MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 3:13-21
THE GENERAL RESULTS OF THE FALL OF OUR FIRST PARENTS
I. The result of the fall of our first parents is an eternal enmity between Satan and humanity. “And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.” We observe:—
1. That this curse was uttered in reference to Satan. It is true that the serpent is here addressed, but merely as the instrument of the evil spirit. The punishment which came upon an irrational animal was symbolical of that permitted to Satan. Each became the object of a contempt which should be perpetual. That this language is used in reference to Satan is evident from the fact that the human race should triumph over the serpent which indication would have been unneedful had it merely referred to the reptile rather than the devil. Thus we learn that the agents of Satan are neither free from guilt or punishment.
2. We observe that this address is different from that made to Adam and Eve. God said to Adam, “Hast thou eaten of the tree;” and to Eve, “What is it that thou hast done?” But to Satan he puts no interrogation. And why? Because heaven knew that it was impossible for hell to repent, whereas man would be able under the proclamation of Divine mercy, to confess his sin and to receive forgiveness. The misery of Satan is irretrievable. For the sin of man there is provided a Divine remedy which he is urged to obtain. The questionings of God are merciful in their intention. Let us therefore penitently respond to them.
3. We observe that there was to commence a severe enmity and conflict between Satan and the human race. The serpent was no longer even the apparent friend of Adam and Eve, but their open enemy. Their recognized foe. The enmity of hell toward earth is well defined in God’s word. It is thoroughly illustrated by the moral history of mankind.
(1) This enmity has existed from the early ages of the world’s history. Its rage and ruin were co-existent with the progenitors of the race, and was directed against their moral happiness and enjoyment. It did not commence in any after period of the world’s history, and consequently not one individual has ever been exempt from its attack.
(2) This enmity is seeking the destruction of the higher interests of man. It does not seek merely to injure the mental and physical sources of life, but the spiritual and eternal. It seeks to rob man of moral goodness, and of his bright inheritance beyond the grave. It endeavours to defile his soul.
(3) This enmity is inspired by the most diabolical passion. It is not inspired by a mere love of mischief and ruin, not by a desire to have a gay sport with the welfare of man, but by a dire and all-conquering passion for his eternal destruction. This points to unremitting activity on the part of Satan. To inconceivable cunning.
2. This enmity, while it will inflict injury, is subject to the ultimate conquest of man. The serpent may bruise the heal of humanity, but humanity shall certainly bruise his head. Satan will be defeated in the conflict. His power is limited. Instance Job. Christ is his eternal conqueror, in Him the seed of the woman struck its most terrible blow. Thus the fall of our first parents has exposed humanity to the fierce antagonism of Satan. But this may be for our moral good, as the conflict has brought a Divine conqueror to our aid, it renders necessary—and may develop energies which shall lend force and value to our characters, and which otherwise would have remained eternally latent.
II. The result of the fall of our first parents is the sorrow and subjection of female life.
1. The sorrow of woman consequent upon the fall. “Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” The combined command and blessing had been previously given, that the first pair were to be fruitful and multiply; but in innocency the propagation of their species was to be painless. This is reversed by their fall. The woman is to bring forth her progeny in sorrow. Sin is the cause of the world’s physical suffering. This arrangement evinces the grand principle of vicarious suffering in human life.
2. The subjection of woman consequent upon the fall. “And he shall rule over thee.” Eve had been guilty of insubordination, she had broken from the man to listen to the serpent, hence her punishment was adapted to her indiscretion. Women are to be subject to their husbands. This is the law of God. This is the ordination of physical life and energy. And any man who allows his wife to habitually rule him reverses the law of God, and the curse of the fall. But man’s rulership is not to be lordly and offensive, but loving and graceful, thoughtful and appreciative. Under such a rulership the woman is a queen, herself the sharer of a royal life. These are the true rights of woman. If true to herself she wants no others.
3. The subjection of woman consequent upon the fall gives no countenance to the degrading manner in which she is treated in heathen countries. Man is not to crush a woman into a slave. He is not to regard her as his servant. She is his companion and helpmeet. Missions have done much for the social and moral elevation of woman.
III. The result of the fall of our first parents is the anxious toil of man, and the comparative unproductiveness of his labour.
1. The anxious and painful toil of man consequent upon the fall. Some people imagine that work is the result of the fall, and that if our first parents had retained their innocence all men would have been born independent gentlemen! This may be a nice dream for the idle, but it is far from fact. Adam worked before he yielded to temptation, he tilled and kept the garden. But then there was no anxiety, peril, or fatigue associated with his daily efforts. The element of pain which is now infused into work is the result of the fall, but not the work itself. Work was the law of innocent manhood. It is the happiest law of life. Men who rebel against it do not truly live, they only exist. All the accidents of which we read, and all the strife between capital and labour, and all that brings grief to the human heart connected with work, is a consequence of the fall. The excited brain should remind of a sinful heart.
2. The comparative unproductiveness of the soil consequent upon the fall. The ground was cursed through Adam’s sin, and he was to gather and eat its fruits in sorrow all his life. By allowing Eve to lead him astray Adam had, for the moment, given up his rulership of creation, and, therefore, henceforth nature will resist his will. The earth no longer yields her fruits spontaneously, but only after arduous and protracted toil. The easy dressing of the garden was now to merge into anxious labour to secure its produce. Demons were not let loose upon the earth to lay it waste. The earth became changed in its relation to man. It became wild and rugged. It became decked with poisonous herbs. Its harvests were slow and often unfruitful. Storms broke over its peaceful landscapes. Such an effect has sin upon the material creation.
3. The sad departure of man from the earth by death consequent upon the fall. How long innocent man would have continued in this world, and how he would have been finally conveyed to heaven are idle speculations. But certain it is that sin destroyed the moral relationship of the soul to God, and introduced elements of decay into the physical organism of man. Hence after the fall he began his march to the grave. That man did not die immediately after the committal of the sin, is a tribute to the redeeming mercy of God. Sin always means death. Sin and death are twin sisters.
IV. The grand and merciful interposition of Jesus Christ was rendered necessary by the fall of our first parents. Man had fled from God. He could not bring himself back again. Man had polluted his moral nature by sin. He could not cleanse it. The serpent’s head had to be bruised. Death had to be abolished. God only could send a deliverer. Here commenced the remedial scheme of salvation. An innocent man would not have needed mercy, but a sinful man did. Hence the promise, type, symbol, the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection and ascension, all designed by the infinite love of God to repair the moral woe of Eden’s ruin. LESSONS:
1. The terrible influence of sin upon an individual life.
2. The influence of sin upon the great communities of the world.
3. The severe devastation of sin.
4. The love of God the great healing influence of the world’s sorrow.
5. How benignantly God blends hope with penalty.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Genesis 3:13-14. No actor in any sin can escape God’s discovery:—
1. Adam is found out.
2. Eve is found out.
3. The serpent is found out.
God looks upon Satan as the author of the unbelief, rebellion, and apostasy of man.
The worst of curses hath God laid upon the old serpent, and that irrevocably.
God’s curse upon the old serpent brings a blessing upon man.
God from the fall of man provided a way for saving some from the devil.
The promised seed had his heel bruised in killing the serpent’s head. It was by His own dying, though He rose again.
Redemption is of free grace, and comes from God’s promise.
Such grace binds to enmity with Satan and love to God.
BRUISING THE HEAD OF EVIL; OR, THE MISSION OF CHRISTIANITY
Genesis 3:15. That there are two grand opposing moral forces at work in the world, “the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent,” is manifest from the following considerations:—
1. The universal beliefs of mankind. All nations believe in two antagonistic principles.
2. The phenomena of the moral world. The thoughts, actions, and conduct of men are so radically different that they must be referred to two distinct moral forces.
3. The experience of good men.
4. The declaration of the Bible. Now in this conflict, whilst error and evil only strike at the mere “heel” of truth and goodness, truth and goodness strike right at the “head.” Look at this idea in three aspects:—
I. As a characteristic of Christianity. Evil has a “head” and its “head” is not in theories, or institutions, or outward conduct; but in the moral feelings. In the likes and dislikes, the sympathies and antipathies of the heart. Now it is against this “head” of evil that Christianity, as a system of reform, directs its blows. It does not seek to lop off the branches from the mighty upas, but to destroy its roots. It does not strike at the mere forms of murder, adultery, and theft; but at their spirit, anger, lust, and covetousness. This its characteristic.
II. As a test of individual Christianity. Unless Christianity has bruised the very “head” of evil within us it has done nothing to the purpose.
1. It may bruise certain erroneous ideas, and yet be of no service to you.
2. It may bruise certain wrong habits, and yet be of no real service to you.
III. As a guide in propagating Christianity. The great failure of the Church in its world-reforming mission may be traced to the wrong direction of its efforts [Homilist].
Study the records of the Word. It is the history of the long war between the children of light and “the power of darkness.” You will see that Satan has tried every weapon of the armoury of hell. He has no other in reserve. But all have failed. They cannot rise higher than the heel. The head is safe with Christ in God. Mark, too, how a mightier hand guides his blows to wound himself. Satan’s kingdom is made to totter under Satan’s assaults. He brought in sin, and so the door flew open for the Gospel. He persecutes the early converts, and the truth speeds rapidly abroad throughout the world. He casts Paul into the dungeon of Philippi, and the gaoler believes, with all his house. He sends him a prisoner to Rome, and epistles gain wings to teach and comfort all the ages of the Church [Archdeacon Law].
I. Some important transactions related.
1. The transgression which had been committed.
2. The scrutiny instituted.
3. The sentence pronounced.
II. The gracious intimations of the Text.
1. Intimations of mercy.
2. Of the mode of mercy.
3. Our cause for gratitude.
4. Occasions for fear. [Sketches of Sermons by Wesleyan Ministers].
Man’s salvation is Satan’s grief and vexation.
God’s indignation is never so much kindled against the wicked, that He forgets His mercy toward His own.
God directs and turns the malice of Satan to the service of the good.
God will strengthen the weakest of His servants against Satan.
The greatness of man’s sin is no bar to God’s mercy.
God’s means extend to future posterity.
Enmity and malice against good men is an evident mark of the child of the devil.
Christ the woman’s seed:—
1. Made under the law.
2. Became a curse for us.
3. Joined us to God.
4. Conquered Satan.
Genesis 3:16. Though God has through Christ remitted to his children the sentence of death, yet He has not freed them from the afflictions of this life.
All the afflictions of this life have mercy mixed with them.
It is the duty of the wife to be subject to the will and direction of her husband:—
1. There must be an order in society.
2. The woman was created for man.
3. She was first in transgression.
4. Man has the best abilities for government.
Womanly obedience:—
1. Presented by God.
2. Easy for her.
3. Safe for her.
4. Ennobling to her.
Womanly subjection consists:—
1. In outward obedience.
2. In the inward affection of the heart.
3. In thoughtful service.
Order in sin has an order in punishment. The woman is sentenced before the man.
Genesis 3:17. Single account must be given by every creature for single sins. God takes one by one.
God Himself giveth judgment upon every sinner.
Man’s excuse of sin may prove the greatest aggravation to the woman.
It is a sad aggravation of sin that it is committed against God.
The expressness of God’s law doth much aggravate sin against it.
Sin brings all evil upon creatures, and makes them instruments to punish man.
All the creatures of the earth are under Divine command.
The short pleasure of sin draws after it a long punishment.
Genesis 3:18. Thorns and thistles are the issues of sin.
As we are more or less serviceable to God, so we may expect creatures to be more or less useful to us.
Sin makes the course of man laborious and painful.
God remembers wretched man and allows him some bread though he deserves none.
Man’s travail ends not but in the grave.
Genesis 3:19.—“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” How dreadful—how rapid—is the havoc of sin. A few Chapter s preceding man was wise—holy—now the crown is fallen we are all implicated (Hebrews 9:27).
I. The frailty of our Nature.
1. Its origin. However glorious our Maker, however exquisite the human body, God made that body of the dust of the earth.
2. Its liability to injury. No sooner born than fierce diseases wait to attack us. If not destroyed—injured—accidents. All the elements attack us.
3. Its tendency to dissolution. Behold the ravages of time. Human life has its spring, summer, autumn, and winter. (Psalms 103:14-15; Psalms 90:5-6; Psalms 39:4-5.
II. The certainty of our end.
1. We are born to die. Our first breath is so much of nature exhausted. The first hour we live is an approach to death.
2. The perpetual exit of mortals confirms it.
3. God hath decreed it.
4. Learn rightly to estimate life. (Sketches of four hundred sermons.)
I. Man’s Origin.
1. How wonderful.
2. How humbling.
II. Man’s Doom.
1. Inevitable.
2. Just.
3. Partial.
4. Temporary. (Sermonic Germs by Wythe.)
There is profit in all the duties which God enjoineth us. The disposing of man’s life is in God’s hand.
Genesis 3:20-21.—It is fit in giving names to make choice of such as may give us something for our instruction. The very clothes we wear are God’s provision. Necessary provision is as much as we can look for from God’s hand:—
1. For health.
2. For employment.
3. For possession. Our clothes are for the most part borrowed from other creatures.
In the midst of death God’s thought has been to direct the sinner unto life.
God’s goodness prevented sin from turning all man’s relations into disorder.
Grace makes the same instruments be for life, which were for death.
God pities his creatures in the nakedness made by sin.
God makes garments where sin makes nakedness.
The mischief of sin is to forget nakedness under fine clothes.
A gracious providence puts clothes on the backs of sinners.
The guilty clothed:—
1. By God.
2. With priceless robe.
3. For shelter.
4. For happiness.
We have here, in figure, the great doctrine of divine righteousness set forth. The robe which God provided was an effectual covering because He provided it; just as the apron was an ineffectual covering because man had provided it. Moreover, God’s coat was founded upon blood-shedding. Adam’s apron was not. So also, now, God’s righteousness is set forth in the cross; man’s righteousness is set forth in the works, the sin stained works, of his own hands. When Adam stood clothed in the coat of skin he could not say, “I was naked,” nor had he any occasion to hide himself. The sinner may feel perfectly at rest, when, by faith, he knows that God has clothed him: but to feel at rest, till then, can only be the result of presumption or ignorance. To know that the dress I wear, and in which I appear before God, is of His own providing, must set my heart at perfect rest. There can be no permanent rest in aught else.—(C.H.M.)
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Remedy! (Genesis 3:13.) The death was wrought; but God would evolve death out of life. When a vessel has all the air extracted from it and a vacuum formed, the pressure of the outside air on the surrounding surface will probably shiver it into a thousand pieces; but no man can restore that vessel. The potter may place the fragments in his engine, and mould out of them another vessel; yet it is not the same. But God can. God here declares He will. The remedy followed close upon the disease—the life upon the death. Near the manchaneel, which grows in the forests of the West Indies, and which gives forth a juice of deadly poisonous nature, grows a fig, the sap of either of which, if applied in time, is a remedy for the diseases produced by the manchaneel. God places the Gospel of Grace alongside the sentence of Death. He provides a remedy for man
“To soothe his sorrows—heal his wounds,
And drive away his fears.”
Labour! Genesis 3:17. Dionysius the tyrant was once at an entertainment given to him by the Lacedemonians, where he expressed some disgust at their black broth. One of the number remarked that it was no wonder he did not relish it, since there was “no seasoning.” “What seasoning,” enquired the despot? to which the prompt reply was given: “labour joined with hunger.” Krummacher narrates a fable of how Adam had tilled the ground and made himself a garden full of plants and trees. He rested himself with his wife and children upon the brow of a hill. An angel came and saluting them said: “You must labour to eat bread in the sweat of your brow, but after your toil, you rejoice in the fruit acquired.” But Adam deplored the loss of Jehovah’s nearness; whereupon the watcher replied that “toil was earthly prayer, the heavenly gift of Jehovah.”—
“Work for some good be it ever so slowly!
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly!
Labour! all labour is noble and holy;
Let thy great deeds be a prayer to thy God.”—Osgood.
Human Ruin! Genesis 3:17. Canning says that man is a dismantled fane—a broken shrine, and that there still lingers about him some gleams of his departed glory sufficient to give an idea of what he once was, and probably left as faint prophecy of what he will again be. You see, for example, a beautiful capital still bearing some of the flowers, and some vestiges of the foliage which the sculptor’s chisel had carved upon the marble. It lies on the ground half-buried under rank weeds and nettles; while beside it the headless shaft of a noble column springs from its pedestal. As Guthrie asks: Would you not at once conclude that its present condition so base and mean was not its original position? You would say that the lightning bolt must have struck it down—or earthquake shaken its foundation—or ruthless barbarism had climbed the shaft—or time’s relentless scythe had mown it down. We look at man and arrive at a similar conclusion. Like an old roofless temple, man is a grand and solemn ruin, on the front of which we can still trace the mutilated inscription of his original dedication to God. Yet he IS a ruin, and one which human skill cannot restore. The art of man may wreath it with ivy—may surround it with stonecrop and wall-flower, yet he remains a ruin still—he though in nature’s richest mantle clad
“And graced with all philosophy can add;
Though fair without, and luminous within,
Is still the progeny and heir of sin.”—Cowper.
Resurgam-hope! Genesis 3:14. All was not hopeless gloom. The cloud had its silver lining; and like Noah’s thunderbank of water was arched by a brilliant Iris of comfort. It shall bruise thy head. Man would rise. In a Syrian valley grows a clump of trees stunted in their growth, with scarce one shade of resemblance to that noble group of stately cedars on the mountain ridge, the seeds from which had been planted in the vale by the agency of winds, and had shot up into these puny and repulsive trunks. But further on another cluster presents itself, which had been planted by the hand of man, carefully attended to as they grew up. These had a family likeness to that grove upon the hill slopes; and were giving promise of beauty and grandeur equal to that of their progenitors. The godless children of Adam resemble the stunted grove in the dell, with but feeble likeness to that of Adam in his sinless state; whereas the third clump symbolize the “renewed” sons of God, who, though immeasurably inferior as yet to the noble stock from which they were originally taken, are bearing evident marks of their parentage, and promise one day to attain to their high and heavenly origin:—
“Born of the spirit, and thus allied to God,
He during his probations term shall walk
His mother earth, unfledged to range the sky,
But, if found faithful, shall at length ascend
The highest heavens and share my home and yours.”—Bickersteth.
The Seed! Genesis 3:15. This seed, the Apostle says, was Christ. He is the great Deliverer and Champion. He is the great Legislator and Teacher. His name outshines all the names upon the “Roll of Fame.” His name is above every name. In the Forum yonder stands a marble pillar of large circumference and lofty height. It rests upon a massive base, it is crowned with a richly-carved capital. And when a citizen has won some great victory for the state, has delivered it from a foreign foe or from domestic insurrection, has removed some gross abuse or inaugurated some beneficent reform, his name, by decree of the senate, is inscribed upon the pillar in letters of gold. And now that shaft glitters from top to bottom with shining names, all honourable, but the more honourable ever above the less. And gleaming at the top of the pillar is a name that outshines all the rest. So in the Forum of the kingdom of heaven stands a pillar blazing all over with beautiful names, and at the top a name that is above every name, “not only in this world but also in that which is to come.” Therefore—
“He spends his time most worthily who seeks this name to know;
Its ocean-fulness riseth still as ages onward flow!”—Canitz.
Thistles! Genesis 3:18. How greatly the process of man’s redemption from the curse—of his rise in morals and intelligence—is aided by this decree of Providence it would be difficult to estimate.
1. Did his food grow like acorns or beechmast upon long-lived trees, requiring no toil or care or forethought of his own, the most efficient means to his advancement would have been wanting. The curse would have deepened his degradation, instead of containing as it does now at its core the means of its removal—the inverse aid of man’s physical and spiritual progress.
2. It has been observed that the very instruments of man’s punishment—the very goads that prick him on to exertion—are after all stunted or abortive forms of branches, or of buds which in happier circumstances would have gone on to develop fruit, and that the downy parasols by means of which thistles spread their seeds in myriads are due to degeneration of floral parts; so that they witness to man continually of his own degradation, inasmuch as they—like himself—are failures on the part of nature to reach an ideal perfection.
Contrast! Genesis 3:19. A traveller in Syria notes that on a mountainous ridge his attention was called to a magnificent grove of trees of the cedar species. They were evidently the growth of many ages, and had attained the perfection of beauty and grandeur. As he descended into the vale, he beheld a number of other trees stunted in their growth, and as remarkable for their meanness as the former were for their magnificence. The guide assured him that they were of the same species; yet not a trace of resemblance could he find in them. This appears to be a remarkable emblem of Adam. In Genesis 2 the power of body, mind and spirit resemble the cluster of stately cedar-pines; whereas, when we descend into the valley of sin in Genesis 3, we observe that, like the scattered trees in the vale, his mental and moral powers are stunted in their growth—mean, despicable, and well-nigh useless. Of him we may exclaim that he was planted a noble vine, but how is he turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine! Whose fault?
“Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of Me
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.—Milton.
Dust of Death! Genesis 3:19. Dust may be raised for a little while into a tiny cloud, and may seem considerable while held up by the wind that raises it; but when the force of that is spent, it falls again, and returns to the earth out of which it was raised. Such a thing is man; man is but a parcel of dust, and must return to his earth. Thus, as Pascal exclaims, what a chimera is man! What a confused chaos! And after death, of his body it may be said that it is the gold setting left after the extraction of the diamond which it held—a setting, alas! which soon gives cause in its putrescence for the apostrophe: How is the gold become dim! How is the most fine gold changed! Yet “there is hope in thine end,” O Christian gold, however dimmed. There is a “resurgam” for thy dust, O child of God!
“The fine gold has not perished, when the flame
Seizes upon it with consuming glow;
In freshn’d splendour it comes forth anew
To sparkle on the Monarch’s Throne or BROW.”—Bonar.
Promises! Genesis 3:21. Deeds are more powerful expressions than words; but this Divine act of clothing Adam and Eve in “robes of blood-shedding” could have no intelligent force to them without a revelation. Is it unreasonable to suppose that God explained to them the meaning of that prophetic decree in Genesis 3:15: “It shall bruise thy head”? When the scarlet-dyed raiment was placed by Divine direction upon the bodies of Adam and Eve, Jehovah explained the symbolism, and unfolded promises of mercy through free sovereigr grace in response to Faith. Adam and Eve laid hold of those promises, and cast themselves unfeignedly on His mercy. This would brighten their otherwise dark pathway. When a pious old slave on a Virginian plantation was asked why he was always so sunny-hearted and cheerful under his hard lot, he replied, “Ah, massa, I always lays flat down on de promises, and den I pray straight up to my hebenly Father.” Humble, happy soul! he was not the first man who has eased an aching heart by laying it upon God’s pillows; or the first man who had risen up the stronger from a repose on the unchangeable word of God’s love. If you take a Bank of England note to the counter of the bank, in an instant that bit of paper turns to gold. If we take a promise of God to the mercy-seat, it turns to what is better than gold—to our own good and the glory of our Father.