Gen. 3:1-13, What do ya’ know: Man is Sinful (3)

2)    Sin distorted the image of God in man (Gen. 3:1-13).

a)    What is “sin”?  In both Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT) the word translated “sin” in English has the idea of missing the mark.  That defines sin.  I John 3:4 says “sin is lawlessness.”  That also defines sin.  We can say sin is disobedience, sin is the lack of holiness or righteousness, sin is pride and sin is selfishness.  All these things could be illustrated by what happened in the Garden of Eden in Gen. 3.  I would say that sin is unbelief.  That is clearly illustrated in Eden.  God gave Adam and Eve everything they needed to live joyful and satisfying lives.  They did not need to eat of the tree.  But instead, they believed the lie of Satan, that they could be something better, but only if they sinned.  John 3:18-19 and Heb. 3:16-19 show a connection between sin and unbelief.

b)    Having thought about the nature of sin, we can see that Adam’s sin was not just eating something he wasn’t supposed to eat or that was bad for him.  Because he did not trust God he disobeyed God. 

c)    God had told Adam, in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Gen. 2:17).  What is death?  We die when we quit breathing, the brain quits functioning and our hearts quit beating.  Yet, after God pronounced judgment (Gen. 3:14-24) Adam was still doing all those things.  What did God mean?

i)      The phrase in 2:17 is interesting.  The word “death” is twice at the end of the verse.  Young’s Literal Translation says it like this: “dying you will die.”  The point is that death has begun to work in Adam and it will be at work in Adam until he was dead physically. 

ii)   What would the “life” of this dead man look like?  The answer is in what we see in Genesis.  Adam now was estranged from God, being afraid of God and wanting to hide (3:10).  In other words he was dead spiritually.  His work was affected because the rest of creation was affected (3:17-19).  His relationship with Eve was affected (3:16).  Death touched every area of Adam’s life.  The Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul would describe this as “slavery to sin” (Jn. 8:34; Rom. 6:16,20-21).

iii)            We noted that sin brought death into the entire creation.  Rom. 8:18-25 describes this.  A creation God called good now had what we call plagues, social upheaval, natural disasters and so forth.  But from Adam’s sin, death was passed on to all humans.  The Bible teaches that we are born in sin (we are born with a propensity to sin, a sinful nature) and that we all commit the sin of unbelief as did Adam (Rom. 5:12-14; Eph 2:1-3).  From the moment we enter this world we are “dead in trespasses and sins” because Adam’s sin and guilt has been passed on.  This might seem unusual and even unfair but we will see this is essential to our deliverance from this enslavement to sin.