Transcript:
Stephen: We're in this theme on evil. It's found in Genesis chapter 3 — this foundational text for what we believe about what evil is, how it comes about, and why the Christian idea of sin is so serious. It's all found in this early chapter of Genesis.
If you focus in on the chapter, it's all about what we talk about as the Fall — the Fall of Man. We all know the picture: Adam taking this piece of fruit and eating it. And yet that action, that choice, is what has led to the fall of man — the brokenness and the cursing of the whole world.
So why is that so serious? Why was that choice such a big deal?
Joel: Yeah, it seems, at first reading, strange. It's such a small thing — just one bite of a piece of fruit. Why did that have such far-reaching consequences?
I think the answer, at least in part, is that sin is not so much about what is done but who it is done to — or who it is done against.
If I can give you an example: should you throw a rock at a car? Well, probably the answer is always no. But if you throw a rock at a burnt-out old shell of a car, people might think you're a bit strange, but nothing's really going to happen. If you go into a secondhand car dealership and throw a rock at one of the cars, you're going to get a salesman come out, and you're going to be in a bit of trouble. If you go into a new Ferrari or Lamborghini garage and throw a rock at a car that costs hundreds of thousands of pounds, you're going to find yourself in a whole world of trouble.
In each case, the same thing has been done — but it's been done against something of increasing value. The seriousness of sin is not, in a sense, about the act itself, but that it's done against God — a being of infinite value. That means every wrong thing that is done, whether we realise it or not, is of infinite seriousness.
So when Adam took the fruit, he wasn’t just breaking a rule — he was defying God.
Stephen: Yeah. And the nature of sin — it's all about mastery. It's all about who is in control. The essence of sin is about us putting ourselves in God’s place. And again, we talked about this in the last episode — that was the false promise of the devil: “You will be like God.”
Joel: And that's what Adam and Eve did. They reached out, reached up, to try and take a place that didn’t belong to them. They tried to put themselves on God’s throne.
That’s the real seriousness of sin. It's not just about violating a rule — though of course they broke a specific command — it was something deeper. It was rejecting God, refusing his rule and reign in their lives. That’s what brings such serious consequences.
And that has implications for how we think about sin and our actions today. Adam did something that seemed so harmless — but it caused complete ruin and wreckage for mankind.
Today, there are all sorts of behaviours people justify by saying, “It’s doing no one any harm, why can’t I do this?” It doesn’t seem to have any impact on society or others. But from what we’ve seen, anything done against the will of God — whether we feel it in the moment or not — is always harmful, because it damages our relationship with God. It separates us from him.
Therefore, it is always extremely detrimental. We don’t always feel the consequences right away, but increasingly we are seeing that. I think this is part of why we have so many problems — particularly in the mental health space in the modern Western world.
We make choices that don’t seem to have consequences — but deep in our psyche, it’s ruining us. We’re lost. We’re no longer fit for the purpose we were created for. And that leaves us with this deep grief we don’t know how to resolve. The answer is: it’s separating us from God.
Stephen: Yeah. And that’s the Fall in a nutshell. We use the word “fall” to remind us that we were intended for a higher way of living — in communion with God, in a good world.
But because of those actions that defy God himself, we can’t live and enjoy that way of life. We fall. We fall from what we were made to be — from how we were meant to enjoy life and live for God.
Joel: And just before we leave that, I think it’s worth seeing that there is hope in Genesis chapter 3.
Because the essence of sin is us substituting ourselves for God — putting ourselves in his place, reaching up to ascend to his throne.
The essence of salvation is the reverse of that: God in Christ substituting himself for us — stepping down from his throne, coming into this world, going to the cross to take the consequences of our sin.
In the Lord’s Supper, believers are invited to take and eat. That’s what Eve did — she took and she ate. It seemed a small thing in doing, but it was great in undoing.
And yet the Lord was willing to give his body in death so that the verbs of rebellion — take and eat — might become verbs of salvation. So even in this dark, sad chapter, there is hope.
Stephen: Mhm, yeah. And it’s wonderful to trace that arc of redemption. We’ve been seeing this — and we’ll continue to see it — that arc of redemption that flows right through, even from the very beginning of God’s creation.
Yeah. Amen. Thank you, Joel.
