The fall of man and the gospel of God

(Genesis 3:15)

Man has always questioned and talked about the origin and ultimate cause of unhappiness and predicaments of human beings in this world. They have mainly tried to find the answer to the questions through outer factors such as environment, social systems, or political reasons. Even if there are men who turn to their inner selves to find the cause of man’s unhappiness and solve it, they are only concerned about factors inside humans and the relationships humans have with one another. But here, Genesis chapter 3 simply tells us the ultimate cause of human unhappiness while showing at the same time what God did in response to the tragedy that the very first man had terribly caused. Today, I want to consider together what the cause and origin of human’s unhappiness is and how God dealt with it and what God’s decision on the matter was.

In verse 15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” God declared this merciful and gracious promise, but right before this announcement of God, there was a terrible and fatal event caused by man. Adam and Eve, the very first men and our first ancestors, disregarded God’s command to them, the command from the Creator to His best creatures. They broke the relationship between themselves and their Lord. God placed them in the perfect position and environment that can be described as paradise. God promised them eternal happiness and life in such wonderful settings. There they lived and had communion with God. This is the first and perfect picture. But chapter 3 shows us another view of Adam and Eve hiding in their misery and wretchedness, trying to avoid God and get away from the voice of God that followed them. What happened? Yes, you and I know very well what happened there. They ate of the forbidden fruit of the tree by being tempted by evil, the serpent. Here, the point is not the fruit itself. We don’t have to have any interest in the fruit itself. The matter is the fact that they disobeyed the order from their Lord God, the order for their perfect glorious life. The matter is the fact that they broke the relationship and pivotal order between themselves and their Creator. God is God, They are human beings. God put man in the garden and said, “Now you just live life as I ask you to live it; I give you great liberty; but there is just this one prohibition.” God gave man law and told him that he would be happy and in communion with God, that he would reap the benefits of this glorious creation, he would never have to face difficulties or death. But the very first man disregarded this perfect nature and order between him and God. He once thought that he too could be the same as God. He once thought he could better manage this world than the way God designated and ordered him. But the result of the trial was tragedy. We call it ‘sin.’ Through this rebellion against God, all the unhappiness in the human world such as disease and predicaments appeared. In chapter 3, we can find that they, Adam, Eve, and the serpent, were each sentenced to all kinds of difficulties in this world by God. Especially and fatally, death came to human beings through the event, or the very sin. They should have remembered the severe warning from God in chapter 2, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen 2:17) You shall surely die. This is the brief background of the ultimate cause of human unhappiness. The Bible tells us that the cause of unhappiness of humans including death is the breaking of the relationship and communion with God, that is, humans’ rebellion against their Lord.

The action that God took immediately after the event is this. God designated this world into two realms and declared the eternal and irreconcilable war. Evil and its offspring and woman and its offspring. Here, we need to clarify some concepts. The Bible doesn’t clearly say what the origin of evil is. But the Bible is clearly telling us what the result of evil’s activity through the agent, or serpent is. The evil not only tempted man into being rebellious against God, but also the evil itself tried to occupy the degree of God. The evil tried to tempt even Jesus Christ. So it is very obvious that there are two influences in this world: evil’s and God’s. Here, the word, ‘woman’s offspring’ can mean one man connoting Jesus Christ born through woman’s body but at the same time we can grasp this word as a collective noun. In other words, the regenerated who has been united with Jesus Christ by believing in Him definitely belong to this offspring. And like this way, the evil’s offspring should be understood from the perspective of the same party with the evil. Regarding those two influences, the very first thing that God did was placing “enmity” between them. This word ‘erbah’ in Hebrew was used to emphasize ‘hostility.’ This is the basic grand picture of this world set by God. This is not a situation that has been just naturally or accidently formed. This is a situation that has been controlled by God. This is the major premise of the world. And sin of the sins is not serving and acknowledging God. In this sense, the ultimate goal of evil’s influence is making human beings not serve their God, and the ultimate goal of God’s influence is making humans serve their God, that is, recovering human beings into their original position.

Verse 15 continues to say this, “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This means that while evil’s offspring damages the woman’s offspring very slightly and temporally not fundamentally, the woman’s offspring will annihilate the evil’s influence completely, fundamentally, and eternally. And this is accomplished through Jesus Christ, our Lord. This operation of our God was already launched and will be completely finished on the very day God designates. The kingdom of God has been spreading like leaven all over the world quietly and impregnably and finally the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. This is the gospel of Christianity.

Human being’s unhappiness is not a matter of environment and system. The cause of all predicaments and unhappiness that man face came from the break of the relationship and communion with their God. That is, it came from the rebellion against their God. They lost their own position as a creature towards their Creator. They severely misunderstood that they could be the same as God or superior to God. Tragedy! That kind of idea itself is a terrible tragedy for human beings. The fatal belief of human being’s that he himself knows what is best for himself apart from God, human being’s trouble is due to this desperate idea. But still we, man keeps doing exactly the same as our first ancestor was doing and keeps having exactly the same mindset as the very first man. They think that they themselves are the Lord, and not only the Lord of their own lives but also of the universe. They place their reason on the position that is supposed to be for God, the ultimate and final authority. They think that they can improve their unhappy and troubled world by themselves without God. They think they are able to find the cause of trouble of the human world and figure it out. As long as they still keep that kind of attitude and thought with their reason, mind, and nature, that being drenched into sin and being entirely disordered and depraved, they are never able to find the cause of their unhappiness and the way to solve it. It is because the very cause of human’s unhappiness and trouble is on the breaking of their relationship with God. Besides recovering this relationship through believing in Jesus Christ, there is no hope at all.

And we need to clearly and humbly accept the situation that God designated, the antagonistic conflict between the two influences, evil’s realm and God’s realm. Don’t say that this is such an old-fashioned black and white thinking in a diverse and thoughtful post-modern world as today. If one doesn’t accept and serve God, it doesn’t just mean the one doesn’t choose the God of Christianity, but it means the one is against God. As today’s verse says, “God put enmity between the two realms.” The only option suggested by God is to be on either God’s side or evil’s side, and not the option to try to reconcile the two realms with each other. What we need is not to persuade the ideas that acknowledge the God of Christianity, and at the same time the other gods of other religions into acknowledging more or a better God of Christianity, but what we need is to tell them to abandon their god and idea completely and accept only the God of Christianity completely. Now what we should do is to not seek the way for co-existence of the two realms, but what we should do is hold only the cross of Jesus Christ, or believe in only the saving name, Jesus Christ our Lord. If you really love or try to love unbelievers, you should firmly confirm your faith in only Jesus Christ and give them the very gospel of Christianity, not seek the way to co-exist with each other with the so-called mind of love, humility, and peace. The best and ultimate way to love neighbors is giving them the gospel of Christianity, that is, giving them the way for them to live. This is effective, practical, true love. We find the first proclamation of good news for man’s salvation. However, that good news of the victorious confrontation of the Lord with Satan cannot be understood except against the background of what precedes it. That is the fact that God put ‘enmity’ between the two realms. They will never be reconciled. Before this declaration of God, of perfect God, of loving God, of merciful God, of graceful God, don’t pretend to be more loving, merciful, humble, and peaceful than God as if you are able to accomplish peaceful harmony of the two realms with the fake and superficial name tags being attached on your chest called love and peace. Be humble before the decision of God and submit to the decision of God. Don’t lie anymore. Stop lying to yourselves, thinking that human beings are able to reach any happy and perfect situation by their own efforts and collaboration without God. There is not an ounce of possibility of this. The Bible is clearly stating this fact. The history itself is clearly stating this fact. The situation which we are in today is clearly stating this fact. God put enmity between the two realms.

Acknowledge the fall of man that has brought the death into a man. And acknowledge the gospel of God that has brought the victorious new life into a man. Without recovering the relationship with God through believing in Jesus Christ, nobody can get the final victory, nobody can get real happiness and peace, nobody can overcome the death as the terrible result of man’ fall, or depravity. Be in the party of the woman’s offspring. Jesus Christ, only through Him, by Him, in Him we can find solution for human beings’ unhappiness and troubles resulted from the fall. Especially, you can beat the curse of death that evil caused. This is the gospel of Christianity. Here is the simple and most meaningful reality, the man’s fall and God’s gospel, the evil’s realm and God’s realm, and the triumphant victory of God’s realm. And this is realized in His only begotten son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Here is the world today in its unhappiness, look at the men and women, see how muddled and unhappy life has become. They are trying to find happiness in pleasure, they need something and the very thing they need is being offered and yet they turn away from God while he is speaking, from the only one who can bless them. If you are in this state of misery and unhappiness, I suggest that your trouble is caused by your not listening to God. He is speaking to you. He has come after you. He has sent his Son to earth and he took your sin and bore it in his own body and bore it on Calvary’s hill. He asks you to listen to him, to believe his message, to yield your life to him and promises you that if you do so you will inherit greater blessings than your father Adam lost. I hope that God grants us grace to see our need that we must live our life as he dictates and understands that we know where we are going, to death and to judgment for certain, but, above all, that we shall hear the voice of God calling us to accept his free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ his son.