Articles
Genesis 3: The Rise, Fall and Rise of Man
Often, when we hear of those who suffered for some wrong they committed, we may think, “they got what was coming to them.” Thankfully, God doesn’t treat us like that.
Man exists because God created Him. We find our meaning by behaving as God made us to behave. But, in the Garden, man believed a lie from the nemesis of God, Satan, and he fell from his relationship with God.
Genesis chapters 1-3 in many ways exemplify our lives as humans. We are born into this world innocent, sinless and pure before the Lord. Contrary to what you may hear from some, we are not born sinners. Ezekiel 18:4 tells us that the soul that sins, it shall die. We sin when we transgress the law of God, 1 John 3:4. We don’t transgress the Law of God by being born. We transgress the law of God when we sin. So, like Adam and Eve and all creation, there is a time when God looks at us and says, “It is good.”
But, there also arises a time when we make a decision to do what we know to be wrong. When we, knowing the will of God, are tempted by Satan and we choose to sin; just like Adam and Eve, we still believe a lie. At that moment, what was good becomes sinful to God. And, like Adam and Eve, we are cast away from Him, because a holy God can’t have a relationship with unholy man.
But, God provided an answer in anticipation to the first humans. In speaking to the tempter in Gen. 3:15, God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This is the first prophesy of man overcoming Satan, and not just overcoming him, but crushing him. It has reference ultimately to the arrival of Jesus Christ. From the very beginning, God had a plan to redeem fallen man.
That promise made in anticipation is a reality for fallen man today. The New Testament tells us that Jesus Christ died on the cross, a sacrifice from God for man. Paul wrote in Romans 3:21-26, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” When you come to the Father today through the Son, the Father lifts you up and redeems you, making you holy and good again. He restores you to what He made you to be, a vessel of honor in His kingdom.
Praise be to God for such a redemption!
Let's apply this to our lives.
