We studied in our first lesson about the two families, each with its own head or father. In this lesson, we wish to portray the natures of these two Adams and how these were transmitted to their posterity. Thus, we may understand why it is so vital that we be translated from the one family into the other.
Genesis is “the seed plot” of the entire Scriptures. In it there are seed thoughts which are sown and which we watch germinate and mature throughout the Bible so that in the last book we notice their fulfillment in harvest.
How did Adam and Eve forfeit their place as sons and daughters of God? How did Adam thus become of the seed of the serpent when he had been created in the image and likeness of God? In the New Testament genealogy he had been designated a “son of God” (Luke 3:38). Adam lost his exalted position by death. God had warned them that in the day they ate of the forbidden tree, they would die. Eve ate and persuaded her partner to partake and spiritual death set in. Death automatically severs many ties. Those of father, husband, brother, business relationships─all are finished by the event of death. The widow and children mourn their loss but it is irrevocable in this life. The business concern must advertise for a replacement of the deceased. Death ended Adam’s vital standing in the family of God.
In the third chapter of Genesis, God reveals that He has planned another Adam to become the father of a new line. And it is the Divine Creator Himself Who announces the first Adam to be of the seed of the serpent. None but the Almighty would have dared to make such a startling pronouncement! Fallen men do not wish to admit of this degrading position. But God relieves the gloom by pointing to the coming of His Son, (the last Adam) the seed of the woman.
Let us notice the first announcement relating to the coming of another seed or family.
“And I will put _________ between _______ and the ________, and between ___________ and ____________; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise ____________” (Gen. 3:15).
Charles Spurgeon said of this Scripture: “Our text is the first Gospel sermon that was ever delivered on this earth. It was a memorable discourse indeed for it had Jehovah Himself for the preacher and the whole human race and the prince of darkness for the audience. It must be worthy of our heartiest attention.”
We come to three very forceful conclusions in Gen. 3:15:
1. There are two seeds─the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.
2. There will be enmity between these two families until the end.
3. The seed of the woman, although bruised in the heel, will ultimately triumph over the serpent’s seed by bruising his head.
The above declaration made to Eve and the serpent reveals the fact that some great transfer from one family to another had taken place during the temptation in the garden. An alien seed had set up an opposition party to God’s seed. This event was so momentous that it called forth from the lips of the Eternal God an outline of His plan for the return of this prodigal seed to the family of God. In the moment of Adam’s disobedience to God’s explicit command something dreadful had happened to our foreparents. The venom of the serpent was transmitted to the human race and every child born into this world inherits that sinful nature which nothing can alter save faith in the last Adam’s sacrifice on Calvary.
It is most difficult for fond parents looking into the innocent face of their new-born baby to believe that he or she comes into the world with a rebellious disposition, a deceitful nature and a selfish outlook. The Minnesota Crime Commission in the United States came up with this frightening and factual conclusion:
“Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it: his bottle, his mother’s attention, his playmate’s toy, his uncle’s watch. Deny him those wants and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He is dirty. He has no morals, no knowledge, no skills. This means that all children are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in the self-centered world of his infancy, given free reign to his impulsive actions to satisfy his wants, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, killer, rapist.”
It would appear that the Minnesota Crime Commission in studying human behavior had agreed with Bible theology. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9).
Christ’s Word Picture of the Heart of Man
Look up the Scripture found in Mark 7:21-23 and list the twelve evils in the blank spaces provided in the heart diagram below:
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed . . .
1. ____________ 7. ____________
2. ____________ 8. ____________
3. ____________ 9. ____________
4. ____________ 10. ____________
5. ____________ 11. ____________
6. ____________ 12. ____________
. . . and all these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”
St. Paul’s Word Picture of the Heart of Man
St. Paul, writing to the Galatian church, lists seventeen different works of the flesh which likewise portray the natural man. Look up Gal. 5:19-21 and list the seventeen below:
1. __________ 5. __________ 9. __________ 13. __________
2. __________ 6. __________ 10. __________ 14. __________
3. __________ 7. __________ 11. __________ 15. __________
4. __________ 8. __________ 12. __________ 16. __________
17. __________
Let any minister of the Gospel portray man in this light, and he will know the opposition of comparatively good church-goers who have never come under the light of the Holy Spirit. He will please his audience if he talks of happiness and peace as a result of a decision, but man does not wish to see himself as the Bible pictures him. If we need a further justification for the above description being true, we need only to read the literature of our day and note how it caters to these baser instincts of man. Watch the news media─TV and BBC programs─and see how they appeal to the tastes of the natural man by reproducing scenes of adultery, violence, etc., in settings of grandeur and riches. The wave length of the natural man corresponds precisely with Christ’s representation.
What Adam Lost Through Disobedience
A very godly man when writing an introduction to his autobiography began it in a very unusual way. He writes: “The only authentic information concerning my family in earlier times is that its original head was a tenant of a particularly attractive property on a large and well-ordered estate and was especially favored by the noble owner. But, being discovered in an alliance with an implacable enemy of his landlord─in the very act─he was summarily ejected with his wife who, in truth, had led him open-eyed into such folly. He was thus reduced to the level of a common field laborer. And the ill-effects of his ingratitude and misconduct have dogged the footsteps of each and all of his descendants unto this day. Their names, of course, Adam and Eve.”
We wish briefly to enumerate some of the losses the human race sustained when Adam and Eve were ejected from their former beautiful estate. We also hope to see how God was prepared for this turn of events and had a plan formulated before He laid the foundations of the world. Satan did not take the Godhead by surprise. He by his subtlety and mischief sought to alienate man from God and to persuade him to be influenced instead by himself. A study into Satan’s temptation of Eve in Gen. 3:1-7 will reveal to us four losses Adam and Eve sustained when they forfeited their position as created son and daughter of God.
1. They lost faith in God’s Word. Satan planted a doubt as to the truth of God’s command by simply asking a question, “Yea, _________________, Ye shall not eat of ________ tree of the garden?” He implied that God had imposed wider restrictions upon them than was the case. God had forbidden the fruit of only one tree out of the entire garden. When Eve answered the serpent she too went further than God had gone when she said they had been commanded not to touch the fruit. He was beginning his accusation against God which he has continued to our present day. He accuses man to God, and God to man. Doubt as to God’s veracity would in time affect man’s entire attitude toward the authority of God’s commands and counsels. “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb. 11:6).
Here were two innocent beings beginning life on a planet of which they were completely ignorant. They had a Creator Whose counsels, commands and instructions would help them to conduct themselves wisely on this vast estate, but unbelief robbed them of a standard guide to life. The varying opinions of men would henceforth shift them from one position to another. Lost, lost, lost to them was their infallible Guide because they no longer trusted His words. Unbelief reigned.
The last Adam, in His temptation in the wilderness, met this implacable foe on the same ground when Satan sought to deter Him from His mission to redeem man. Christ met the tempter’s wily insinuations with, “It is written, ______ shall not _______ by ________ alone, but by _____________ that _____________ out of the ________ __________” (Matt. 4:4).
Every true minister of the Gospel must perform his mission of reconciliation by using God’s Word and saying unashamedly, “God hath said.” “It is written.” Man must begin retrieving his lost faith by believing God’s Word. Satan has achieved a modern victory in that he has men in the pulpits who plant doubts in the minds of their hearers as to the veracity of God’s Word. They imply that the Bible is a book of legends full of contradictions, and so the people of today have been robbed by an emissary of Satan just as our foreparents were in the beginning.
2. They lost their life-giving communication lines with God. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” God had clearly stated. Satan said, “Ye shall not surely die.” The serpent was emboldened once he had planted the first seed of doubt to go further and counter God’s edict outright. There was partial truth in his statement for Satan was representing a tree which had the knowledge of both good and evil. “Satan was referring to physical death to which our foreparents were strangers: God had referred to a spiritual death in which man’s spirit with which he communicated with God would die and his sensibilities be deadened, which made him capable of enjoying and apprehending God.”
Satan would obviously seek to minimize this death for he was the “god of this world” and his whole aim was to so absorb man in the mad rush for material gain that he would miss the greater riches of the unseen realm. To apprehend this required faith. Satan sought to outweigh these advantages by presenting those which would appeal to the body senses by the following arguments:
A. The tree was good for food, appealing to the appetites.
B. It was pleasant to the eyes, appealing to the emotions.
C. It was able to make one wise, appealing to the intellect.
God had created man to be the recipient of the attributes of Himself─wisdom, righteousness, love, peace, joy, etc. God meant that man, through communing, should take into his spirit that which he lacked and that he should convey these God-like qualities to others. Even the last Adam emptied Himself and lived entirely from the Father as we shall study in a later lesson. When the rich young ruler came to Him asking Him, “_______ Master, what _______ thing shall _______ , that _________ have eternal ______?” (Matt. 19:16), Jesus corrected the impression that goodness came from any other source but God. “Why callest thou __________? There is ____________ but one, that is ______” (Matt. 19:17).
Now and again all through the Old Testament, men re-established those supply lines with God and found the flow ample and ready for any emergency. Let us look at Joseph a moment. After a long imprisonment, he was brought before Pharaoh in a heathen court and told to interpret a dream. Joseph addressed Pharaoh thus: “It is _____________: God shall give Pharaoh _______________________” (Gen. 41:16). God was magnified in this land of Egypt and Pharaoh summed it all up when he said: “Can we ____________ a one as this is, a man in whom _______________________?” (Gen. 41:38.
Daniel was another such man. A Babylonian ruler demanded the interpretation of a dream he had forgotten. After sharing the situation with his three companions, they desired mercies of the God of Heaven concerning this secret. And Daniel answered and said after this had been revealed by God to him in a night vision: “Blessed be the name _________ for ever and ever: for _________ and ________ are his: . . . he giveth . . . ____________ to them that know understanding: He ____________ the deep and ________ things: he __________ what is in the darkness, and the light ___________ with him. I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast ________ me ____________________, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee” (Dan. 2:20-23). “This _________ is not revealed to _____ for any _________ that I have more than any _________” (Dan. 2:30).
3. They lost their vision of a vaster dominion. “God doth know,” said the subtle traducer, “that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened.” This inveterate hater of God and deceiver of man suggested that God had forbidden that which would elevate man to be as the gods and widen his horizon. Being “god of this world,” Satan promised Eve vision to behold the transient, passing world, the order of which God had doomed to destruction. And the story further says that upon eating the forbidden fruit “the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen. 3:7). Our foreparents were afflicted with blindness of mind toward the invisible world which God had decreed should be their lasting habitation.
Could it have been that the devil showed to them the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them as he later did to our Savior in His temptation? (Matt. 4:8). It is difficult for us to understand the marvelous powers with which God endowed Adam and Eve. They had been given dominion over the earth. Eve was doubtless dazzled with the prospect of even greater development and the wonders that man would be capable of performing independent of God. The fruit looked lovely. It would make them wise as the gods. Her imaginative nature was overpowered and she ate. Blinding to the whole universe in which God ruled, happened to the human race. Henceforth a revelation, an opening of the eyes, an opening of the understanding would be necessary in order for man to penetrate into the mysteries of that spiritual realm.
An example of this two-dimensional vision is given in the story of Elisha when accompanied by a young man who could only view the size of the invading army and the inadequate resources at the command of his master. Elisha, God’s seer, distinctly had a vision that included a dimension not seen by his youthful companion.
“And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, ________________, that he may ____. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and _________: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and ____________________ round about Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17).
“The _____________________ hath __________ the minds of them which believe not, lest the ______ __of the glorious gospel of _________, who is the image of God, should ________ unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4).
Paul’s commission: “I have appeared unto thee for this purpose . . . To open their ______, and to _______ them from darkness to ________, and from the power of ________ unto ______, that they may receive _______________________ and ______________ among them which are sanctified ____________ that is in me” (Acts 26:16, 18).
In Lesson 4 of this course we are continuing this very interesting subject of the missing dimension which resulted from the blinding effects of sin. We will not therefore give further Bible comments here.
4. They lost their child-like dependence upon God. We wish to comment further on this part of the suggestion of the serpent to Eve, “God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof . . . ye shall be as gods” (Gen. 3:5). Like an experienced confident trickster, the Tempter sold Eve the idea that they would be advanced to the level of the gods, instead of being subjects under the authority of God. Instead of living in God’s world as obedient children and accepting God’s commands as law, they would mount the throne and govern themselves. Theologians call this act of our first parents, “The Fall,” but by an optical illusion Adam and Eve thought they were climbing. Taking a course independent of their Maker, they were to experience repeated failure over the centuries as the Bible so faithfully records in the Old Testament. Only by becoming reconciled to God and once again placing Him in the center as Lord over their lives would they know the harmony and blessedness that had been the original purpose of God.
How utterly ridiculous man appears when he endeavors to be something he is not! We smile at children who dress up in their parents’ clothes. But if that child seriously challenges the authority of the Head of the house, it is disastrous and requires discipline. But there is a strange parallel in the adult world. Age seeks a disguise under false appearances of youthfulness; ignorance assumes an air of superiority; poverty parades in extravagance unfitting for the occasion; inexperience seeks to govern the skilled. So, when man, aspiring to be as the gods, struts about big with authority, though unsuited and ill-prepared for such an exalted place, there can be nothing but tragedy and disillusionment ahead.
God has no desire to degrade His creatures. His ultimate purpose is for us to reign with Him. But this must come only after suffering has fitted us for the place. James and John, disciples of Jesus, desired exalted positions in Christ’s coming kingdom. “Grant unto us,” they asked, “that we may _____, one on thy _____________, and the other on thy ____________, in thy glory. But Jesus said unto them, Ye ____________ what ye ask: can ye drink of the ______ that I drink of? and be ____________ with the baptism that I am ___________ with? And they said unto him, We can” (Mark 10:37-39). He then went on to explain to them that it was given to them to drink of His cup and to be baptized with His baptism but these favored seats were reserved by the Father for those for whom they were prepared.
A father once told the story of his little boy who, when approaching his fourth birthday, suddenly felt an upsurge of confidence in his own ability to manage for himself. They, father and son, were walking hand-in-hand through a crowded city street, when suddenly the little fellow withdrew his hand and was lost in the crowd. After some time the two were united and the little boy wiser for experiencing his own incapacity.
“For if a _______________ himself to be ____________, when he is __________, he deceiveth himself” (Gal. 6:3).
“Put not forth __________ in the presence _______________ and stand not in the ________ of ________ men. For better it is that it be said unto thee, __________ hither; than that thou shouldst be ____________ in the presence of the _________” (Pro. 25:6-7).
“And ____________ shall exalt himself shall be _________: and he that shall humble himself shall be __________” (Matt. 23:12).
Sin is just this putting self in God’s place. Instead of making God the center of life and unconditionally surrendering to His control and His commands, sin makes our own interests the supreme rule and motive of our existence. It manifests itself in various ways.
1. Self-sufficiency. Had Adam and Eve eaten of the tree of life, which stood for God, they would have taken all their nourishment from Him. God would have met all their needs and they would have achieved God’s exalted plan for His creation. Eating of the forbidden fruit, they died Godward and supplanted God. Belief in their own ability instead of faith in God resulted.
“For _____________ ye can do _________,” said Jesus in John 15:5.
2. Self-righteousness. Man now would expect to attain righteousness apart from God by good works, church attendance and benevolent enterprises. These would provide him with an outward appearance of goodness. This was what Christ called Pharisaism─that which cared much about their outward appearance but little about their inward evil nature which they covered over with a show of good works. Jesus used a very homely picture to illustrate these self-righteous persons. He said they were like cups or platters that had been cleansed on the outside, but the dirt had been left on the inside. See Matt. 23:25-26.
“For they being ignorant of ______________________, and going about to ______________________________________, have not submitted themselves to the ________________________” (Rom. 10:3).
This self-righteousness is further shown in a parable Jesus told in Luke 18:9-14. “And he spake this parable unto certain which __________ in _____________ that they were ____________, and ___________ others. Two men __________ into the _________ to pray; the one a ___________, and the other a ___________. The Pharisee ________ and prayed thus ________________, God, I thank Thee that I am not as _________________, extortioners, _________, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast ________ in the week, I ______________ of all I possess. And the publican _____________________, would not ______________________________ unto heaven, but __________________________ saying, God be ____________________________. I tell you ___________ went down to his house ____________ rather than the other: for everyone that exalteth himself shall be _________ and he that ____________________ shall be __________.”
Christ died for the very end that we might have His righteousness to become ours. This is voiced by St. Paul in 2 Cor. 5:21: “For he hath made him (Christ) to be ______________, who knew no sin, that we might be made the ________________ _________________.”
3. Self-will. The rebel spirit in every man, as a result of the fall, wishes to “do his own thing” “realizing his own potential” in the right to himself. Humanity is the prodigal from the Father’s house, going out to determine his own course without interference. Jesus pictured this rebellious attitude in a parable He spoke.
“We will not _________________to __________________” (Luke 19:14).
4. Self-seeking. Harmony is only achieved when man has a common center around which to revolve. Then each one takes his own place in the niche which Eternal Wisdom decrees. With each one on a throne, there is no one left to govern. We are like the children who wished to play Indians, but everyone wanted to be chief and so there were no Indians left for the Chief to govern. Even in the case of our foreparents, as soon as they departed from God as their common center, they began to blame one another.
H. L. Ellison aptly remarked: “For two independent and equal personalities to co-exist in harmony, they must move around a common center, which is, of course God. With the removal of that center the harmony between husband and wife was marred, for each wished to be the center around which the other should move. Human sin almost always hits the marriage partner first and the children next.”
“I have no man _______________ who will naturally _____________________. For all seek _____________, not the _________ which are Jesus Christ’s” (Phil. 2:20-21).
“He ________________ that they which _______ should not henceforth live unto ____________, but unto __________________ for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:15).
God-centered or Man-centered
Satan could not have struck a more effective blow than to tempt Adam to place self first and foremost in all his thoughts and endeavors. Being man-centered rather than God-centered, all hopes for unity and harmony were shattered. Each individual now became a small island, separated from his fellow-man by barriers of self-interest and self-conceit. Man is solely interested in the impression he himself is making. He strives feverishly in the hope of attaining some far–off goal and so is lost to the interests of his fellows. This militates against peace. “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim. 6:6).
Eden was a paradise because God was the center, and man a working partner with Him. Through the disobedience of this first pair, the entire world order has become man-centered. Humanitarians exalt man. Psychiatrists seldom recognize disorders as arising from man dislodging God from His rightful position. Parents, disappointed in their own achievements, urge their children to attain distinctions in universities. We hear students, weary of the material rat race, tell of nervous depressions which have resulted from fear of disappointing parental ambitions.
Political parties attain power by promising a veritable Eden for man. For thousands of years hopes have been raised by different ideologies, each drunk with their own sense of importance, only to be doomed to disappointment. We, who are Christians and love God, are truly cut to the heart when we notice how governing bodies leave God out of their plans for a better world order. Even the Church, instead of applying her powerful remedy found in the Gospel, endeavors to become involved in righting social evils instead of presenting the cure.
In Romans chapter 1, Paul proceeds to give a picture of the state of man who has left God out of his calculations. Because men did not glorify God as God but became vain in their imaginations, they were given over by God to all manner of uncleanness and wrong sexual relationships. See verses 21-27. Then Paul goes on to explain the diseased state of society as it existed in his time.
“Even as they did not _______________________ in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Rom. 1:28).
A wrong impression has been foisted upon the world that the murderer, the thief, the hijacker, the adulterer or alcoholic is Satan-inspired. Oswald Chambers has something to say on this: “The Bible holds man responsible for the introduction of Satan. Satan is the representative of the devil, and the devil is the adversary of God in the rule of man. When our Lord came face to face with Satan, He dealt with him as representing the attitude man takes up in organizing his life apart from any consideration of God. For a thing to be Satanic does not mean that it is abominable and immoral. The Satanically-managed man is moral, upright, proud and individual; he is absolutely self-governed and has no need of God. Jesus said that ‘that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God’ (Luke 16:15).
“One of the most cunning travesties of Satan is to say that he is the instigator of drunkenness and external sins. Men are responsible for doing wrong things, and they do wrong things because of the wrong disposition that is in them. The true blame for sin lies in the wrong disposition, and the cunning of our nature makes us blame Satan when we should blame ourselves. When men go to external sins Satan is probably as much upset as the Holy Ghost, but for a different reason. Satan knows perfectly well that when men go into external sin and upset their lives, they will want another Ruler, a Savior, a Deliverer; but as long as he can keep them in peace and unity and harmony apart from God, he will do so.”
Emil Kremer, in his book, “Eyes Opened to Satan’s Subtlety,” says: “Satan leads people to believe that he is merely a medieval myth, an idea, an evil instinct, a principle of evil opposed to the principle of good. Those who, in harmony with the Scriptures and like Jesus and the apostles, believe in the existence of Satan and of demons, are commonly regarded as being simple, old-fashioned or uneducated. Some people even become quire indignant when one tries─from experience and the clear testimony of Scripture─to prove to them that Satan does exist.”
Let us note what God’s Word reveals as to the nature of the serpent that we might be armed against his subtlety.
Satan’s Character Sketch
Fill in each blank below with the appropriate references appearing in the right hand column. There may be more than one description to a verse or two or three references to one description.
Beguiler and corrupter____________
Deceiver of the world____________
A murderer, liar and father of lies____________
His working is by signs and lying wonders____________
He sinneth from the beginning____________
That wicked____________
He tempts by quoting Scripture____________
Catcheth away the Word sown in the heart____________
An angel of light____________
The Prince of this world____________
He had the power of death____________
Sowed tares among the wheat____________
There is no truth in him____________
He accuses us to God____________
Claims authority over the world____________
Accuser of the brethren____________
A roaring lion seeking to devour____________
The god of this world____________
He wishes to destroy men without a cause____________
Heb. 2:14
John 12:31
Matt. 4:6
Luke 4:6
Job 2:3-5
2 Cor. 11:3
John 14:30
John 16:11
2 Thess. 2:9
John 8:44
Rev. 12:9-10
2 Cor. 11:14
2 Cor. 4:4
Luke 9:42
1 Peter 5:8
1 John 3:8
Matt. 13:19
2 Thess. 2:8
Job 1:9
Testing Time
1. Read the temptation of Christ in Matthew 4:1-11 and compare with Eve’s trial in Genesis 3:1-7.
A. List as many similarities as you can see in Satan’s methods.
B. Contrast the differences in the replies of Eve and Christ.
2. Which loss, in your estimation, did Adam sustain which was the most serious and what would you say comes second?
3. Read Judges 9:8-15 and apply Jotham’s parable to this lesson.
4. Give in your own words a brief but comprehensive definition of sin.
5. Is Satan a more powerful tempter as an “angel of light” or as a “roaring lion”? Explain your answer.
Final Instructions
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