Genesis 3:1-5 | “Thirty Seconds that Changed the World”

Sunday morning sermon audio from Preston Highlands Baptist Church.

The Reason Everything is Broken

Everything in the world is broken.  The entire world lies under a dark shadow.  Like cancer, evil is spreading to and through everything and everyone it touches.  And everything it touches is wounded.  This is why the whole world and everyone in it is hurting to one degree or another.

The evidence of this worldwide brokenness is everywhere.  We see it in the natural realm in hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, fires, floods, droughts, accidents, sickness, disease, and disability.

We see it in the relational and societal realm.  Friendships sour, marriages fail, children are abused, people hurt people for no apparent reason, churches split, politicians lie, business owners cheat, rich people are greedy and poor people covet, and all of us have a nagging discontentment, a feeling that if our circumstances would change, then we would be happier.

We see it in the personal realm in selfishness (why do we gravitate toward using people instead of serving them?), sadness (why is so hard to hang on to joy?), pride (why do we assume that we don’t need God or anyone else?), despair (why is anxiety so hard to shake?), depression, loneliness, rage, confusion, lust, gossip, slander, malice, envy, gluttony.

Take 10 minutes this afternoon to sit in silence and look within yourself and notice how much pain and negative emotions you see there, how much regret, how much struggle, how much heartache, and then try to convince me that you’re not a broken person.

We see it in the spiritual realm.  God’s greatness and goodness is ignored, minimized, and not believed.  Jesus is seen as a good person rather than God.  The Bible is mocked as ancient mythology or moral fable.  Then, of course, there’s humanity’s great enemy, death.

Everything in the world is broken.  In his book Providence, John Piper summarizes this well: “Nothing escapes the brokenness of the world…Things are painfully frustrating, again and again.  Just when you think you have one thing fixed, another breaks.  When one relationship is healed, another breaks down.  When one disease is under control, another strikes.  When one accident is avoided, another comes from a different direction.”[1]

The apostle Paul says that the whole world is in “bondage to corruption” (Rom. 8:21).  The world is a slave to suffering, in the prison of pain, shackled to a shadow of darkness.  And, Paul says, this isn’t the creation’s fault and it isn’t Satan’s design.  It’s in bondage “because of him who subjected it” (v. 20).  God is the one who subjected the world to evil.  And he did it as a result of what happened in the Garden of Eden.

When the first man and woman broke God’s command, a cancerous corruption filled their hearts and started spreading through the world.  What happens in Genesis 3 is why everything and everyone we know, ourselves included, is dysfunctional, hurting, and broken, why we pursue self-destructive behavior even though we know what’s right and wrong.

What happens in Genesis 3 is why it’s hard to love God and easy to sin.  When sin came into the world it seeped into every pore of our hearts and touched every point on earth.  The world is broken because Adam and Eve sinned against God.

As we start studying Genesis 3, we need to approach this text with a sober mind and a humble heart.  The world’s first sin gives us an anatomy of all sin.  What Adam and Eve do here in Genesis 3 we also do every day of our lives.  The sobriety that this chapter brings isn’t meant to lead us to despair. Amazingly, there’s hope, there are promises (3:15), there’s healing for the wounded and forgiveness for sinners.

Context of Genesis 3

Before we look at Genesis 3:1-5, let’s try to set this text in its context.  2:4 starts with, “These are the generations.”  This is a phrase used eleven times in Genesis.  It’s always followed by an account of what happened from the starting point named.  It’s like saying, “This is what became of _______.”

So 2:4 is introducing the account of what happened to “the heavens and the earth.”  This section (2:4-4:26) describes what happened to the world that God created.  Chapters 1 and 2 say that God created a wonderful world out of chaos.  Chapters 3 and 4 are about God’s wonderful world devolving into chaos again because of sin.

Chapter 2 expands on chapter 1.  In chapter 2, Moses double-clicks on 1:26 and enlarges it.  Chapter 1 tells us that man was created.  Chapter 2 tells us how.  Chapter 1 is like saying, “There was a parade on the sixth day of creation.”  Chapter 2 tells us in what order the floats passed by.

Chapter 2 is a massively important chapter because it prepares us for what happens in chapters 3-4.  Chapter 1 is about the creation of the universe.  Chapter 2 is about man’s creation.  Chapter 3 is about the entrance of sin.  And chapter 4 is about how sin spreads and expands in the world.

Chapter 2 serves as the link between creation and corruption.  In chapter 2, we saw that God created man out of the dust, put his breath in him, put him in an abundant garden to protect it and cultivate it, made woman to help him rule God’s world and take care of God’s garden, told them they could do anything they wanted except eat from one tree, and gave them a shame-free intimacy with himself and each other.

At the end of chapter 2, they were “naked and unashamed.”  They were spiritually naked before God.  They didn’t have anything to hide.  They rested in the love of God without effort.  God was first in their hearts and thoughts without any disciplined devotion.  Loving God and loving each other was as painless and natural as breathing.

They were naked before each other.  Clothing never crossed their minds.  There was no inward pull of selfishness or shame.  Their life looked outward, not inward, toward God and each other, not toward self.

For the fall of chapter 3 to make sense, we need to understand what we fell from.  To understand the horrors of sin we need to understand the beauty of creation.  This is why the gospel message starts in Genesis 1 and 2, not Genesis 3.

The Serpent

How did the cancer of sin start spreading in the world?  Genesis 3:1-7 tells us.  Moses sets the scene by introducing a new character in verse 1, a talking serpent.  The text says that it was “more crafty” than all the other creatures.  This is true of snakes in general.  They’re guarded and cautious, knowing where dangers lurk.  They’re naturally shrewd creatures.  I don’t like snakes, but snakes are good creatures just like everything else God made.

Before sin came into the world, snakes or serpents were not bad.  This serpent was just a serpent.  It being “crafty” doesn’t necessarily mean that it was evil.  It’s just how snakes are.  But when Satan took control of this snake, it became a tool for evil.  The apostle John identifies the serpent as Satan in Revelation 12:9, “And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (cf. 20:2).

Satan is using this serpent to undermine the Creator.  Verse 1 also notes that the serpent is in the same category as everything else “the Lord God had made.”  There’s no dualism here, no battle between good and evil where each side is equal in strength and status.  In the Bible, there’s God in one category as Creator and then everything else in another category as created, including snakes and Satan.

Satan’s Scheme

We have lots of questions about this serpent, what it is and where it came from.  There’s much that we don’t know.  But there’s one thing we do know: from the very beginning, the serpent scheme was simple: attack God’s Word.

The serpent’s method of attack wasn’t random but was carefully planned.  His goal in this dialogue was simple: to attack and discredit the word of God.  Verse 1b, “Did God actually say?”  Satan opens with a surprised and incredulous tone.  His attack on God’s word is shrewd and subtle at first.  He doesn’t directly deny God’s word.  But he smuggles in the idea that God’s word is subject to human judgment.

Eve had never heard or considered such a thought.  She’d never thought she could judge God’s word for herself.  The word of God had been the source of everything she enjoyed: the blue skies and brilliant sunshine, the extravagant food and her precious husband.  She had no reason to doubt the word of God until Satan planted a seed of doubt in her heart.  But now, all of a sudden and out of nowhere, this was an alluring idea for her.

Notice that Satan uses the more generic name for God, Elohim.  He refuses to use God’s personal name, the “Lord God,” preferring a more remote and generic and impersonal name for God.  The god he wants Adam and Eve to reject is manipulative, secretive, and malevolent.  He’s hiding the truth about God in overt and covert ways.  This is a studied distortion of God’s character.

His first line of attack is an assault on God’s generosity (v. 1b).  God had actually said the opposite, telling them, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (2:16-17).  God told them they could have anything he created except one tree.  Satan’s scheme was to undermine God’s abundant goodness and generosity.

His question was subtly denying everything Eve knew and experienced.  But a seed of doubt had been plated in her heart.  She was now pondering new thoughts about God.  Was God withholding good things?  Was he a stingy and strict miser whose word couldn’t be trusted?

Satan’s schemes haven’t changed.  He works every day to convince you that God isn’t good.  In what ways are you doubting God’s goodness?  The cross of Jesus Christ shows us just how good God is.

Eve’s Revisions

Instead of setting the serpent straight, Eve added her own revisions to God’s word.  First, she leaves out the word “every” when she says, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden” (v. 2; cf. 2:16).  Her inexact quoting of God’s word was a shrinking of God’s generosity.  Perhaps unconsciously, she nodded in agreement with the serpent’s claim that God was too strict.  The cancerous cells of unbelief were starting to form in her heart.

Second, she added to God’s word when she said, at the end of verse 3, “neither shall you touch it.”  Satan’s poison was starting to take effect.  God never told them not to touch the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Eve is magnifying God’s strictness, saying that God is so harsh that even an inadvertent slip would lead to death.

We do this all the time.  For example, if we’re struggling to get to work on time, and our boss reminds us that we need to be on time, we walk out and tell our friends, “My boss is so mean that he said if I’m late again, he’ll fire me!”  In other words, as one pastor says, “When we dislike a prohibition or warning, we magnify its strictness with additions that make it sound unreasonable.”[2]

And third, Eve softens God’s word by only saying, “Lest you die” at the end of verse 3, whereas in the original command in 2:17, God said, “you shall surely die.”  Eve removed the certainty of God’s judgment as originally stated in God’s command.

In one sentence, Eve revised God’s word by subtraction, addition, and removal.  The way Eve handled God’s word changed the world forever.

May God make us a people that take God’s word so serious that we give ourselves to know it through careful and patient study.  Reading our Bible is not about being religious.  It’s about fending off Satanic attacks.  Oh how many Christians and churches have fallen away because they neglected the Word of God!

Find another church member to read the Bible or a good book about the Bible with.  It will do more spiritual good to your soul and your church than you realize.

God’s Judgment Under Attack

Her response to his initial question emboldened Satan to then make a patently false claim in verse 4, “You will not surely die.”  This is a direct contradiction to what God said in 2:17.  God told Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  Satan is saying to Eve, “God’s a liar, he can’t be trusted, he won’t really judge you if you disobey him.”  This is an in-your-face blasphemous statement about God’s word and character.  It’s Satan saying that God isn’t really that holy, that sin really isn’t that serious, and that judgment isn’t real.

The first doctrine to come under attack by Satan is the doctrine of divine judgment.  He tells Eve that God won’t do what he said he’ll do if his word is disobeyed.  Satan knows that if he can get us to believe that there’s no judgment, then we’ll live however we want.  No judgment means that we don’t have to live with reference to God.  If there’s no judgment, why do we need God anyways?

But if there’s a judgment, then everything changes.  If there’s a judgment, then we need to think carefully about how we live.  If there’s a judgment, then we have a deep and abiding need.  We all know we haven’t lived up to God’s standards, and that we stand guilty before him.  We intuitively know that we can’t save ourselves.  The reality of judgment reveals our need for a Savior, for a Substitute, for someone to take our place because we know that we don’t have what it takes to survive God’s judgment.

Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.”  The reality of a coming judgment changes everything.  God will judge you after you die.  If your sins aren’t covered by the blood of Jesus through faith, you will go to hell.  If your sins are covered by the blood of Jesus through faith, you will go to heaven.  There isn’t another option.

God’s Goodness Under Attack

After this bold-faced lie, Satan again leads Eve to question God’s goodness in verse 5.  Like every good lie, this one is partly true.  Their eyes will be opened and they will know good from evil.  But again Satan is subtly leading Eve to question the character of God.  He’s saying, “God is holding out on you.  He’s using the threat of death as a scare tactic because he wants to keep you in your place.  He’s really not good.  He’s repressive and jealous and doesn’t want you to have too much or know too much.”

This is an absurd assault on God’s character in the middle of a garden that screams of his goodness.  Eve is standing in the middle of paradise, surrounded by a thousand good things that God created for her, not to mention that God had made her and Adam the rulers of the earth.  And yet Eve was buying it.  She went along with Satan and doubted God’s goodness.

Satan’s lie was so powerful because it carried the lure of divinity.  He was saying to her, “Do this and you will be like God.”  The irony here is that they already were like God because they were created in his image (1:26).  He was offering them something they already had.

He doesn’t have any new tricks.  He’s still trying to convince you that God is holding out on you, that his commands negate his goodness, and that his word can be broken without consequence.  Do you pray for protection from his lies and schemes and attacks?

Thirty Seconds that Changed the World

This thirty second conversation between Eve and Satan changed the world.  In this thirty second conversation, Satan led Eve to put his word against God’s.  She could’ve corrected the serpent in five seconds.  She could’ve run screaming to Adam for help.  Adam could’ve stepped forward and done what God put him there to do in the first place.

But none of this happened.  Eve bought what the serpent was selling.  She was entranced by the prospect that God was holding out on them.  She was flushed with excitement over what would in just another moment consume her, what would eventually consume the whole world.  Namely, a desire to follow the word of Satan over the word of God, to believe the lies of Satan rather than the truth of God, to doubt God’s goodness and generosity and judgment.

Is There Any Hope?

This is the cancer that has consumed the world, and your heart.  This fateful conversation in paradise is why the world descended into chaos again.  A shrewd Satan attacked God’s good word, and everything and everyone broke.  This is brokenness that our education, religion, work-ethic, government, or money can’t fix.

Is there any hope?  Oh yes!  This “bondage to corruption” can only be undone by one who lived outside of it, by One never touched by it, by One who defeated Satan by obeying God.

The second Adam, Jesus Christ, is ready to save those who’ve descended with Adam and Eve into the chaos of sin, self-destructive behavior, and unbelief.  Everyone who turns away from their sin and puts their trust in Christ alone will be “delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13-14).

[1]John Piper, Providence (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 502.

[2]R. Kent Hughes, “Satan in the Garden,” in Our Ancient Foe: Satan’s History, Activity, and Ultimate Demise, ed. Ronald L. Kohl (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2019), 6.