March 17, 2024
From The Series: The Providence of
God
Part 01 Providence and The Fall
Genesis 3:1-24
Mountain View Evangelical Missionary
Church
We are starting a short four-part mini-series on the
Providence of God which will lead us right into Easter weekend. In this first
part, we will concentrate on the Providence of God concerning the fall of man.
Perhaps we should start with a definition of what exactly the
Providence of God is.
Providence is defined in Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible
Dictionary as the continuous activity of God in His creation
by which He preserves and governs. The doctrine of providence affirms God’s
absolute lordship over His creation and confirms the dependence of all creation
on the Creator. It denies the idea that the universe is governed by chance or
fate.
You may remember that we looked at this very definition a couple of
weeks back. At that time I pointed out that the negative statement at the end
was just as significant as the positive portion of the definition. The fact
that Providence denies the idea that the universe is governed by chance or fate
is important for several reasons.
The first and most important reason for me is that it indicates that the
Yahweh of the Old Testament is not some cold and distant deity. Yahweh as
Creator God is personal and close. Look at this verse from Genesis chapter two,
verse 7.
“7 Then the Lord
God formed a man w from the dust of the ground and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
Something to remember here is that God the Father is a spirit entity.
The Father is without flesh and bones, so He could not have literally placed
His face close to Adam’s face and breathed the breath of life into the nostrils
of Adam, the first man. This is what is known as an Anthropomorphism. This is
when we assign human qualities to God, who has no flesh. We assign human
qualities to help us grasp difficult concepts of a spirit-being such as the
Father. When I pray and I ask the Lord to wrap His loving arms around them and
bring someone comfort in a time of difficulty, I don’t mean for God the Father
to literally give them a hug. What I am praying is an Anthropomorphism to
describe my request for the Father to make His presence known to that person
and bring them comfort.
So here in this passage of Genesis did Yahweh breathe the breath of life
into Adam’s nostrils? Yes… Yahweh gave Adam life. Did it come from God’s lips?
No… God is a spirit, and He does not have lips. What I love about this passage though,
is the mental image, the poetic image this creates in our minds of how loving
and personal our God is. The Father is so concerned with His Creation that He
is willing to get down to our level, the lowly level of this puny planet from
all the Universe, and get face-to-face with a pile of dust, and breathe life
into this face that was formed from the dirt.
This is the image of a personal God that the Bible opens with. We are
going to read in a moment how God used to walk in the Garden in the cool of the
day with this created man and give personal instruction to His two newly
created beings.
But there was another presence in the Garden with them. A jealous
presence. Another created being whom the Bible will later go on to describe as “the
father of lies”, “the prince of this world”, “the god of this age”, a fallen
angel, the king over a swarming horde of demons, a murderer from the beginning.
Even though Satan is all these things, he is still under the providence of God
the Father.
READ
GENESIS 3:1-24
Before we get too deep
into the biblical account of the fall of mankind, we should back up a couple of
steps and examine God as the Creator. Turn back a couple of pages to Genesis
1:1. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the
earth.” “In the beginning”… of what? Did you know that there was something
before the beginning? Genesis 1:1 is talking about the beginning of time and
space. When God created the heavens and the earth, God also created time and
space.
Verse two goes on to
describe what existed before verse one, “2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness
was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the
waters.” Some of your translations may use the word “void” instead of empty.
The original word in Hebrew is בֹּהוּ [bohuw /bo·hoo] which conveys the thought of a void, of emptiness, nothingness.
A place without space or time, both of which came into existence, “in the
beginning”. You may be asking yourself, how can Paul be standing up there
saying this nonsense with such confidence? What do you mean there was something
before the beginning? What do you mean, there was something before time began? Hasn’t
time always been around?
No, time has not always been around. Time is a linear object. The Bible
tells us that it has a beginning contrary to what some quantum physicists are
putting forth as theories today. I know that time has a beginning, because in
His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus tells us while He is praying to
the Father, “5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with
you before the world began.”
A little later on while still in the Garden, Jesus repeats this
astounding fact while He is praying for all Believers, “24 “Father,
I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory,
the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the
world.” Jesus is telling us, He is giving us an insight into the secret of the existence
between the Father and the Son, that there existed a relationship between the
members of the Trinity before space and time began. Before the creation of the
earth. Before the earth was brought forth from the void, they were there.
This is why, every week when I say our opening prayer, and I pray that
the Godhead devised a wonderful plan before time began, these are the verses
that I derive that statement from. It is something that can be difficult to
grasp, that God has always existed outside of time. This is what makes the
incarnation of Jesus Christ so special.
The fact that a member of the Trinity would step down from His position of
Glory, outside of time and space, and take on the human form in such a manner
that would cloak His Glory and allow Him to walk among us.
Look closely at the words of Jesus in His prayer in verse 24, the bottom
verse on the screen. Jesus says, “Father, I want those you have given me to be
with me where I am,”. Jesus is speaking in two different tenses in the same
sentence. Only someone who exists outside of time would think this way. Jesus
says, “I want those you have given me” spoken in the present tense, “to be with
me” spoken in the future tense, “where I am” spoken using the present tense but
thinking of a future time and place. Jesus is asking the Father to give Jesus
those whom the Father has given Him which actually applies to all of those that
the Father has given Jesus in the past, present, and future, to be, again
future tense. Why future tense? Well, at the time of this prayer, Jesus wasn’t
there yet. Jesus is speaking about having those that the Father gives Him with
them, In a place where He has His glory on display for all to see and that
place is Heaven.
On the top of Mount Horeb, three of the disciples saw a glimpse of the
reduced glory of Jesus. I say reduced because, in our present state, I don’t
think we could exist in the full presence of God’s Glory. When Moses
experienced God’s Glory, Yahweh had to protect Moses with His hand even while
Moses was sheltered in the cleft of a rock.
I think that this Glory of God that we are given a glimpse of in
Scripture is a reflection of the perfect love that exists between the Godhead.
In Greek there is a separate word for this love, it is called “agapao”. We also
saw a very real manifestation of this love when the Son volunteered to go to
the cross for our sake to repair the damage that occurred at the Fall.
The disobedience that Adam showed in the passage that we read from
Genesis chapter three was disobedience so great that it stained all of Adam’s
descendants. This became known as the doctrine of original sin. This is a
doctrine that John Wesley held to. It was this sin that caused the separation of
man from God.
This is another example of the Providence of God at work in the Fall.
Even though we just read that Eve was the one who was first deceived by the
serpent, the man was stained by sin. Why was Adam held responsible? Scripture
tells us that Adam was created first, and Eve was a helpmate, in the New
Testament it is clear that God intends for the man to be the head of the house,
“for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church”.
So, Adam was held responsible for the sin of Eve. The original sin was
passed down through the seed of Adam. That is why Jesus did not have an earthly
Father. If Joseph had been the biological Father of Jesus, Jesus would have
been stained with the sin of Adam and therefore He could not have been born
sinless. We needed Jesus to be sinless, or else He could not have been the
atoning sacrifice for us. Only a perfect, spotless lamb is acceptable. Just as
all the instructions of the Old Testament made it clear, from the time of the
Exodus out of Egypt and the first Passover sacrifice was made, to the
instructions for the Tabernacle in the wilderness and on into the continued
sacrifices in the promised land. First in the Tabernacle, then in the Temples,
all of the sacrifices offered up to God were to be spotless and free from
blemishes.
Just as all were condemned through Adam, then all can be forgiven
through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We cannot accept the gift of Grace
without first accepting the condemnation of sin through Adam. If we have not
accepted the sins of Adam and of our own actions, then why would we need a
Savior? If mankind is not condemned, then why would we need a rescuer?
Turn with me in your Bibles to Romans 3:21-26. Romans 3:21 will be found
on page 913 in the Pew Bible. Starting at Romans 3:21 says the following, “21 But
now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which
the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given
through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no
difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, m
through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to
demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the
sins committed beforehand unpunished—26 he did it to
demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and
the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
Notice this is not a universal atonement as some claim. “Those who have
faith in Jesus” will be able to claim this righteousness. Only those who
put their total faith in the completed atoning work of Jesus on the cross. I
say completed work on the cross because I wish to emphasize the biblical
teaching that we cannot add anything to the atoning work of Jesus in an attempt
to earn our righteousness from the Father. Only the sacrifice of Jesus
is suitable to the Father to pay our sin debt to the Father.
Since you cannot earn this righteousness, there is no need for you to
clean up your life before you are able to come to Jesus. You won’t ever be
clean enough for the Father to accept you. How does God interact with sin?
Well, first He banished the sinners from His presence in the Garden of Eden.
Then the Father set a cherubim, a type of angelic being at the entrance to the
Garden, and God gave the cherubim a flaming sword flashing back and forth as a
pretty strong signal that man was no longer welcome in the Garden with God.
Then God sent His Son to deal with the penalty for our sins, for those
who love Jesus and who have put their faith in His completed work, we will once
more be in the presence of a perfect and Holy God.
We have already talked about a few of the attributes of God this
morning. Have you been paying attention to them? We see that God is timeless
and without shape. God is eternal, and He has existed for an eternity past and
will go on being for an eternity into the future.
God is a creator. He created time and space from a void. He created the
earth and the stars out of the same void. He created the world ex nihilo
or, “out of nothing” for that was all there was in the void, “nothingness”. He
is a loving God. He is a forgiving God.
I want to make one thing clear here about the concept that God is love.
The fourth chapter of 1 John is an excellent read of this remarkable attribute
of God. Your homework assignment this week is to read and meditate on the
fourth chapter of First John. Twice in 1 John, the statement appears that “God
is love”. What does that mean?
To understand and clarify John’s message, we must first consider what he
does not mean. “God is love” does not mean that love is
God. This thought that love is God deifies love so that all warm
feelings and even impure lusts are regarded as somehow divine. This is the lie
that Satan uses when he says all love is love. This is not true. Sinful,
lustful love is not love. This is an impure love that is being elevated to a purer
state. Real love hates moral evil and clings to righteousness.
Paul explains this to us in Romans 12:9, “9 Love must be
sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” Paul is telling us that it
is OK to hate what is evil. Not the person, but we can hate the sin that the
person is committing. Paul says the same thing to the church at Corinth in his
first letter to the church. In 1 Corinthians 13:6 Paul advised them to remember
that “6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the
truth.” Do you see the connection here Paul is making between love and truth?
When we stand up to culture and lovingly tell someone what they are doing is
not love but rather is sin, that is the loving thing to do for them.
1 John 5:3 warns us of the fact that not “all love is love”. “3 In
fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not
burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world.”
The highest, purest form of love that we can express as human beings is to obey
the commands of the Father. Obeying is a sincere form of love that is often
sacrificial but it is never burdensome.
The term “God is love” distinguishes God’s love from all other love by
identifying God’s love with the holy Creator but leaving the purest human
love on the level of the creatures. That is why it is sinful to say, “All love
is love”. Lustful, sinful love is not true love. It is a Satanic twisting and
perverting of God’s pure creation once again.
It is also an error to interpret “God is love” to mean God is only
love! We cannot use love as a paring knife when referring to the attributes
of God, and cut away His power, justice, and wrath against sin, leaving only
unconditional acceptance and positive regard for the actions of the creature.
God has a hatred for sin. When we repent and seek forgiveness for the sins we
have committed and seek that forgiveness through the spilled blood of Jesus,
then and only then will we find unconditional acceptance from God. If we
attempt to approach the throne of Glory apart from Jesus, we will be thrown
into the fiery pits of hell for all eternity. Do not allow this error to creep
into your thoughts that God is love means that God is only love or that all
love is Godly love. These are thoughts and slogans meant to confuse.
Another thing we must not get confused about is the limits imposed upon
the power of God. When God created the Universe, God created all the laws that
govern the universe. But, because He is the creator, God is not bound by those
laws. A view that God is bound by the Laws of Nature is a diminished view of
God. A God who is bound by the laws of creation, even by laws which He created
himself, would be less than omnipotent. That would be a god who has laws more
powerful than Himself. That would be a God who is unable to perform the
supernatural. That is the very explanation of the supernatural, an event that
occurs outside the boundaries of the natural laws. We call these supernatural
events miracles. It is the performance of these miracles that helped Jesus
establish His credentials. The miracles helped to reinforce the claims that He
made about Himself being the Son of God and in essence the same as God.
God acts in accordance with the laws and principles that He has
established in the world. The laws of nature are nothing more than our
description of how we perceive God at work in the world. They neither have
inherent power nor work by themselves.
Through His providence, God controls the universe. Psalm 103:19 tells us
the following, “19 The Lord
has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.” Isn’t
that something? God rules over all because it is His kingdom, and He has
established it. We don’t have time to quote all the Scriptural truths and their
addresses this morning, but the Bible makes it clear that God rules over the
physical world and the affairs of nations. Because of this Divine providence,
God has established a divine government by which He directs all things to the
ends He has chosen in His eternal plan. God is the King of the Universe who has
given Christ all power and authority to reign.
We must keep that in mind when we read things like those which were
mentioned earlier. Satan may be the prince of this World, but Satan’s power and
reach are limited and restrained by the Hand of God. The first few verses in
the Book of Job make this abundantly clear. We must keep in mind that Satan is
a defeated foe. That is another example of God’s Providence in the world and
the real way that it acts out in our lives.
God preserves all things through His providence. Without His continual
care and activity, the world would not exist. God also preserves His
people through His providence.
Divine government is the continued activity of God by which He
directs all things to the ends He has chosen in His eternal plan. God is King
of the universe, the one who has given Christ all power and authority to reign.
He governs insignificant things, apparent accidents, and good and evil deeds.
One accusation leveled against the doctrine of God’s Providence is that
it portrays him as evil and malicious because He decreed the horrific disasters
and wicked atrocities of our fallen world. This entire passage that we have
read this morning could have been prevented if God had just stepped in and
prevented Eve and Adam from sinning. But would that have accomplished God’s
goals?
We have looked at the fact that God is love from 1 John 4, but the Bible
also tells us that God does not tempt others to sin.
James 1:13-15 tells us, “13 When tempted, no one should
say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt
anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged
away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after
desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown,
gives birth to death.”
Look at what James is saying here: when we are tempted, we should not
say that God is tempting me. That is incorrect thinking, that is
blame-shifting. We are attempting to absolve ourselves of the responsibility
for our actions. This is exactly where so much of culture loves to live these
days. Nothing is anybody’s fault. We are all victims. We become victims of circumstances,
racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, etc., etc., etc.
It is our
own evil desires that entice us and tempt us. This takes us right back to the
doctrine of original sin. Secular Humanists will try and tell you that we are
all born good, and it is through the influence of others that we become
corrupted and led astray. My question is, “Who influenced those people? Who
influenced the influencers?” If we are all born good, who was the first bad
influence? Adam perhaps? Can we claim that Cain was born good? Who influenced
Cain to become bad? There were only a few people in the world at that time. Was
Adam or Eve the first bad influencer? Do you see how these arguments to get out
from under our own sinful wickedness are futile? We are all born into a state
of rebellion against God.
We cannot
come to Christ on our own because of the weight of this sinfulness acting as an
anchor upon us. I’ll come back to this in a minute.
James tells
us right here in this verse, the life cycle of sin. First, we are dragged by
our own evil desire and enticed. Then desire is conceived in us because of this
enticement. Our desire is enticed by a spark. It’s like a big old pile of oily
rags sitting in the corner of our garage, just waiting for a spark to drop on
them. So, desire is enticed, the spark is dropped, then our desire is fanned
into flames because the desire has conceived and then it gives birth to sin.
The flames are getting bigger and they reaching out for more fuel to add to the
fire, and then when it is full-grown, when the flames of sin have become
all-consuming, it gives birth to death. Just like a spark dropping onto a pile
of oily rags in the corner of the garage catching a spark, spreading to the walls,
climbing the walls to the ceiling, punching through to the ceiling into the
roof space, then through the roof and jumping to the main house and bringing
those flames down upon everyone living inside. Temptation grows to sin and into
full-blown death.
We already read this morning how Paul warns us
that, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”. We also read
the words of the Psalmist this morning who warned, “3 All have
turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even
one.”
Even the prophet Ezekiel warns us of this danger in Ezekiel 18:4, “The
one who sins is the one who will die.”
So, how do we reply to the accusations that the doctrine of the
providence of God portrays God as evil? You know I was reading a lot of
theology books in preparation for this message, both Armenian theology and
Calvinist theology and I just keep coming back to what Scripture says.
First, we have to acknowledge that suffering and injustice press hard
against our faith that God is both good and sovereign. When I was reading the
theology books, whenever one compared its teaching to the other, I found that
each side often misrepresented the other side ever so slightly to make their
point. That tells me that the truth is still cloaked within a mystery of God
and the system is probably too complex for us to understand at the moment.
If we turn to Lamentations, we may get some clarity.
Lamentations 3:37-38 inform us of this fact, “37 Who can
speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? 38 Is
it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things
come?” Here in this verse, we have once again established the providence of
God. Nothing happens without his decree. Both calamities, or evil and good
things come from the LORD. Therefore, no sorrow may touch us unless the LORD
ordains it.
Does God delight in suffering and death? This question right here is one
of the indicators where both sides talk past each other. There is a world of
difference between God allowing events to occur and God delighting in their
occurrence.
Back to Lamentations for the answer. We need to look and remain in the
context of these verses to avoid looking for proof texts for our argument. Lamentations
3:33 explains for us, “33 For he does not willingly bring
affliction or grief to anyone.” Yahweh is not a cruel God. He does not delight in
the affliction of others. God sends the suffering, but His heart does not love
it. He is good. So many times, arguments are made that paint God in a light
that is outside His character. For His enemies, He is the Lord of terrible
justice. For those who hope in Him, He remains the God of unfailing love and
faithfulness. In the mystery of their sufferings, they find that God is still
good, and He knew that it was good for them to bear this yoke for a time.
Lamentations 3:25-27, “25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who
seeks him; 26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of
the Lord. 27 It is
good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young.”
This raises the question about God and sin. Is God the author of sin?
You might say that if God decrees all things, then He decrees sin, but that
cannot be, for sin is against His will. In order for the question to be true,
God would have to violate His character, (which he cannot do) or we must be
misunderstanding His character, or at the very least, misrepresenting His
character. So how do we square this circle?
Back to Lamentations once more. 3:34-36 makes it clear. The ESV does a
slightly better job of getting the point across, “34 To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the
earth, 35 to deny a
man justice in the presence of the Most High, 36 to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does
not approve.” Just like we saw when we studied the Book of Habakkuk, God
allowed the Babylonians to come and capture the Judeans, then God used the
Assyrians to punish the wickedness of the Babylonians, God did not cause the
sin. God decrees both good and sin, the difference is He causes the good but
permits the sin.
Darkness is not a
thing. Darkness is the absence of a thing, namely light. Just as darkness is
the absence of light. Evil is the absence of good. Evil is specifically, the
absence of the goodness of God. Evil happens when God removes His restraining
hand from the evil actions of mankind.
Geehardus Vos put
it this way, “By permission, we mean that God decreed that specific sins would
certainly take place, but He decreed them as something inherently displeasing
to Him, for He remains absolutely holy and free from any wrongdoing.”
Augustine said, “If
it were a not a good that evil should exist, its existence would not be
permitted by the omnipotent Good, who without doubt can as easily refuse to
permit what He does not wish, as He brings about what He does wish.”
To the best of my
understanding, the two points that separate Arminianism and Calvinism hinge on
the way one looks at this issue of the existence of evil. The Armenians are
willing to compromise on the Sovereignty of God to avoid ascribing any
authorship of Evil to Him. They are willing to give more permission to mankind
to operate outside God’s purview.
The Calvinists are
unwilling to compromise on the sovereignty of God, so they look for ways to
explain why God permits evil and sin in the world without going so far as to
ascribe responsibility for the sin to God. This is where the Scripture
highlighting what God causes and what God permits is useful for explaining
their viewpoint.
What we must keep at
the forefront of our minds is the doctrine of the character of God. Which
arguments compromise the character of God? We cannot allow a doctrine, a train
of thought, or an explanation that compromises the character of God that He has
revealed to us through His Word. We must be willing to always bend our thoughts
to what Scripture teaches. Scripture is God revealing Himself to us through the
divinely inspired written word. The Holy Spirit co-authored the entire book.
Man theories and commentaries are not inspired, and we must guard against the
elevation of church tradition to a place over the reliability of Scripture.
CONCLUSION
I hope that I have shown that while God permits evil in the
world, He is not the author of the evil. We are told that death and sin
entered into the world when man sinned. The Bible is not clear when exactly
Satan and his angels fell. Some scholars claim that it must have happened
before the Creation account, while others point to this event here in Genesis
that we started with this morning. It was when Eve succumbed to the temptation
of Satan that Lucifer fell. It was at this point that sin and death entered the
world. Before this, all God’s Word has to say about Creation is “it was good”.
I want you to ponder one final question this week until, Lord
willing, we will come together next week for the second part of this series.
The final question I want to ask you is, “Who initiated Creation?” The answer,
of course, is that God initiated Creation. Only He could do such a marvelous
thing. But why did He do such a thing? Why questions are always the most
difficult questions to answer when it comes to God.
But think about it, God already existed for eternity past, in
perfect unity and harmony, within the loving relationship of the Trinity. Why
would God bother with Creation? And later, why would the Son enter into this
flawed and sinful creation to reconcile a rebellious people back to Himself?
Why? The Trinity certainly didn’t need us. What do we bring to God that He
didn’t already have? The only thing I can see is that by beginning with
Creation, and then by crowning His Creation with a sinful, disobedient creation
like man, the providence of the fall was an opportunity for the members of the
Godhead to bring even more Glory and honor to themselves. They don’t need our
worship. They were loving and self-contained, but, the plan of Redemption was a
method to bring further Glory to themselves, a Glory which we will see in the
coming weeks will culminate in a Roman Cross and an empty tomb.
Pastor
Paul’s Points:
1) God as
Creator
2) God is
Love
3) God
sustains His Creation
Questions
to meditate on this week:
1. 1. How does God interact with sin?
2. Is God the author of Evil?
3. Who initiated Creation?
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