Sermon25-17 Gen3 Guide

Gen 2:25-3:21 theme verse Gen 3:15

The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.

In this twelfth Sunday of 2025, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. Last week, we saw that the consequence of the first sin to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and fall was the first crime of murder, yet this week, we would like to look at how this first sin of eating the forbidden fruit influenced to the human mind.

1)    First of all, to look at Today’s text, in Genesis chapter 1 and 2, it records the story of creation of man and woman in God’s image, the story of commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Eden. And then in today’s text of Genesis chapter 3, it records the story that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil to sin and then were expelled from Eden, after being punished. The serpent who tempted woman, was punished that being cursed above all livestock and above all beasts of the field, on the belly they shall go and dust they shall eat all the days of their life.” The woman was punished to multiply the pain in childbearing and childbirth. And then Adam was punished, as the ground was cursed because of him, in pain, he had to eat of it and to dust he would return. Yet, even in amongst of these punishment, God proclaimed proto-evangelism, in other words, original gospel, saying “woman’s offspring shall bruise the serpent’s head, and the serpent shall bruise his heel.” And also to the man and woman who loved each other, God said, “woman will want to control her husband, but husband will dominate her”, so that the perfect loving relationship between two will be a relationship in which they want to make each other do as they wish.

2)    Regarding these stories of creation and fall of human in chapter 1 through 3 of Genesis, to look at the theological meaning, first, human beings, the masterpiece of God’s creation in chapter 1 and 2, were created in the image of God, as male and female, in His pleasing will, in His love as good, righteous, and holy beings. And God told them not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil which means they had to rely on the criteria and judgement of good and evil to God’s will and to live in God’s will. Here in the phrase of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the ancient Hebrew verb ‘yada(ידע)’ can mean 1) to know the good and evil, or 2) to possess the knowledge of good and evil, or 3) to determine good and evil, yet in this text, taking third meaning to determine, as we can interpret that God prohibited to determine good and evil by ourselves and also as Louis Berkhof also said in his book “Systematic Theology” that the reason why it was called as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was ”to reveal whether human would allow God to determine for them what was good and evil, or would undertake to determine this for themselves.” Regarding this, even though some misunderstand this that God created human beings as slaves to follow and obey God’s will, but this was very natural, considering the fact that human beings cannot understand fully the circumstances and  know all the intentions of a certain issue or person, as human beings were infinite beings. For instance, if we assign a human being to judge one’s life between good and evil in the end, obviously no one will accept it. But, according to the verse 3 that woman said “neither you touch it”, or verse 5, in which the serpent tempted woman, saying “for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” and also verse 6 in which when the woman saw that tree the tree was to be desired to make one wise,” “the essence of that sin lay in the fact that Adam placed himself in opposition to God, that he refused to subject his will to the will of God, to have God determine the course of his life; and that he actively attempted to take the matter out of God’s hand, and to determine the future for himself so that we can know that in the intellect it revealed itself as unbelief and pride, in the will, as the desire to be like God, and in the affections, as an unholy satisfaction in eating of the forbidden fruit,” as Louis Berkhof said.

3)    And regarding this internal change of humanity after the fall and corruption, the Belgic confession article 15 confesses the same that, “We believe that by the disobedience of Adam original sin has been spread through the whole human race. It is a corruption of the whole human nature-an inherited depravity which even infects small infants in their mother's womb, and the root which produces in humanity every sort of sin. It is therefore so vile and enormous in God's sight that it is enough to condemn the human race, and it is not abolished or wholly uprooted even by baptism, seeing that sin constantly boils forth as though from a contaminated spring. Nevertheless, it is not imputed to God's children for their condemnation but is forgiven by his grace and mercy not to put them to sleep but so that the awareness of this corruption might often make believers groan as they long to be set free from the body of this death. Therefore we reject the error of the Pelagians who say that this sin is nothing else than a matter of imitation.”

4)    As such, regarding the corruption of human nature after eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we use the theological term original sin. Louis Berkhof defines this original sin as “the sinful state and condition which is not inherited but imputed to human beings. The reason why it is call ed as original sin is (a) because it is derived from the original root of the human race; and (b) because it is present in the life of every individual from the time of his birth, and therefore cannot be regarded as the result of imitation; and also (3) because it is the inward root of all the actual sins that defile the life of man.” And this original sin has two elements; original guilt and original pollution. Here the word “guilt” expresses the relation which sin bears to justice or to the penalty of the law so one who is guilty stands in a guilt of sin and liability to punishment where the former is the intrinsic moral ill-desert of an act or state so that this is of the essence of sin and is an inseparable part of its sinfulness and attaches to them permanently. Therefore it cannot be removed by forgiveness, and is not removed by justification on the basis of the merits of Jesus Christ, and much less by mere pardon and in this sense, guilt cannot be transferred from one person to another. But, the liability of punishment, meaning desert of punishment, or obligation to render satisfaction to God’s justice for self-determined violation of the law, in this sense is not the essence of sin, but is rather a relation to the penal saction of the law so that this may be removed by the satisfaction of justice, either personally or vicariously and be transferred from one person to another, or assumed by one person for another, and removed from believers by justification and vicarious redemption of Jesus Christ. And then secondly there’s original pollution in original sin, which includes two things, I mean, the absence of original righteousness and the presence of positive evil and may be considered as total depravity and as total inability. Here, total depravity does not imply (a) that every man is as thoroughly depraved as he can possibly become; and (b) that the sinner has no innate knowledge of the will of God, nor a conscience that discriminates between good and evil; and (c) that sinful man does not often admire virtuous character and actions in others, or is incapable of disinterested affections and actions in his relations with his fellow-men; nor (d) that every unregenerate man will, in virtue of his inherent sinfulness, indulge in every form of sin, rather it does indicate (a) that the inherent corruption extends to every part of man’s nature, to all the faculties and powers of both soul and body; and (b) that there is no spiritual good, that is, good in relation to God, in the sinner at all, but only perversion. “With respect to its effect on man’s spiritual powers, it is called also total inability. But, by ascribing total inability to the natural man, we do not mean to say that it is impossible for him to do good in any sense of the word. Reformed theologians generally say that he is still able to perform: (1) natural good; (2) civil good or civil righteousness; and (3) even externally religious good too. And also it is admitted that even the unrenewed possess some virtue, revealing itself in the relations of social life, in many acts and sentiments that deserve the sincere approval and gratitude of their fellow-men, and that even meet with the approval of God to a certain extent. But at the same time, it is maintained that these same actions and feelings, when considered in relation to God, are radically defective where their fatal defect is that they are not prompted by love to God, or by any regard for the will of God as requiring them. So, when we speak of man’s corruption as total inability, we mean two things: (1) that the unrenewed sinner cannot do any act, however insignificant, which fundamentally meets with God’s approval and answers to the demands of God’s holy law; and (2) that he cannot change his fundamental preference for sin and self to love for God, nor even make an approach to such a change. In a word, he is unable to do any spiritual good, as abundant Scriptural support for this fact: John 1:13; 3:5; 6:44; 8:34; 15:4, 5; Rom. 7:18, 24; 8:7, 8; 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 3:5; Eph. 2:1, 8–10; Heb. 11:6.

5)    But, the problem is that such serious guilt and pollution affects not only Adam and Eve who committed the first sin, but also all of humanity, their descendants. Regarding this causal relationship between Adam’s sin and humanity’s sin, there are various theological positions. First, those who follow Pelagius, who believed that human beings are good in nature, deny that there is any necessary causal relationship between Adam's sin and humanity's sin. They argue that the first sin was only Adam's sin, and had nothing to do with his descendants. And they believe that Adam was merely an example of sin that influenced his descendants to sin so that they believe people can avoid sinning if they simply decide not to sin. But, in fact, this view conflicts with Ephesians 2:1-2; Matthew 15:18-19; Romans 7:23; Hebrews 6:1, 9:14, etc., which teach that people are hopelessly enslaved to sin without God's intervention and that their good deeds are insufficient to obtain God's grace. Secondly, Arminianism teaches that because of Adam's sin, all mankind inherited the sinful nature, naturally commits sin and cannot stop sinning by their own strength, so God gave universal grace called "prevenient grace" to enable human beings to stop sinning; therefore, we human beings are not responsible for Adam's sin, but are only responsible for our own sins. However, this teaching also conflicts with the teaching in 1 Corinthians 15:22 and Romans 5:12-18, which state that all people are punished for sin even though they did not sin in a similar way to Adam. Also, there is no teaching about "prevenient grace" in the Bible. Then lastly, Calvinism states that Adam's sin not only made us sinful, but also made us guilty and deserved for punishment before God, as Psalm 51:5 says that we were conceived with original sin and, and as Jeremiah 17:9 says, we inherited a heart that is more deceitful than all things and desperately corrupt and also as Romans 5:12, 19 says, Adam's guilt and punishment (death) also came upon us. Because humanity existed in Adam in the form of a seed, when Adam sinned, so all human beings also sinned in Adam, or  since Adam sinned as the representative of all human beings, so human beings were also found guilty. Therefore, our Reformed Church, we believe that human beings cannot overcome our sinfulness without the power of the Holy Spirit, and that this power of the Holy Spirit can only be obtained when a person relies on Christ and His atonement on the cross.

6)    By the way regarding this transition of original sin from Adam to human beings, the Bible clearly says that, “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom 5:12), and also “when the LORD saw that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5) and also “the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead” (Ecclesiastes 9:3), but, “no one seeks God” (Rom 3:11), “there is no one who does not sin against God” (2 Chron 6:36) and “there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (Ecc 7:20), because “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick” (Jer 17:9), so that we “were all dead in the trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1), and ”all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), yet, “the blood of Christ purify our conscience and make us serve the living God” (Heb 9:14). Amen.

7)    By the way, today’s text also said this original guilt and original pollution was imputed to us. I mean, in 2:25, before eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it says that Adam and his wife were naked and felt no shame, but in 3:7, after eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it says that their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. So, through these two verses, we can see that something happened internally after eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In order words, the criteria for judging good and evil was changed before and after eating the forbidden fruit. I mean, before eating the fruit, both of them were naked, but since God created them as such and had said it was very good, they thought that everything was good, and they felt no shame. However, after eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I mean, after they began to decide for themselves what was good and evil, in order words, what was right and what was not, even the difference of men and women became shame so that they hid it by leaves. The sin of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil made them determine not by God's will, but by their own decisions, and this resulted in this happening. These things happen in these days in us too. I mean, regarding the differences between people, I mean, the individuality by which some people being good at this, while others being good at that, even though they were all good being created by God, we human beings judge others’ differentness and even condemn others. This is the consequence of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When we look back on our lives, we can easily see these things happen too often. Instead of good or evil by God’s criteria such as being alone is not not good, while helping each other is good, after eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, each person began to judge good and evil by their own. So, as a result, they judged and condemn even each other's individual differences. This led to many conflicts and discord in us. And also, without knowing full intentions behind each other's thoughts and acts, we judged and condemned each other's acts as good or evil, so that we fought each other. All these are the results of human beings’ decision of good and evil by their own, instead of God’s decision who is the absolute being and knows everything.

8)    In today’s text, God asked Adam, “Who told you that you were naked?” But, unfortunately the ones who told them that they were naked were themselves. In this way, after the sin of eating the fruit of good and evil, we human beings became the ones who tell us that we are naked, in other words, the ones who point our own shames, and also the ones who apply those own criteria to others. Even though such wisdom comes from God, as Adam and Even say that “when they saw the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were so desirable that they would become wise,” they ate it and became the ones who determine and judge good and evil by themselves, so that their hearts became full of evil, not good in God’s eyes, yet good in their own and die in the end. Therefore, I pray that this year, I pray that we may be awake to discern from which voice we hear so that we may obey to God’s will, not in ours, and live good life in God’s eyes.

Key Questions as Small Group Activity

Q1 According to today’s sermon, God said not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because God will decide good and evil and God only can decide it. So after thinking about this commandment, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Q2 And then after thinking about the result by determining good and evil by human will, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Love you. Thank you. God bless you.

Prayer Note

Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!

Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or  even during the week )

Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!

Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),

please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized   ).

I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon                                    )

Please help me to live in that (  learned way of life                                                )

I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.