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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this morning we have placed in front of us here at least this part of this Old Testament lesson from chapter 3 by the prophet Moses that we often refer to as The Fall. And if you look in your study Bible, it might actually be titled The Fall.
Well, I think sometimes perhaps that this ought to be titled the fall…and the promise. For as it is, it seems that maybe too often we put emphasis on the former, and this assails our consciences as it well should. But we want to make sure that we don’t miss this one particular verse of promise that was given to Adam and Eve because, of course, as it is given to them, it is given to all mankind, down to us today.
Now when you were a kid, maybe some of you, even as adults, you probably did something wrong at one time or another that caused you to hide from your father and your mother, and of course they didn’t know exactly what you had done yet, but they were going to find out soon enough. Maybe you spilled something on the carpet, maybe you broke something very valuable and irreplaceable, or maybe you ate something that you weren’t supposed to eat, and you had been explicitly told not to eat it.
And so to avoid being found out, and so also to avoid being punished, maybe you covered it up, maybe you hid it, or maybe you even hid yourself. Maybe you went and hid in your closet, or you went out the door and went to your neighbor friend’s house and hid over there, all the while knowing that you were going to get found. And so for this time that you were there, wherever you were, alone with your thoughts, your mind probably raced with all the various spectrum of punishments that your parents were thinking up for you while you were there. Would you simply get a talking-to, a good talking-to? Would you maybe be grounded? Would you get some type, in my case, of corporal punishment?
And then once you were found out, would you confess what you had done? Or would you then also find someone or something to blame it on? And let’s face it, you knew that hiding or running away was pointless. You knew you were going to be eventually found, or maybe you would just get hungry enough to come out of seclusion. And you also knew that no matter what you had done, that punishment was likely, but you would be forgiven. That yes, you might have to suffer some period of embarrassment, you might even have a little bit of some humiliation, but your parents still loved you, and they were going to forgive you for whatever transgression it was.
And then, of course, with the punishment might come this remark, “I’m doing this for your own good,” or “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” And I think for some of us, that was the part we really dreaded hearing, those words. So then, why did we then and why do we now still put ourselves through this? I mean, isn’t it just better to admit a fault and get on with it? And it seems, of course, our proclivity to avoid admitting wrong and thereby to avoid getting in trouble, it isn’t really isolated to our childhood.
Because even as adults, we often find ourselves with the tendency to want to shirk responsibility for something and then push it off as not our fault. It is, after all, our nature. It is our sinful nature. And so, in this lesson from Genesis, we see how it all began. Now, we didn’t get to hear the first seven verses, but we know what happened. After eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve have now become self-conscious. They’re aware. They know they are naked.
And so, when they hear the Lord walking in the garden, they flee from his presence. He was physically there among them, and they know exactly why he’s there. Again, they had eaten of this tree. They had eaten of the only tree that he expressly forbidden them to eat from. And so they were now hiding from Him, not out of guilt, but to hide their shame, hoping that he might just pass by or not find them or somehow forget about the whole thing.
And they had reason enough to be afraid and look for a way out of this mess, and sure enough their fear is betraying their guilt even if they don’t admit it. But they already knew the punishment that was to come, for the Lord had told them. He’d warned them about this punishment of death, and that this would be really a double death. Of course there would be this physical death, this ending of their created bodies, but there would also be this spiritual death, this eternal separation from the love and the infinite mercy of God. And so this was indeed a grave situation that they had put themselves into.
And so the Lord, of course, he knows what they’ve done, and he asks where they are. And he seeks out Adam first, asking, “Where are you?” I mean, the Lord didn’t need to ask, “Why are you hiding?” or “Come out so I can see you. I know where you are.” And, of course, this question seems somewhat rhetorical, but it has a purpose.
And the Lord, in asking this question, the Lord is inviting Adam to think about the consequence already of his sin. By asking this, God wants Adam to be thinking about how he has now separated himself from God, that he now has this different relationship with his Heavenly Father. And so why didn’t God ask Eve? After all, wasn’t she the one to blame for this entire situation? Well, here God is simply reinforcing his order of creation. He created man, he created Adam first with the responsibility for stewardship of all creation, and of course this relationship continues to this day.
So Adam was the one. Adam was accountable for what Eve had done. But Adam, well, he passes on this opportunity to admit his own fault, to confess his sin, and he now truly reveals the depth of his depravity that he’s already got himself into, that he has already fallen into, and he answers, “Well, I was afraid because I was naked.” And so he is only expressing his shame at his nakedness. He’s not expressing any sort of shame that he has sinned against the Lord.
And God perceives this, of course. God knows that Adam now has this new sense of awareness and this new insecurity. So again, the Lord provides Adam an opportunity to admit his own sin when he asks if he had eaten of the forbidden tree, and Adam passes again. He still doesn’t acknowledge his sin. He chooses instead to blame God. He blames God for the woman who gave him the fruit. What nerve Adam has in saying this, that God is somehow the author of sin because he created the woman and gave her to him. And now he even tries to put his own sin on the woman. This woman that God told Adam that he was to be one with.
This woman that he now tries to place between himself and God. And then to Eve, God only asks, “What have you done?” And Eve knows the serpent has, at this point, she knows the serpent has lied to her. And like Adam, she tries to convince God, “It’s not my fault. I was simply deceived.” And so Eve presents the facts and nothing more. And as with Adam, there is no confession.
And so surprisingly, perhaps to us, God pronounces judgment first on the serpent who is now put lower than any animal. In fact, his entire means of locomotion, his entire means of travel will be changed forever. But now, and we have to be careful that we hear this verse 15, but now here comes the death blow to the serpent. And it is the very first time that we hear the gospel in all of Scripture. The Lord says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
And so often I think that we take this as just a pronouncement of judgment upon the serpent, but God speaks to Adam and Eve and speaks to us these words so that we hear them, so that we know that this is more about judging the serpent. And so this verse is easy to overlook, to kind of breeze past, but it is the crux of this chapter about the fall of man into sin.
Because in this judgment on the serpent, God is also pledging to mankind the deliverance from sin, death, and the devil through the offspring of the woman. Offspring, we know, there are going to be all those who descend from Eve. She is, after all, the mother of all the living. But this one chosen offspring will be the one to bruise the serpent’s head. And we know, of course, this is none other than Jesus Christ.
And so this is a promise. This is the promise that even Adam and Eve understood and believed as they received these words. For although they were going to be banished from this paradise forever, never to return, they leave with a faith that God will forgive them, has forgiven them, and will deliver them from their sin. And it seems easy for us to say, “Well, thanks a lot Adam and Eve, you messed it up for everybody,” as if we would do any better.
Because not only are we inheritors of this original sin, this corruption of our human nature, but we also struggle daily with our actual sins, the ones that we ourselves commit, the ones that we commit in thought, word, and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone. And so if we think that we are now grown up and we no longer act like children who have done wrong, then we are kidding ourselves.
For sometimes we try to hide our sin, hoping that no one will notice or search us out. We fear the consequence of sin, that we might suffer the shame and indignity of someone knowing what we’ve done. So we worry way too much about shame, about what our neighbor thinks of us, instead of how our sin separates us from our Heavenly Father. At times, maybe we allow sin to build up and overwhelm us to the point that we retreat from the very one who saves us.
And so we struggle continuously with some particular sin, frustrated that we can’t overcome it, and what do we do? We try to fix ourselves. But of course, we fall into despair. We decide to give up, thinking that the extent of our sin is so great there is no hope, and that somehow we’ve reached some point of no return, where we think that the breadth and depth of our sin is so great that it is simply beyond forgiveness, that the Lord will always remember our sin.
So maybe we begin to attend church sporadically, or perhaps we even stop coming. Ironically, we try to hide from God by staying away from his holy house, all the while knowing that he sees us, and all the while knowing that it is right here where we receive the forgiveness of sins.
And then about that unforgivable sin. Now it is true that the smallest, the seemingly most innocuous and inconsequential sin is enough to condemn us to death, but today hear the words that Jesus tells us that, “Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter, with one exception.” Jesus says, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.”
So here our Lord promises forgiveness, even to those who may think they are beyond redemption in the breadth and depth of their sin, but he will withhold forgiveness from those who reject the Holy Spirit and the change of heart that the Spirit brings. So yes, this blasphemy against the Spirit is unforgivable, not because of its magnitude, but because it rejects forgiveness altogether. Repentance is no longer possible because it is the Holy Spirit who works repentance.
And so we must know this blasphemy, it isn’t accidental. We don’t do it in our sleep, we don’t do it inadvertently, we don’t do it unconsciously. So you must know that if you fear that you have committed this sin, then being here today is proof that you haven’t. So let your conscience be clear that in seeking forgiveness you are forgiven.
So we must be comforted and assured today that what God has promised, he has already delivered. St. Paul tells us this morning, we have the same spirit of faith according to what had been written. We have the gospel of the Lord in all of Holy Scripture, both in the Old and the New Testament, for it contains the words and promises of God, so that the faith of Adam and Eve and the faith of Abraham and Moses and David, it is our faith. It is faith in the belief of the promise of forgiveness won by Christ on the cross.
And so, brothers and sisters, today God calls to you and asks you, “Where are you?” He searches us out, even though we have allowed ourselves to be cut off from him because of our sin. He sends his Good Shepherd to look for us, his lost sheep to rescue us from the thorns and thickets. He has sent the strong man to bind Satan and has broken into Satan’s house and has snatched us away from him and his demons. This one who came to bruise and to crush the head of the serpent. The one who came to bring redemption and reconciliation between God and man forever.
So we need not be ashamed of our nakedness, our nakedness of sin and our vulnerability. For just as God later would provide new garments for the man and the woman, for Adam and Eve to cover their physical nakedness, he has lovingly and graciously covered us with the blood of Christ. He has clothed us in Christ’s righteousness. He has put on us and dressed us in the cloak of salvation.
So yes, in the fall we became captive to sin, but by the work of Christ on the cross we have been freed from this condemnation. God took all that agony and pain of sin upon himself through the offspring of the woman, and in being made man, Jesus took on our human form and he accepted God’s wrath in our place.
And so the fall, which once separated us from the love of God, was overcome by him who knew no sin. And we are redeemed, we are restored and forgiven if we only believe in him, and in this promise. St. John in Revelation 21:5 writes, “And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.”
So Jesus Christ, the new Adam, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end is for us. And so may we rejoice with this sure confidence that sin and death no longer have dominion over us, and that the promise given in the garden all those years ago is fulfilled in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Now the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guards your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.
