Editorials for the last two months have considered Satan and the original temptation in Genesis 3 which led to Adam and Eve’s fall, and the troubles and trials that the fall ushered in. This concluding editorial considers the triumph of divine grace in Genesis 3.

The Triumph of Divine Grace

From what we have seen, it may appear that Satan has won a major victory. Though the devil himself fell under God’s condemnation, he succeeded in severely damaging God’s prize possession, the living image bearers of God. However, here in the very shadow of the fall God reveals that He will triumph gloriously over Satan by redeeming mankind. And wondrously, Adam receives this promise by faith and testifies of his hope in the Lord.

1. The Promise of Redemption

The Lord God said to the serpent in Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Satan had tempted the woman to turn away from God, and she chose to become an enemy of the Lord. But the Lord reverses the situation: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman.” By His sovereign, heart changing grace, God turns the woman against the devil, which means that she will again follow the Lord. Praise God for the power of His converting grace!

God declares a spiritual war between two seeds. “Seed” means offspring or children. As Genesis 4 makes clear, some of mankind will continue to live as the seed of the serpent, following Satan as their spiritual father and head. John calls them “the children of the devil” and uses Cain as an example of them and their evil ways (1 John 3:10, 12). But God will give the woman another “seed” who, like Abel and Seth, fear the Lord and call upon His name by faith (Gen. 4:25–26; Heb. 11:4). They are her true spiritual descendants (cf. Rom.4:11–12). Spiritual combat between the devil and the children of the world on one side, and the righteous children of God on the other, has ensued throughout this age.

God tells the serpent that the woman’s seed “shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Here is the great promise of victory. God envisions one particular “seed,” a singular “him,” that will come. This battle will come to a climax in the conflict between the serpent and the One who is preeminently the “seed” of the woman, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem us from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13; 4:4–5). The seed will suffer from the serpent’s attacks. Indeed, He will suffer rejection, agony, death, and the curse itself. But the seed, our Lord Jesus Christ, will prevail! He will crush the serpent’s head! He will die so “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14). Though the first Adam fell, Christ will stand forever as our last Adam (Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:45).

This word to the serpent holds the Lord God’s promise of redemption to Adam and Eve. He was calling them once more to hope in His Word.

2. The Profession of Hope How did Adam respond?

Genesis 3:20 says, “The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” Prior to this her name was Ishah, meaning “woman” or “wife,” but now Adam calls her by the new name of “life,” which is what Eve (Havah) means. We would perhaps not be surprised if Adam had called her “death” because her eating of the fruit had brought death to all. How could Adam name her “Life” when God had pronounced a death sentence upon them?

The only answer is that Adam placed his hope in the promise of the woman’s seed. He believed God’s promise that one of her descendants would conquer the serpent, and in so doing conquer sin and death, too. He believed this with faith so strong and real that he gave a lasting testimony to this hope, by naming the mother of his children “Life.” In her triumphant seed, her children would find grace and eternal life.

Not only was this a profession of hope, but it was also a reaffirmation of his love for his wife. Adam repented of his hateful blaming his wife for his own sin. He must have taken responsibility for his actions, as we all should, and once again embraced her as God’s gift to him. In fact, he needed her more than ever, for through her God would raise up the Savior.

God confirmed Adam’s hope with a visible sign. They were about to be sent out of the garden into the dangers and raw elements of a cursed world. How pitiful they must have looked with hearts pierced by sin, clothed in their coverings of fig leaves! Yet they put their hope in the Lord. God responded with compassion. Genesis 3:21 says, “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.”

God Himself covered their shame, and He did so with the skins of animals that were required to give up their blood. Later we read of Adam’s descendants offering blood sacrifices to the Lord (Gen. 4:4; 8:20). What a picture this is of the Lamb of God! He shed His blood and laid down His life to cover our sins. The Lord was saying to Adam that if we trust in His promise of a Savior, then by Christ’s death God will cover our shame, remove our guilt, and be our shield forever.

Conclusion

The fall of man is a most important historical fact and a crucial doctrine for our faith. Without believing it, we will stumble about in this world perplexed by sin and suffering its consequences but never knowing why. We will ask the wrong questions, such as, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” instead of asking, “Why do good things happen to people as bad as we are?” We will reduce the gospel to a spiritual Band-Aid, cheap and shallow grace which men can easily put on (and just as easily take off). We will lack a robust view of the glorious, sovereign, and holy God whose judgments are in all the earth, but whose love is simply astounding and whose grace comes to us in Christ with all the power and all the merit that sinners need to be justified in His sight.

A missionary once sat down with a native assistant. The missionary told him that he wanted to produce a simple tract they could give out in the villages to spread the gospel. The tract would have a picture of two cliffs separated by a great gulf. On the one cliff was the holy presence of God; on the other was a portrayal of man in his sin. Various pages through the tract showed man in his efforts to try to reach God, putting planks across the great chasm that sin had caused. Then on the final page, there was a picture of a cross bridging the gap between sinful man and God in His holiness. The young missionary was quite impressed with this tract.

But the native helper said, “I appreciate your tract, but I think it would be more helpful to write a story of a loving father who had a beautiful garden. That garden was walled around. He said to his son in that garden, ‘Son you can do whatever you like in that garden; it’s yours and I want you to enjoy it. But please, please, do not climb on the wall.’ Well, one day the boy did climb on the wall and, sure enough, he fell. As he went over the edge of that wall he realized that the wall had been placed right on the edge of a terrible chasm. He tumbled down the rocks, feeling the pain of everything hitting him. He was ashamed and terrified of what his father would think of him. He lay there at the bottom of the ravine with many broken bones, unable to move.”

Then the mission helper said, “The father came to that wall and he looked down in the ravine at his son, and what do you think he did? Did he yell down into the ravine, ‘I told you not to do it! Now you need to climb back out of the pit you fell into’? No, he did not say that. The religions of the world tell people to climb up the cliff to salvation. But of course that cannot be done. But the gospel of grace is that Jesus Christ slides down into the ravine, getting bruised and cut by the sharp rocks. Christ puts His loving arms around us and carries us gently back up the cliff. Christ brings us back to Paradise, where all our wounds are healed. And best of all, Christ walks with us daily so that we can never fall over the cliff again.”

The missionary had to admit that the native worker’s illustration was more biblical than his own. Our fall has left us not just separated from God, but utterly unable to do anything to come back. We have not just walked away from God; we have fallen. If we would be saved, Christ must do it all.

Perhaps as you have considered the message of Genesis 3, God has come to you and said, “Where are you? What is this that you have done?” Perhaps you have come to recognize that all your good works and excuses are just so many fig leaves that cannot cover your shame. Dear friends, we all enter this world under bondage to corruption, shame, alienation, and spiritual death. The day will come when God confronts us with His law, His glory, and His wrath.

But God’s promise still holds out hope to you. The fall is deep, but the love of Christ goes deeper. God offers you His Son. God calls you, yes, He commands you, to trust in His Son. Call upon the name of the Lord, and He will save you. And He will bring you to a place better than the first Paradise, for there you will have Christ, the last Adam, the Son of God as your portion forever.

 

Dr. Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

JULY/AUGUST 2013

Genuine assurance and perseverance are sorely lacking among Christians today. The fruits of assurance and perseverance—diligent use of the means of grace, heartfelt obedience to God’s will, desire for fellowship with Him, yearning for His glory and heaven, love for the church, and intercession for revival—all appear to be waning. We desperately need rich, doctrinal thinking about assurance and perseverance coupled with vibrant, sanctified living.

What is “assurance of faith” and what is “perseverance of the saints” and how do we obtain them? How do assurance and perseverance assist each other in the Christian life?

Assurance of Faith

Assurance of faith is the conviction that, by God’s grace, I belong to Christ, have received full pardon for all sins, and will inherit eternal life. If I have true assurance, I not only believe in Christ for salvation but also know that I believe.

Such assurance includes freedom from guilt, joy in God, and a sense of belonging to the family of God. Assurance is also dynamic, varying according to conditions, capable of growing in force and fruitfulness. As James W. Alexander said, assurance “carries with it the idea of fullness, such as of a tree laden with fruit, or of a vessel’s sails when stretched by a favouring gale.”

Assurance is obtained (1) by clinging to the promises of God, (2) by the Spirit’s confirmation of the marks and fruits of grace within us, (3) by the direct testimony of the Spirit witnessing with our spirit that we are the children of God, and (4) by resting in God’s outstanding track record of faithfulness toward us (Westminster Confession of Faith [WCF], Ch. XVIII, Sec. 2; Canons of Dort [CD], Fifth Head, Art. 10).

Perseverance of the Saints

We first must ask, who are the saints? Many would extend “eternal security” to all baptized persons, or to all who have made decisions for Christ at evangelistic meetings. Scripture and the Reformed Confessions speak only of the perseverance of saints, defined as those “whom God calls, according to his purpose, to the communion of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and regenerates by the Holy Spirit” (CD, Fifth Head, Art. 1); and “they whom God hath accepted in his Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit” (WCF, Ch. XVII, Sec. I). By the preserving work of the triune God (1 Cor. 1:8–9), such people will persevere in true faith and in the works that proceed from faith, so long as they continue in the world.

Some theologians want to speak of the preservation of the saints, rather than perseverance. These two notions are closely related, but not the same. The preserving activity of God undergirds the saints’ perseverance. He keeps them in the faith, preserves them from straying, and ultimately perfects them (1 Pet. 1:5; Jude 24). We may be confident that God will finish the work of grace He has begun in us (Ps. 138:8; Phil. 1:6; Heb. 12:2). Believers are preserved through Christ’s intercession (Luke 22:32; John 17:5) and the ministry of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16; 1 John 2:27).

Perseverance itself, however, is the saints’ lifelong activity: confessing Christ as Savior (Rom. 10:9), bringing forth the fruits of grace (John 15:16), enduring to the end (Matt. 10:22; Heb. 10:28, 29). True believers persevere in the “things that accompany salvation” (Heb. 6:9). God does not deal with them “as unaccountable automatons, but as moral agents,” says A. W. Pink; believers are active in sanctification (Phil. 2:12). They keep themselves from sin (1 John 5:18). They keep themselves in the love of God (Jude 21). They run with patience the race that is set before them (Heb. 12:1). That is how they persevere, and they are aided in this by the Holy Spirit.

The Relationship of Assurance and Perseverance

Assurance helps the believer persevere, first, by encouraging him to rest on God’s grace in Christ and His promises in the gospel; and second, by presenting these as a powerful motive for Christian living. The Puritan Thomas Goodwin said that assurance “makes a man work for God ten times more than before.”

Perseverance opens the way for assurance. If a man does not believe in the perseverance of the saints, he cannot be sure he is going to heaven. He may know he is in a state of grace, but he has no way of knowing whether or not he will continue in that state. Thus assurance is wedded to the doctrine of perseverance. Perseverance serves to confirm and increase assurance. Those who persist in doing the works that spring from faith will usually attain high levels of assurance over a period of time. Assurance and perseverance are two sides of one coin. You cannot persevere in grace without growing in assurance, and you cannot grow in assurance of faith without perseverance.

How We Obtain Assurance and Persevere in Faith Dr. Joel R. B

 

Dr. Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan

MAY/JUNE 2013

The Trouble of Fallen Sinners

The fall of man brought immediate consequences to Adam and Eve—troublesome consequences that have been passed down to us across thousands of years of sin and misery.

1. Bitter Corruption

Mankind’s fall was an atrocity, an act of high treason against the greatest, most loving, most beautiful, most honorable Being in the universe. Many would trivialize the sin of the Garden of Eden as if it were just a matter of eating the wrong piece of fruit. But the first sin was an evil of massive proportions that perverted men’s soul.

Consider the wickedness of Adam and Eve’s sin. They did not act in ignorance, but with willful intent broke God’s command. They knew that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was intended to test their love and obedience to God. They sinned in the face of God’s warning, calling God a liar and treating friendship with God as if it had no value. As the father of the entire human race, Adam plunged the billions to come after him into darkness and death. He brought death to his own offspring. The fall was the worst act of blasphemy and murder in human history, second only to the betrayal and slaughter of God’s incarnate Son.

In this one act, Adam broke both tables of the moral law, casting off his supreme and all-encompassing love for God, and love for his neighbor as for himself. Only self-love remained, and self-love reigned over all man’s life.

Adam would have done less harm to himself if he had gouged out his eyes and torn out his heart. It is impossible for us, as fallen people, to fully appreciate the glorious treasure that was lost in the soul of man and the horrible filth that rushed in to take its place. Before the fall, Genesis 1:26 tells us that man and woman were the image bearers of God, living likenesses of Him. Genesis 1:31 says they were “very good.” After the fall, Genesis 6:5 tells us that God surveyed the world and, apart from Noah and his family, came to this conclusion about fallen man: “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Sin rushed immediately into the entire body and soul, filling even the innermost recesses of the heart.

Sin has so corrupted humanity that even little children are debased by its influence. Genesis 8:21 says that “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” David confessed in Psalm 51:5 that from the moment of his conception in the womb, he was “in sin.” Oh, the horror of our corruption! Fallen man is in sin and continues to sin, with every tick of the clock, sixty times a minute, 3,600 times an hour, over 2.5 million times every month—sin, sin, sin! The magnitude and bitterness of our spiritual corruption is overwhelming.

2. Bitter Shame

Genesis 2:25 tells us that before the fall, “They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” This is a statement not just of intimacy, but of integrity. Adam and Eve lived in boldness and openness because they had nothing to hide. In a sense, they needed no clothing because they were clothed in righteousness. They were unashamed and free.

Immediately after the fall, Genesis 3:7 says, “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” Satan had promised them knowledge, and when they sinned, “their eyes were opened.” But what a sad, defiling knowledge sin brought to them! It was a knowledge that robbed them of their innocence. God was not trying to keep them ignorant. He was protecting them from an experiential knowledge of sin that dulls and deadens your knowledge of everything that is good. Sin spoils your ability to appreciate life. It reduces your sensitivity to beauty and joy and brings hardness, bitterness, and shame into your soul. It robs you of the full appreciation of the beauty of God’s creation.

Defiled by sin, Adam and Eve suddenly felt exposed and ashamed of themselves. They wanted to hide. Horatius Bonar said, “Unfallen man needed no covering, and asked for none; but fallen man, under the bitter consciousness of the unworthy and unseemly condition to which sin has reduced him, as unfit for God, or angels, or man to look upon, cries out for covering—covering such as will hide his shame even from the eye of God.”1

They tried to cover themselves. How pitiful and futile were their fig leaf aprons! Those leaves would quickly wither and die, falling away and exposing their shame once again. When we’re ashamed of ourselves, we are prone, like Adam and Eve, to reach for the nearest thing to try to cover ourselves. We can do that in a variety of ways. Sometimes we do that by heaping up external works of religion while our hearts remain sinful and unchanged. Sometimes we try to hide in the crowd: “everyone’s doing it.” Sometimes we assume that time cancels sin. Some people joke about the sins of their youth that they’ve never had washed in the blood of Christ, and never stop to think that God is not a creature of time. He remembers all our sins as if they were committed today.

There is only one way to cover the shame of our sins, and that is by the divinely ordained “covering for sin”: the forgiveness granted through the blood of Jesus Christ. We must be clothed in the righteousness of Christ through faith. Paul wrote in Romans 4:6–7, “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.”

3. Bitter Alienation

After Adam and Eve fell into sin, the Lord God came seeking them. Prior to this, Adam and the Lord had talked together like close friends. But now the way that Adam reacts shows that sin has opened a profound gulf between God and man. Genesis 3:8 says, “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.” Fear had replaced friendship; secrets replace communion. Why were they afraid? Their consciences accused them. They felt the painful guilt of their sins and feared that God would punish them as He had threatened.

Remarkably, God did not come in burning fire, but came asking questions. It seems that God, in His abundant mercy, gave Adam an opportunity to confess his sin. But instead of accepting the opportunity, Adam responded with accusation and blame. Genesis 3:12 says, “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”

Adam blamed Eve for his sin, saying to God, “She gave me of the tree.” What a contrast in their relationship between Genesis 2 and Genesis 3! Adam had sung for joy when the woman was created. With delight he said, “Finally! This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. This creature is not like the other animals; this is astonishing. This is the helper I need. Praise be to God!” But sin erects an immediate, massive wall between them. Remember that God had warned them that disobedience brought death. Therefore, when Adam blamed Eve for their fall, he was saying, “Kill her, not me.” This man, once the noble prince of the world, has been reduced to a coward who blames others for his sin, even if it may cost his wife her very life.

Worse yet, Adam blamed God, saying, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me.” How deeply Satan’s lies had taken root in his heart! Adam believed that God was neither truly good nor just; His gifts were only bait in a trap. Truly, Adam had become a fool. He had ruined his own life, but his heart raged against the Lord (Prov. 19:3).

Guilt and sin had separated man from his Creator. Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” This alienation resulted in man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. When we lost communion with God, we lost the title to eternal life in Paradise (Gen. 3:23–24). The holy angels became our enemies, and we were shut out of God’s heavenly presence and all the delights and pleasures that come with living close to God (Gen. 2:8–14; Ps. 16:11).

4. Bitter Death

The Lord God had warned Adam in Genesis 2:17 that “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Sometimes people struggle with those words because Adam and Eve did not physically die the day they ate the forbidden fruit. Or did they? The text presses us to consider that the death in view here is more than the death of the body. God’s words of judgment—literally, “Dying thou shalt die”— contain a multiplicity of deaths.

First, man fell into spiritual death. Paul summed up the human condition in Ephesians 2:1, when he said that until God made us alive in Christ, we “were dead in trespasses and sins.” We have already seen that man had been alienated from God, who is our life. Ephesians 4:18 describes our fallen estate: “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” Spiritual death is both the consequence of sin, and the condition for further sin. Romans 8:6–7 teach us that “to be carnally minded is death…because the carnal mind is enmity against God,” hatred against the Lord. Long before we are dead on the outside, we are already dead on the inside.

Second, man was sentenced to physical death. We will have more to say about physical death in a moment.

Third, man was destined for eternal death, the most bitter death of all. Revelation 21:8 says, “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” How terrifying to suffer the wrath of God without mixture of the least drop of mercy forever and ever, without rest day or night (Rev. 14:10–11)! Truly, God said, “Dying thou shalt die.” We are fools not to listen to God’s warning.

The Trial of Fallen Sinners

Though fallen man would be thrust out of the Garden of Eden, this would not take place until God first came as a holy Judge to confront the sinners and condemn them. Though sinners just want God to leave them alone, the Judge of all the earth is able to summon lawbreakers to trial before His judgment seat.

1. Confrontation with God

Fallen man cannot hide from God. He comes asking questions, reminding us of His commandments, unmasking our sins, and declaring His righteous judgments. He came to Adam, Eve, and Satan in the garden, and He will come to us on the Day of Judgment.

Confrontation with God is inevitable, first, because He is the Lord. Though the serpent and the woman had chosen to think of Him only as “God” but not as “LORD,” nevertheless Genesis 3:8–14 tell us five times that God came to them as “the LORD God.” He is the covenant Lord, the God who faithfully keeps His covenant Word in both love and judgment (Deut. 7:9–10). God made a covenant with all mankind in Adam (Gen. 2:16–17), and mankind broke that covenant (Hos. 6:7, margin). Sooner or later, all men must face the great “I AM” and hear His sovereign verdict on their words and deeds in this life. He is a covenant-keeping Lord, and He will come at the appointed time.

Second, confrontation with God is inevitable because He is God. How stupid it was to sin against the God of Genesis 1! He is the only God, already existing in the beginning. All things were made by Him. He is the all-powerful God who has only to speak and stars and oceans and mountains obey His voice. All things are under His mastery. He is the all knowing God who sees everything that He has made. All things are under His watchful eye.

Third, confrontation with God is also inevitable because He is good. Genesis 1 tells us repeatedly that God does good things. He blesses His creatures. He is not an evil God, nor does He delight in sin. Genesis 2 tells us that He is a God of law, who expresses His will in commandments and warnings, and always acts consistently with His Word. It also reveals that He is a God of love. How could God simply walk away from those whom He created in His image and positioned to be His sons and daughters? He comes crying out to His lost and perishing creations, “Where art thou? What is this that thou hast done?” Though they do not want to hear from Him, He wants to hear from them. As always, God is taking the initiative; God is exercising sovereign grace. He confronts Adam and Eve for the sake of His justice and His mercy.

2. Condemnation from God

In Genesis 3:14–19, the Lord the Judge declares His verdict and sentence over the three offenders. His words echo down through the ages, bearing dire consequences for all generations to follow. He begins with the serpent in verse 14, “Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed.” Up until now, God had spoken only blessings (Gen. 1:22, 28; 2:3); but now the same voice that called the sun and the moon into existence pronounces an almighty curse upon the serpent. Eating dust is a metaphor used elsewhere in the Bible for the humiliation and defeat of an enemy (Ps. 72:9; Isa. 49:23; Mic. 7:17). The noble angel that once was a heavenly prince would have his face rubbed in the dirt by the total victory of Christ and His people. Romans 16:20 says, “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.”

Next, the Lord God declares His sentence upon Eve. Her sins bring great sorrow to the two areas of life that would have been the source of her greatest fulfillment: marriage and motherhood. Bearing children will no longer be pure delight, but difficult, painful, and dangerous for mother and child. Relating to her husband will not be a partnership of total cooperation and intimacy, but a power struggle. The parallel between Genesis 3:16 and 4:7 in the Hebrew text implies that the woman will now desire to conquer and master her husband, but he will continue to exercise authority over her. God created man and woman with equal dignity in His image (Gen. 1:27), but gave them different roles. He created Adam first, speaking the covenant to him alone, and then the woman as a helper suitable for him, and then allowing Adam to name his wife (Gen. 2; 1 Tim. 2:13). In Paradise, the husband’s authority and the wife’s submission were freely given and gladly received, but sin has turned the best and closest of human relationships into the battle of the sexes.

After the fall, the Lord God had first questioned the man and pronounced man’s punishment last. Called to work the earth and subdue it (Gen. 1:26; 2:15), man’s labors would now become a desperate struggle to survive. God’s noblest creation would die, rot, and return to dust from which he was formed (Gen. 2:7). God made man to rule as king in the earth, and as a consequence of man’s sin, his dominion would fall under God’s curse: “cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Gen. 3:17). All creation groans under sin (Rom. 8:22). Tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes are the voice of God declaring man’s alienation from creation and the Creator.

However, though the Lord God cursed the serpent and the ground, He did not curse the man or the woman. To be sure, if people do not repent but persevere in Satan’s ways, they will fall under the curse; Cain is a case in point (Gen. 4:11). But God did not curse Adam and Eve, because in His patience and mercy He had better plans for them. In the blackest hour of despair, God raises a red and white banner of hope in the blood of a coming Redeemer, as I hope to show in the next editorial.

1. Horatius Bonar, Earth’s Morning: Or, Thoughts on Genesis (New York: Robert Carter, 1875), 99.

 

Dr. Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

APRIL 2013

We could sum up the origin of mankind with these words from Ecclesiastes, “God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Eccl. 7:29). God made man at the pinnacle of all His creative work, as the crown of creation, but we fell into a pit of entire corruption. God made us to be kings and queens, noble, glorious, righteous, wise, and holy. But man threw himself off his throne and bound his hands and feet in eternal chains—all by listening to a liar instead of obeying God.

To study Satan’s temptation and the fall of man, we turn to the third chapter of Genesis. Genesis 3 is perhaps the most momentous chapter in the whole of Scripture. It is rightly called the black chapter of evil because it records the entrance of sin into the world, the red chapter of atonement because it attests the first proclamation of the coming Messiah and Savior, and the white chapter of hope because it contains the first saving confession of faith.

Our understanding of Genesis 3 affects our understanding of all the rest of biblical revelation. It forms our view of our own lives, our radical depravity, our desperate need for the only Savior, and the nature of our daily experience in a fallen world.

The problems people have about Christian experience often derive from a failure to understand the implications and reality of the fall and what it means to live not in the world as God made it, but in the world spoiled by sin. So many today try to live as though we did not fall. Few grasp the depth of the tragedy, or why it was so serious in its effects, both immediate and long term. Consequently, few understand their dire need for a Savior.

In treating the temptation and fall of man in Genesis 3, I will address five main points in three editorials: the tempter, the temptation, the trouble, the trial, and the triumph.

The Tempter to Sin

Where did sin come from? In a beautiful and perfect world, a beautiful and perfect man and woman live unashamedly before God in a flawless marriage, blessed of God, and charged with a great task. And then sin enters. How? Why? Sin enters the world through Satan in the guise of a serpent. The New Testament makes it amply clear in Revelation 12:9 that this serpent was no mere reptile: “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”

But where did Satan come from? The devil and his demons were once holy angels created by the triune God (Matt. 25:41; Rev. 12:7; Col. 1:16). Ezekiel 28:11–19 implies that the devil was once one of God’s brightest and most beautiful angels. But his “heart was lifted up” through pride and ambition (v. 17) and he became corrupt and was cast down out of heaven.

Isaiah 14:12–14 says, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” Five times in this passage, Satan says, “I will,” setting his will against God’s will and seeking his glory above God’s glory.

The New Testament also describes this angelic rebellion. Second Peter 2:4 says, “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.” Similarly, Jude 6 says, “The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”

So Satan rebelled against his dependence and subordination as a creature of God. He sought nothing less than to take God’s place. And here in Genesis 3 we learn that this enemy of God comes to man, speaking smooth and flattering words. Mankind has a deadly enemy, and he approaches us as a tempter. And today, Revelation 12:9 tells us, he deceives the whole world. How does Satan deceive us? This brings us to consider the second point.

The First Temptation to Sin

What is sin? Genesis 3 teaches us that sin is rebellion against the Word that God has spoken. The serpent aimed to produce this very thing in the hearts of Adam and Eve: rebellion against the will of God made known to them by the mouth of God. He comes with the same kind of pressures today. Genesis 3 traces the pattern of Satan’s work of temptation in four stages.

1. Doubting God’s Word

Genesis 3:1 says, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” In saying to the woman, “Hath God said”—that is, “Did God indeed say?”—Satan is calling into question the truth and trustworthiness of God’s Word. At the very beginning of his attack on Eve’s mind and heart, he insinuates that God’s Word is subject to man’s judgment. It is a perilous thing when we allow Satan to move us to question God’s Word, because that is how he gains his first foothold in our minds.

This is why the battles waged in the church so often focus upon the authority of Holy Scripture. The whole area of the supremacy, sufficiency, infallibility, and inerrancy of Holy Scripture is cardinal to our spiritual well-being. Satan knows that, even if we are often inclined to forget it. That is why he begins with his question: “Hath God said?”

Satan attacked God’s Word by questioning its goodness and credibility. Did God prohibit eating from any tree? He is asking with a touch of cynicism, “Is this something that you can really believe God would say?” The implication is that God’s Word is overly restrictive; God must be distant and uncaring. Throughout the rest of Genesis 2–3, God is called “the LORD God,” literally, Jehovah God, using God’s covenant name, the name by which He joins Himself in faithful love to His people. But the serpent simply calls him “God,” the mighty Creator, suggesting a distant, uncaring, untrustworthy deity.

When you encounter this kind of questioning in your spiritual experience, take warning: you are on the battlefield, and the enemy of your soul is seeking to destroy you. The only way to defeat him is to use the very Word of God that he is trying to make you doubt. That is how Jesus resisted in all three great waves of temptation He encountered in the wilderness—“It is written…it is written…it is written.” That is how we should resist Satan as well.

2. Distorting God’s Word

Genesis 3:2–3 says, “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”

Already the evil one has begun to produce in Eve’s mind a distortion of the Word of God. She disparages her privileges by misquoting the terms of God’s provision. Compare what Eve said to God’s words in 2:16, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat” (emphasis added). Eve said only, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.” Her statement is technically accurate, but she fails to mention how lavish and generous God’s provision is. Indeed, she fails to mention God as the giver.

I want to press this truth upon you. There is no defense against Satan more effective than a heart that is overwhelmed by the bounty of God’s gracious provision. And correspondingly, there is no heart more open to Satan’s wiles than one possessed by a grumbling, ungrateful spirit. Just as a whole generation of Israelites destroyed their relationship with God by their murmuring against Him, so today, if you are possessed by a bitter spirit, then you have left the door wide open for Satan.

Eve not only belittles God’s generosity, but she also overstates God’s restrictions by misquoting the divine prohibition. Again compare God’s words in Genesis 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.” Eve quoted God as saying, “Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it.”

Eve exaggerates God’s restrictions. This is another favorite device of Satan—a very subtle one. We minimize God’s goodness and then magnify His prohibitions. As a result, we begin to believe that God’s commandments are a grievous and heavy burden.

Furthermore, Eve misquotes the divine penalty for disobedience. Her words are, “lest ye die.” But God’s words in Genesis 2:17 were, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Literally, the text is emphatic, “dying thou shalt die.” Eve’s statement allows for the possibility of death as the result of sin; God had set down the absolute certainty of death as the result of sin. When Eve cites God’s prohibitions to Satan, she exaggerates them; when she cites the penalty, she understates it. In every way, the tempter leads her to distort the Word of God.

3. Denying God’s Word

Genesis 3:4–5 says, “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” The Lord had said, “Thou shalt surely die.” But here the tempter used the same emphatic form to deny God’s Word: “Ye shall not surely die.” By substituting his words for God’s Word, the devil aimed to substitute himself for God in the hearts of mankind. And they fell for it. Jesus tells us that Satan is now the ruler of this world, and fallen men follow the devil’s ways as children walk in the steps of a father (John 8:44; 12:31; 14:30).

Notice that the very first truth of revelation that Satan denies is the truth of divine judgment. I find that of great significance. In other words, you can sin with impunity, he says. You will be able to disobey God and nothing will happen. It will be perfectly all right. He says that all the time, doesn’t he? First he lures you into sin by minimizing its penalty. But then when you have sinned, he maximizes the penalty and tells you that God will never forgive or accept you again.

We need to grasp that every sin has its penalty. Sin is a fearful thing and it carries with it fearsome results. Galatians 6:7 says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Sin is a seed, and it brings a harvest of judgment. Romans 6:23 warns, “The wages of sin is death.”

In challenging the doctrine of judgment, Satan is challenging the character of God. All sin is rebellion against God and a denial of who He is. Satan denies God’s goodness, justice, and truthfulness. He says that God is a liar. God doesn’t really care about sin. Oh, how he slanders the Lord! One day God will show how much He hates sin when He curses all unrepentant sinners and casts them into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. Hell will forever testify that God speaks the truth and the devil is the father of lies.

The devil also lied about who we are as men and women. He said that God was holding them back from truly being like Him, blatantly ignoring the fact that they already bore the beautiful image of God (Gen. 1:26). They were already like God, to the extent that is possible for a mere creature! But Satan said that they needed to know and experience something outside of God’s will, something forbidden by God, to become truly wise—in fact, to become as God!

Isn’t that how he tempts us today? He says, “Don’t let God’s rules restrict you. You need to taste the pleasures I offer you.” But instead he aims to dehumanize mankind, to degrade us from our high and noble calling as God’s image-bearers. When Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, they tasted a new kind of knowledge, to be sure: the knowledge of experiencing sin in all its deadly poison. It did not make them wise, and it certainly did not make them more like God.

4. Defying God’s Word

Genesis 3:6 tells us the tragic results: “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” The woman “saw” the forbidden fruit now with eyes clouded by the lies of Satan. Her natural desires became “deceitful lusts” (Eph. 4:22) and she broke God’s commandment.

Now we can trace Satan’s purpose of dislodging man’s trust in the Word of God. The sinister aim of the evil one is not to produce intellectual enlightenment; nor is his aim to produce a richer experience of life. His aim is solely to produce moral rebellion against the will of God in order to degrade and destroy us. Adam and Eve defied God’s command and warning, and threw themselves over the cliff of sin—falling down to be broken on the rocks of corruption, misery, darkness, and death.

The three-fold motivation for Eve’s disobedience is an anatomy of corrupt desire, corresponding to John’s analysis of the love of the world in 1 John 2:16. She believed that “the tree was good for food,” stimulating the “lust of the flesh” to gratify our bodies at all costs. She saw “that it was pleasant to the eyes,” stirring the “lust of the eyes” to seize all beautiful and desirable things and make them our own. And she thought that it was “a tree to be desired to make one wise,” viewing it with the selfish ambition of the “pride of life.”

In a word, Eve—and Adam consenting, and we in Adam—chose to make ourselves into gods and to make the rest of creation into idols. God had said to man that the whole world was his to enjoy, but God remained the center and supreme Lord. Sin moves us to say, “I am the center and supreme Lord.” The essence of sin and its horrific offense against God is that we exchange the Creator for His creation, despising the glorious and blessed God, and worshiping that which is limited, dependent, and created only for His glory (Rom. 1:21–23, 25, 28).

The hinge upon which sin turns is exchanging God’s authoritative Word for the wisdom of a rebellious creature. We have seen, step by step, how the tempter led our first parents in doubting God’s Word, distorting God’s Word, denying God’s Word, and defying God’s Word. This teaches us how to overcome the evil one: by submitting to God’s Word and having it abide in us (1 John 2:14). Romans 6:17 says, “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.” This is why the most basic principle of the Reformation was not the doctrine of justification by faith alone but sola Scriptura: in all things we must submit to Scripture alone as the rule of our faith, worship, and obedience.

 

Dr. Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Tim Challies interviewed our editor over a period of eight weeks on the final eight chapters of A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, and placed these articles on the Challies blog. We are printing them in this periodical with his permission. All eight articles deal with how the Puritans brought theology into practice. This article deals with the conscience in Puritan thought.

1. In order to ensure we are all on the same page, can you define conscience? What exactly is it the Puritans were talking about when they discussed matters of conscience?

The conscience is an echo in the human mind of the verdict of the righteous Judge. William Perkins said that “conscience is a part of the understanding” that sets itself either for or against one’s actions.¹ William Ames, a student of Perkins, wrote that conscience is “a man’s judgment of himself, according to the judgment of God of him.”² Regardless of what we love with our affections or choose with our will, there is a part of our understanding that judges us and gives us a sense of moral approval or guilt according to our understanding of right and wrong. So when the Puritans considered cases of conscience, they were discussing questions about how to know what is pleasing to God in specific situations, and, more importantly, how to know that the divine Judge accepts you as righteous in His sight.

2. What would the Puritans identify as the function of conscience? Why do we need it and what does it do for us?

Conscience impresses a man’s mind with the moral authority of God, and as a result produces a sense of anxiety and misery, or peace and joy, that anticipates eternity. Ames said that conscience binds a man with such authority that no created thing can release him from it.³ Though our conscience may be misinformed, it still speaks with a divine authority that we can disobey but we find difficult to ignore. It reminds us that God sees all we do and is either delighted or angry with us, and pleased or displeased with our deeds.

Much Puritan literature aimed to direct people to find peace of conscience through the blood of Christ, and to walk in good conscience day by day. Richard Rogers said that the purpose of his Seven Treatises of spiritual guidance was to show a person how to live such that “he may find a very sweet and effectual [powerful] taste of eternal happiness, even here.”⁴ Richard Sibbes said that a good conscience is “a continual feast,” because knowing that God is pleased with us, has forgiven our sins, and delights in our obedience, enables us to suffer and even to die with comfort, freedom, and joy.⁵

3. What would the Puritans want us to know about the effect of the fall into sin on man’s conscience?

The fall of man brought us under the condemning wrath of God and the enslaving darkness of sin. The first disturbs and terrifies the conscience insofar as it senses the coming judgment; the latter disorders and confuses the conscience.

Perkins taught that though a “remnant of God’s image” persists in man’s mind through “certain notions concerning good and evil,” mankind has fallen into much ignorance of the truth and inability to understand spiritual realities (1 Cor. 2:14), futility in not distinguishing truth from falsehood (Eph. 4:7; Prov. 14:12), and natural tendency to follow evil and lies (Jer. 4:22). This distorts the conscience, though it still retains a degree of its power to rebuke and restrain sin (Rom. 2:15). Fallen conscience tends to excuse inward wickedness if it is covered in outward worship (Mark 10:19-20). It also tends to falsely accuse a person when he fails to follow the traditions and doctrines of mere men (Col. 2:21± 22). Sometimes conscience may accuse and terrify a person for his sins (Acts 24:26), and yet consciences may be seared to numbness by habits of sinning (Eph. 4:19; 1 Tim. 4:2).⁶

4. Where might the Puritans warn us about our use or misuse of conscience?

The Puritans warned against subjecting conscience to any ultimate authority besides the Bible. They particularly emphasized liberty of conscience in matters of religion.

The Westminster divines wrote, “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in any thing contrary to His Word; or beside it, in matters of faith and worship.”⁷ Similarly, the Particular Baptists wrote, “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.”⁸

The Puritans also warned against resisting one’s conscience when it speaks according to the Word. Ames taught the unconverted to seriously consider the law so that it would convict him of sin; show him he cannot save himself; and bring him to grief, fear, and confession of specific sins. He must also renounce his own righteousness and fix his mind upon the righteousness of Christ crucified as presented in the promises of the gospel.⁹

Christians too must not resist conscience. If a Christian finds his conscience accusing him, Ames counseled him to: first, feel the burden of sin (Matt. 11:28-29); second, detest all sin (Rom. 7:15); third, be careful not to fulfill his sinful lusts (Gal. 5:16); fourth, work to put those lusts to death (Rom. 8:13); fifth, to consider God’s promises, flee to Christ, and cling to Him more and more (Rom. 7:25; Phil. 3:9); and sixth, get rid of gross and heinous sins that shake their consciences and call into question their very salvation (Isa. 1:16-18).¹⁰

5. What can a Christian do to repair his conscience or to help his conscience overcome the effects of the fall?

The restoration of the conscience is part of the process of sanctification that begins with regeneration and does not end until we enter glory. It is a work of God’s grace that we must seek in prayer. The most significant means is to place ourselves under the sound and searching preaching of both the law and the gospel. As Sibbes said, the steps to a good conscience are, first, to be troubled by our sins; second, to find peace by trusting in Christ; and, third, to resolve to please God in all things. With these three elements active in our lives, we are positioned to grow more in a good conscience as we live by faith for God’s pleasure.¹¹ The most important attitude is honesty and humility before God, for conscience always confronts us with the truth that God is Lord. For more details on restoring the conscience, see A Puritan Theology (pp. 919-25).

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1. William Perkins, A Discovrse of Conscience: Wherein is Set Downe the
Nature, Properties, and Differences Thereof: As Also the Way to Get and Keepe Good Conscience (London: Iohn Legate, 1596), 1.
2. William Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof (1639; facsimile repr., Norwood, N.J.: Walter Johnson, 1975), 1.1.
3. Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof, 1.3.4.
4. Richard Rogers, Seaven Treatises, 4th ed. corrected and enlarged (London: Felix Kyngston for Thomas Man, 1616), 1.
5. Richard Sibbes, Exposition of Second Corinthians Chapter 1, in The Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander B. Grosart (1862-1864; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1981), 3:223.
6. William Perkins, A Golden Chaine, or The Description of the Theologie,
Containing the Order of the Causes of Saluation and Damnation, According to Gods Word, 2nd ed. (London: Iohn Legate, 1597), 27-29.
7. Westminster Confession of Faith (20.2), in Westminster Confession
(Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1994), 86.
8. Second London Confession (1.1), in A Confession of Faith, Put Forth by the Elders and Brethren of Many Congregations of Christians (Baptized upon Profession of Their Faith) in London and the Country (London: Benjamin Harris, 1677), 1.
9. Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof, 2.4, 6.
10. Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof, 2.19.
11. Richard Sibbes, The Demand of a Good Conscience, in Works, 7:484-85.

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Dr. Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Thanks to Rev. Paul Smalley for his research assistance on this article.