The History of Redemption Part 5: The Fall

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Romans 1:22-25, Genesis 3:7 ESV)

The following commentary on Genesis 3 is a small portion of a Conference Paper delivered by Professor Daniel Deutschland. Although this short section is rather lengthy, it is well worth the time and effort to read as it is filled with thought-provoking and well developed thoughts on the Fall and God’s grace to his fallen creatures.

His lies worked. It is of great importance at this point that we observe what the first sin is. It isn’t that Eve ate the fruit; that’s way down on the list. Nor is it doubt. There is no doubt in these verses, no wavering or wondering who she should believe. The first sin is flagrant, coarse, crude, total unbelief.

She is confronted with a clear choice between the Word of God and the words of the devil. From God she knew and experienced nothing but goodness and love. From the serpent she had only words. And what did she do? She cast aside the Word of God and believed the words of the devil. That’s her first sin and Adam’s too. And that is the heart and core of the Fall.

Everything that follows flows from this sin of unbelief, of rejecting the Word of God. And again, that is nothing we do not experience every day. Sin is always a setting aside of the Word of God first and foremost and replacing it with the word of another, ultimately of Satan. Adam and Eve have now, even before they do anything else, become sinners. The attributes of holiness and righteousness inside of them are gone, totally gone, altogether gone.

[T]here is no such thing as a little bit holy or a little bit a sinner. It is one or the other. They have become the other. We take special note of that in the Sunday morning liturgy. Do you notice it? It’s in the confession of sins. The confession begins with words that acknowledge, not what we did, but what we are, that we are sinners. Everything that follows is what we did that proves it, that gives evidence of what we are…

So Eve is an unbeliever, and now a whole host of sins follow. Her relationship with God has been destroyed, as has Adam’s. Now what follows will but prove it and give evidence of it. And in the process the relationship between themselves and the relationship with nature too will be mauled almost beyond recognition.

For look what happens: She lusts. Lust is a desire for that which God has forbidden. But she wants it anyway. Do you see what is happening inside of her soul? The holiness and righteousness are gone. The soul is not. It still has emotions, will and reason. But look at the use that they are not put to. They have been corrupted and are bent on rebellion. So her emotions are attracted to what God has forbidden. Her reason comes as an evil ally to her emotions, when she notes that the tree is good for food and could even enhance her reasoning ability, giving her wisdom like God’s wisdom. And what could be wrong with that?

Sin now has the allies in the soul of emotion and reason; all that is left is for the will to become a full and complete partner in the crime. And it does. She decides, consciously and knowingly decides to take the fruit and eat it. Thus her body too is now fully involved in the sin, in the wicked result of unbelief. For one sin is never content to be alone. It always wants the company of other sins.

Nor is one sinner ever content to be alone. It always wants the company of other sinners. And so Eve makes sure that Adam is in every way her accomplice. He is already guilty, but she perhaps has not thought of that. He is guilty for letting her take the headship. He is guilty for having done absolutely nothing to re-assert his headship or to call Eve back from her crimes. He, in sum, has also become a sinner through unbelief. And now his actions join outwardly to prove and give evidence of what has happened inwardly. She hands him the fruit; he takes it; he eats from it.

The Fall for both them is now visible and complete, a Fall in which holiness and righteousness have been replaced with sinfulness. It is a Fall that spells the loss of the heart and core of the image of God within. It is a Fall which has left them still human; for they still have emotion, will and reason. But these are now badly marred and corrupted by their new attribute of sinfulness. How badly they are corrupted, we shall soon see. For they are both now involved in sort of free-fall; deeper and deeper they descend; farther and farther away they move from their first state in the proofs and evidences of their unbelief.

It begins with Adam’s observation that they are naked. They knew that before. When they were created they could delight in the beauty of their bodies and the wonder of their creation. But now a new element has entered in as a result of sin. It is guilt and shame. As they are about to try and hide from God, so now they want as well to hide from one another. They do not want to be that close anymore. They do want the other to leer. Perhaps they sense a certain selfishness in the way they look at one another that adds to their sense of shame.

Again, the relationship is badly damaged. Adam tries to fix things on his own. But look at what he does. He makes clothes out of fig leaves. What long term good is that? He uses his reason to solve the problem, but comes up with a solution that is shabby and altogether inadequate. His wisdom, the capacity of his reason, even in something that is purely practical has been damage by the Fall.

Then God intervenes. God in his essence is immanent; he is present everywhere. But at the same time he chooses to remain, even in the Garden, a hidden God (Deus absconditus). He becomes the revealed God (Deus revelatus) in his Word, especially later in the Word Incarnate, in the person of Jesus. Now in Eden he lets Adam and Eve know that he wishes to reveal himself in the Word. He does it by some sort of motion in the trees as he approaches them, so that they will know that he is about to speak to them. And what does Adam do? He further demonstrates the depths of his fall. He hides from the God who had only been good to him, from the God that he previously knew was everywhere. How foolish. How perverse.

Notice in this account God’s missionary techniques: He does not coddle, does not entertain; he speaks and calls to account; by his questions he shows the real ugliness and hatefulness, the ingratitude, the utterly damnable nature of sin – – or as St. Paul put it, he makes sin exceedingly sinful. Notice too that for all of their great guilt, it is God who seeks them, not they who seek God.

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He is like the little boy who reaches for the cookie jar set too high for him on the counter top; the cookie jar comes crashing down; from the other room his mother calls out: Fritz, what are you doing? Does Fritz answer: I was stealing a cookie and the jar fell down and I broke it? Certainly not. He answers like Adam: I was just walking by. The cookie jar fell down and broke. I don’t know how. It just happened. It’s not my fault!

Go into a court room. Listen to the excuses people make that are nothing more than a re-run of Adam who refuses to take responsibility for his actions. Look in the mirror. What’s wrong with you? Whatever it is, you will have no difficulty finding a rationalization for it, an excuse for it, someone else to blame for it, a reason why it isn’t so bad after all.

God meets Adam right where he is and picks up on Adam’s non-answer. Who told you that you were naked? Their nakedness had demonstrated only the most superficial shame, and thus the dim beginnings of conscience; but it is only superficial; this encounter, God confronting man, will show the real and damnable condition that conscience unaided would not show. Adam makes no response at all. We can almost hear the gears turning in his head. If he says that no one told him, that now he has become ashamed, that will be an admission of guilt; that’s the last thing he wants to do.

So God asks yet another question, this time directly confronting him. Did you eat of the fruit that was forbidden? Again, God is not after information. Each step of the way he is giving Adam opportunity to make confession. But Adam has not the least interest in doing that. And so now he raises his fist in the face of God: The woman you gave me! Could there be any greater evidence of the totality of his corruption than this?

In one simple sentence he shifts the blame to Eve whom he had received shortly before as the helper fit for him. Only a short time before he had composed a love poem of thanksgiving for her. And now he heaps scorn on her. But that is still not the worst of it. Behind his abuse of his wife is his accusation against God. It is so much as to say: God, it’s all ultimately YOUR fault; if you hadn’t put this woman here, none of this would have happened!

What an amazing thing it is that God did not strike him down at the beginning of his sin. What an even more amazing thing it is that God did not send him straight to hell for this arrogant unbelieving vile raising of his fist in the face of the Almighty. Nor are we yet finished with God’s amazing things in this account.

HT: Daniel Deutschland in Lectures on Genesis 1-3 Conference Paper presented at various WELS Pastors Conferences from 2012-2014.

God’s acts of revealing himself and the history of Redemption have now just begun. A promise will soon be made insuring that the price of their redemption would be fully paid. By blood and sacrifice and triumph the seducer would be slain resulting in an eventual end to sin and death and its consequential pain.

Prayer: Almighty God, we confess that we deserve to be punished for our evil deeds. But we ask you graciously to cleanse us from all sin and to comfort us with your salvation; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.         (Prayer for 4th Sunday in Lent Year A)

Part 1: In the beginning, God

Part 2: Let there be light

Part 3: In the Image of God

Part 4: The Terrible Lie

Part 5: The Fall