SECOND QUARTER 2022
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #2
APRIL 9, 2022
“THE FALL”

 

 

If we had the capacity to dig down in our own psyches, and the psyches of others, we would see that at the root of all sin, is unbelief in the goodness and beauty of the character of God.  We rarely get beyond the superficial fruit inspection of behavior, as important as that is, to see what is the ultimate seed that has produced the plant and fruit of sinful behavior and habits.  Thus, we frequently spend our lives in discouragement from, or justification for, our misbehaviors – as devastating as those frequently are.

 

But our lesson this week, calls us to look beyond the fruit, to the root of the sin problem.  Only in this way, ultimately, will the axe be laid to the root of the sin problem (Matthew 3:10), and thus sin can be fully and finally dealt with – blotted out (Acts 3:19).

 

In Genesis 3:1-5, the serpent Satan, will lay out three lies to lead Eve down the path to transgression.  And we will see that all three, at their root, are deceptions and insinuations about the goodness, trustworthiness, and agape of God.  If order to cause Eve to fall, Satan realized that he needed to undermine her faith and confidence in the kindness and goodness of God.

 

Genesis 3:1-5

 

Lie about God’s goodness #1:

Had God said that Adam and Eve couldn’t eat of ANY trees in the garden?  Or, had God said that they could eat of ALL the trees of the garden – except ONE!  Why did Satan misquote God’s words in this way?  It was Satan’s goal to portray God as highly restrictive, controlling, and dictatorial.  In contrast to the broad and expansive freedoms that God had given Adam and Eve in giving them ALL the trees of the garden to eat of, save one, Satan portrayed God as confining, obstructing, and micro-managing.  This lie about God is still perpetrated by the world and the church today.  So, Satan was able to diminish Eve’s conception of the freedom and liberty to be found in God’s kingdom.

 

Lie about God’s goodness #2:

“In consequence of God’s restrictive and controlling character, He will lie to you to maintain that control and restriction”, said Satan.  “God said you’ll die if you eat the fruit.  I’ve eaten it and touched it, and not only did I not die, but I’ve gained the enhanced power of speech”, Satan argued.  Satan was saying, that at root level, God is untrustworthy and deceptive.  God lies to you to control you.

 

Lie about God’s goodness #3:

In this lie about God, we see Satan’s ultimate argument.  Satan’s lie about God, that underlies all the other lies about God.  The reason, Satan said, that God is restrictive and controlling, the reason that God is deceptive, is that “at His fundamental, root level, God is self-centered.  God doesn’t want you to enjoy the benefits and blessings of this tree of knowledge of good and evil, because He knows that if you partake of it, you will be elevated in your personal experience and powers and development, to a plane equal with Him!  And He doesn’t want that.  God wants to keep you under His divine, controlling thumb”, said Satan.  At the root of the great controversy, is the charge by the adversary Satan, that God is not love, but selfishness.  Here we see this developed in Genesis 3:1-5.  The same arguments Lucifer had made in heaven, he was making in the Garden of Eden.

 

“Unselfishness, the principle of God’s kingdom, is the principle that Satan hates; its very existence he denies. From the beginning of the great controversy he has endeavored to prove God’s principles of action to be selfish, and he deals in the same way with all who serve God. To disprove Satan’s claim is the work of Christ and of all who bear His name.” {Ed 154.3}

 

Sadly, with devastating consequences, Eve partook of the fruit, and then became an agent to cause the fall of Adam.

 

But notice, the serpent’s method was to undermine, point by point, Eve’s belief in the goodness and trustworthiness of God.  Once Satan had accomplished that end, then the eating of the fruit was almost inevitable.  Despite the ample evidence of God’s goodness towards them, in the beauty of the garden, and the creation of Adam for her as a perfect companion, and the fellowship they had with angels and God Himself, Eve chose to trust, to believe, the serpent’s claims about God, over and above the abundant evidence to the contrary.  The mystery of iniquity gives no reason to justify its existence.

 

So, for us, at root level, all disobedience, and all misbehavior, when followed to its first cause, has disbelief in the love and goodness of God’s character.  When God tells us something is to our detriment and we do it anyway, or that something is for our benefit and we don’t do it, we are truly saying that God is restrictive, untrustworthy, and lacking our best interests in His heart.

 

Therefore, what would be the solution to deal with sin – disobedience?  It would be a greater revelation of the goodness and love of God.  This is why the cross is the most powerful antidote to sin.  The cross gives us the fullest and clearest revelation that God loves us above and beyond Himself, and thus we can have faith, confidence, that in every other area of our lives, He can be trusted to tell us the truth that is for our best interest and happiness.

 

And thus, after Adam and Eve’s fall, God’s first promise of hope to them, was a promise that looked forward to God sacrificing Himself – the cross – for our salvation and deliverance.  In stating that the serpent would bruise the Seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15), we have the first promise of Calvary to which God’s people looked forward to for the next 4000 years.

 

We have the blessing of looking back at the promise fulfilled.  God has proved Himself faithful and trustworthy over 6000 years of salvation history in a variety of circumstances and over a long period of time.

 

“To know God is the most wonderful knowledge that men can have.” {1888 268.5}

 

And to know God, as He is revealed in the life and death of Jesus, is the only effectual barrier to lay the axe to the root of the sin problem in all of our hearts.  May we keep our eyes fixed on Him.

 

“Having thus suggested to Eve’s query, doubt, and suspicion of the Lord's word as to shutting them away from a certain tree of the garden, and having drawn her into conversation, (Satan) followed it up with further implication and insinuation that the Lord had some ulterior purpose in thus keeping this tree from them. Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, ye shall be like God. Thus, he set up his own word directly against the word of the Lord, and then declared that God knew that it was not true that they should die, but that instead of that they would be like God; and that because He knew this, He had, under cover of this other word, thought to shut them away from that tree which would make them like Him. All this, too, solely because He wanted to keep them down and in ignorance; for fear that they should rise and advance; for fear that they would be like Him.”

 

“Thus, it is clearly seen that from beginning to end, Satan was employing all his cunning to cast upon the Lord all the dark traits of his own evil character, and so to get the woman to think that God did not desire good for her nor mean good toward her. It was the same evil intent with which he started on his sinful course in heaven, to get himself in the place of God in the estimation of intelligent creatures, as well as in fact. He was determined so to misrepresent God that he himself should be accepted instead of God; . . ."

-Alonzo T. Jones, {1901 ATJ, ECE 591.1-2}

 

~Bob Hunsaker