Tag: adam and eve

Darby Simplified – The First Man and the Second

The moment I, as a poor sinner, look by faith to Jesus as my divine sin-bearer, all my sins are gone – they are put out of God’s sight for ever. Christ is in heaven – He could not take my sin there. I am pardoned through His blood, peace having been made through the blood of the cross. And the glorified Man is in heaven, appearing in the presence of God for us – of His Father and our Father, of His God and our God.

A preaching on Genesis 3 by John Nelson Darby

J N Darby
John Nelson Darby

After covering the basics of the gospel, Darby said that sin must be put away perfectly. The sinner brought back to God must be spotless. Christ did not enter heaven again until He had settled the whole question of our sins and of sin itself. The moment I, as a poor sinner, look by faith to Jesus as my divine sin-bearer, all my sins are gone – they are put out of God’s sight for ever.   I am pardoned through His blood, peace having been made through the blood of the cross. And the glorified Man is in heaven, appearing in the presence of God for us – of His Father and our Father, of His God and our God. No sin there

Man has a Conscience

Man is by nature a ruined sinner, shut out by sin from the presence of God with no way back in his present state. The last Adam brings us back, not to an earthly paradise, but into the very presence of God in heaven. God does not bring a sinner back to innocence, but to the “righteousness of God”.   The believer is “made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Cor. 5:21)

Man has a conscience – he knows good and evil. Even if a godless man steals, his consciences tells him that he has done wrong.

Now look at Satan’s temptation. He wanted to make God’s creatures think that God had been keeping something that would be for their good back from them – that He was jealous of their becoming as Himself. Satan’s great lie was, “Ye shall not surely die.” (v.4) It is his constant aim to make men believe that the consequence of sin will not be all that God has said it would be.

The Woman’s Sin

The woman listened to Satan; she lusted. Her heart was away from God, so she followed her own way – just like men do now, trying to make themselves comfortable away from God. Would you to meet God just as you are? God would say ‘Come and be judged’. So you would hide from God, as Adam and Eve did. Not only did they hide themselves from God, they hid themselves from themselves and from one another: the covering of the fig-leaves was just to hide the shame of their nakedness. And when they were hiding away from God, they were away from the only source of blessing. The light had come in and they wanted to get as far from it as possible.

Let us look at the character of their sin. They believed that the devil had told the truth, and that God did not. Satan wanted them to think that God was keeping from them the very best thing they could possibly have. And men are still believing the devil’s lie – hoping to get into heaven their own way, when God has said that nothing defiled shall enter in. Men are looking to Satan for happiness, instead of believing God. They cannot believe that God wants to make him happy.

Now I may say, ‘I have done very little wrong.’ But I am still making God a liar. All Adam did was to eat an apple. What harm was there in eating an apple? Alas! Adam and Eve cast off God, and that was the harm. Whether it was eating an apple, or killing a man, as Cain did later, the principle was the same. It was casting aside God’s authority, and making Him a liar.

Adam hides himself from God. He wanted to get out of His presence?  But the God of love brings the knowledge of the harm into man’s conscience. He does that in love, for if He were dealing with men in judgment He would have left them under it.

God called to Adam. When God speaks, it awakes the conscience; but this is not conversion. God speaks to show man to himself, and bring him back to blessing. His conscience is awakened and that brings him back to the presence of God. You would not hide from a policeman if you have done nothing wrong. But you try to hide yourself from God, because you have done what you know He hates, and that separates you from Him. Man cannot bear to meet God. Innocence, once gone, can never be restored.

The Effect of Sin

Sin has made man get away from God, and it has forced God to drive him from His presence. Man is out of paradise: toil, suffering, sorrow, sickness and death tell us that. And there is only one way back to God, and that is through the Second Man. Christ comes in by the door into the sheepfold, so there is no getting in some other way. He is the door, and whoever enters must come by Him. The flaming sword shut every other avenue to the tree of life. There was no possibility of creeping up to it by some unguarded path.

We also try to excuse ourselves. Adam laid the blame on the woman. “The woman whom thou gavest me, etc.” (v.12) It was as much as saying, ‘Why did you give me this woman? It was your gift caused the sin’. But Adam is condemned by the very excuse. “Because thou hast hearkened etc.” (v.17). Our excuses become our condemnation.

God does not comfort Adam or his wife. He shows man his sin to convict his conscience, not to make him happy. If my child has been naughty, do I wish him to be happy about it? No, I want to forgive him, but he must first feel his sin. God must have us see that we have sinned against Him. We justify God in condemning us. To see sin as God sees it is repentance. It is “truth in the inward parts.” It is holiness and truth in the heart.

God’s Way

God did not leave these poor condemned sinners without comfort. He said to the serpent, “The seed of the woman shall bruise thy head.” It was a new thing that God was bringing in – a new person and a new way. Christ was ‘the seed’. Blessing would come by the Seed of the woman through whom the curse had entered. This was perfection of grace. If sin had come in, sin had to be put away entirely. He who shut man out from heaven has fully provided that which shall shut him in again. We brought back to God through the precious blood of Christ. Christ loved us and gave Himself for us. That is God’s grace.

” God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us.” (Rom. 5:8 Darby) We do not want a good Adam, – but a great God and Saviour. In the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, see all the wrath of God for sin was laid upon Jesus.

Sin must be put away perfectly. The sinner brought back to God must be spotless. Christ did not enter heaven again until He had accomplished this. “When he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down,” (Heb 1:3). When all was finished, He took the throne of righteousness. Adam was cast out of the earthly paradise; Christ, as the last Adam, is in the heavenly paradise.

God justifies me when He says, ‘My Son has been given for your soul, and died for sin’. I am clothed with Christ; I am become the righteousness of God. What more could I have or want? I do not know Him fully, but He has redeemed me; and I am in Him that is the life. He is in me, and I in Him; and where He is, there I shall be in due time. I am still in the body, and bear about with me the bondage of corruption; but Satan’s power is crushed. The serpent’s head is bruised. He has been overcome: Christ went down under the full power of him that had the power of death; and He came up from it triumphant, for it was not possible He should be held by death.

He has overcome

We are told, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7). We are not to overcome him (we could never do that), but when he meets Christ in me, he cannot stand that, he must flee.

The Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven in love, devoted Himself to God for our salvation. He drank the cup of wrath for sin; He tasted death, shut out from God’s presence that He might bring us back into the presence of God without judgment and without sin. This makes us happy and blessed for ever. He knew what the holiness of God was, and what His wrath was; and therefore He knew what He was delivering us from. How I shall hate sin, if I have seen Christ agonising for mine upon the cross! This changes my heart.

The moment I, as a poor sinner, look by faith to Jesus as my divine sin-bearer, all my sins are gone – they are put out of God’s sight for ever.  Christ is in heaven – He could not take my sin there. I am pardoned through His blood, peace having been made through the blood of the cross. And the glorified Man is in heaven, appearing in the presence of God for us – of His Father and our Father, of His God and our God.

A Brief Outline of the Books of the Bible – Genesis

Creation is first treated of; then innocence, lordship, and marriage, the figure of union with Christ. Next we have the fall, man’s sin against God, and then in Cain man’s sin against his brother. There is, at the same time, a witness of certain righteous persons: Abel in sacrifice, Enoch in life, and Noah in testimony of approaching judgment. You then get the complete corruption of the whole system, and the deluge.

GENESIS.

Ilay-preachingn this book we have all the great principles of God’s relationship with man, without bringing in redemption which makes a people for God and a dwelling-place for God in man.   You never, save in chapter 2:3, get the word “holiness” in Genesis; and you never have God dwelling with men.

Creation is first treated of; then innocence, lordship, and marriage, the figure of union with Christ. Next we have the fall, man’s sin against God, and then in Cain man’s sin against his brother.   There is, at the same time, a witness of certain righteous persons: Abel in sacrifice, Enoch in life, and Noah in testimony of approaching judgment.   You then get the complete corruption of the whole system, and the deluge.

Having had in Enoch a figure of the church, we get in Noah deliverance through judgment.   Then a new world begins, God entering into covenant with it, and government introduced to prevent violence.   But the governor fails, and God’s plans as to the races of men are brought out.  We find God making nations, in consequence of man’s attempt to remain united so as to be independent.   In the midst of these nations we have, in Nimrod, imperial despotic power in an individual.  It is connected with Babel, the place of man’s wickedness.   In point of fact, the division of mankind into nations comes by judgment.

Shem’s family having been owned on the earth – the Lord God of Shem, national existence is recognized as God’s principle of the constitution of the earth.   He now begins an entirely new thing.   He calls out an individual to be the head of a blest race.   Whatever individual saints there had thus far been, there had been no counterpart of Adam as the head of a race.   Abraham was called out to be this.   Election, calling, and promise are connected with his calling.  Consequently you have Abraham here, as a stranger and pilgrim, with nothing but his tent and his altar.   He fails, like everybody, but God judges the world – Pharaoh’s house – for him.

We then get the distinction between a heavenly-minded and an earthly-minded man; the world having power over the earthly-minded (Lot), and the heavenly one (Abraham) having power over the world.  In connection with this we have in Melchizedek the future priest upon his throne, linked with God’s supremacy over heaven and earth.   Abraham’s separation from the world having been demonstrated, Jehovah presents Himself to Abraham as his shield and reward.   We first get the earthly inheritance and people, that is, in promise.  Abraham looks for the promise in a fleshly way, and that is all rejected.   We have then the promise to Abraham of being the father of many nations, God revealing Himself as God Almighty.   We have also His covenant with Abraham, and the principle of separation to God by circumcision.   Chapter 18 gives the promise of the heir, the judgment of the world (Sodom), and the connection of a heavenly people (Abraham) with God, by intercession.   In chapter 19 we have the connection with the judgment of the earthly people (Lot), saved as by fire through the tribulation.

What follows this, in chapter 20, is the absolute appropriation of the wife, whether Jerusalem or the heavenly bride, as the spouse of the Lord.  The old covenant (Hagar) is cast out, and, the true heir (Isaac) comes.   He takes the land (chap. 21).

Chapter 22 begins another series of things. The promised heir having being offered up, the promise is confirmed to the seed.   Sarah dies (chap. 23): this is the passing away of the old association with God on the earth.  Hence, in chapter 24 Eliezer (in figure the Holy Ghost, or His work on earth) is sent to take a wife for Isaac (Christ), who is Heir of all things.  Isaac is not permitted to return to Mesopotamia.   So, Christ, in taking the church, cannot come down to earth.

However, the moment we get Jacob, we get the head of the twelve tribes.  He goes to Mesopotamia for Rachel and Leah, typical of Israel and the Gentiles.  Jacob is the elect, but not the heavenly people.   He goes back to Canaan, gets the promises, with all sorts of exercises, as Israel will, but, if he does, he must give up old Israel (Rachel) to get Benjamin, the son of his right hand.

In the brief notice of Esau’s offspring we find the world in vigour and energy before God’s people are.   Then another history commences, that of Joseph.  This portrays Christ, though connected with Israel, rejected by Israel, and sold to the Gentiles.  He now comes to be the head, having the throne, and governing all Egypt.  God has done with Israel, receiving a Gentile wife, and calls his children by names typical of Christ’s rejection and blessing outside Israel.   He receives back his brethren in the glory.  This part closes with two distinct testimonies, the will of Joseph about his bones, and Jacob’s prophecy that they will all be back in the land and the promises to Israel be fulfilled.

Lightly edited by Sosthenes, May 2014

The Irrationalism of Infidelity – The Sentence on the Serpent: Serpent Worship

Going on its belly and eating dust (Genesis 3:15) shows the complete humiliation of the serpent. In its fullest extent it is a symbol of death. The whole thing is scorned but it gives the source, explanation and judgment of what has characterised the human race, everywhere and at all time.

serpent-worshipThe Sentence on the Serpent: Serpent Worship

Objection: The sentence of the serpent is just a fable

Answer: Going on its belly and eating dust (Genesis 3:15)  shows the complete humiliation of the serpent.  In its fullest extent it is a symbol of death.   The whole thing is scorned but it gives the source, explanation and judgment of what has characterised the human race, everywhere and at all time.

Man has worshipped the serpent, perhaps more than anything else, with the possible exception of the Sun in Greece and Rome.  Ophiolatry, or serpent worship, is found in China, Egypt, Babylon, England (Stonehenge), Ireland, France, North and South America, Russia, Scandinavia, India and Africa.  People kept serpents as household gods, wore ornaments as talismans, and tattooed images of the serpent and the sun on their skin.  It is often portrayed erect, being fed with sweet cakes, with a naked woman as priestess in attendance.    The Hivites who were driven out of Palestine by Joshua were serpent worshippers. Scripture presents that old serpent as the one who elevated himself as god of all the world.   Yet the serpent is a venomous prostrate reptile.   So when we see the whole world of these traditions of the serpent, of the worship of the serpent (erect), a sober mind must deduce the immense moral importance of this phenomenon, as exposing, the terrible and real secret of it all – the ruined condition of rebellious and disobedient man.  Scripture has not invented these facts.

Also, the notion of gaining wisdom from serpents is universal.  Satan seized upon the idea of God in men’s minds, and, where possible has connected man’s obscure traditions with himself.  The sun is seen as the benefactor; the serpent the one giving intelligence, and both became associated with the idea of the unity of deity and the universe.  Moreover, in Egypt above the serpent-worshipping temple of Isis there were the words  ‘I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal hath ever removed’.   All wisdom was purported to be there.

Sometimes the worship of the sun drove out serpent worship, yet it was always remained connected with it.   Apollo (the sun), established his worship at Delphi by slaying Typhon, an immense serpent, who was also said to have been cast down from heaven by Jupiter.  He then gave oracles in his place, Delphi.  Scandinavian mythology is similar, the great serpent being Loke.  Hercules, Thor and Krishna kill serpents. (or dragons). 

 It would appear that idolatry came in after the flood.  There is a vague tradition of a reign of bliss under Saturn, his three sons, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, becoming the supreme gods of heaven, earth, and sea.   In some way these correspond to Shem, Ham and Japeth.  They carried a statue about in a kind of ship.  Indeed they used the same word for ‘temple’ and ‘ship’. 

There is the pain of childbirth, a pain borne by the woman, the man being exempt.  But faith can lay hold of the real meaning of the statement that the woman’s seed will crush the head of the serpent.

Summary by Sosthenes of J.N. Darby’s original article.  For the source please click here.

The Irrationalism of Infidelity – The Fall of Man and its Effect

By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned

The_Fall_of_Man-1616-Hendrik_GoltziusObjection:  The thought of the fall of man, or original sin, is totally irrational.  Evolution shows that people die, just like the animals.  And there is good in everybody.

Answer:  Paul wrote, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” (Rom. 5:12).

We are taught, and accept by faith, that when man was created, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, a thing never said of animals.  Death was to be the result of failure to obey God’s word.   Beasts are described as perishing beings — “The beasts that perish.” (Ps. 49:20) Peter says, “Natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed.” (2 Peter 2:12).

Darby makes an interesting observation:  God does not answer our curiosity as to the condition of the animals prior to the fall or man.  We are told that the creature has got into misery and ruin by our fall, and will not be restored till we are manifested in glory; and this is true even of our bodies.  This is morally important for us to know, so that we might be humbled by the way in which man has dragged the animal creation with him.  Things will be restored; our glory would be the occasion of the restoration of blessing for all creation.  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. (Rom. 8:22

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