The First Sin

“As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Rom. v. 12.

STRICTLY speaking, the fall of man was not the beginning of sin. Sin entered the world by one man, but sin had already entered the universe. Isaiah traces sin back to its true beginning, in the fall of Satan. ‘* How art thou fallen from

I Cor. XV.
Heb. ix. 28.

Heb. X. 12.
Heb. i. 3.

The fatal
“I will.”
Rom. V. 12.

Isa. xiv.
12-16.

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The universal experience.
Gen. iii.
1-6.

Rom. iii.

I John iii.
4.

Luke X. 29.

Isa. lix. 2.

heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning.... For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. ... I will be like the most High.” Sin entered the universe of God when a splendid angel said ‘’ I will.” The essence of sin is self-will, or lawlessness; as the essence of holiness is loving subjection to the will of God.

That the history of man’s fall should be thought mere allegory by any descendant of Adam is strange indeed, for, in all essential particulars, it has been re-enacted in every human life. In every life there has been a first sin; in every life that sin consisted in violating some part of the known will of God; in every life that sin wrought to separate the sinner from God; in every life there was some poor effort at self-justification; and to every such life there anb 0tfitt interpretations;

comes a seeking God offering salvation; and, in this endlessly repeated tragedy, the tempter has been Satan. Why, then, should it be thought incredible that what has been true in all subsequent human lives should have been true in the first human life?

Satan’s method is to insinuate a doubt: “Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” So Satan begins by suggesting that the will of God for us is, at some point, hard and ungracious; that some forbidden thing might have been left within our liberty of choice. ‘’ I knew thee that thou art an hard man,’’ is the unspoken complaint of our hearts when Satan tempts us to depart from the will of God. It is the sure danger sign. Let us learn to be affrighted whenever we detect the smallest murmuring against God.

John iii. 16.

2 Tim. ii.
26.

Satan*s
method.
Gen. iii. i.

Matt. XXV.
24.

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Gen. iii. 4.

Gen. iis. 5.

Gen. ill. 6.

Having Instilled a doubt as to God’s love, Satan goes on to question the truth of God’s word. “Ye shall not surely die.” Every denial of retribution for sin is instigated by Satan, and directly contradicts, not alone God’s word, but the testimony of nature and reason.

The adversary’s third step is an appeal to pride, especially pride of intellect. “Ye shall be as gods knowing.”

In the characteristic modern attitude toward revealed truth these temptations meet. For that attitude is one of denial of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, and this denial is justified by appeal to proud human learning.

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof.

and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Here is a perfect illustration of worldliness — ‘’ The lust of the flesh; and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.”

The immediate consequence was alienation from God. For the first time these high creatures of God felt instinctively their unfitness for His presence. The ultimate consequences of sin they could not then know, but soon learned — physical death, and also that alienation from the life of God which is spiritual death. “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God.” “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” The futile effort of sinful man to clothe himself for God’s presence!

I John ii.
16.

The two
deaths.

Gen. iv. 19.
Gen. ill. 7.

Isa. lxiv. 6.

Eph. iv. 18.

Rom. X. 3.

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Righteousness,

Luke xviii.

Phil. iii. 6.

Rom. iii.

Gen. iii. 9.

In Scripture the garment is the constant symbol of righteousness, and righteousness is that which fits for God’s presence. Neither self-righteousness, ‘’ I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess,” or legal righteousness, ‘^ Touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless,” but only God’s righteousness, ‘* Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe,” enables sinful man to stand in the presence of God.

^’And the LORD called unto Adam and said unto him. Where art thou?” The effect of the first sin was to bring Jehovah down to seek, and to save that which was lost. Thus sin broke God’s creation rest, and from the first sin of the first man until now. He has been unweariedly seeking the lost anU 0t)tx interpretations;

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‘’ But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”

‘’ And the LORD God said unto the serpent... upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” Before the curse, the serpent was not only the ‘’ most subtle,” but probably also the most beautiful of creatures below man. Even as cursed, a serpent cannot make an ungraceful movement. But, whatever form of beauty this creature may have borne, it lent itself to Satan’s uses, and now, cursed of God, every actual serpent is a hieroglyph of sin; an awful illustration of Satan’s power to degrade and curse. And Satan himself cannot escape the shame; ‘’ And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world” — so true is it that all men must choose to be eter-John V. 17.

The serpent symbol.

Rev. xii. 9.

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Num. xxi.
9.

John iii. 14.

nally identified with either Satan or with Christ.

A sin of Israel was punished by a plague of serpents, a method of retribution, which was perhaps designed to remind them of all that, from Eden on, had been the terrible message of that symbol. But how mysterious must the remedy have seemed; a serpent of brass made the object of saving faith! Some suggestion of the shame and humiliation of the cross may be found in the fact that Christ appropriated the brazen serpent type to Himself. ‘’ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.”

But all this, though it prepares us to see that Christ ^’ lifted up,” after the analogy of the serpent of brass, is in some profound sense associated with sin and the holy wrath anb 0tf)tv interpretations of God against sin, does not explain that association. Not until the final, terrible word of the Spirit by Paul do we come to that mystery, beyond whose frontiers no finite mind may go. ‘’ For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” This is the midnight horror of the atoning work of Christ. That we might be made ^’ the righteousness of God” (immeasurable height!) it was somehow necessary that He, the sinless and holy one, should be, in those awful hours, in some inscrutable sense ‘’ made sin” — associated with the whole serpent symbolism, with the curse, with Satan’s foulness, with man’s shame, defilement and ruin — immeasurable depth!

‘’ And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise

2 Cor. V.
21.

Gal. iii. 13.

The undying enmity.

Gen. iii. 15.

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of death.

Rom. iii.

Gal. iii. lo.

thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel “— the first promise of a Redeemer. This is the seed, out of which grew the tree of the cross. It implies the final humiliation and defeat of Satan by Christ, the ‘’ seed of the woman.”