government
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forever. Wow.
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OK, And before the tragedy strikes, Genesis 2.25 gives us
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this well, this beautiful snapshot of humanity's original
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state, naked and not ashamed. What did that signify?
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That state of innocence? It signaled perfect moral
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purity, unbroken fellowship with God and with each other.
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Shame. You know that agonizing
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awareness of being unfit, exposed wrong.
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It was completely absent. Why?
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Because guilt, the objective fact of having broken God's law,
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was absent. There was simply nothing to
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hide. Not from God, not from each
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other. Complete transparency.
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And there's that incredible linguistic hint, isn't there?
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The sources highlight the word play.
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The Hebrew word for naked idamim sounds almost identical to the
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word used immediately after to describe the serpent crafty
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erum. Yeah, that near homonym.
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It's like a literary flashing light for the reader, isn't it?
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It signals that innocence Erumim is about to collide head on with
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cunning Erum. This moral inversion is about to
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kick off, and it's initiated by the most cunning, the most
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crafty creature God had made. It's a warning the simple, pure,
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unhidden life is about to face an attack from sophisticated,
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twisted speech. That echo in the sound just
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forces you to pay attention. It flags the shift from like
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physical exposure without any moral shame to a kind of moral
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cunning that's going to lead to absolute devastation.
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Indeed, And the ruin begins significantly, not with physical
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force, but with words, with speech.
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The serpent, the Urim 1. He initiates the whole rupture
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with what's essentially A calculated verbal assault.
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A duel of words, as some put it. And his opening move is just so
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incredibly strategic. It's not a direct denial, not
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yet. It's a loaded paraphrase cracked
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in specifically to so suspicion about God's own nature.
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His goodness, he asks, did God actually say you shall not eat
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of any tree in the garden? It's brilliant, and its
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destructiveness? The tactic is clear.
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Seed suspicion about God's goodness before you even dispute
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the facts God had granted them. Remember every tree showing
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immense generosity. The serpent completely reframes
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that grant as a sweeping ban. He makes the garden suddenly
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feel restrictive, fenced in meager.
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He suddenly attacks the kindness of the king before he ever
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attacks the command itself. Sin takes root right there, the
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moment God's generous speech is doubted and deliberately
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reshaped. And the second the woman engages
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with that load in question, she's essentially drawn onto the
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Serpent's territory, playing his game.
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The sources really pinpoint the woman's reply, Genesis 3.2 to 3,
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as the first failure. It's described as a crucial,
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maybe small seeming retreat from God's exact wording and, more
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importantly, from settled trust. This is so critical to see.
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The physical act of eating the fruit comes later.
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The actual moral break, the beginning of the Fall, happens
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right here in her ear listening to the serpent, and then on her
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own tongue as she replies. Her answer shows 3 specific,
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quite subtle edits she makes to God's Word.
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And these edits show us the very mechanism by which the human
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mind starts to bend God's truth to make room for desire, for
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doubt. OK, let's really spend a moment
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on those edits, because they reveal how quickly the erosion
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of truth can happen. What was the first subtle change
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she made? First, she trimmed God's
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generosity. She failed to repeat the lavish
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sweep of God's permission that keyword every tree.
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She just reduces it to a plain sort of matter of fact
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allowance. In her response.
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We may eat of the fruit of the trees.
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By not echoing the full scope of God's kindness, she implicitly
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starts to accept the serpent's underlying premise that maybe
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God is primarily restrictive after all.
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So she diminishes God's character by sort of forgetting
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or downplaying his kindness. OK, what was the second edit?
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Second, she added a hedge. She introduces A restriction God
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himself had never commanded. She says they shouldn't eat it,
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neither shall you touch it. God never said anything about
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not touching the tree. This little addition quietly
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recasts God as being even more restrictive, more fussy than he
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actually is. It subtly justifies that feeling
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the serpent was trying to create, that feeling of being
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unfairly fenced in. That's a really fascinating
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human tendency, isn't it? When we start to resent a rule,
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we often make it seem even stricter in our own minds, which
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then further alienates us from the one who gave the rule.
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It's a fundamental move away from settled trust, isn't it?
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And the third edit? Well, this was perhaps the most
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fatal one. She softened the sanction.
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God's original warning was crystal clear.
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That emphatic certainty of death.
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MO Tamut. She dilutes this absolute
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certainty down to a mere possibility lest you die.
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Right changing, you shall surely die into effectively.
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Maybe you'll die if you eat it, or perhaps you'll die.
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She completely dulls the sharp edge of divine justice.
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She lessens the perceived seriousness of the penalty.
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Exactly. So the conclusion we have to
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draw here is, well, it's painful, but clear.
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The initial moral break, the genesis of sin, didn't happen
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when her hand reached for the fruit.
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Sin begins right here by bending God's words, first questioning
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their generosity, then editing their precision, then dulling
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their consequences, and by doing all that, ultimately questioning
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God's truthfulness and his very character.
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And once God's authority and his goodness had been compromised
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like that in the woman's mind, the Supan saw his opening.
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He moved from that subtle questioning to a direct frontal
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assault. He did.
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He moved to bold, outright contradiction.
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You will not surely die. He directly pits his own created
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voice against the Creator's explicit word.
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It's an assertion of absolute falsehood.
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But just denying God's word wasn't enough.
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He immediately coupled it with calculated slander, attributing
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a jealous, self-serving motive to the good King.
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What was the specific slander? What motive did the serpent
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claim God had for withholding that particular tree?
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He painted God as this jealous gatekeeper, someone deliberately
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withholding a higher status, a better existence from them.
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He claimed God knew that if they ate the fruit, their eyes would
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be open and they would become like God, knowing good and evil.
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That promise, like God knowing good and evil, that's the
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ultimate lure, isn't it? That's the hook.
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It really is, because the core lure here is autonomy.
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It's the desire for the right to define reality, morality, value
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completely apart from God's verdict.
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The temptation wasn't just for more knowledge in the abstract,
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it was the temptation to self rule, the desire to determine
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for themselves what counts as good and what counts as evil.
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That, the sources argue powerfully, is the desire for
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wisdom without submission. The woman was faced with two
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rival authorities declaring opposite things, and the
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authority of her creator was already weakened in her mind
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because of her own earlier edits to his word.
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So once God spoken word had been effectively dismissed in her
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ear, the scene shifts dramatically, doesn't it?
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It moves to the physical act. The sources described this as a
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crucial shift, replacing hearing with seeing that desire for
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independence, for autonomy. It took root and God's
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testimony, His spoken word was set aside in favor of a rival
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witness, which was simply the appearance of the tree itself.
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That is the pivotal switch. Adam and Eve were created to
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walk by faith, right? Relying on God's spoken word,
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trusting His character. But now cite what looked
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appealing. What seemed desirable based on
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personal assessment, began to dictate the will.
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It confirms that tragic truth. Grasping the forbidden thing
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inevitably follows. Doubting the Creator's word, she
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looked at the tree and she assessed to herself, completely
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usurping the prerogative that belongs only to God, the right
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to declare what is truly good. And this internal justification
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process that moved from the inward misalignment to the
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outward deed, it's spelled out very clearly in Genesis 3.6, and
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it gives us a kind of three-part framework for sinful judgement.
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What are the elements of that threefold sinful assessment?
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Yeah, the assessment focuses on her senses and her will,
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completely bypassing God's prior declaration.
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First appetite. She judged that the tree was
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good for food. This is the judgement based on
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physical desire, what the New Testament might link to the
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desires of the flesh. She saw a physical solution, a
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satisfying of appetite, related to a deeply spiritual question
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of obedience. Second, visual craving.
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She saw that it was a delight to the eyes.
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The Hebrew word used there for delight or pleasant is actually
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from the same root, often linked to coveting.
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It aligns perfectly with the desires of the eyes.
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The sheer appearance captivated her, regardless of God's
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command. So physical appetite and visual
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appeal became the new self chosen standard, completely
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displacing God's command as the measure of goodness.
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And the third part of her assessment directly targeted the
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serpent's promise of autonomy, of being like God.
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Exactly. The third part was self exalting
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ambition. The tree was to be desired, to
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make one wise. This was the intellectual, the
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spiritual component, the pursuit of wisdom, but on her own terms
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without submission to God's definition.
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This aligns perfectly with what John calls the pride of life,
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that desire to achieve status, knowledge or power through
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prohibited means by grasping rather than receiving, and this
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whole internal assessment. I decide what's good, I want
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what looks appealing, and I desire wisdom on my own terms.
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It resulted immediately in that rapid chain of verbs she saw,
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she took, she ate, she gave and he ate.
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The whole self justifying process moved with terrifying
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speed from thought to action. OK, now we absolutely have to
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address Adam's role here. The text specifically notes that
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Adam was simply with her. His presence throughout that
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entire verbal exchange, the whole temptation coupled with
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his subsequent eating, it exposes perhaps the most
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significant failure of covenantal headship and
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leadership. His silence is just deafening,
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isn't it? Adam was the one given the
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primary mandate to work and keep the garden, to guard it.
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And crucially, he was the one who received the command about
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the tree directly from God. He was right there during the
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entire temptation. He heard the duel of words, the
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slander against God. He heard the woman's subtle
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edits to God's command. Yet the text records him saying
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nothing. He didn't repeat God's command.
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He didn't challenge the serpent. He didn't step in to protect his
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wife or the integrity of the garden sanctuary.
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His silence was a complete abdication of his
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responsibility, his federal duty.
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And Scripture Leader clarifies, doesn't it, that Adam was not
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deceived in the same way the woman was, which implies his
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choice. His eating was perhaps an even
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more deliberate act of moral agency, even though the woman
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physically ate first. That's correct.
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Paul makes that distinction in First Timothy, too.
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It suggests Adam's compliance wasn't based on being tricked in
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the same way, but was a more conscious, willful consent to
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the treason that was unfolding. But really, regardless of who
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ate first physically, the consistent testimony of
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Scripture, particularly in places like Romans 5, is that it
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reckons the breach to Adam. And this brings us right back to
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that crucial legal framework, federal headship.
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Now, for some listening, that idea that the guilt of one
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representative person is legally applied, imputed to billions of
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descendants across history, can feel, well, counterintuitive,
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maybe even unfair. How does the Covenantal
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framework help us understand the justice or the rationale behind
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this corporate weight? Well, we have to remember that
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God established the terms of the covenant.
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Adam was placed in this position of public trust, representing
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the entire race that would come from him, and the consequences
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of failure were clearly stated beforehand.
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The fairness, if you like, rests on the representative principle
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itself. The entire human race was
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considered to be legally in Adam when he made that representative
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choice. It's a concept of solidarity.
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Think of it this way. Had Adam obeyed, had he passed
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the test and achieved confirmation and righteousness,
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we would have all benefited corporately.
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We would have inherited life and confirmed righteousness through
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Him. Since he disobeyed, we suffer
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corporately in condemnation and corruption through him.
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It's a system of representation established by God Himself.
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So Adam's failure wasn't just a personal cragidity with wide
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ripples. It was, in legal terms, covenant
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treason by the racist representative, and that act
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legally confirmed the ruin, the universal verdict of death for
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all humanity descended from it. Yes, it carried that corporate
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weight. Adam's single act of
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disobedience resulted in two immediate, devastating
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consequences for all his posterity.
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First, the imputation of his guilt, that is the legal status
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of condemnation passed down to us.
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And 2nd, the inheritance of a corrupted nature, that pervasive
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sinfulness that affects every part of our being, spreading
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through the entire human experience and the moment.
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The deed was done. The serpent's promise of God
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like elevation just evaporated. It was instantly contradicted by
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the stark reality of exposure. Their eyes were opened as
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promised, but they didn't gain divine discernment.
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They gained shame. They instantly knew that they
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were naked. Right.
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The knowledge they grasped for that experiential knowledge of
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good and evil apart from God's defining word, turned out to be
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a catastrophic self-awareness. Their very first response to
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their new autonomous moral state wasn't empowerment for
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elevation. It was a desperate, visceral,
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overwhelming need to hide. The sources explain this really
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helpfully, that this sudden awareness triggered 2 things
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almost simultaneously, objective guilt and subjective shame.
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How do those two concepts work together, or how are they
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distinct? Guilt is the objective reality.
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They had broken God's command. They stood legally condemned and
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had earned the judicial penalty. Death shame is the subjective
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experience, that agonizing internal sense of unfitness,
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exposure, and defilement that follows from the guilt.
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Their own bodies, which just moments before were symbols of
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their pure creatureliness and unity, immediately became
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reminders of ruptured fellowship.
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Their physical nakedness was now a horrifying symbol of their
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moral and spiritual exposure before a holy God, and even
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before each. Other and the rupture wasn't
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just internal between them and God, it immediately tore apart
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the very first human relationship the mayor spawned
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itself. Yes, the shift from intimacy to
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guardedness was instantaneous. The spouse who was created to be
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a helper, a partner in transparent fellowship,
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instantly became, in a sense, a witness from whom one must cover
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up. The trust was shattered.
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Fear entered the relationship, which becomes painfully obvious
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later when God confronts them and Adam immediately blames the
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woman and the woman blames the serpent.
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That original state of innocent intimacy was gone, fractured in
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that moment. And their immediate panicked
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response to this crushing shame was that hasty act of sewing fig
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leaves together to make coverings.
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The sources give this very specific, very significant
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theological label, the first religion of self covering.
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That's a crucial insight that act grabbing the nearest things
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to try and cover their exposure. It represents the first instance
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of self salvation by cobbling together a covering.
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It's the archetypal attempt to manage a profound judicial
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problem, guilt before God, with a cosmetic fix, a human
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technique. It reveals that spontaneous
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fallen human impulse. Instead of confessing and crying
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out for mercy, we try to repair the fallout with rituals of our
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own making. They couldn't bear their
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exposure, so they manufacture their own flimsy defense.
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And the theological assessment of that fig leaf covering is
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pretty stark. It was frail, temporary and
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utterly untested. Utterly inadequate, it offered
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absolutely 0 protection against the righteous judgement of God
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that was surely coming. Fig.
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Leaves, however cleverly stitched, cannot fix treason
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against the King. This act really captures
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humanity's default spiritual setting after the fall.
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Instead of acknowledging total failure and dependence on the
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Creator for a solution, we instinctively try to stitch away
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our guilt with our own efforts. Moral performance, religious
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rituals, good deeds, psychological coping mechanisms,
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you name it. It is the very beginning of
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every system of self justification ever devised by
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humankind. It's the immediate, practical
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outflow of the lie. They believe that they could be
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autonomous. They thought they could actually
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fix their own massive legal and moral problem.
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Exactly. They asserted their supposed
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self-sufficiency right there in the garden, scrambling to cover
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themselves before God even arrived on the scene to question
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them. They were trying to manage a
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problem of divine wrath and justice using the totally
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inadequate resources of their own fallen ingenuity and, well,
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garden foliage. It was completely hopeless
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against the certainty of divine judgement.
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Hashtag tag 5. The universal scope of ruin and
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the need for the last Adam. So this event in Eden, it
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clearly wasn't just some minor localized mishap.
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It was a catastrophe with immense legal, moral, and even
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cosmic scope. And that scope is entirely due
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to Adam's unique status as the federal head and also his role
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as Vice Queen ruling over creation.
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What does this Covenantal framework really tell us about
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the universality of the Breach? Well, precisely because Adam
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stood as the representative head, his failure didn't just
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affect him. It resulted in death and
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condemnation, spreading legally and organically to all his
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natural posterity, to all humanity.
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The ruin was total in its reach. We inherit 2 things from Adam
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because of this, the imputation of his guilt, that legal status
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of condemnation before God. And secondly, we inherit A
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corrupted nature, what theologians call original sin,
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that pervasive inability to perfectly obey God, which
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infects every faculty of the human soul, our minds, our
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wills, our affections. This is why everyone born since
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apart from Christ inherits a will that is in bondage to sin
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and in nature inclined toward evil.
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And that initial sanction. But to mood, you shall surely
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die. It wasn't just about physical
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death eventually, was it? It landed immediately in layers.
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Yes, absolutely there was immediate judicial death, that
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severing of intimate fellowship with God evidenced right away by
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their shame, their hiding, and ultimately their banishment from
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God's presence and from the tree of life.
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They were instantly, under God's judicial sentence, spiritually
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becoming dead in trespasses and sins, as Paul puts it.
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Then following from that came temporal physical death, the
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process of decay and eventual separation of soul and body, and
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ultimately, for those not covered by grace, eternal
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spiritual death, final separation from God.
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And because Adam also had this role as God's appointed ruler,
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his vice versa went over creation.
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The consequences actually extended beyond humanity itself.
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The sources talk about a cosmic impact.
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That's right, there was this ripple effect because the King's
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appointed representative rebelled.
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The dominion over which he ruled was also subjected to the
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consequences of that rebellion. God says the ground is cursed
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for his sake. Human labor, which was meant to
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be joyful dominion, became painful toil laced with
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futility. Thorns and thistles appeared.
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And as Paul explains in Romans 8, creation itself was subjected
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to futility and now groans under the weight of sins effects.
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Adam's sin caused a truly universal ruin that impacts not
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just our relationship with God and each other, but the very
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soil under our feet, the entire created order.
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This sweeping total failure makes it undeniably clear that
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no ordinary child of Adam, born into his federal condemnation
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and inheriting this corruption, possesses the power within
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themselves to restore what was lost, to fix the breach.
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And this sets up the absolute necessity of the other great
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figure in this redemptive narrative, the last Adam.
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Exactly that legal framework, the Covenant of Works, is really
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the only way the remedy makes complete sense.
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Because Adam failed as the first federal head, humanity needed a
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new federal head, a second Adam. Just as death and condemnation
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spread legally and universally through the disobedience of the
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one representative, Adam, so righteousness in life must come
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through the obedience of another representative who is Christ.
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As the Apostle Paul puts it so powerfully in Romans 5, through
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the obedience of the one man, Jesus Christ, the many will be
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made righteous. So what's the critical contrast
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between the first Adam and Garden and the last Adam?
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Christ, particularly in how they dealt with that core issue of
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autonomy versus obedience, defining good and evil.
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Oh, the contrast is absolutely everything.
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Adam, the first federal, had heard a rival word challenging
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God. He doubted God's goodness and
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truthfulness, and then he grasped at status.
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He sees what was forbidden autonomy, the right to define
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good and evil for himself. Christ, the last Adam, faced an
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even more intense temptation by the same tempter in the
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wilderness. He too was tempted with
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autonomy, with self rule, with bypassing the Father's will.
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But he resisted every lore, and he answered every single
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temptation, not with his own reasoning, but with God's
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written Word. It is written he deliberately
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refused to seize any status or authority that the Father had
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not explicitly given him. He provided the perfect active
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obedience throughout his entire life that the first Adam failed
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to deliver in that one simple test.
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And that failure required not just perfect lived obedience,
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but also a substitutionary death, didn't it?
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Absolutely the last Adam had to provide 2 crucial things to
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reverse the curse. First, what we call His active
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obedience, the perfect fulfillment of the law's
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demands, the positive righteousness required by the
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covenant of works which Adam failed to achieve.
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Christ earned righteousness for his people.
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And 2nd, His passive obedience, His willingly suffering and
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enduring the penalty for sin, the curse of the covenant
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motamut death itself in the place of his people on the
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cross. And just finally, let's loop
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back to the garden one last time.
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To that immediate aftermath. We see the theology of God's
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covering. God himself intervenes to
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replace their pathetic fig leaves.
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This gives us the very first powerful hint of the Covenant of
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Grace, doesn't it? It's perhaps the most stunningly
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gracious action in the entire chapter.
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Right after the fall, God did not accept their self-made
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solution, their fig leaves. He himself takes the initiative.
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He replaced their flimsy human cobbled coverings with garments
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of skins. This immediately signals several
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crucial things. The only covering that can truly
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suffice before God's holiness must be God-given, and it's
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strongly hints at a costly provision.
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Garments of skins, I mean. That implies an animal had to
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die to provide that covering. This is substitution
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foreshadowed right at the dawn of history, isn't?
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It it's the very first sacrificial death recorded in
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Scripture, required to cover human sin and shame.
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The covering they received from God was durable.
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It was sufficient, unlike the fig leaves, and it required a
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death. A life had to be given in their
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place to cover their nakedness, their guilt and shame.
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This provision is utterly different in kind from their own
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frail, temporary stitching. It powerfully anticipates the
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entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament and ultimately
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points to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
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So the ultimate resolution to the problem of the fig leaves,
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the problem of human self covering, is found entirely in
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Christ. He provides the true and lasting
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garments of salvation, completely replacing the filthy
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rags of our own self-righteous attempts.
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Yes, the prophets pick up this theme repeatedly.
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Think of Zechariah 3 where God clothes the high priest Joshua,
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who is standing in filthy garments with pure, clean
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vestments. The fig leaf representing all
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our attempts at moral achievement or self
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justification must give way to the heavenly attire, the white
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robes mentioned in Revelation, which signify the perfect
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imputed righteousness supplied by God Himself solely through
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Christ's finished work. The consistent pattern
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throughout the Bible is clear, true blessing.
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Acceptance with God comes only to the one whose sin is covered
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not by their own efforts, but by God's gracious provision.
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Well, this has been a really necessary, I think and detailed
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look at the structure of the anatomy of the fallen.
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Genesis 3. We've clearly seen how sin
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begins not with the hand, but in the ear, where God's generous,
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clear, authoritative word is first doubted, then subtly
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edited and finally rejected outright, culminating in that
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disastrous choice for autonomy. And the practical application,
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the warning, remains just as relevant for us today.
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The constant danger of modern fig leaf strategies, Humanity's
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fallen default setting, hasn't changed.
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We still instinctively try to manage our guilt and shame by
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technique, by moral achievement, by therapy, by religion, always
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trying to stitch away a deep judicial problem with our own
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inadequate handiwork. So perhaps we can leave you, our
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listener, with this provocative thought to consider rooted in
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that parallel between the two atoms, the two federal heads.
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The first Adam tragically sought status and wisdom by grasping at
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what was forbidden autonomy, the right to self rule apart from
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God. The last Adam, Jesus Christ,
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gained the right to rule all things precisely by clinging
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entirely to God's revealed written word.
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Perfect obedience. So if the path to true wisdom
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and lasting life in Eden was actually quite simple, trust
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God's clear word and wait patiently on him.
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How often do we today find ourselves seeking a higher
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status or deeper insight or greater control by subtly
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questioning or editing or even outright ignoring what God has
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already plainly spoken to us in the Scriptures?