06.11.06
God and the Family (II): Sin Broke the Family
Read: Genesis 3:1-24
I read in a newspaper yesterday, that getting married in a church is still the most popular place to tie the knot. 60% of couples, and the number is rising, choose to marry in a church. They want to start their marriage off on a good footing; perhaps getting God’s blessing and doing things right from the very beginning. Everything goes perfect on the big day, but unless they aren’t human, the problems and arguments then begin. What starts off as a perfect marriage in a perfect place so often ends up as a sticky divorce in a law court. Why does this happen? Last week we saw that God created the family and His benediction over it is “it is very good”. So how come God’s perfect family life, as revealed in Genesis 1 and 2, now keeps countless divorce lawyers in Ferrari’s? The answer is in Genesis 3 and 4 and it is in a word “sin”. Sin breaks and ruins the family – just like the first sin broke the first family. So what I want to do today is to survey just how great the impact of sin is upon the family – I want to trace first of all how sin came into the family, and then I want to look at how sin has broken the family:
[A] Sin Breaks into the Family
In itself, the entrance of sin into the world presents us with challenges for how sin enters into our family circles – whether that’s the basic unit of man and wife, or the unit of parents and children. When the serpent hisses, how does it get Eve to eat the forbidden fruit – and how will the serpent introduce sin into our families?
1. A Lack of Headship (vs. 1) – you will notice that up until this point in the Bible, two persons have spoken – God and Adam – God has spoken Creation into being and given Adam commands about living in a way which pleases Him. Adam has named all the animals and has also spoken words of blessing over his wife. But now two new characters are introduced into the scene – the serpent – Satan; and Eve, Adam’s wife. Satan, crafty serpent that he is, approaches Eve and deceives her into eating of the forbidden fruit. And that temptation is strong – “Did God really say ‘you must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” The question is – who makes the decisions in this family? Who is the spokesman? Who wears the trousers in Adam’s house? Well if it’s Adam, why is the serpent talking to Eve? Here we find an inversion of the created order – the Devil is turning God’s good creation upside down. Whereas God created man first and then woman; now Satan is dealing with the woman rather than the man. And, as we shall see in a moment, Adam lets this happen. This first family is lacking male headship – Eve is speaking when she shouldn’t because the man isn’t speaking when he should. How important it is that we men take the role of headship in the family and don’t just blithely lay it down. I’m not talking about chauvinism or misogyny – I’m talking about true Biblical, loving, Christ-like headship.
2. A Lack of Teaching (vs. 3) – in vs. 1, Satan misquotes God – God said “you are free to eat from any tree in the garden”, but Satan misquotes Him “Did God really say, ‘you must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” In some ways this doesn’t surprise us – Satan has ever been a liar – we expect him to twist the loving word of God to his own ends. But what we are not prepared for is Eve’s misquote of God in vs. 3 “but God did say ‘you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” But God didn’t say that – God said nothing about touching the tree, nor did God simply say that you will die if you eat of the tree, but you will surely die (literally: in dying you will die). In other words, from somewhere else, Eve seems to have got the idea that touching the tree in and of itself was a death offence, and she has also got the idea that the sentence of death God will pronounce will not be as bad as the double death God actually pronounced. So where did Eve get this wrong teaching from? Who did she hear what God had said from? Of course – her husband, the one who had heard God speak these very words. It was Adam who didn’t tell her what God had really said regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He hadn’t taught her well enough. Again, I must be sounding terribly chauvinistic, and I don’t mean to be, but the spiritual education of the family is ultimately the responsibility of the father – it is his responsibility to make sure that God’s Word is taught to his family accurately and faithfully so that when Satan attacks our children, as he inevitably will at some stage in their lives, they will know exactly what God says and what to do about it. Who knows, our faithful teaching of God’s Word may not just save their souls, but the souls of many others to whom our children shall act as witnesses.
3. A Lack of Responsibility (vs. 6) – we read that after Eve had taken the fruit, she gave some to Adam and he ate. The question is; where was Adam while all this was happening? Was he working in some other part of the garden? No – if you look at vs. 6 you see that all the time he is with her. She doesn’t need to find him because all the time he’s been standing right beside her. He’s heard what Satan has said to her and what she’s said back; he’s seen her reach forth and take the fruit and he gladly took some from her. At any stage of the process, he could have stepped in and put a stop to it. He could have corrected his wife’s misunderstanding of what God had said; he watched her being deceived and all the time he knew the truth but he didn’t stop it. He could have stopped her eating of the forbidden fruit, but he didn’t. He wasn’t deceived – he knew what he was doing. But in relation to his wife, Adam acted completely irresponsibly. He didn’t protect her, didn’t cherish her enough to stop her reaching forth and bringing death to us all.
The coming of sin into the world is ultimately the responsibility of Adam – it was he, in this whole sordid account, who lacks headship, lacks passion for God and doesn’t take responsibility – he just isn’t being man enough. Sin comes in through the failure of Adam to be the man – and we as men have to remember that – the spiritual state of the family is ultimately our responsibility – it is we who are held accountable by God. Sin came in through Adam’s lack – how careful and prayerful we must be to make sure that sin does not enter into our family through our lack.
[B] Sin Breaks up the Family
If there is one word which sums up the impact of sin upon the family it is the word ‘broken’. The impact of human sin was universally cataclysmic. It affected every corner of the universe and every relationship mankind has with his own species and with his own environment. In many ways, after the innocence and power of the creation narratives of Genesis 1 and 2, the story of the fall in Genesis 3 and 4 makes depressing reading for the perfect world and the perfect creatures God has made have been twisted and defaced by all He hates. Sin broke it all then, and sin still breaks it all today – every evil is caused and brought about by sin – whether within the family or within the ecosystem or wherever. Wherever we turn, we see brokenness and pain. However, within Genesis 3 and 4, these summaries of the impact of sin upon the family, we see seven broken relationships:
1. A Broken Religion (8, 10) – man was created in, or as the image of God – and as you read the first two chapters of Genesis you find God talking about man, but also talking to man – He talks to man about what he can and cannot do, and He talks to man about woman – the relationship is full, free and open. But look now at what has happened after sin has made its way into the human race – twice in Chapter 3 – in vs. 8 and 10, the man hides from God and why? Because he is afraid of God. And that, in a sense, is a one sentence summary of the history of world religious culture – sin has introduced a barrier between man and God – a barrier which pushes God out of the human equation. When it comes to God, mankind hides behind anything he can find – he hides behind his possessions, his own righteous moralism, the gods of his own imagination or his relentless pursuit of pleasure – anything to rid him of this sense of guilt, shame and fear. God is excluded – a God to hide from – not a God to love, live with and obey. And because God has been excluded from the heart of the individual, He is excluded from the heart of the family. And with the expulsion of God, comes the introduction of fracture and selfish hedonism and individualism.
2. A Broken Man (12, 13b) – sin not only brought in a break between man and God leading to fear, but it also introduced self-delusion and psychosis into the human psyche. Sin did not only break his relationship with his God, it broke him! You see that from the way in which in vs. 12 and 13, when Adam and Eve are confronted with their crimes, they both make excuses – they delude themselves into believing that they were not responsible – Adam says, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it” – here we not only see Adam blaming the woman – “she gave”, but also we see Adam blaming God “the woman you put here” – talk about deluding himself – Adam was fair and square to blame for his own action (and arguably for that of his wife). Then you see Eve “the serpent deceived me” – again a self-delusion, lying to herself and to God in a vain attempt to get rid of her guilt and shame. Truth is replaced by lie and simplicity is replaced by psychosis. The man is a broken individual – he is no longer in touch with who he really is, what he really wants and what he was created to be.
3. A Broken Marriage (7, 12) – since sin has broken the relationship between man and his God, and has introduced psychosis into the human experience, it is no surprise to find that sin has also destroyed the intimacy between a man and his wife. In Genesis 2:24 the two together are called ‘one flesh’, but later on we find the man acting against his wife through the cycle of shame and blame, and the wife acting against her husband. As long as it gets the man off the hook, he’ll blame his wife – and vice versa. Solidarity has been replaced by selfishness – standing together by blaming each other; in today’s lingo – love is replaced by litigation. But then also, you see the impact of sin upon their whole relationship with each other. In 2:25 they are described as being both naked, but feeling no shame; but now, in vs. 7, their eyes are opened and they realise that they are naked, so they sew fig leaves together and make coverings for themselves. Shame and guilt has introduced a barrier into their relationship with each other signified by the way in which they cover up in front of each other. There is embarrassment. Listen, the world, and poorly taught Christians, try to get us to believe that the pathway to true sexual fulfilment lies through pornography – sex is shameful and dirty – there is nothing Christian about it. Sex, rather than being a unifying expression of the oneness of the love of man for woman, becomes a barrier of shame and guilt. Well here’s the question from Genesis 2 and 3 – in what state were this first husband and wife truly physically satisfied – the state of innocence where they were united in every way – mentally, spiritually and physically; or the state of depravity where they had to cover themselves up for shame! Sin breaks the marriage by destroying the satisfaction and enjoyment of God glorifying sexual intimacy. Don’t believe this world’s lies! The pathway to a truly fulfilling marriage in every way lies with obedience to God.
4. A Broken Earth (vs. 17-19) – sin does not just affect human relationships, it affects the whole universe. Sin breaks down the earth and causes disaster on a global scale. It becomes painful to work the earth and the toil required to work it will finally send the man to his grave – he will go back to the dust from which he was taken. What we are finding here is that sin causes a lack of productivity, requiring a redoubling of the effort needed to make a living from the earth. And because the man has to spend so much time and energy working the earth, he doesn’t have that time or energy left to invest in his relationship with his wife. Whereas in the point before, sex gets in the way of a relationship between a married couple, now it is work – the man doesn’t have any time left for his relationship with his wife. The earth has gone from being friendly and conducive to human kind to being difficult and hostile. The serpent’s fang bites the heel of the man as he ploughs the earth and the dust of the barren earth clogs his nostrils. And in a sense, we are back there now – this phenomenon of a man’s work having the priority over a man’s wife is splitting apart marriages left, right and centre. The couple never see each other because they must toil at their employment, and when they do, they are too tired to invest the time and energy required to cement their relationship together. The man comes home tired and irritable after a day of painful toil. Arguments ensue and the family breaks up – and it’s all because the earth is cracked and broken due to our sin.
5. A Broken Father (4:3, 4) – time moves on, the first couple are ejected from paradise and left to work the dusty ground. They have children – Cain and Abel – two fine boys – one of which is an arable farmer, the other a livestock farmer. Both are brought up to be religious – they know, presumably from parental influence, that they are to live in a way which pleases God. The time comes to make a sacrifice – we read that Cain brought “some of the fruit of the soil” and Abel brought “fat portions from the some of the firstborn of his flock”. In other words, Abel gave to the Lord the best he had, whereas Cain just gave God whatever was handy. Although perhaps I’m being a little hard on Adam, my question is this – shouldn’t their father have drummed into his boys the importance of giving God the best you have? Shouldn’t he have told them that the second best isn’t good enough? It would seem as if Abel knew that, and Cain might have, but if he did, he didn’t do it – he just gave God “some of the fruits of the soil”. See how sin has broken the relationship between parent and child! Not only does Adam fail to correctly tell Eve what God required of her, he also failed to tell his children. Sin has broken the chain of faithfulness to God which should have been passed on from father to son. And that’s true not just for these Neolithic farmers, but also today – sin breaks the parent / child relationship to the extent that the faith of the father doesn’t always pass on down to the children – the father doesn’t take responsibility for the spiritual education and nurture of his children and so they grow up either not giving God a second thought, or if they do, giving God the second best.
6. A Broken Brother (4:5-9) – Cain hated the fact that God accepted his brother’s sacrifice, but didn’t accept his. The ideas in the text are anger, plotting and killing. Cain was angry and hatched a plan against his brother – he lured Abel out into the fields and then killed him. Do we need any more evidence of the corrosive and destructive power of sin than this? Within the first family we see what is called fratricide – a man taking his own brother’s life. A chapter earlier God said “it is not good that the man should be alone” – but now, given what happens with the killing of these brothers, you can’t say that of Cain and Abel –the day of Abel’s murder, it would have been really good if they had been alone because when they came together murder was in the air. The family, the basic unit of love and support, the vehicle of divine blessing upon society, becomes a war zone. And this very week, did we not hear of the sad case of the Riaz’s – a mother and four children burned to death by a father? Do we not hear of family members at war with each other? This is what sin does – it destroys the family and turns brother against brother. If sin is left unchecked, it will destroy your family too – it will turn child against child and parents against their children. And if you don’t believe me, look at the first family.
7. A Broken Society (4:14) – when Cain was expelled from the family of Adam by God and thrust out into the wilderness we read in vs. 14 that paranoid Cain resigns himself to being a helpless refugee whose life will be taken by the first person he comes across. See how broken even Neolithic society has become! Paranoia, xenophobia and vigilantism rule! Society has been destroyed by sin even before it had a chance to bed in. And again, don’t we despair as we read our papers with the fracture and brokenness of our society, all of which is brought about through sin. True religion doesn’t cause wars – sin does – true religion doesn’t break apart families – sin does. Our society is fragmented and declining because of sin.
Every relationship a man has is broken and ruined because of sin. His relationship with God, his relationship with himself, his relationship with his wife, his relationship with his environment, his relationship with his children, his relationship with his brothers and his relationships within society – they are all ruined because of sin. The perfect family unit created by God has been defaced by sin. And my question is, amongst all the despair of the sordid tale of Genesis 3 and 4, is there any hope for families? Well, not in and of themselves – but in Genesis 3:15 we find the first glints of the rays of the redemption of the family – for there we read of war between the offspring of Eve and the Serpent – we read the first prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ and His titanic struggle with Satan. We think, in that one phrase “you will strike his heel” of the cross at Calvary where the Son of God died in utmost agony to take away our sins. But then we think of that other phrase, “He will crush your head” as being that great victory Jesus won through His death and resurrection which means that Satan is defeated and that sin shall no longer reign in the life of the believer. Our relationships need no longer be broken – they have been healed by Jesus and can be healed by Eve’s descendant, the Lord Jesus. So come today, even now, if you recognise within yourself the corrosive and destructive effects of sin upon you and your relationships, and ask Him to bruise the serpent’s heel afresh by saving you and your family from all your sins. AMEN