Genesis 3:8-15
Third Sunday after Pentecost - 10 June 2015
Rev. John Derme
Two powerful enemies met on one battlefield in the greatest showdown of all time. Their rivalry was old. They had been fighting for many years. But finally all of their battles came to a head in one showdown that would settle once for all time who would be victorious and who would be defeated. This showdown would affect every person who would ever live. Each of the enemies attacked and hurt his opponent. Neither of them escaped unharmed. But only one of them could be the winner. The other one had to be crushed. This showdown was the serpent vs. the Savior.
Their showdown was foretold thousands of years beforehand in a garden. This Garden of Eden was a beautiful place. God the Father created it for the first people he created: Adam and Eve. In this garden he provided for all of their needs. They were happy, healthy, comfortable, and well-fed. There was plenty of food for them. They could eat the fruit of the trees in the garden.
There was just one tree from which God told them not to eat. There wasn’t anything wrong with the tree itself. Its fruit was really good. But God wanted to give his people the opportunity to thank him for all that he had given to them. And so he gave Adam just one rule in the Garden of Eden: don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Since that is what God asked Adam not to do, that is exactly what God's enemy wanted Adam to do. We know him as "the devil" or "Satan." He had been an angel of God, but he had rebelled against God and been cast out of heaven. But there in the Garden of Eden, he was simply called "the serpent."
Adam and Eve were together in the garden, when the serpent started a conversation with the woman. He tried to get them to think that God didn’t really love them and wasn’t really taking care of them. The woman didn't fall for his trap right away. She looked around and saw all the gifts that God had given them and trusted that he had given them everything they needed. But then the serpent told her that God was keeping something from them, the knowledge of good and evil. Eat from this tree, and you will be like God, he told her.
At that moment, when the serpent spoke that lie, the woman looked at the fruit and decided that she feared, loved, and trusted in the serpent, rather than in God. She didn't want to be one of God's people any more. She wanted to belong to the serpent. The man did, too. He was right there with her. He didn't stop her. After she took a bite of the fruit, she handed it to him and he ate it.
As soon as they ate the fruit, they saw that their knowledge of good and evil and their new alliance with the serpent wasn’t everything he had promised them it would be. For the first time, they felt shame. So they covered themselves with fig leaves. Then they heard God walking through the garden. Since they were now enemies of God, they ran from him and hid.
What should God have done with Adam and Eve right then and there? He had warned them that on the day they ate of that fruit they would surely die. They had indeed died spiritually when they decided to believe in the serpent rather than in God. But he would certainly have had every right to strike them down so that they would die physically, too. Or he could have simply let them go their own way. He could have left them cowering in fear behind the trees with their new scaly friend. They'd made their choice, so God could have kept on walking through the garden and out of their lives, never to demonstrate his kindness to them again.
God didn’t do either of those things. Instead, he asked, "Where are you?" It may sound like a silly question. Of course God knew where they were. But he was calling them to repentance, giving them an opportunity to confess the wrong they had done and ask for his forgiveness. Adam came out from hiding, but all he did was start making excuses. God had to ask him directly whether he'd eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Even then, Adam didn't confess. He blamed Eve. Then God spoke to Eve, and she blamed the serpent.
Again, what should God have done with Adam and Eve right then and there? He could have told them that he'd given them a chance to fess up, and they'd made excuses instead, so that was it. He could have told them that they'd made their own choices and what happened wasn't anybody's fault but their own. But the next thing that God did was to curse the serpent. Yes, there would be some natural consequences for the man and the woman that God would explain to them in love. But the very first thing that God wanted the man and the woman to hear is that this serpent who had defeated them would one day be defeated for them.
He told the serpent that he would crawl on his belly and eat dust. It sounds, at first, like he was simply describing the everyday life of a snake. But he was really cursing Satan himself, saying that he was doomed to a miserable existence. He had to speak the curse in terms of a snake, because all Adam and Eve knew was that this snake had led them into rebellion against God. He spoke this curse for the sake of Adam and Eve, so that they would recognize that he was doomed and stop trusting in the serpent.
That's what God was talking about when he said, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers." Eve had just shown enmity or hostility between herself and God. She had just expressed friendship with the serpent. So God was redirecting that hostility, in order to keep Eve from fearing, loving, and trusting in that serpent forever. And he would make that hostility extend to future generations, as we still see hostility today between people who follow Satan and people who follow the Lord.
But God had a certain offspring of the woman in mind when he completed his curse on Satan. He said, "He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." One day, one man would be born from a woman, who would crush this serpent's head. The serpent had defeated them. God wanted Adam and Eve to know that this offspring would defeat the serpent for them. God wanted them to stop trusting in the serpent and to trust in him and his promise.
So, who was that one certain offspring whom God foretold? There is only one person who has ever lived who could truly be called the offspring of the woman. Every other human being who has ever lived has a human mother, of course. But all those humans are also the offspring of a man, because they have a human father. There was one human being, however, who had no human father and was born only of a woman. That is he who was born of a virgin: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
This was the first promise that God the Father ever spoke of the coming Savior. Jesus would be born so that he could crush Satan's head. The serpent would also hurt Jesus in the process. This promise foretold a coming showdown that would decide who would win this battle over humankind that started in the Garden of Eden.
This account of the first sin and the first gospel promise in the garden is often read as a myth, which explains why there is so much evil in the world. Some people even think that it is nothing more than a story about why most women don't like snakes. Those explanations are wrong. This is a true story. And it is not just a true story about Adam and Eve. It is also a true story about you and me.
It is a story about you and me, because Adam and Eve's sin affects you and me. We are their descendants. They passed down their sin to us. Because we inherited their sin, we were born into this world as God's enemies. We are, by nature, followers of the serpent. Each one of us has also participated in Adam and Eve's rebellion against God by our own sinful actions. The devil tempts us to sin each day. Because we all have a sinful nature, we follow him into sin each day. Because we sin so much, we often think that our sins are not such a big deal. But in reality, every sin is as great of a rebellion against God as Adam and Eve's first sin was. With each sin, we have sided with the serpent against God in their battle versus each other. God should strike us down every time we sin. God could let us go our own way to live in fear of him and his punishment forever.
But God hasn't done either of those things to us. Instead, just as he spoke to Adam and Eve, so he has spoken his promise to us. The story of the first sin in the Garden of Eden is also a true story about you and me, because God has spoken the same promise of the same Savior, who came to defeat the serpent for you and me.
God the Father spoke to Adam and Eve about a showdown that would happen one day between the serpent and the Savior. You and I can see, though, that this final battle has already been fought. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin and became a human being to fight. The serpent and the Savior fought throughout his life on earth, as the devil tried to use his offspring – those who did not believe God's promise – to kill Jesus. The serpent and the Savior fought as Satan brought his strongest temptations against Jesus again and again. In every battle, the Savior defeated the serpent.
But finally those two enemies met on one battlefield in the greatest showdown of all time. This battle was fought to settle once and for all time would win and who would lose. This battle would decide whether humankind would belong to God or Satan. The battlefield was the cross, to which men who believed the serpent's lies nailed Jesus. Jesus suffered intense pain and agony on the cross. There Satan most certainly struck his heel. But the serpent did not defeat the Savior. In his suffering and death, Jesus went through everything that Adam and Eve and you and I deserved for God to do to us because of all our sins. On the cross, Jesus redeemed us, or bought us back from slavery to the serpent. Now we no longer belong to him. We, once again, belong to the God who created us! He crushed the serpent's head. Jesus is the winner. Don't believe the serpent's lies about him. Trust your God's promise for you!
The showdown between the serpent and the Savior was a real battle. But there was never any doubt as to who would win, because God the Father had foretold it at the beginning of the battles in the Garden of Eden. Jesus was the winner of the showdown when he suffered and died on the cross. And Jesus won that battle for you. Yes, in the showdown of the serpent vs. the Savior, Satan is defeated, and you have the victory through Jesus.