Sin reaps a harvest in three ways in the experience of man:
1. Personal consequences.
2. Social consequences.
3. Cosmic consequences.
It is to these consequences that we turn now. As these three areas often overlap there will necessarily be some repetition as we discuss them.
PERSONAL CONSEQUENCES.
1. The knowledge of good and evil.
In actual fact, choosing the way of independence did not bring maturity; it never does, It only brings heartache and pain until repentance comes in. Adam did not find the plan of God for his life; the way of independence produced loss. He was doomed to be always less than human because by choosing independence he no longer had access to spiritual knowledge. The same is true for us – we are less than human.
By losing access to spiritual knowledge mankind has been forced back on to sense knowledge, or “scientific” knowledge. The awful truth about knowledge gained by science is that it can be used for good or evil. This does not mean, however, that “scientific knowledge is morally neutral in itself but it has the potential to be used for good or evil” – this is not the true scenario. That is too simplistic. Rather the knowledge gained through the senses is essentially touched by good and essentially touched by evil. There is no moral neutrality. The evil is part of the essence of this form of knowledge.
We are cursed with great discoveries that inevitably will cause evil and pain – it is inescapable. Knowledge gained through the senses will eventually always cause pain.
But it is in the area of morals we find our greatest loss. We know good without the power to do it, and evil without the power to resist it. We only find this out by bitter experience.
2. Death entered Man’s Experience.
God gave a warning - "If you make the wrong choice you will die."
Definition: - Death: = Loss of sensitivity to the environment.
Death does not mean annihilation, or cessation of existence. For instance, a dead body has not ceased to exist, though given time it will decay to nothing. Rather a body is deemed dead because it can no longer respond to the environment it used to live in.
There are four phases to death, Biblically speaking:
(i) Spiritual death.
(ii) Corruption.
(iii) Physical death.
(iv) The Second Death.
(i) Spiritual Death.
Genesis 2:17.
“…but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."”
Ephesians 2:1, 4:18.
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,…”
The Apostle clearly does not mean here that we were physically dead; nor that we were non-existent. Rather he is talking about a spiritual condition. We were spiritually dead. But, again, by this Paul does not mean that we had no human spirit at all or that it was not functioning at all. As we have seen man is spirit, soul and body. Without spirit man could not be man. What the apostle is trying to tell us is that our spirit, through sin, has lost the capacity to relate to the spiritual realm. We can no longer converse openly with God, with angels, with the elemental spirits – nor with any other form of spirit including evil spirits. In fact we do not even relate to each other on a spiritual level very well. Our spirits still exist and still function – but at a lower level than God intended. Conscience, Intuition and the knowledge there is a God and the need for fellowship with that God all still operate – but at a level far less than God intended. Paul goes on to explain what he means later on in:
Ephesians 4:18,19.
“They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.”
The consequences of spiritual death Paul lists here as:
* Being “darkened in our understanding”. There is a loss of understanding that affects both our spirit and our minds. Taking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil actually brings us into less knowledge, not more, as we are limited to knowing only what we can discover through our body senses. We no longer can relate to or access the spiritual realm. The vast realm of knowledge God intended us to access by spiritual intuition is denied us. To a large degree spiritual sensitivity is dead.
* “Separated from the life of God.” This is the key thing – if we are spiritually dead we don’t have access to the life of God. Or to his wisdom.
* “Hardened in our hearts”. God has supernaturally hardened our spirits so that we cannot feel the spiritual realm as we were originally made to do. This is to stop us seeking the wrong sorts of spiritual experiences.
* “Having lost all sensitivity (spiritually speaking)”. We can no longer normally see, hear, feel, taste or smell the spiritual realm. This is a real loss because the spiritual realm is more real than our physical realm. The sensations that belong to it are richer and of greater variety, depth, etc, than the things of this world. But this loss of sensitivity is not just limited to spiritual things – we also lose sensitivity to see the real beauty of our own world. The more dependent we become on so-called “scientific” knowledge the less spiritual sensitivity we have. One has only to compare the average Westerner with someone from, e.g. tribal Africa. The African is not very knowledgeable about what the Westerner thinks is important, but usually an African is far more aware of the spiritual realm. The average Westerner doesn’t even believe there is a spiritual realm let alone be aware of it! We (clever?) Westerners know, after all, that belief in such things as “spirits” is only “superstition”, “mythology” and the result of an overactive imagination caused by eating too much Chinese Takeaways the night before. Whereas the Chinaman is probably well aware of the reality of the spirits we so casually dismiss.
* “Having a continual lust for (sensuality)”. Sensuality (gaining knowledge or pleasure through stimulating the physical senses) is always the only option once one is spiritually dead. Because we don’t experience life as God intended we settle for temporary physical thrills offered by food, drink, sex and other physical attractions.
But the real problem in our hearts is the deep pain that comes from this spiritual death. A gnawing hunger, an unquenchable thirst, that we can never satisfy. But for a few moments with these physical pleasures we can cover the pain inside. So the pain drives us to repeat the pleasure, again and again. We thus become addicted to whatever physical stimuli covers our pain. Outside of a relationship with God we are all addicts to something, whatever covers our pain.
Adam chose independence and thus lost spiritual sensitivity to God - he died spiritually. He became, in his spirit, sinful. When he subsequently had children, they were born "after his kind", i.e. sinful and spiritually dead. All of mankind is born sinful and spiritually dead because of Adam's sin.
Thus in the very core of our beings we are “fallen” from that which God intended. Because of Adam’s sin we are all sinful and spiritually dead. This is what is meant by “The Fall”. This condition of death is a result of sin, the sin of Adam, and thus his sin is called “the Original Sin”, and we all live in the consequences of it. We are thus sinners by fact of parentage, not because we have personally sinned.
(ii) Corruption.
The distortion of our lives caused by sin is a manifestation of death at work in us.
Galatians 6:7-8.
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life."
“Destruction”, or “corruption”. Greek - continuous present tense, i.e. "is corrupted and is being corrupted". In other words, this is a downhill slide.
"Corrupt" means "subject to decay". This isn't immediately obvious at first. Corruption implies the item is already dead and in the process of death.
A peach newly picked from the tree is dead and already has corruption in it, but it takes time for that peach to be corrupted by it. In the same way we all have corruption in us, but it just takes differing lengths of time for it to show.
There are three aspects to the corruption we have through sin:
(i) An inherited corruption from the Fall.
(ii) We add to this inherited corruption with ongoing sin.
(iii) We pass on both the corruption from Adam and the corruption from our own sin to our descendents.
We shall look at these three aspects of corruption a little later on in the chapter.
Two other aspects of the corrupting effects of sin in our lives are sickness and aging.
(a) Sickness.
While damage to the body due to accident was always a possibility, as we have already discussed, sickness is a manifestation of DEATH and only entered man’s existence through the entry of sin. There is an inescapable and integral connection between sin and sickness in human experience.
This is not to say we can, in every instance, make a direct connection between sin and sickness so as to be able to say, “This person is sick because of this particular sin they have committed”. However in some cases it may be possible to do so. The apostle Paul was clear that taking communion while bringing division into the life of the church was the direct cause of many being sick and some having died (1 Corinthians 11). Medical science is today finding connections between our (wrong) actions and attitudes – which are only another way of describing sin – and many of the sicknesses that plague our society. While it is foolish in most cases to say someone is sick because of a particular sin it may prove to be equally foolish to deny there is a connection at all. Medical science has already proven connections - it is confirming what the Bible had already said was the truth.
One of the interpretive features of Genesis is that scholars generally hold today that the story of the Fall is intended to show us connections between sin and consequences in the world. It describes reality as we experience it. What is disputed by many is the contention that it describes historical events. I do believe Genesis 1-3 are historical events revealed to us for our information so I am not doubting that we should read them as history. The point I am trying to make is that those who do not believe it is history still think it teaches us real and valid connections about how life operates now in the real world.
Sin had consequences then – the same consequences are still the result of sin today.
(b) Aging.
One of the great mysteries of medical science is why the body wears out at all. In theory the body is completely self-repairing. The issue that puzzles medical authorities is why does this stop happening. Lay people tend to be puzzled over a different question, namely, how does the body repair itself?
John & Paula Sandford, “Healing of the Wounded Spirit” Chapter 1:
“One of the functions of our human spirit is to sustain life in the body and to keep our bodies alive and functioning. Death occurs when the human spirit can no longer abide in the body and so leaves it…Apparently our spirit requires a body which is capable of functioning in certain necessary ways…How the spirit sustains and energises the body and how the body houses and protects the spirit no one knows….The fact that the body instantly begins to decay beyond natural repair the moment the spirit leaves ought to prove to us that it is our spirit that sustains the body and keeps it from death as long as it is able.”
Our bodies were not designed to age into disrepair as they do now. Examples in scripture of those who lived vital spiritual lives whose bodies did not so “run down” demonstrate to us God’s original purpose. We need only think of Abraham, Moses and Caleb who, in old age, were just as strong as in their youth. Also the fact that, according to scripture, in an age when men were more spiritually aware they lived longer (e.g. Methuselah lived 969 years, Noah over 600) suggests that what we experience with the aging of our bodies is not natural at all, but rather is a consequence of accumulated sin being passed down the generations.
(iii) Physical death.
Genesis 5:5. Adam died.
“Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.”
As I have noted in an earlier chapter, Adam was not created immortal - immortality was in the "tree of life" not in Adam himself. The best we can say is that Adam was created with the potential for eternal life and the potential for (physical) death. But as a result of the Fall the potential of physical death became a certainty - not immediately, but inevitably.
Physical death changes nothing except that it fixes the condition of the person’s spirit for eternity. Hence to God physical death is not ultimately important. What is important is that people are spiritually dead in their lives here and now and that there is the danger that that condition will become eternal if they die physically.
(iv) The Second Death.
Revelation 20:13-15.
“The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
The second death makes the separation from God eternal.
However Hell is Prepared for the Devil and His Angels and not for man. The Devil and his angels HAVE to go there, they have no choice. Man has a choice whether he goes there or not.
Matthew. 25:41.
"Then he will say to those on his left, `Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
3. Adam's Race Became Identified with Satan in Guilt and Rebellion.
Hence with Judgement and Wrath.
Ephesians 2:3.
“All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”
“objects of wrath” literally "sons/children of Wrath".
This is an illustration of the saying, “Like Father, like son.” Adam sinned and was subject to God’s wrath, as Adam’s children we face the same fate. I.e. destined to experience the righteous judgement of God. In fact it means that those in this state are already experiencing God’s wrath, it is part of their very nature.
Derek Prince:
“Satan's subtlety was to involve man in his rebellion and this now gives him room to argue with God. Satan now argues to God like this:
‘I know I am going to Hell, but you can't send me there and not send man there as well. You have to be just and fair God, so you cannot judge me without them also’. In a very real sense Satan is insolent. Satan uses men to prolong the period of his own rebellion. This is necessary for his own preservation. Hence he spends a lot of his time pointing out our guilt to God.”
Definition: - Guilt = subject to the righteous judgement of God.
He HAS TO point out our guilt to save himself, and he also has to prevent us from coming to forgiveness and reconciliation.
See: Job 1,2; Zechariah 3,4; Revelation 12:10.
When we really grasp the truth of justification by faith them we can overcome Satan and his condemnation. His key attack on us is in the area of condemnation.
4. Man Was Separated From the Ideal Plan of God.
Genesis 3:22- 24.
“And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”
Man was expelled from the garden, from Paradise, the place of God's fullest presence and blessing.
God's reason for expelling man was "So that he would not eat of the tree of life and live forever…”
The sentence is unfinished. The implication is: if man grasped for eternity in this way (by eating the tree of life) it would paradoxically make his state of death and alienation permanent, i.e. live eternally in a life of sin.
The expulsion was therefore an act of grace, fallen man in his fallen state must not be allowed to eat the tree of life as this would bring upon him endless suffering in this world. Man must not forever possess attributes and powers that he would terribly abuse.
Only by death can death be put to death, but Paradise was the presence of God, hence was Life. Hence expulsion from the garden is a gift of God's grace - it makes redemption possible. Expulsion consigns men to physical death so that spiritual life could result.
The tree of life can only be tasted in resurrection. Reconciliation can only come through a sacrificial dying, so death has to be a possibility.
To prevent man from going back to Eden God set a guard of Cherubim. This is the origin of the mythology of dragons, who always are set to prevent men from reaching the “goodies”. The destruction of Eden presumably happened with the Flood of Noah and so the Cherubim were removed then. Eden cannot be located on Earth as the geography of the earth was drastically changed by the Flood.
By driving man out of Eden God separated man from the possibility of fully enjoying God’s purposes for man. As a result, no matter how successful or fulfilled we become in life there is always a deep desire for “more”. The “more” often has no description. “More of What?” We don’t know. But we are never fully satisfied. Deep in our hearts something says, “There has to be more to life than this.”
5.Other personal Effects of Sin.
(i) Pain in childbirth, and greater capacity to bear children.
Genesis 3:16 - Hebrew literally = "I will increase your conception and your pain",
This implies firstly that the possible number of conceptions increases. It appears that women were not intended to be able to conceive as often as they do. Presumably this means the menstrual cycle became more frequent, possibly it began earlier in the life of a woman and continued later in life also. This is highly likely to be part of the meaning as we can see the results of mankind’s lifestyle changes on the menstrual cycle of women today. For instance the age of puberty has dropped dramatically from an average age of around 18-20 years of age 250 years ago to 10-12 today – some girls menstruate as young as 8 years of age. In countries where western lifestyle is not yet widespread puberty tends to be later, and as those countries adopt Western diet and lifestyle the age of puberty is dropping. It’s not just a matter of Diet! It's part of the curse.
The verse also says the pain of childbirth "increased", suggesting there was some pain even before the Fall. Also thast menstrual pain increased. Pain is not part of the curse - it is part of creation. But the level of pain we experience is part of the curse and this is most graphically seen in childbirth.
Over population is part of the curse. Large families are not necessarily a blessing!
(ii) Work is degenerated to toil, and instead of bringing fulfillment it brings frustration.
Genesis 3:17-19.
“To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, `You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."
(iii) Awareness of Conscience
Genesis 3:7.
“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
"They knew".
They became conscious of sexuality, shame, and guilt. Before they had been innocent, like children, inexperienced. In a moment they learned knowledge which ordinary adults obtained through gradual experience.
"Naked".
The similarity of “naked” (harummim) with “subtle” (harum - Genesis 3:1) suggests a word play. The kind of knowledge that resulted was really "a Satan kind of knowledge".
They received knowledge but didn't become like God. They experienced shame, which is the sign of a breach that reaches to the depths of our being. We must conclude that because he grasped for what was forbidden, man has experienced a longing which cannot be stilled, which repeatedly makes itself felt and tears apart the unity of body and spirit.
They lost Eden and gained a conscience.
Question: Is conscience from God? Would God have set in man an accuser? Or is the existence of conscience something that came to our spirit as a result of the Fall? God can still make good use of it, but is it really part of his design?
It is hard to know the answers to these questions. But it is clear that conscience did not get activated until there was sin. Whether or not it existed beforehand is open to debate. Whatever the answers are it is clear that sin distorts and the form of conscience we experience now was not intended to be part of our experience by God.
“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.”
Fear coming from the consciousness of their disobedience, ashamed of their nakedness.
Man got a conscience in his heart by the fall, and the first effect of conscience was to make him a coward. Conscience does not bring us to God. Coming to God is a work of the Holy Spirit. Rather conscience terrifies us and drives us away from God.
Conscience can only make cowards of us. Some people think conscience can bring us to God, but it didn't do this for Adam and Eve. It may give birth to certain efforts to remedy the condition it discloses, but these efforts will act to hide us from God. This is the real character of all human religion. Man's effort to remedy his condition is based on the sense of his nakedness. All his works are the result of being so. Thus in human religion we somehow try to hide the inner knowledge of our exposure.
The difference between Christianity and religion:
Christianity is founded on the fact of man being clothed in the righteousness of God through Christ - our sin, which brings a sense of exposure, is covered.
Human religion is founded on the fact of man being naked and exposed and thus needing covering.
Christianity thus has for its starting point what the latter has for its goal.
Genesis 3:9,10.
“But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
"I was afraid".
His own covering did not satisfy his own conscience. Had he known God's love he would not have been afraid. Conscience is not enough; Human religion will never satisfy conscience.
(iv) Loss of Soulish power.
As we have outlined, Adam and Eve had tremendous abilities in their spirit and soul. As a result of the fall they were denied access to the spiritual realm and many of these “human attributes” were “shut down” – whether by God or simply because man’s spirit was no longer able to access those functions.
In other words man, as we know him, is less than man as God originally designed and equipped us to be.
There is a question here: Were these abilities shut down immediately when man was expelled from the Garden, or did they fade away over time as the sin of man resulted in greater corruption of the human personality?
Probably both are true. There would have been some abilities God would have felt too dangerous for man to have in a fallen state and so he would have shut these down immediately. But the early chapters of Genesis, and the mythology of man suggest that there was a period of time when men had greater abilities than they do now. The story of Atlantis, a highly developed society destroyed by water, inhabited by superhuman men, exactly describes the society before the Flood. Some of the pyramids of Egypt also date from this time.
It is my feeling that, as men committed iniquity and this was passed down through the generations, the accumulation of generational iniquity slowly caused some abilities to shut down. There seems to have been a great loss of abilities with the Flood. The rapid shortening of human lifespans in the generations immediately after the Flood also suggests a lessening of abilities immediately after the Flood.
(v) Shame.
The horrible thing about sin is the sense of shame - the feeling of "not being good enough", or worse - "being bad, dirty, unclean." The sense of shame is deep inside every person and surfaces at the wrong times.
6. The Corruption Of The Fall: The Reversal Of The Divine Order Of Human Personality.
After the Fall, man still needed knowledge to live, so his soul turned to the body, i.e. the senses for knowledge. As a result the soul became dependent on the body and, instead of ruling the body, became its slave. The body's desires - food, drink, comfort, pleasure, sex, preservation, gain and possession - have become the dominant drives in man. These things, though legitimate in God's plan and purpose, became "raging passions", "lusts of the flesh". Instead of being natural desires under control of the will they have become controlling desires that manipulate and drive the will. As a result these things become addictions controlling behaviour. Every addiction belongs to one of these natural physical drives, but it is out of control.
1 John 2:16.
“For everything in the world- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does- comes not from the Father but from the world.”
Ephesians 2:3.
“All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”
The spirit of man became dominated, in turn, by the soul, merging with it and turning to demons for spiritual knowledge. This merging of the spirit and soul means that the human spirit becomes obscured, hidden. We can see why natural man, trying to understand man, can never discover the truth of man's spiritual nature, as in the Humanistic study of Psychology or Philosophy. They are looking with corrupted minds, at something that is already corrupted to try to discover truth - an impossible task. As a result they will always arrive at one of two conclusions: Either Monism, that man is either one thing, namely we are purely physical beings, or Dualism, that man is two things, body and soul. They can never discover that we are three things – Spirit, soul and body. This truth can only be arrived at by Divine revelation. Unfortunately many Christian teachers start from a humanistic assumption of Dualism and then impose that on the Bible. This creates confusion. One has only to start moving in the gifts of the Holy Spirit to realise that Dualism is not an adequate explanation of what is being experienced.
A complete reversal of man's nature had thus taken place. The following diagram describes how Fallen Man operates:
DEMONS
influence our
BODY (through corrupting its legitimate natural desires)
which now dominates our
SOUL
which in turn is merged with and dominating our
SPIRIT.
Our spirit becomes inhabited by demonic spirits.
Ephesians 2:2.
“in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”
Paul tells us here that every non-Christian is indwelt in his spirit by demonic forces, there is a spiritual oneness with Satan through demon possession. This parallels the spiritual oneness we have with the Holy Spirit when we are born again. It is a Satanic counterfeit.
This corruption of Adam and Eve’s nature occurred before they had any children and as, according to the laws of nature, each living thing can only reproduce “after its kind” (Genesis 1:11, 21, 24, 25) this meant that when they had children those children were born of the same kind – spiritually dead and internally corrupted.
Adam had become a rebel by choice, but he imparted that nature of rebellion to his children by birth.
7. The Corruption Through Ongoing Sin.
Genesis 2:17 - Hebrew lit = "dying you shall die".
The command and warning God gave does not say that they would die immediately if they ate of the tree of knowledge. Rather the Hebrew indicates a process “dying you shall die”. The outcome of sin is death – but the process is incremental over time. The process of death is at work in all of us, corrupting us.
In the same way the "eating" of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is not a one-off event. It is something we do every day of our lives. And as we eat, we die. Incrementally.
Adam's nature became what we call "fallen". It has other names in the Bible, - the flesh, the body of the flesh, the old man and the body of sin. It is called the Flesh because the motivating factors are the bodily desires, and not higher virtues such as the spirit.
When we live by our bodily desires we are sowing to corruption. When we sow we reap a harvest. This corruption will eventually bring a harvest of death.
The process of corruption: Is by "the working of deceitful lusts".
Ephesians 4:22.
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;…”
D. Prince gives this translation: "the working of the lusts which are the product of deceit".
The deceit referred to is the lie of Satan in the Garden of Eden, i.e. “You shall not die”.
Definition: - Lusts are natural, God-given desires that are perverted so that the satisfying of them will IN THE LONG RUN destroy the person.
All sin is the perversion of that which God ordained to be good.
One of the most powerful corrupting influences is what has come to be known as “Generational Iniquity.”
Exodus 20:5,6.
“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
The word “sin” here is literally “iniquity”.
Not all sin is iniquity, but there are certain sins that are. These are sins that pervert the natural order as God created it. The word “iniquity” literally means “a twisting, perversion.” Some of the sins that are iniquity are: all occult activity, all worship of other Gods, all sexual immorality, all distortion of the truth, all acts of violence. There are others also.
The nature of iniquity is that it is a twisting of the truth, the making of a lie into the truth. The results of iniquity is that it twists our spirit, deep in our inner man, and this twist works out over time through our soul and body producing all sorts of distortions. Much mental illness and many physical sicknesses are actually the outworking of generational iniquity. It is another case of reaping what we have sown. Though this text here says that it is "God visiting the sins" on subsequent generations, again I feel we have to understand this as the outworking of the law of sowing and reaping. It is not God actively doing it – after all he visits evil on nobody - he has no evil he can visit on anybody, but because he established the law he takes responsibility for its results.
The reaping of iniquity is such that the harvest grows with time and the full fruit of it is not seen until the “third or fourth generation”. This does not mean that the reaping stops after the fourth generation, rather the meaning is that the harvest reaches its peak in the third or fourth generation – but the harvest can continue forever after that. Some sins are specifically said to go on to 10 or more generations.
The clearest example of this in scripture is the iniquity of the Amorites. This is part of the promise of God to Abraham concerning the land of Palestine.
Genesis 15:16.
"In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."
The Amorites had only recently migrated into Palestine and were in the process of adopting the demon worship of the original inhabitants. They were sowing the seeds of iniquity into their lives. God tells Abraham his descendents would come back – and when they did under the leadership of Moses and then Joshua, God told them to destroy utterly all of the Amorites because their sin was so bad.
The working of iniquity is such that by the fourth generation the perversion can be so bad – in spirit, soul and body – that they people are beyond redemption and the only course of action left, if they are not to contaminate the rest of humanity, is destruction. This was also the case before the Flood.
Genesis 6:5.
“The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”
The only reasonable outcome then is destruction.
In OT times the Jews understood some of the consequences of generational iniquity, and to them this was the most horrible effect of sin. There was no provision for it in the law so that one could be freed from its power. For this reason when God promised a New Covenant he noted that there would be a way of dealing with Generational iniquity.
Jeremiah 31:29-31.
"In those days people will no longer say, `The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.' Instead, everyone will die for his own sin; whoever eats sour grapes- his own teeth will be set on edge. "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”
The proverb quoted in verse 29 was a common saying concerning generational sin. But we need to be careful here as to what Jeremiah actually says. What he does not say is that generational sin and its consequences will no longer occur when the New Covenant comes into effect. To understand it this way is wrong – it would be a contradiction of the law of sowing and reaping. Rather the promise he is making is that finally there will be a way of dealing with generational sin where there had not been until then.
What we see in Genesis Chapters 3-9 is an outworking of generational sin where each generation gets worse because of the cumulative nature of generational sin until it reaches the point where “every thought of their heart was evil continually.” These was no good in them at all – nothing worth redeeming. Without the gift of the Law to restrain man's evil nature the increase of iniquity was more rapid than probably any other time in history. They were only fit for destruction. At the end of this age there will be another generation that will be just like that – and that is part of the reason why God will be able to justly judge them with total destruction.
This reaping of Generational sin comes to its climax in the last days and the effects of the reaping are described in the Book of Revelation in the events of the Seals and Trumpets. For a fuller explanation of this see my blog:
stjohnrevelation.blogspot.com
See Chapters 5, 6, 8 and the article on the Feat of Tabernacles.
SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES. BREAKDOWN OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PEOPLE - EACH OTHER AND OTHER CREATURES.
This is graphically illustrated in the discussion God initiates with Adam and Eve. Sin immediately brings blame shifting, Adam having sided with Eve in sin, now breaks with her, casting the blame totally on her.
The first 11 Chapters of Genesis are a picture of the social effects of sin.
1. Genesis 3:11-13,16. Distortion of the Marriage relationship.
“And (God) said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" The man said, "The woman you put here with me- she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."…
“…To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
The first thing we note here is that the man - divinely appointed to be leader and protector of the woman, the man – who loved the woman so much he could not bear the thought of being without her so he also ate of the tree, the same man turns on the woman and blames her – “The woman – she gave me to eat…”
John and Paula Sandford in one of their books talk of how Adam’s passivity in the Garden when Eve was tempted has led to a curse of passivity being attached to men in their relationships with women. It is a generational iniquity. We were created to be the leader but Adam chose passivity, a perversion of the natural order God made, and that iniquity still rules in men today. Also blame shifting – instead of taking responsibility Adam blames the nearest other person. We men are cursed with a tendency to shift the blame because of Adam’s deviousness here.
Secondly we notice the outcome: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
The Hebrew is stronger than this translation. Probably it should read like this: “Your desire will be to control your husband, but he will continually break free from your domination.”
Because men tend to be passive, women tend to try to control. They manipulate. And men hate it. Men rebel against it. But it comes from a root of iniquity inside a woman placed there by Eve when she took initiative in a situation where she should not have. And now the "Eves" of this world continue to take initiative in situations where they shouldn’t.
Andy Comisky in the Living Waters Course calls this conflict dynamic between man and woman, “The Sword between the Sexes.”
The subjection of the wife to the husband is also a punishment. It was not part of God's original intention. Rather she was to be a "helpmeet", someone to walk beside him, a fellow king and priest. Now, because of sin, there is to be a servitude that is not natural, but is perverted, demeaning. Unfortunately some Christians think this is how things should be and forget that we should be manifesting God's redemption, the restoration of the original created order, and not manifesting the order brought about by sin.
The woman has a profound desire for the man in whom she still does not find fulfilment and rest, but rather humiliating domination. The suggestion is that this would be an irksome authority, not the original order of things.
It does not imply that every other man has to rule over her, or that all men are the heads of all women. This is solely about the relationship of husband and wife. The application of this principle to wider social relationships is a greater perversion.
2. Genesis 3:14,15. Conflict Between man and the animal world.
“So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
Though this is directed to the serpent there is a sense in which all the animal world comes under the curse. Animals that were once tame are now wild.
3. Genesis 4:1-9. Conflict between brothers.
“Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man." Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.
In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"
One of the root problems in Cain was an attitude of competitiveness. Because he “didn’t win” he got angry and bitter. God’s intention had been that men would cooperate on earth for the mutual good of all, but the entry of sin brought a competitive “one-up-man-ship” that is so strong that people will get violent in the pursuit of winning – even to the point of killing.
The problem of human society is the question: “Who will be the boss?” It doesn’t matter if the political system is capitalism or communism this is still the root question. Both systems have as an Achilles Heel the root competitiveness in the human soul that comes from the Fall.
| WHY IT'S BETTER TO BE THE BOSS: |
Cain's response to God, "Am I my brother's keeper?' is a denial of God's order. In actual fact, as the eldest son, he was the priest of the family, the heir of the father and so the "keeper of the family." His response was therefore an abdication of God-given position and authority.
Genesis 5 – the whole society became corrupted to the point of destruction.
Genesis 6 – Invasion from the angelic realm.
Genesis 10,11 – between communities and nations.
COSMIC CONSEQUENCES.
1. The Ground becomes limited in its fruitfulness.
Genesis 3:17,18.
"Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.”
A slight change in the Hebrew would read, "When you till it.” It is a fact that weeds only grow where men break the soil.
The ground is not cursed in itself, rather when mankind attempts to harness its power sin distorts what it could produce. The passage suggests that the earth does not yield the capacity of crops that God originally intended because of sin.
2. Satan Usurped Adam's Realm of Authority.
(a) Satan Controls Man's Kingdom.
Satan is called the "prince of the power of the Air".
The Greek has two words for the "air".
(i) Describes the air near the earth's surface. It is used here.
(ii) Describes the rarefied air further away, the upper atmosphere.
He is also called “the Prince of this world.”
Genesis 1:26.
“Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
The area of the air that the birds fly in goes up to about 5 miles. This area was given to man to control.
Paul tells us that Satan controls this, but he does it through directing the way men live in disobedience. He obtains this disobedience by working on our lusts.
Spiritual warfare against the powers in the heavenlies is not won by binding them; rather it is won when we bring our lusts under the subjection to the gospel, as God requires.
It would seem then, that the total control Lucifer had over earth before the creation of man which was given to man, at this point returned to Satan.
How did this come about?
We need to understand the principle of Authority.
(i) All authority comes from God.
(ii) God delegates authority.
(iii) God has ordained authority to provide ORDER, life cannot exist without some form of authority.
(iv) Authority is transferable. A person can give his authority to another, just as God did.
(v) Authority can be abused, yet the holder of authority still has it and it still derives from God even when men use it against God.
As we saw previously God gave to man an inheritance that consisted of two main areas:
(i) Freedom. A relationship with God, defined by the words "King and Priest".
Man was made to work together with God in a free relationship of love.
(ii) Property. A kingdom to rule, which was this earth and its immediate environs. This was to be man's territory.
The two elements, Freedom and Property, are the two things that Redemption is concerned with (Leviticus 25).
The Process:
1. Satan wanted this control of Earth, and of Man’s freedom. He was originally given Earth as part of his charge under God, and saw man as a usurper. Hence he sought to take back Earth.
God knew this, and as the legal judge he put a price on the sale of Man's inheritance:
Genesis 2:16,17: - Death (defined above).
2. Genesis 3. Adam sold out to Satan.
Satan thus became the legal owner of earth and all of its inhabitants, seen and unseen.
Luke 4:5-7.
“The devil led (Jesus)up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours."
Jesus here does not challenge Satan's claim to rulership of the earth at present - he knew Satan had made a legal purchase. Earth came under bondage, a bondage that it cannot be released from until its rightful owners take possession of it again.
Romans. 8:20-22.
“For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
The "groaning" referred to here is the expression of the agony of bondage that the unseen spiritual forces who operate the natural world makes. These are the "elemental spirits" who have been unwittingly put under subjection to Satan.
Earth was sold, and therefore became subject to the law of Redemption. As far as God is concerned man is the rightful owner.
Mankind, too, was sold and came under bondage:
(i) Romans. 5:17 - to death.
“For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man,…”
(ii) Galatians 4:3,8,9 - to the elemental spirits we were given to rule.
“So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world.
…Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
But now that you know God- or rather are known by God- how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?”
Hebrews 2:14,15 - the Devil.
“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death- that is, the devil- and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
Thus man too is sold into slavery and is subject to the law of Redemption.
3. Adam's Whole Realm Became Subject to Vanity.
Definition: - Vanity = Ultimate Frustration or futility.
Romans 8:18-23(above).
(i) The Creation waits in "eager expectation".
The Greek here implies "on tip toe, craning its neck trying to see, full of expectation".
The phraseology here gives nature an intelligence so we must assume that Paul is referring here to intelligent beings who God has given functions in nature.
Elemental spirits now under Satanic control so at times are “wild”. We see this wildness is storms and natural disasters.
Some Examples:
(a) Matthew 8:23-27. Jesus on the lake.
“Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!" He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
This storm was an attempt by Satan to kill Christ before he had completed his ministry. The elemental spirits were whipped up by demonic forces. Hence Jesus rebukes the storm as if it was a demon – that’s what was going on in the unseen realm.
Question: Did Jesus control the weather because he was God? Or was it because he was the true man? Did the elemental spirits respond to his command because they recognised his true human authority and they perceived that as being a higher authority than that of Satan in this context?
(b) Curses can come on the land from sin, especially idolatry.
Deuteronomy 11:16,17.
“Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the LORD's anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you.”
(ii) Creation was "subjected to frustration".
This happened at the Fall. It came about by Adam's choice, his sin.
In the present situation creation is "groaning" under bondage (v22).
We need spiritual ears to hear this groaning.
(iii) "in hope".
There is a hopelessness in nature. God has a resolution of this state of bondage. It will be set free when "the sons of God" are "manifested". Clearly what happens to creation depends on what happens to us.
Notice the Triple Groaning:
- Creation.
- We Christians, who know what should and can be.
- The Holy Spirit (v26).
All of this groaning is directed towards one thing - the ultimate demonstration of the plan of God in History.
Creation therefore presents a mysterious hybrid condition - good and evil conflict. This makes it both equally possible to believe in God and to disbelieve in God.
(iv) The Manifestation of the "sons of God" is when we receive our resurrection bodies.
There are undoubtedly more results of the Fall than these. But this is enough for our purposes. But again, we need to remember that this is not just historical. Sin brought these things into the world in the first place – and continued sin only adds to the suffering.
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