Latest / Reformed Thinking / From Word to Wound: Sin’s Spread, Exile, and the Seed of Promise (Genesis 3:1–4:12)

Transcript

From Word to Wound: Sin’s Spread, Exile, and the Seed of Promise (Genesis 3:1–4:12) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. I'm really glad you're here with
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  us today. We're taking a bit of a
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  different approach than usual. Instead of jumping between a
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  dozen different headlines, we are opening a single very thick
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  file. Yeah, we're going deep on one
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  thing. We are.
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  We're looking at a stack of commentaries, systematic
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  theologies, all these historical documents that center on the
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  Protestant Reformed tradition. So we're really looking at the
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  world through the lens of the Westminster Confession.
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  And it is a very distinct way of viewing the world.
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  It provides A framework that's it's robust and frankly, it's
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  stark in its honesty about the human condition.
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  That's exactly where we're going.
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  We are looking at what is. I mean, it's arguably the most
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  famous narrative in the history of literature, but it's also
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  probably the most misunderstood. That's for sure.
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  We're going back to the beginning.
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  We're going to analyze the events of Genesis chapter 3,
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  verse one, all the way through to chapter 4, verse 12.
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  And this is the narrative that defines everything.
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  I mean, it is the transition point.
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  We're moving from what theologians call the
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  dispensation of innocence that, you know, that brief period
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  where creation was very good, where the morning stars sing
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  together, where there was no death.
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  And we're moving into the world. We actually recognize a world of
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  shame and blood. I think the biggest hurdle for a
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  lot of people, and even people who grew up in church, is just
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  getting past the sort of storybook nature of this.
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  You hear Genesis 3 and you think of a cartoon snake and apple,
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  maybe a Flammograph lesson from Sunday school.
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  But the whole premise of our deep dive today is that this is
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  not a fable. Oh.
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  Far from it. This is a divine diagnosis.
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  That's the central idea we have to hold onto here.
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  Diagnosis. I like that.
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  Yeah, this text is the historical record of human It
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  explains why the world is broken.
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  It explains why relationships fail, why entropy exists, why
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  death is the universal constant. If you view it as just a myth,
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  you miss the gravity of the problem.
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  And if you miss the problem. You'll never understand the
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  solution. It's impossible.
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  So a diagnosis of the human condition.
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  OK, before we get into the, you know, the play by play of the
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  text, we need to set the theological stakes.
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  Yes, in the reformed tradition, there's this concept that shows
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  up over and over in our sources. It's called the Covenant of
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  Works. This is absolutely essential.
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  The covenant of works is the arrangement God made with Adam
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  in the garden. And to understand it, you have
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  to understand who Adam was. He wasn't just a private
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  individual walking around, you know, looking at trees.
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  He's a public figure. A very public figure, he was
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  what we call a federal head. OK, let's unpack that term.
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  Federal head, it sounds, I don't know, it sounds political.
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  It is political in a sense. It means he was the
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  representative for the entire human race.
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  Think of think of a diplomat representing a nation or a king
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  acting on behalf of his people. What the head does, the body is
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  responsible for. Adam stood in that garden as the
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  legal representative of every single human being who would
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  ever live. So the deal, the covenant was
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  strictly defined then? It was.
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  It was basically a probation period.
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  The terms were obedience or death.
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  Simple as that. Simple as that.
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  If Adam obeyed God's one command about the tree, he would have
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  secured life eternal, confirmed life not just for himself, but
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  for all of us. He would have passed the test.
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  Humanity would have been confirmed in righteousness.
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  But if he rebelled? If he rebelled, the penalty was
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  death and because he was our head, our representative, that
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  penalty would apply to all of us.
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  In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
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  That's the one. The stakes could not have been
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  higher. Adam was, I mean, he was holding
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  the destiny of the cosmos in his hands.
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  OK, so that's the backdrop. We've got a sanctuary, a
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  prohibition of federal head on probation.
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  And then the dissent begins. We look at Genesis 3 verses one
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  through 5. The antagonist enters the scene.
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  The text calls him the Nakash. The soap it, Yeah, And the
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  description here is very, very specific.
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  The text says he was more crafty than any other beast of the
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  field. That word crafty is interesting.
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  It is in Hebrew. It's Aramim, and it implies, you
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  know, intelligence, subtlety, a certain slickness.
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  It really changes the mental image, doesn't it?
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  We often picture a monster, or, you know, a dragon or some red
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  figure with a pitchfork. Right.
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  But the texts presents him as a skeptic.
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  He is a skeptic. He doesn't come in with a sword.
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  He doesn't come in with this frontal assault, yelling I'm
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  here to destroy you. He comes in with a conversation.
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  He. Poses as a theologian.
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  He does. He wants to discuss the Word of
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  God. And his opening line is so
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  devastatingly simple. Did God actually say?
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  And that is the nature of the entire attack.
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  It is an assault on Revelation itself.
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  Notice what he doesn't do. He doesn't start with atheism.
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  He doesn't say there is no God. That would.
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  Have been too obvious. Way too obvious, too easy to
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  reject. Instead, he acknowledges God,
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  but he questions God's authority.
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  He questions God's clarity. Did God actually say it?
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  Just it plants that seed of doubt.
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  It suggests that God's Word is subject to our review.
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  It suggests that, well, perhaps we misunderstood could, or
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  perhaps God wasn't clear, or maybe, just maybe, God didn't
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  really mean what he said. And that's the root of all
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  theological drift, isn't it? It is whether you're looking at
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  the liberalism of the 19th century that tried to strip the
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  Bible of the supernatural or modern neo orthodoxy, or even
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  just the average person today who says well I know the Bible
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  says that, but I feel like it all goes back to Genesis 3.1.
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  It's placing human reason above divine revelation.
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  That's it in a nutshell. The moment you judge the word,
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  rather than letting the word judge you, you have stepped
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  right into the serpent's logic. And Eve engages him.
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  That seems to be the first big mistake.
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  She enters into the negotiation. She does.
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  She should have just refused the premise entirely.
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  She should have gone to Adam. She should have called on God.
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  But no, instead she debates. And in her response you can see
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  that the doubt has already started to work on her.
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  She says we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but
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  God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in
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  the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.
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  OK, I'm looking at the command back in chapter 2.
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  God never said, neither shall you touch it.
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  He never did, she added to the word.
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  Now you might think, oh, she was just being extra careful.
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  You know I won't even touch it just to be safe, right?
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  Building a fence around the wall.
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  Exactly. But by adding to God's command,
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  she actually made God out to be harsher than He really was.
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  She diluted the specific authority of what God had said
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  by mixing it with her own ideas. And once the word is loose, the
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  serpent strikes. He drops the question mark and
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  goes for the direct lie. You will not surely die.
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  There it is, the promise of impunity.
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  The serpent tells her there are no consequences for sin.
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  God attached a sanction death. The serpent says Nope, that's
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  not true. You can disobey and you'll be
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  just fine. He's attacking the very
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  character of God. He is.
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  He's calling the creator a liar. And then he offers the bait.
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  And this is the part that I mean, it really resonates with
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  the modern world, he says. For God knows that when you eat
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  of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,
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  knowing good and evil. And this is the core of the
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  temptation, autonomy, the desire to be like.
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  God. But hold on, what?
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  They already like God? I mean they were made as image
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  bearers. They were.
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  That's a great point. But the serpent was offering a
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  very specific kind of likeness. He wasn't offering holiness.
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  He was offering the position of the.
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  Arbiter. The arbiter.
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  You see, under the covenant of works, God defined good and
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  evil. Good was obedience to his
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  command. Evil was disobedience.
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  God drew the lines. Period.
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  The serpent offered them the chance to draw the lines
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  themselves. That's it exactly.
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  You will be like God, knowing good and evil.
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  In this context, knowing means determining.
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  It means having legislative authority.
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  The serpent was basically saying why let God decide what's right
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  and wrong for you? You decide.
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  You be the boss. You define your own reality.
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  That is the original idolatry. It's just self worship.
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  It is. It's the desire for wisdom
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  without obedience, the desire to be the center of your own
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  universe. And that bait?
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  Well, it was too tasty to resist.
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  So the trap is set, and in Genesis 3 verses 6 and seven,
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  the trap is sprung the fall. The text says so.
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  When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it
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  was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired
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  to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
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  Look at that slow motion progression there.
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  It's chilling, seen, desired, taken, eaten.
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  Starts with the senses. It does.
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  She looks. She evaluates the fruit based on
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  her own judgment. It looks good.
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  It seems desirable. She allows her own sense
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  perception to overrule the clear spoken command of God.
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  So the inward verdict changed before the outward action ever
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  happened. Absolutely.
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  The heart fell first. She decided that her assessment
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  of reality was more reliable than God's Word.
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  And then she takes it. But here's the detail that the
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  reformed sources just do. They really highlight this, and
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  it changes how you see the entire scene.
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  The text says she gave some to her husband who was with her.
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  Yes, the Hebrew preposition. There is Emma with her.
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  This just destroys the common idea that Adam was off on the
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  other side of the garden, totally unaware.
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  He wasn't absent. He was standing right there.
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  This is the passive Adam we read so much about.
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  It's a devastating detail. I mean, just remember his role.
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  He is the federal head. He is the guardian of the
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  sanctuary. His job was to keep the garden.
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  That Hebrew word shamar, it means to guard, to protect.
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  And because century. Exactly when a liar enters the
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  sanctuary and starts contradicting God, Adam's duty,
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  his one job at that moment, was to silence the intruder.
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  He should have stepped in. He should have said stop.
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  That is a lie. God spoke to us something,
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  anything. But he remained silent.
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  He just watched the whole conversation.
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  He listened to the heresy, he watched his wife take the fruit,
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  and he did nothing. Why?
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  I mean, why? Because he had already abdicated
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  his role. He chose the creature over the
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  creator. He valued his connection to Eve,
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  or maybe just the path of least resistance, more than his
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  fidelity to God. His passivity was high treason.
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  He stood by and let death enter the world.
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  He did, and when she handed him the fruit he ate.
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  No argument, no hesitation recorded.
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  He just joined the rebellion. And the result was immediate.
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  The serpent promised they'd be like God, but verse 7 says then
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  the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they are naked.
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  They didn't get enlightenment, they got shame.
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  The promise was a total fraud. Complete fraud.
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  They realized they had lost something.
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  Theologians talk about the loss of original righteousness.
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  They were stripped of the glory of God, and suddenly their
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  physical nakedness became a symbol of their spiritual
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  exposure. They felt vulnerable.
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  They felt wrong. And their reaction to that shame
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  is so telling. They sew fig leaves together.
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  This is the invention of religion.
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  This is the invention of moralism.
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  Think about what a fig leaf is. It's a human attempt to cover a
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  spiritual problem with a physical resource.
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  They realized they were naked before God and they tried to fix
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  it with vegetation with something they made.
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  They tried to cover themselves. And that represents the futility
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  of all self salvation. Man tries to manage his own
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  shame and we still do this. We don't use fig leaves, we use
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  other things. Our careers.
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  Our career achievements, our social status, our political
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  activism, our quote UN quote good deeds.
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  We try to stitch together a covering that will make us feel
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  acceptable. But fig leaves wither.
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  They don't last. They're totally inadequate.
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  You cannot cover a spiritual wound with human works, but that
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  is the first instinct of the fallen heart.
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  Hide and cover. And that leads us right into the
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  next section, Genesis 3, verses 8 through 19, the interrogation.
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  They're hiding in the bushes, wearing their little leaf
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  aprons, and they hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the
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  garden. Notice that shift in atmosphere
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  before the fall. The sound of God walking in the
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  garden would have been the highlight of their day.
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  It meant communion. Fellowship.
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  Joy. Now it is terror.
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  They hide. Sin converts the presence of God
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  from a joy into a threat. They try to hide among the
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  trees. I mean, think about that.
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  They're trying to use the creation to hide from the
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  Creator. And God calls out, Where are
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  you? Now we have to be so clear here.
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  God is not asking for information.
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  He's on mission. He knew exactly which Bush they
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  were behind. He knew what was in their
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  stomachs. This was not a question of
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  ignorance. It was a judicial summons.
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  He's calling them to court. He's drawing them out into the
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  light. He is giving them a chance to
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  confess. But if they don't confess, do
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  they they blame God? Asked Adam.
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  Have you eaten of the tree? And Adam's response is just
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  incredible, he says. The woman who you gave to be
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  with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate.
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  He blames Eve and he subtly blames God, the woman you gave
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  me, right? He's basically saying, God, if
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  you hadn't given me this faulty helper, I wouldn't be in this
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  mess. This is actually your fault.
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  It's. The fracture of community right
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  there. Sin just destroys relationships.
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  Instantly. And then God turns to Eve and
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  she does the same thing. She blames the serpent.
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  The serpent deceived me and I ate.
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  Everyone's a victim, no one's a perpetrator.
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  Nobody wants to take responsibility.
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  It's classic. Now I want to talk about the
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  structure of the judgement here. In our prep, you mentioned a
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  chiasm that sounds a little technical, but it seems really
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  important for understanding how God deals with this whole man.
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  Oh, it's. Very important.
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  A chiasm is a literary structure.
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  You can think of it like AV shape.
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  The narrative goes down one side and then comes up the other in
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  reverse order. So in the interrogation, God
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  questions the man first, then the woman, then the serpent.
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  ABC But when he pronounces judgment, he reverses the order
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  completely. So he judges the serpent first.
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  Right, judgment, order, serpent, then woman, then man, CBA.
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  And the reason this matters is that in Hebrew literature, the
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  center of the chiasm is always the focal point.
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  It's the main idea. So the judgment on the serpent
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  is the central point of the whole decree.
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  Exactly. And right in the middle of that
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  judgment on the serpent is arguably the most significant
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  verse in the entire Old Testament.
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  Genesis 3.15. The Protoevangelium.
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  The first gospel. Before any punishment is given
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  to man, grace is announced. Let's read it, God says to the
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  serpent. I will put enmity between you
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  and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.
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  He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
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  This is the hinge of history. I mean, it really is.
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  First, notice that God establishes enmity.
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  God declares war. Which is an act of grace.
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  It's a profound act of grace, and if God hadn't put enmity
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  between the serpent and the woman, we would have remained
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  friends with the devil. We would have been comfortable
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  in our slavery to sin. So God intervenes to create a
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  conflict. And he promises a seed and
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  offspring. The Hebrew word is zura.
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  Now this can refer to a collective group like
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  descendants, but the grammar here is so specific it uses a
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  singular masculine pronoun who, which means he.
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  He shall bruise your head. He So this isn't just a general
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  statement that humans and snakes won't get along.
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  This is a promise of a specific person, a Messiah, A Messiah,
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  the seed of the women, a champion who will come to fight
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  the serpent on behalf of humanity.
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  And the conflict is described in these really physical terms, a
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  bruised heel versus a crushed head.
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  And that's a picture of the cross and the resurrection.
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  The serpent will bruise the heel of the seed.
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  Now a bruised heel is a painful wound.
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  It bleeds. It hinders walking.
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  This points directly to the suffering of Christ, the nails,
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  the thorns, the death on the cross.
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  But a bruised heel isn't fatal. Not in the ultimate sense, but a
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  crushed head. That's the end.
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  That's the end. To crush the head of the serpent
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  is to destroy its authority and its life, and that is the
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  victory of the resurrection. So right here, in the darkest
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  moment of human history, before God even speaks a word of
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  punishment to Adam or Eve, he preaches the gospel.
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  He promises that he will handle the serpent.
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  That is incredible grace, but there are still consequences for
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  the human. Oh yes, the sentences are handed
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  down for the woman. The curse touches her specific
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  sphere of life, childbearing and her relationships.
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  I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing and regarding
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  marriage. Your desire shall be contrary to
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  your husband, but he shall rule over you.
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  That sounds like conflict it. Is the text is describing the
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  battle of the sexes. This isn't a prescription for
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  how marriage should be. It's a description of how sin
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  corrupts marriage. It becomes a power struggle.
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  The woman desires to master the man, and the man responds, often
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  with a harsh, unloving rule. The harmony is broken.
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  And for the man? The ground is cursed because of
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  you. Adam was made to have Dominion,
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  to work the ground and make it fruitful.
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  Now the ground fights back. Thorns and thistles.
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  Thorns and thistles. It represents the frustration of
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  all human labor. We work, we sweat that things
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  break. Entropy takes over.
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  Our projects fail. And the ultimate sentence for
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  both of them is death. Dust you are, and to dust you
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  shall return. The serpent said you will not
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  surely die. God has the final word, you
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  will. The wages of sin is death.
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  The body will fail, it will break down and it will return to
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  the earth. It's a heavy, heavy verdict.
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  But then we move to Genesis 3 verses 2024, and we see
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  something the theologians call mercy in exile.
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  Yeah, this is where we see the doctrine of imputation and
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  atonement in its its seed form. Adam calls his wife Eve, which
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  means mother of all living. That's a huge act of faith.
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  He believes the promise. He believes there will be a
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  future, a seed, and then verse 21 and the Lord God made for
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  Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
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  You have to contrast that with the fig leaves.
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  Oh, it's the whole difference between works and grace.
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  The fig leaves were man's pathetic attempt to cover
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  himself. They were totally inadequate.
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  God's provision is a garment of skins.
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  Now you have to think about this practically.
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  To get skins you have to have a death.
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  And the animal had to die. Blood had to be shed.
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  An innocent creature had to die to provide a covering for the
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  guilty. God is teaching them a lesson
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  that will run through the rest of the Bible.
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  Sin cannot just be plucked away or covered with vegetation.
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  It requires a life for a life. It points directly to the
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  righteousness of Christ being imputed to us.
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  That's it exactly. We need to be clothed in His
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  righteousness because our own works are just fig leaves.
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  God provides the covering we could never provide for
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  ourselves. Then comes the expulsion.
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  They're kicked out of the garden.
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  Cod bars the way to the tree of life.
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  He places the cherubim, these angelic guardians, and a flaming
• 18:38
  sword to guard the way. Now on the surface this looks
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  like pure punishment, and it is. They are exiled from the
• 18:45
  sanctuary, but we have to see this as a severe mercy.
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  How is exile a mercy? That seems like a contradiction.
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  Well, imagine if they had eaten from the Tree of Life in their
• 18:55
  fallen state. They would have lived forever.
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  They would have lived forever as sinners.
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  They would have been immortal in their corruption.
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  No death, which means no possibility of resurrection.
• 19:04
  No new creation they would have been solidified in.
• 19:07
  They're evil, much like the fallen angels are.
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  It would have been an eternal hell on earth.
• 19:12
  Wow, so by kicking them out, God was preventing that nightmare
• 19:15
  scenario? He was preserving them for a
• 19:17
  future redemption. Death, in a very strange way,
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  becomes the only way out of the curse.
• 19:23
  The way to the tree of life is barred by a sword, until the day
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  that that sword falls on the shepherd.
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  That is something to think about.
• 19:30
  So the gate is shut, the sword is spinning, and we move from
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  the garden to the field. Genesis 4 verses 1 to 8 and we
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  see that this seed conflict God promised isn't just a metaphor,
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  it erupts immediately. It does.
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  We have the first two sons, Cain and Abel, and right away we see
• 19:48
  the divergent of humanity, the 2 seeds.
• 19:52
  Eve gives birth to Cain and says I have gotten a man with the
• 19:55
  help of the Lord. She seems to think he's the one.
• 19:57
  She thinks he's the snake crusher.
• 19:59
  She probably thought this is him.
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  The promise is fulfilled already.
• 20:03
  But he proves to be of the evil 1, as John tells us later, and
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  this distinction becomes crystal clear in their worship.
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  This is the first recorded worship service in history.
• 20:12
  It's a liturgy. They come to bring offerings to
• 20:14
  God. Let's talk about those offerings
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  because this gets misinterpreted a lot.
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  Cain brings the fruit of the ground.
• 20:20
  Abel brings the first born of his flock, now in London School.
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  The story is often that God just like meat better.
• 20:28
  Or maybe Kane's fruit was rotten.
• 20:29
  Right, the rotten fruit theory. But the text doesn't say the
• 20:32
  fruit was rotten. So what's the real issue here?
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  The issue is the theology of the offering.
• 20:37
  Look at what Kane brought. Fruit of the ground.
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  What did God just said about the ground back in chapter 3?
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  It's. Cursed.
• 20:43
  It is cursed. Cain is bringing the product of
• 20:46
  his own toil from the very earth that God has cursed because of
• 20:50
  sin. It's a bloodless offering.
• 20:52
  It's an offering of works. It's an offering of works.
• 20:54
  Look at what I grew. Look God at what I did.
• 20:57
  It represents the way of Cain, which is religion without
• 21:00
  atonement. It's the human effort to impress
• 21:04
  God with our culture, our achievements, our produce.
• 21:07
  And Abel? Abel brings the first born of
• 21:09
  the flock. There is blood involved.
• 21:11
  The book of Hebrews tells us Abel offered his sacrifice by
• 21:14
  faith. He looked back at what God did
• 21:17
  with the skins in the garden. He recognized that he was a
• 21:20
  Sinner. He recognized the ground was
• 21:22
  cursed. And he knew that to approach a
• 21:24
  holy God, he needed a substitute.
• 21:26
  He needed a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice.
• 21:29
  He didn't rely on his own labor from the cursed ground, He
• 21:32
  relied on the death of an innocent substitute.
• 21:35
  And that is why God had regard for him and His offering.
• 21:38
  It was never about dietary preference.
• 21:40
  It was about faith versus works. So God accepts Abel and rejects
• 21:45
  Cain, and Cain does not take it well.
• 21:47
  No, he does not. Cain was very angry and his face
• 21:50
  fell. And this is the classic reaction
• 21:53
  of the moralist, the self-righteous person.
• 21:55
  When you tell them that their good works aren't enough to save
• 21:57
  them, they don't get humble, they get angry.
• 22:00
  They feel insulted. Deeply insulted.
• 22:02
  What do you mean my fruit isn't good enough?
• 22:04
  And God gives him a warning. A very scary warning.
• 22:07
  It's terrifying, he says. Sin is crouching at the door.
• 22:11
  The Hebrew word there is Rovets and implies a beast, a predator,
• 22:15
  like a lion in the grass waiting to pounce.
• 22:18
  God is personifying sin. He's telling Cain you are
• 22:21
  flirting with something that wants to eat you alive.
• 22:24
  And he says it's desirous for you, but you must rule over it.
• 22:27
  And this brings up the whole issue of total depravity.
• 22:30
  God gives the command rule over it.
• 22:32
  But can Cain do it? Apparently not.
• 22:34
  His will has fallen. He is already enslaved by his
• 22:37
  anger and his envy. The law commands with the fallen
• 22:40
  Will cannot perform, so Cain is mastered by the beast.
• 22:43
  He completely ignores the warning.
• 22:46
  And that leads directly to the first murder, Genesis 4 verses 8
• 22:49
  through 12. Fratricide, brother killing
• 22:52
  brother. Just think about the speed of
• 22:54
  this descent we went from Did God actually say in the garden
• 22:58
  to a man bashing his brother's head in with our rock, all
• 23:02
  within one generation. Why did he kill him?
• 23:04
  What was the motive? The Bible is clear on this.
• 23:07
  John tells us it was because his own deeds were evil and his
• 23:10
  brothers were righteous. The righteous act as a mirror to
• 23:12
  the wicked. Abel's faith exposed Cain's lack
• 23:16
  of faith. His acceptance by God infuriated
• 23:19
  Cain, and rather than repenting, Cain decided to eliminate the
• 23:22
  witness. If I can't be acceptable to God,
• 23:25
  I will destroy the one who is. And the murder happens in the
• 23:27
  field the. Field, the place of work, the
• 23:29
  place of the curse. It becomes the first arena of
• 23:32
  the seed conflict. And God intervenes again.
• 23:35
  Saint Patrick, where is Abel, your brother?
• 23:37
  Compare that question to Where are you?
• 23:39
  Back in chapter 3. God is consistent.
• 23:42
  He asks these questions to elicit confession.
• 23:45
  But look at Cain's answer compared to Adam's.
• 23:48
  Adam was afraid and he hid. Cain is insolent.
• 23:51
  Oh completely, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?
• 23:55
  It's sarcastic. It's unbelievably arrogant.
• 23:57
  He lies to God's face. And then he mocks the very idea
• 24:01
  of responsibility for his brother.
• 24:03
  Am I his babysitter? It just shows the hardening of
• 24:05
  the heart. Adam was weak.
• 24:07
  Cain is wicked. But there is a witness.
• 24:09
  God says there's a witness. The voice of your brother's
• 24:12
  blood is crying to me from the ground.
• 24:14
  This is such a terrifying image. Blood has a voice.
• 24:17
  Injustice has a voice. God is not deaf to the cries of
• 24:20
  the innocent, and the ground which to absorb the blood now
• 24:24
  becomes a witness against. Cain and the curse falls on him.
• 24:27
  Yes, he's cursed from the ground.
• 24:28
  It will no longer yield its strength to him.
• 24:30
  He was a farmer, a tiller of the ground, and God basically breaks
• 24:34
  his plow. He takes away his ability to
• 24:35
  succeed in his vocation, and he is sentenced to be a fugitive
• 24:39
  and a wanderer. Displacement, exile upon exile.
• 24:41
  So we've walked from the garden to the field, from the fruit to
• 24:45
  the murder. It's a dark, dark arc, but it
• 24:48
  establishes the reality of the rest of the Bible.
• 24:50
  There are two seeds. There's the seed of the serpent.
• 24:53
  That's the line of rebellion, of works righteousness, of hatred
• 24:56
  for the truth. And there's the seed of the
• 24:58
  woman. That's the line of election, of
• 25:00
  faith, of looking for a blood sacrifice.
• 25:03
  And this way of Cain, this idea of just offering God our own
• 25:06
  works, our own fruit, it leads to wandering.
• 25:09
  It leads to spiritual homelessness.
• 25:10
  It has to, because you can never do enough.
• 25:12
  You can never grow enough fruit to cover your sin.
• 25:15
  It's completely futile. So as we wrap up this deep dive,
• 25:19
  what is the take away for you, the listener?
• 25:22
  We've talked about some heavy theology, federal headship,
• 25:25
  total depravity, the covenant of works.
• 25:27
  But where does this land for us today?
• 25:29
  It lands on the question, which seed are you?
• 25:31
  I mean, are you still sowing fig leaves?
• 25:33
  Are you still trying to hide from God in the bushes of your
• 25:36
  own morality, your own achievements?
• 25:38
  Are you, like Cain, angry that God doesn't accept your best
• 25:41
  efforts? Because the only alternative is
• 25:44
  the second Adam. That's the only hope.
• 25:46
  The first Adam failed. He was passive, He let sin in.
• 25:50
  But the second Adam, Jesus Christ, succeeded.
• 25:53
  He entered the wilderness. He resisted the tempter.
• 25:56
  He didn't say. Did God say?
• 25:57
  He said it is written, He obeyed perfectly where Adam failed
• 26:01
  completely. And we have to look at the
• 26:02
  blood. It all comes back to that.
• 26:04
  It does. And that's the final thought.
• 26:05
  I want to leave everyone with the contrast between the blood
• 26:08
  of Abel and the blood of Christ. OK?
• 26:10
  The text says. Abel's blood cried out.
• 26:13
  It cried for justice. It cried for vengeance.
• 26:16
  Make it right, God. Avenge me.
• 26:18
  But the New Testament tells us that Jesus's blood speaks a
• 26:21
  better word. Yes, in the Hebrews 12 the blood
• 26:24
  of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, and you
• 26:26
  have to ask why? Why is it better?
• 26:29
  Because Abel's blood cried for judgement against the Sinner,
• 26:32
  but Christ's blood, shed on the cross, cries for mercy for the
• 26:36
  Sinner. It satisfies the very justice
• 26:39
  that Abel's blood demanded. So instead of hiding in the
• 26:41
  bushes. We hide in the cleft of the
• 26:43
  rock. We stop trusting in our own fig
• 26:45
  leaves and we let God clothe us in the perfect righteousness of
• 26:49
  His Son. That is the only way back to the
• 26:52
  tree of life. That's a powerful place to end,
• 26:55
  from the tragedy of the fall to the hope of the cross.
• 26:58
  Thank you for walking us through that.
• 27:00
  It's a privilege. It's the central story of
• 27:02
  everything. And to our listeners, thanks for
• 27:04
  joining us on this deep dive into reformed thinking.
• 27:07
  We'll see you next time.