Transcript:
Sure — here’s a cleaned-up, tidy transcript using only the original words, with fillers and repeats removed:
Stephen:
Christians really believe that sin is the core problem, and that’s established in Genesis 3. That’s so relevant, because most people in public life don’t acknowledge that sin is the core problem. It’s often reserved for religious circles and thought of as something in our private faith life.
But when we get to Genesis 3, we see that sin — this defiance of God — wasn’t just about a break in the relationship between God and man. There’s an overspill of consequences into every part of human life. Our view is that if we want to solve any problem in the world, there’s a sin problem at the heart that needs to be solved first. It’s the root of all root causes.
Joel:
Yes, there are political, financial, economic, social, and health problems — they’re real and felt. And there are ways we might try to address them through politics, finance, or education. But we’ll never truly see healing unless we deal with sin.
The rebellion in Adam and Eve didn’t just lead to estrangement from God, but to an unraveling of God’s intention for humanity. First, there are spiritual consequences: Adam and Eve are estranged from God. They hid from Him. They couldn’t bear His holiness and goodness. They felt exposed, ashamed, unpresentable.
That spills into psychological consequences. Adam said, “I was afraid.” It’s the first time fear is mentioned in the Bible. Fear, shame, guilt, anxiety — they all come from sin. We're not just estranged from God — we’re estranged from ourselves. We don’t know who God is anymore, and so we don’t know who we are. We’ve lost our identity and become detached from our true purpose.
That leads to social consequences. Adam and Eve lost their relationship with each other. They covered themselves — they could no longer be vulnerable or open. That’s the beginning of human relational breakdown. Our inner issues become outer problems.
And finally, there’s a physical outworking in creation. God cursed the ground. Humanity was meant to rule the earth, but now we've lost that. That’s why we get sick, why we die, why there are natural disasters. Sin brought that into God’s good world. As someone said: all our lives we fight against the dust — and in the end, we return to dust. All of it comes from one thing: rebellion against God.
Stephen:
In Genesis 3, Adam’s first act brought all that. One choice. Over the years I’ve learned that sin always has a consequence. You don’t get away with anything. Praise the Lord there’s Christ and salvation — but without Him, even one sin brings wreckage.
And the consequences of sin don’t match up one-to-one with our actions. One act can ripple out like tentacles, wrecking every aspect of life. Even the idea of corruption — that we die — is physical. It took me a long time to realize that sin literally corrupts your life. All the good things of life are affected by it. Sin brings a corrupting influence to everything.
I wish more people would return to the Bible, take sin seriously, and not just try to incrementally improve life without ever getting to the heart of it.
Joel:
What’s interesting in this chapter is how Adam and Eve tried to make things better. They were naked and ashamed, so they hid and covered themselves with fig leaves. That deep trauma — of being exposed before God, feeling unworthy and unacceptable — it’s still with us.
They were made for God's presence. So they tried to cover themselves, and since then every human has done the same. We all try to make ourselves feel worthy — so we can get up, face the world, and say “I’m a good person.” But none of those things make us acceptable to God.
At the end of the chapter, God gives them a covering of animal skins — a sign pointing forward to Christ. It’s a picture of true righteousness, something that actually makes us acceptable, that reconciles the broken relationship. The fig leaves we try to wear — that pseudo-righteousness — can never do that.
Stephen:
Yeah. Are there other glimmers of hope in the chapter? I’m thinking of the curses — even there, there’s hope. For the woman, sorrow would come in childbirth, but there’s a glimmer in that too, isn’t there?
Joel:
Absolutely. The seed of the woman — a descendant would come who would crush the serpent’s head. The serpent would bruise his heel, but he would crush the serpent. That’s looking forward to Christ.
The bruising of His heel speaks of His suffering — He would take on the full consequences of our sin. Everything we lost, He lost on the cross. He was forsaken, driven out from God’s presence, crying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But He passed through death and triumphed. Now there is hope. There is freedom. In Christ, all the effects of the curse will be reversed. No good thing will be truly lost. God’s purposes for creation will be fulfilled in Him.
Stephen:
Praise the Lord for that. So we’re coming to the end of Genesis 3 now. We’ll be back, continuing our journey through these foundational truths that shape what we believe and how we live. Thanks for joining us.
