BROKEN: HOW SIN DISTORTS AND GRACE RESTORES
Ask anyone today if the world as we know it is broken and they would say “yes.” It doesn’t matter if they are a follower of Christ or not, when a person views the state of our world as it is they would say “something’s not right.”
Each of us would agree that there is suffering and injustice in our world. Some suffer more than others. The existence of suffering does not point us away from God but toward him. As CS Lewis observed:
“A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing the universe with when I called it unjust?” (Mere Christianity). In other words, how do I know “something’s not right” unless I am aware of what “right” should look like? And I cannot know what is good unless I have some concept of what “good” is. The “straight line” is a good God. Something has gone terribly wrong in a world where cancer, tsunamis, violence, racism, and relationship dysfunction exist. And is this God’s fault?
In Genesis we read that God created the world and it was good. By chapter 3, Adam and Eve enter the picture and decide that being independent of God means freedom and they do what they were told not to do. They rejected God’s authority and God must respond. Sin is judged; the world is broken because of humanity’s sin. Everything changes. Creation suffers the curse of sin. Relationships between men and women are filled with conflict. There is separation from God. Sin promised freedom, but what it produced was fracture.
Genesis 3 shows us that when sin entered the world, it broke relationships at every level of human existence. In Genesis 3:14-24, we can trace the fallout of sin in three categories.
1. Sin has Broken our Relationship with Creation (14, 17-18)
As God confronts the actors in this conspiracy, he informs them of how allowing sin into the world is going to play out. He begins by addressing the serpent.
In the Bible, the serpent seems to embody evil. Is it because of this picture in the Bible that we hate snakes? Even the animal kingdom hates snakes. Monkeys freak out when a snake is nearby. Horses will try to trample a snake. Only certain humans will try to make a pet out of a snake.
The LORD curses the serpent and says, “on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.” Some imaginative folks think the serpent had legs before the curse. But this is not a statement about legs or the diet of the serpent. Dust here represents humiliation and defeat. What this means is that while the serpent has won this battle, he is doomed to defeat. His schemes to dethrone God will fail.
I said “schemes” because this garden episode was just the beginning of Satan’s attempts to challenge God. In verse 15 we see the future conflict between the serpent and the woman’s offspring – the verb suggests repeated attacks on both sides to injure the other. This is the story of good and evil. The serpent represents sin, death, and the power of evil, and the curse of this moment promises a long struggle.
The results of this curse are felt in all aspects of creation. I believe the animal kingdom knew only fear of humanity after this event. Isaiah’s vision of a return to Eden in the last days shows a wolf and a lamb eating together and a lion eating straw. This is how it was meant to be and will be again. But for now, there is tension between man and beast.
When God turns to the man, he curses the ground. “…cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life, “(17). The toil that is behind the preparation of every meal is a reminder of the fall of humanity and the curse of sin. Farmers battle with weeds and weather to bring food to our tables, all because of the curse. We read in Romans 8:20-22 how creation groans in anticipation of the day when the curse will be lifted and its relationship with humankind is restored:
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
2. Sin has Broken our Relationship with Each Other (16)
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”
When God turns to the woman, we see a larger dynamic at work that affects the man as well. In the overall story, God forgives the man and the woman, but sin has its consequences. They’re not cursed like the serpent and the land, but they now live in a world of brokenness expressed in difficulties, pain, and suffering.
The first thing we notice is the woman’s suffering, in fact. Childbearing is not going to be easy. The first Hebrew term “pain in childbearing” has more to do with conception, not just birthing. The second term “bring forth children”is about giving birth. So, the whole process, from conception to birth, is affected. And the word for “pain” goes beyond physical into emotional and psychological pain. Anxiety, stress, trauma, fear over the potential loss of a child. This is bad enough.
But the second consequence of their sin is a disruption in relationship. God says to the woman, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” To love and cherish becomes to desire and dominate. The desire thing is not what we think of where a woman pines for her man. What was meant to be mutual love and partnership now becomes marked by tension, grasping, and domination.
In a world that has been turned upside down and broken, love has become difficult. It is easier to use another person to get what you want. This is the epicenter of relationship conflict. Man and woman were made for each other, to help each other to be what God wanted humanity to be like. But sin has broken the harmony and introduced sexism and the battle of genders. We battle now with our own sexuality trying to find satisfaction apart from God’s intention for marriage. Men and women both turn to the passions of our fantasies to get what we want and avoid the hard work of getting it. We are broken people. And broken people have a hard time relating to other broken people.
3. Sin has Broken our Relationship with God (22-24)
At the crux of this passage is the man and woman’s exile from the Garden of Eden. This is the climax of this drama:
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
One of the surprising elements I discovered was that if the couple hadn’t sinned, they would have expanded the Garden to cover the whole world. But they are exiled from this paradise.
The Garden of Eden was not their biggest loss. Scholars have tried to figure out where the Garden may have been placed. Yet in all of the OT you never read of anyone trying to rediscover the Garden of Eden. None of the prophets pointed the way to the Tree of Life and said, “Go take it.” That’s not the message and it’s not the loss. But what is? It’s what the Garden represents.
The Garden of Eden represents the inner sanctuary of God’s temple. If you do a study of how the Jewish temple is designed with the holy of holies, you will discover that the temple reflects creation. His true temple IS creation. If sin had not entered the world, we would find God everywhere and his rule – the perfect order of life – would be experienced as it was meant to be. What we lost was God’s presence. Sin’s curse is separation from God.
This is the ongoing narrative of humanity. Look at Romans 1 and we see the wrath of God being revealed on humanity. What is the wrath of God? Giving humanity what it wants. Three times in Romans 1 it says man wanted something else, so “God gave them over.” Paul said,
“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (21-23).
Men and women continue to push God’s presence away and to indulge in lusts and passions and impurity.
So then, let me ask you, “Is it God’s fault that there is a disruption in our world?” Is cancer and murder and war and famine the result of an unloving God? Or of a people that have refused to acknowledge God as Lord? We are all broken people:” …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (3:23).
4. But God’s Grace Opens the Way to Restoration (15, 21)
In the midst of this dark drama, the LORD speaks good news to the man and the woman. That he continues to speak to them is grace. He does not abandon them.
First, the LORD makes a promise. He promises a serpent-crushing Savior will come and deal with evil. Notice this: there is no pause. God has an immediate answer for the brokenness of creation. He doesn’t come back in a few years with a solution he worked out – he already knows, he already acts on their behalf.
Speaking to the serpent, God says, “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,” (15). This is the first Messianic prophecy telling how Jesus will crush Satan and deal with evil. The battle with evil will go on in our time. In Jesus, however, the curse has been dealt with, and he will come again to restore creation to Eden-like perfection.
One of the startling effects of Adam and Eve’s sin was the realization that they were naked (3:7). God asks them later who told them they were naked (11). This is the second aspect of this grace. The man and woman tried to clothe themselves with leaves. This is inadequate, so, “the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them,” (21).
Their nakedness said more about their condition resulting from sin than from exposure. God’s clothing them is a beautiful illustration of what God would do through Jesus for them and for us. We stand naked before God because of sin and God does this for us:
He gives us a covering for our sin. Standing before God in shame and brokenness is a fearful thought. His light exposes all the imperfections of our lives as if we were naked. And he covers us.
Our covering was inadequate. Fig leaves just don’t work. Good works don’t cover the truth that we have follow our passions and desires, that we love to go our own way. Good works don’t cover our sins.
Only God can provide the covering we need for sin. God takes the initiative and covers the man and the woman. He takes off the fig leaves and gives them animal skins. They did nothing; God does it all.
The covering God provided required the death of an innocent substitute. For the first time in history, something bled. Something died. The cost of sin was suddenly visible before their eyes. As they watched these animals die so they could be covered, they must have realized just how serious their sin was in God’s eyes. The shedding of blood was necessary to cover their sin. Without the shedding of blood, they remained naked. In this we see the grace of God on these poor broken people.
The rest of Romans 3:23 reveals this truth: “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…”
We need to clarify something about brokenness: brokenness is not sinfulness. Brokenness is a result of sinfulness.
In this series we have studied our identity as human beings made in the image of God, his design for marriage and sexuality, and God’s vision for family. In each of these realms we have experienced brokenness or dysfunction, that we are not living the way we were meant to live. It would be easy for us to point out the sexual agenda of society and cry “broken.” But we would be ignoring our own symptoms.
What is the key issue? Our brokenness or our sin. Clearly the issue is our sin, the problem beneath the problem. We must treat the sickness and not the symptoms of our sickness. When Jesus was confronted with the paralytic whom his friends lowered through the roof he addressed the root of the problem. For the friends it was clearly that their buddy could not walk. For Jesus it was something altogether different. He said to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven,” (Mark 2:5). Jesus’ priority was this man’s standing before God. Sin! And Jesus dealt with sin by covering us with his blood shed on the cross.
My niece is a lesbian. Do you know what I pray for her? That she would remember the gospel of Jesus that was planted in her heart when she was a child. When she is reconciled to God through Jesus, Christ will begin restoring what sin has broken.
Though sin has distorted God’s design for relationship, he invites us back to receive his restoring grace. The story of the gospel is the story of God restoring everything sin has broken.
AMEN
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