LESSON II.--JANUARY 9.

SIN AND DEATH.--GEN. 3:1-6; 17-19.

      GOLDEN TEXT. --By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.--ROMANS 5:12.
      TIME.--Not certainly known. According to Usher B. C. 4004.
      PLACE.--The Garden of Eden.
      HELPFUL READINGS.--Gen.2:8-25; Gen. 3:7-16; Matt. 14:1-11; Rev. 20:7-15; Rev. 22:1-5.
      LESSON ANALYSIS.--I. The Tempter; 2. The Temptation; 3. The Curse.

INTRODUCTION.

      The verses introduced in this lesson have been more fruitful of discussion than almost any others in the Bible. Some interpreters have held that the account of the Fall is a literal history, while others have contended that it states a great fact in human history by the employment of poetical figures; that the tree of knowledge, of life, and the serpent are symbols used to represent great principles. It is not within our scope to enter into this discussion, but the student may do well to bear in mind that Christian writers have taken different views from the times of Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, down to Lange; but whatever view is taken, the real meaning underlying the facts or figures is the same, and this meaning is confirmed by all history and experience. Our race has to deal with the sad facts of sin and death. That man is in a fallen state need hardly be proven to any but those who call evil good. The bloodshed, sins and miseries of humanity for six thousand years proclaim with unmistakable emphasis the fall of man, sin working in his members, and the consequences of sin in the woes of humanity. But whence came sin and evil? How was the ruin of our race wrought? The only key ever given for the solution of what had been otherwise an inscrutable mystery, is that supplied in the scriptural account of the Fall. The traditions of almost every race bear witness to the fact that the story of the Fall has been graven into the primeval history of man. These traditions have assumed various and perverted forms, but still retain the idea of great calamities that have been visited on our race on account of sin. The Greek mythology told of the woes that came upon mankind through the woman Pandora, on account of [19] the sin of Prometheus; Zoroaster taught and the ancient Persians received an account of the temptation and fall so much like that of the Bible that many suppose that he borrowed it; George Smith discovered among the Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions undoubted relies of the same story, and even deciphered the curse upon the serpent; in the Skandinavian legends, Thor, the first-born, has a conflict with the great serpent, and finally slays it with his club, but at the price of his own life; Hindoo, Persian, Assyrian, Greek and Arabian traditions all testify of the tree of life, and among all nations was diffused a story of an original state of happiness and innocence.

      I. THE TEMPTER.--1. Now the serpent was more subtil than any, beast of the field. The serpent is introduced in the account as the tempter. Two views have been presented: (1) That the term serpent is used as a symbol of that malign influence which fights against good, "the old serpent, the devil;" and (2) That Satan took the form of a serpent in order to carry out his devilish work. Whichever view is taken, the teaching of Scripture is plain that Satan was the tempter. As he assailed the second Adam, our Lord, so he assailed the first Adam. (See Rev. 12:9 and John 8:44.) It is held by some interpreters that the Hebrew word here rendered "serpent" (Nachash) may mean a snake, a crocodile, a hippopotamus, an enchanter, etc. It is urged, therefore, that it is by no means necessary to assume that Satan appeared in serpent form. There is a probability, from verse 14, that whatever creature form was assumed by Satan, it was degraded at the Fall. Before it was probably erect, beautiful, and far less repulsive. He was also the most cunning of the brute creation, and next to man in intelligence. Whatever may be our opinions concerning the form, we must not forget that Satan was the real agent, in disguise. A deep truth is indicated here. Satan usually works in disguise, sometimes even transforming himself into an angel of light. Said to the woman. Observe the craftiness of the tempter's attack. He does not appear to the pair together, but to the woman, the weaker of the two, alone, when she is without the aid and counsel of her companion. Surprise has been expressed that Eve should not have been startled by the power of speech in the serpent. It should be borne in mind that in experience, observation and guilelessness she was a little child. She was new in a new world, and knew almost nothing of natural laws. Yea, hath God said. Is it even so that God hath said? The wily adversary begins his attack by insinuating a doubt that God has said anything of the kind. He is too crafty to shock the woman at first by a contradiction of the divine [20] word. Of every tree of the garden. The prohibition is found in Gen. 2:17. The whole of Paradise was freely granted, save the fruit of the forbidden tree. Scoffers have made merry over the fall of man on account of eating an apple, and in doing so have shown their own shallowness. A great principle was involved, that of faith in and loyalty to the Creator. The one prohibition tested the loyalty of the creature as well as a hundred could have done. When man broke it he committed treason against his Divine King. Beside, it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the experimental distinction between the two, by having tried both. Adam and Eve tried the good while in a state of innocence; they could only obtain the knowledge of evil by an experience in sinning.

      2. And the woman said unto the serpent. The great mistake of the mother of our race was to dally for a moment with the tempter. She ought, on the instant, to have said, "Get thee behind me, Satan." Whoever pauses to listen to the wooing of temptation is almost certain to fall. She explains that there had been a free grant of all the trees of the garden upon a single condition.

      3. God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it. The clause, "neither shall ye touch it," is added by the woman to the charge of Gen. 2:17. It shows the construction that she put upon the command. It was a correct one. "Touch not, taste not, handle not," is the law with regard to forbidden things. "Lead us not into temptation" implies a desire and determination to keep away from it. Lest ye die. God had said, "Ye shall surely die." There has been much discussion concerning the kind of death that was meant. There certainly ought to be no difficulty. God meant just what followed. There was spiritual death at the very moment they became disloyal to his will, and hence, the loss of the divine favor, expulsion from Eden and the tree of life, which entailed the necessity of physical death. The spiritual life of the Christian can only be maintained by "abiding in Christ." Wilful sin would sever the relation to Christ, and cause spiritual death at once. So man in innocence abode in God, but sin severed the union, and he died spiritually. Death is a separation.

      II. THE TEMPTATION--4. Ye shall not surely die. The adversary puts the lie to God. The object of his insinuations and contradiction is to destroy faith in God. Spiritual life begins in and rests upon faith; unbelief is the [21] beginning of disobedience and death. Whenever the tempter can disarm his victim of the shield of faith, he has already effected a conquest. In this case be first seeks to raise a doubt in the mind of the woman; then he insinuates a suspicion that God has made the prohibition from selfish motives; and thirdly, be declares that God has spoken falsely, and that the divine threat is impotent.

      5. For God doth know . . . your eyes shall be opened. The father of lies declares that, instead of dying as a consequence of eating of the forbidden tree, and thus disobeying God, those who eat are made as gods in knowing the distinction between good and evil. He tells half a truth, and thus gives a lie the semblance of the truth, the most dangerous kind of lying. He declares also that God knows that the eating will be for their advantage, and is therefore selfishly restraining them. Be as gods. The serpent makes a false promise. God knew good as well as evil, from absolute knowledge, without experience of the evil, and without taint from it. Man can only know it by its pollution and the experience of its consequences. The tempter's appeal to man is to seek forbidden knowledge, a temptation that is repeated at some time to almost every mortal. "The serpent beguiled Eve by his subtlety"--2 Cor. 11:3.

      6. When the woman saw. She had listened to the tempter, and she now dallies with the temptation. She looks upon the forbidden fruit, and considers the advantages from taking it. She saw that "it was good for food." Perhaps the tempter ate some with great relish before her. It appealed to her sensual appetite, "the lust of the flesh," and also to the "lust of the eyes," for it "was pleasant to look upon." How many fall through appetite! How many are assailed through the eyes! It also ministered to the pride of life, for it "made one wise," gratified an ambition for exalted knowledge derived from experience. She had paused to consider the question of disobedience, and this decided the tremendous issue of life and death for a race. She took of the fruit. It was her own free act. She was created with the power of choice; she could not be a moral being otherwise. In the exercise of this power she chose to do wrong instead of right, and thus sin and evil entered into the life of our race. God did not create evil, but created beings who had [22] the power to obey or disobey; beings with moral powers, instead of helpless machines; and some of these by their own free choice accepted the evil. The Fall of man was the free, unconstrained act of our first parents. Gave also to her husband with her. She became the temptress now, to lead her husband astray. The effect of sin upon the soul is to make the sinner a dangerous associate. Too many are not satisfied until they lead others astray. Especially dangerous to a man is it to have a wicked wife, or to a woman to have a wicked husband. Adam had his Eve, David, his Bathsheba, Ahab, his Jezebel, and Herod, his Herodias.

      II. THE CURSE.--The Bible student should read carefully the verses intervening between the 6th and the 17th. These tell of the arrest of the guilty pair, their arraignment, their excuses, the curse upon the serpent, the first of Messianic promises, and the sentence upon the woman. Adam is sentenced last, as last in the transgression.

      17. Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife. As the woman had yielded to the voice of the serpent so Adam had yielded to that of his wife. Adam, in his unmanly attempt at justification, had laid the blame on the woman and on God who gave her, even apparently finding fault with God. In this formal statement of the grounds of his condemnation he is charged with hearkening to her voice instead of the voice of God. The woman bade him eat, but God had told him not to eat. He obeyed her but disobeyed God. In obeying the voice of the one given he had disobeyed the voice of the Giver. Next follow various items of the special curse upon the man. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In Eden the fruits good for human use grew spontaneously, but with the change from Eden after the Fall, the thorn, the thistle and the weeds became the spontaneous product. This is certainly verified by the facts of nature. The various products of the soil upon our tables are all secured by human toil. Neither the cereals, the fruits or the vegetables eaten to-day on the millions of tables in this land grew wild in a state of nature. Man is now doomed to labor and sorrow. Half the human race are doomed to unremitting toil as the price of their existence. Their years pass in a ceaseless struggle for existence. Yet, even this primal curse is a concealed blessing. Idleness is the worst foe of a sinful race. Constant occupation is needful to keep men from waxing worse and worse. In the tropics, where the least labor is required in order to live, the human race is most worthless. In the temperate zones, where men are compelled to spend one-half the year in making provision for the other half, the race is most vigorous, manly and virtuous. [23]

      18. Thou shalt eat the herb of the field. Instead of drawing his sustenance from the spontaneous fruits of paradise, man would henceforth live mainly on the products of the field, secured by endless toil.

      19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, etc. What a brief and impressive summary of human life is condensed in this verse! The literature of the world will be searched in vain for a parallel to this truthful and affecting statement.--Conant. Until death comes, the death that is now inevitable, life must be sustained by the sweat of labor. This is a universal truth. Every mortal is either living by his own labor or off of some one else's labor. Some are dependents, like children; some are parasites, like paupers; some have the dollars other men have labored for and earned, but it is labor and sweat that sustains them all. Till thou return to the ground. The spiritual death was immediate; physical death was now certain, but delayed. Finally man should return to the ground, because he was taken from thence. Formed of dust to the dust he should return. Again the statement is verified by universal experience. Countless millions have become dust since these words were uttered. All who are upon the earth shall be dust before many years pass. Yet there is a golden gleam of sunshine upon this gloomy prospect, for it is elsewhere said that when the body returns to the earth whence it was taken the spirit goes to God who gave it.

PRACTICAL AND SUGGESTIVE.

      The highest privileges are not a guarantee against listening to the voice of the tempter and falling. One of the apostles sold the second Adam. The first Adam turned from God right in Eden.

      Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Listen to him a word and he will lead you astray. To every man he comes in disguise to beguile and to lead astray. Every thought of wrong-doing must be throttled as soon as it is conceived.

      In the garden of every life there is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The child is guileless, free from the knowledge of sin and pure. Then the tempter comes and entices it to eat the forbidden fruit. When it yields then comes guilty knowledge, the taint of sin, the voice of God arraigning the sin-polluted soul. Happy is he who at once convicted of sin turns to Christ.

      Man's career began in a garden; Revelation gives us the last glimpse of [24] his future destiny in a beautiful city. Each has a tree of life; each is free from sin and death; each enjoys the presence of God; each has its Adam.

      Man was expelled from the first by disobedience; he has secured entrance into the second by obedience. It is they "who keep his commandments that have the right to enter in through the gates into the city."

      This lesson portrays the great primal tragedy of the world; a tragedy which has flung shadows six thousand years long and only chased away where the Sun of Righteousness has arisen. The facts of evil, of sin, death, sorrow, labor for bread, unremitting toil and a return to earth, remain and testify at this day. They are only accounted for by the history of the Fall.

      THE PROHIBITION.--It was right that God should impose some test of their obedience and love. Indeed, it was a necessity of their moral nature that this question of obeying God, always and everywhere, should come to an issue. As surely as they were moral beings, capable of knowing duty and doing it, born into being with susceptibilities to happiness which sometimes must be virtuously denied at the demand of God and of greater good, so surely they must meet this trial sooner or later, in some form or other, until they become so strong in their holy purpose, so fixed in the spirit of love and obedience to God, that temptation to sin is spurned away and duty is done forever more without a question.--Cowles.

      THE SOURCE OF SIN.--The root and source of all sin is unbelief and turning away from God. Even on the contrary, the root and source of all righteousness is faith. When sin is ripened in the heart by unbelief the external act of disobedience speedily follows. This is the light in which the nature of sin is to be regarded according to its true magnitude--whereby we are all ruined.--Luther. This is the order of the temptation: 1. The goodness of God must be disbelieved, or there must be a loss of faith. 2. There must cease to be a belief in the justice of God. 3. A want of belief in the holiness of God. As a result of this eclipse of faith there is a disobedience to the command of God. Eating the forbidden fruit was only an outward proof of a revolt against the government of God.

POINTS FOR TEACHERS. 1. Picture paradise, a happy home, no care, anxiety or sin, no sickness or death. All for man, on one condition. 2. Impress the need of some test of man's loyalty to God; that there have been tests of faith and obedience given to all worshipers. Noah, Abraham, the Jews and Christians have had their tests. The test proved the disloyalty of Adam and Eve. 3. Point out temptation as a great fact of human life. Thousands fall through the temptations of appetite; other thousands through the temptations of avarice or ambition. The only safe way is to stifle the temptation just as soon as it is born. 4. Show the need of good associations. The woman fell by listening to corrupt counsel; man fell by listening to a persuasive companion. Multitudes fall from the influence of evil associates. Few go alone and without counsel into sin. 5. Draw the contrast between the two Adams, each a federal head; one of all sinners, the other of all saints; one leading down to [25] death, the other up to life; one by disobedience bringing death upon all who were in his loins, the other by perfect obedience bringing life to all found in him. 6. Point to the tree of life. No flaming sword of cherubim forbids the way. It even lifts up red stained hands and cries, "Come unto me that you may have life." The Bread of Life, the Water of Life, the Tree of Life is the Lord.

Source: Barton Warren Johnson. The Christian International Lesson Commentary for 1887. Des Moines, IA: