Part 3: Gender & Sin

Welcome back, we're studying God's design for human beings, made in His image, and specifically trying to ask the question, what does it mean to not only be a human being made in His image, but what does it mean to be male and female? What are the distinctions? Going back to the last two, let's just remember, male and female are made in His image, that's from Genesis 127, very distinctly. That's a position of dignity that is unchanged, but it's also a purpose that has been marred as we'll see from today's study by Sen. Genesis 2 was day 6 expanded and explained where we see male created first, breathed life into by God after being formed from the earth. But the real climactic ending of day 6 is Eve being formed from the rib of man and man celebrating her. And sadly we're going to see a different kind of talk from Adam regarding Eve in a moment. Headship, I believe, is introduced here because Ephesians 5.30-31 tell us that Genesis 2.24 is really about Christ and His church. And so that's an important backdrop as we begin to look at Genesis 3. Before we go on, I want us to remember or think about something specific here, and that is the self. We are thinking about who we are and just pausing before we go into all the things that go wrong. The self. We talk a lot about self-identity. It used to be a lot about self-image. It's important to know who we are according to what God has said. That is the most important thing about us. So if we just think about one of the key commands, the second great commandment according to Jesus Christ, love your neighbor as yourself. Well, as we love ourselves, we're forming a self-identity. And I would say that self-identity really determines how we think we should be loving ourselves and how we think about loving ourselves determines how we love our neighbor. And let's just be honest, we have a difficult, bad track record throughout humanity of loving our neighbor. I believe that reflects bad self-awareness, bad self-love. When I say bad self-love, what I mean is we all love ourselves, but we don't do it well. An alcoholic thinks he loves himself, but he's really destroying himself. Someone who's trying to find comfort in something perverse is not doing a good job of loving themselves or actually destroying themselves. I said that to help us see that what God is doing in telling us who we are made in His image, He's helping us know who we are and how we should think about ourselves. The goal of the Christian is to think God's thoughts after him, and any time we take any kind of other avenue, any time we try to add to or take away from something God says, we're accepting much less than what God has given us. And the call to being made in His image is a call to goodness, a call to glory, and as we're gonna see, wanting something that we think is better always leaves us with less. Genesis 3 changes everything. Genesis 1 and 2, it was good, it was good, it was good. Man has peace with God. Man has peace with a woman. Man has peace with himself. Man has peace with the created order. And all that gets turned upside down. Genesis 3 is made up of three scenes. And those three scenes and the order in which things happen are important. Now, Genesis 3 is introduced with a new character. It was a serpent. He's crafty. We already see something going on here, and we know that serpent is Satan, the demonic, evil creature of God who has rebelled against him and now wants to lead his earthly creatures in a rebellion. We see Satan goes and speaks with Eve, and then Adam follows suit. And then when God shows up, he speaks to Adam and then Eve, and then the end emphasis, the heightened language, is God speaking to Satan, his consequence, Eve, her consequence, and Adam, his consequence. Those three scenes are important as we think through this. As we look at the narrative, let me read Genesis 3 verses 1 to 7. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the trees in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened. and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths." Now, as we see here, Satan goes to Eve first, He makes a question to probe her mind, to begin putting doubts in her mind. And notice what Satan does here, this is what he often does. Did God actually say? Is that the kind of God that you would want to actually obey? The God who keeps good things? Did he actually say, don't eat of any tree? Satan is trying to put some doubt in Eve's mind due to making her think, is God really good? Is he really being generous? And of course he said, here's all the trees, here's the whole garden, it's all yours to have dominion, but here's the one reminder you're not autonomous, one tree you will not eat of. It's a reminder they're stewards, they're vice regents, ambassadors, image bearers, not owners. And so Satan's causing her to question God's goodness, twisting everything about what God actually said. And the woman said back to the serpent, and it's important to remember here, Adam was the one who received the instruction not to eat of this tree before Eve was presented to him and existed. He's there with her, but he's letting her actually do the debating back and forth And Eve misrepresents what God actually said. She says, you shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it. She does what we oftentimes do. We become confused in our self-righteousness. We add to God's law. What Satan says next is deceiving, of course. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. That's a lie. God isn't telling the truth. He's not good, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. Let's think about that for a moment. One of the glorious truths of scripture that is clear is that God made us already like him. We already are image bearers. We already have that unique privilege and status, and Satan is trying to promise more than what God has given. And it has something to do with your eyes being open. You'll see things better. You'll see things like God. You'll be more like God than what God has already given you. And the woman believes him. because she saw it was good for food, it seemed to be the light of the eyes, it was desired to make one wise, and she ate. She was deceived by Satan, who was twisting God's word and God's purposes around, and then she gave some to her husband and he ate. And then, as Satan said, there was some truth to what he said, their eyes were opened. But this opening led to them not liking what they saw. They saw they were going to see things better. They thought they were going to see things in a more glorious way than what God had designed for them. And by disobeying God, now they see their shame. And they have to cover themselves. We see how Satan has twisted things. And the order of how Satan approaches Eve first seems to have some significance to it, because Paul makes a point that it's because women aren't supposed to teach, and we'll cover that more later on, what that means, men with authority, because the woman was deceived. And I think one of the points here is that Adam wasn't deceived, he just outright rebels. The woman actually wasn't the one who received the command, and she is the one who is deceived. There's a couple reasons why people think Satan approached Eve first, and I think they all probably have some truth to them. One of those thoughts or theories is that she was created last. She's the exclamation point of creation. as we saw from Genesis 2. Some think Satan was one of the first creatures. He's one of the most glorious, powerful creatures. And in his rebellion, he's attacking the one who God created as the end exclamation point of creation. Others believe that she's attacked first and tempted first by Satan because she's the one who carries and gives birth to image bearers. She has one of the most privileged positions, even among male, female, that position of carrying another image bearer in the womb and giving birth. And her role in procreation is why he attacked her specifically. Well, the other, and I believe there's some truth to this as well, and this is what Paul is getting at, I think, is that he's seeking to undermine the role relations that God has established. He's speaking to Adam, he's speaking to Eve, whereas God's going to come and speak to Adam. There's an outright denial of who God is, what he has said, wanting something more, and anytime we want something more than what God has said, we're going to end up dissatisfied. We are restless until we find our rest in Him, and they thought they could find something better. The second scene doesn't have Satan in it directly, but here we see God enter in, and I really look forward to the day where I understand what this looks like and what it felt like. Verse 8, Now as Paul's there, this is supposed to be a really sad scene. Pathetic, really. God placed them in the garden. It's theirs to steward. It's theirs to enjoy. And God is coming to that garden because that's where God and man meet and fellowship and enjoy the presence of each other. But now God is coming, and because of the shame, they're hiding from the master gardener in his own garden. It's sad because of what they've lost, and it's pathetic because you can't hide from God. So God calls to man, where are you? I don't think God is trying to find out where man is as if this is a hide and seek game. I think he wants man to actually reflect, this is where I am now. I'm not coming to see God face to face. I'm hiding behind a tree. And Adam said, and I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. God said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree. And I, we don't know how much time has elapsed. It's only a few sentences. So we go from the first recorded words of man praising God for bringing him the gift of a fit helper to now in shame and frustration and rebellion, he's blaming God for a woman. There's a bit of a lesson here in that we always think we deserve better. We always think God could be doing a better job. And whenever we're in our sin, we like to blame God. And it's not him blaming the woman directly. God, it's your fault who gave me this woman. Then the Lord said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And she said, it was the serpent who deceived me and I hate. We see the sadness all around here. Before we get into the consequence, there's now disharmony in the marriage. There's disharmony between man and woman with God. There's shame. And one of the most difficult things we're gonna see as a consequence, they had eyes that could look at and see God. One of the great themes of the Old Testament, remember Moses, let me see your glory. No, you can't see my glory. No, eyes who are impure and eyes that still have sin can't see God. Adam and Eve, they could see God, but they wanted to see something better. They thought they could get a better view, and they lost a glorious one they had. Now God will speak and he'll speak to them in order. And again, as we remember kind of our rules for interpretation, heightened language and emphasis. Well, here we see heightened language, it's poetry. God is going to give them their consequences in a poetic form. And it's an emphasis, the third scene. Notice how God's now going to speak to them according to their appearance in the first scene. He's gonna speak to the serpent, the woman and the man. Most of our time is going to be on verse 16, but I have to say something about Genesis 3.15. I, he says to the serpent, will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring, and he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This is what we call the Proto-Evangelium, the first declaration of the gospel. And I just want to just point out here that God is already promising a victory over Satan. God is already promising he's going to reverse the curse. He's already going to deal with sin and death. And it takes him all of eight lives to get to a promise that is gracious. He could be more harsh. And he'd be right to do so because of how disobedient Adam and Eve were, but he's already making a promise, and it's a promise to Satan. There will be a victor, a child will be born of the woman. There's going to be enmity. This world is a battlefield now because of what they've done, but there will be a child born. And we know this is Jesus, who his heel was bruised on the cross, but ultimately he had victory by crushing sin and death on the cross. Now to the woman he said, verse 16, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. Again, this is rich, and I'm just going to say something very quick. There's a womb theology here. It's a glorious womb theology because the promised child of Isaac is to Abraham and Sarah, who has a closed womb. And the womb is a sacred place where image-bearers are born, but now the womb is a reminder God is going to bring about a salvation. There's a promise yet to be fulfilled. And God does so over and over again with closed wombs to show His grace is more than sufficient to bring about this promise. Why is there pain in childbearing? Which does include miscarriages, closed womb, the actual pain in childbirth. Well, I believe we see here that disobedience disturbs where God's blessings abound and are meant to be most enjoyed. Our disobedience disturbs where God's blessings abound and are meant to be most enjoyed. And the womb is one of those places that is most hindered and made difficult by the curse because it was supposed to be one of the most blessed places. Now let's look at this one verse that is really at the center of the controversy over male and female, husband and wife, role distinctions. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. There's four interpretations of this, and I'm gonna go through each one just very quickly. The egalitarian position says that the order of headship and submission is introduced here because rule equals headship and desire equals submission. And what Jesus does when he comes is he brings it back to what it was supposed to be and that is a one kind of relationship where everyone is equal and it's a mutual, it's purely just a mutual relationship. I believe this outright denies what Paul clearly teaches in Ephesians 5, where Christ is the head and the wife's role is equal to the church, the husband's role is equal to Christ. And so I believe this just denies too much scripture. I believe Ed Welch actually has a fairly convincing argument. He has an article where he believes what is going on here is that even though you have pain and childbearing, your desire shall still be for your husband and he will rule over you. The second half actually isn't a second curse because his argument is each person gets one curse. Satan gets crushed, Adam has sweat and labor, sweat and difficulty in labor, and she has childbearing problems. And childbearing means you're still going to want to procreate with your husband and he will rule over you. It's not bad, but I don't think it captures really what's going on there. Calvin teaches that the word desire means overthrow, and that rule is the right response of the man because her desire is against her husband. So egalitarians say that this is introducing role relationships at all, headship and submission are introduced here as part of the fall. Ed Welch says this is just the way things are gonna function now that there's pain in childbearing. Calvin says desire is overthrow and rule is still good because the husband must be head and rule, head and rule he equates. Susan Foe wrote an article and she introduces another interpretive tool for us. The interpretive tool is this. Whenever you see words and you want to know what they mean, because these words are somewhat difficult just based upon the way that they've been interpreted, look for somewhere else by the same author close by where you can see how they're interpreted. And we have that. If we just flip over to Genesis 4-7, both of these very important words are used. If you do well, God says to Cain, will you not be accepted? And if you do not well, do well, sin is crouching at your door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. The desire of sin is pretty clear. It's to toss you to and fro. The desire of sin is to destroy. It promises freedom, it promises goodness, but it's to destroy you. And so if we take what desire means there in Genesis 4-7 and put it back in Genesis 3-16, desire is sinful. It's an undermining desire. And if we think about what it means to rule over sin, well, how do you rule sin? You mortify it. You crush it. Rule is not gentle or kind. You do not play with sin. You do not protect it. You crush it. And so you see the design of God being turned upside down. In Genesis 2, we see the design of man was to keep and watch. We see in Genesis 3 that now corruption is that he's going to rule harshly or sometimes just be absent. And then the restoration of man, according to Christ, is to love as well. The desire for a woman is to help. Now, according to Genesis 3, the sinful corruption is she'll have a desire to overthrow him. And the restoration is submission, according to Ephesians 5. And again, we'll talk about that passage a little bit later. So we look at what happens. Calvin calls the world as we know it now, a glorious ruin. It's glorious because God's goodness and order are still present, but it's marred. Human beings are still made in the image of God. Men and women still marry and become husband and wife. But because of the corruption that's in, because of the deceitful desires that have come with sin, because we wanted something more than what God gave us, marriage is corrupted. Our relationship with God is corrupted. Our relationship with this world is corrupted. And the good news is that God has sent his son, Jesus Christ, to reconcile us to himself and to restore us. We have one more gospel picture. In Genesis 3, 21, Adam and Eve are given garments by God, skin of animals. We see a little picture there that something innocent had to die to cover their sin. This points to the Lamb of God that John the Baptist declares. This is the Lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world. Praise God that he reconciles to himself through a son, Jesus Christ, who provides forgiveness. Praise God he restores us to being image bearers. And praise God that we can be restored in our right relationships if we follow God. But here we see how it's been marred. Next study we'll be looking at how God has restored it more specifically with the gospel.