Bible Study Genesis Part 33-The Fall

The most avoided chapter might be the one that explains everything. We step into Genesis 3 and refuse to treat it like a metaphor we can soften or sidestep, because the Fall is the moment the world changes into the world we actually live in: fractured, decaying, and in need of rescue. Along the way, we talk about why Genesis is foundational to Christian theology, why Scripture confronts us with objective truth, and why modern culture prefers reality to be “malleable” instead.

We also challenge two common escape routes: preaching that downplays sin to keep everyone comfortable, and scholarship that calls Adam and Eve a “story” while refusing to affirm it as history. If Jesus Christ comes to undo what happened in Genesis 3, then dismissing the Fall doesn’t just tweak a doctrine, it cuts the nerve that connects the Bible’s beginning to the Cross and the Resurrection. We read Genesis 3:1–6 and trace the serpent’s opening line “Hath God said” to a blunt takeaway echoed in the study: doubt is the root of all sin.

Then we face a question that hits close to home when life gets hard: why would God allow temptation at all? Drawing from J. Vernon McGee, we explore the difference between innocence and righteousness, and why testing is presented as the crucible where character forms. If you’ve ever wondered what trials mean, why growth hurts, or why the Gospel starts with bad news before it becomes Good News, this is a study worth hearing. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Scripture Matters

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Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel. God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries. We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God. We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day. The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold, and we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture. Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible. It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision. Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us. It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word. We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death. In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death. Never treat what God has said lightly. There's truly nothing more important to you. Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

Why Genesis Is Foundational

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We had finished chapter two last time. Now we're going to begin with chapter three. Just keep in mind, this is one of those books that nobody wants to talk about. We'll talk more about this later, but we're studying the book of Genesis with diligence because we understand that this is the beginning. This lays down all of the foundation for all of the rest of the Bible. It's so important. Though it may be not terribly easy to understand all of the time, I don't think it's all that hard to understand if you put some work into it. Nonetheless, it's important that we study it, even if it takes a little bit of extra work. We are getting to know our Savior. That's the most important thing anyone can do. So as I said, chapter two is behind us. Chapter three is coming up. Adam Clark says of this chapter, we have here one of the most difficult as well as one of the most important narratives in the whole book of God. Those of us who teach God's word are often accused of engaging in hyperbole. I will admit there are times when such accusations are accurate. But honestly, here in the book of Genesis, everything already sounds like hyperbole without the need to add any. Even one's body language, you see me on camera, you see my body language. We can't help communicating a sense of exaggeration while teaching from this, the first of God's books. But the truth is it's not exaggeration. It really can't be. You see, take it from me. Once you get started, it's very difficult to restrain yourself. I mean, these are the thoughts of God who can help themselves when teaching from the book of Genesis. And really, the same problem exists all the way through God's book, but now we're just talking about Genesis. I mean, you tell me, how does one hold back when discussing, for example, the creation of the entire universe or the placement of mankind in the garden or the effect that sin has had on an entire race of beings.

The Fall And Objective Reality

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Now, the heading in my Bible that is placed above chapter three reads, The Fall. Whoever put that there, by the way, no one really knows who's responsible for any of the Bible headings. About all we know is they weren't in the original. Somebody added them later on. We don't know who. Nonetheless, whoever decided to preface the third chapter of Genesis with those two words, the fall, could never be accused of, like some of us might be, overstatement. In fact, if you're even only slightly aware of what follows, that little introduction seems frighteningly brief. Now, I'm sure you've noticed by now that the book of Genesis is not an easy one to teach. Again, I don't think it's difficult to understand. It takes work, as I said, but there's no reason one should walk away from an in-depth study herein, feeling lost. Not difficult to understand, but quite difficult to teach. You see, the book of Genesis presents to us stark realities. And the difficulty arises because the world refuses to acknowledge these stark realities. The world doesn't like the Bible's realities. They're too harsh, they're too unflattering, they're too real. You see, the problem is that the world doesn't accept the idea that there's such a thing as an objective reality. The Bible says things, then says that those things that it's said are unchanging. That's the very definition of objective reality. To use one of my least favorite isms, but one it actually applies here, the Bible says, in fact, it was the Bible that first said it, it is what it is. In the Bible, it really is what it is. The unbelieving world will not tolerate such an attitude. The world much prefers its realities to be malleable. It says that you and I are allowed to manufacture our own reality. We're told we can believe anything we want. Well, let me correct that. You can believe anything you want as long as it's not the Bible. Well, we're about to cover a wildly unpopular reality described in Scripture. People do not like to discuss this. Well, because it doesn't make the human race look very good. If you like to think that mankind is a noble, inherently good-natured top-of-the-food chain favorite of the creator being, this chapter is not going to get much love from you. But it's hard to ignore. You can try and skip it, but it's not going to be easy. Now, I will admit there are some sections of the Bible that you might be able to secretly pass over when conducting a scriptural dissertation, but this isn't one of them. Throughout the rest of the entire Bible, the events of this chapter come up again and again. It's pivotal, it's vital to your understanding of God. In fact, it's vital to your understanding of God and men and the connection between us.

No Genesis 3 No Christianity

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The Bible, the entire Bible is based on what's happened here. There's no such thing as, listen to me, there's no such thing as Christianity without Genesis 3. If you skip or disregard or ignore this portion of Scripture, then you cannot call yourself a Christian. You certainly can't be a true pastor. You can't be a Christian counselor. Heck, you can't even teach Sunday school effectively and accurately without accepting the message of Genesis 3. Because if you don't, then you'll be spending a lot of time and creative energy trying to make up for the obvious gaps that will arise in your teaching plan. If you ignore Genesis 3, you will have gaps to make up. You will be forced, because you have those gaps, you're going to be forced to bring in your own opinion on the nature of our relationship to God. And if you do that, then all you're doing is teaching philosophy. Christianity is not philosophy. It's not even a religion, it's a person. And that person had only one purpose, and that was to undo what was done in chapter three. No chapter three, no Jesus. No Jesus, no Bible. Exposition of Scripture without reference to Genesis, to Genesis three is incorrect, imprecise, and incomplete. It cannot be ignored. And to be honest, all biblical scholars know this. Everyone that teaches God's word knows that Genesis three is the spine that runs through all of the Bible. So what are you going to do? What's the modern pulpit puppet? I call them pulpit puppets. What's the modern pulpit puppet to do? I mean, I have to cover chapter three to make to make the rest of the Bible make sense. But I don't want to talk about sin. I don't want to talk about the fall. I don't want to talk about that pesky serpent or any of that stuff because, well, my congregation might get their feelings hurt or at the very least disregard me for bringing such things up. They're going to stop liking me. So what is the strategy for those who oppose the notion that mankind is in a fallen state? Well, as we've said, you have to acknowledge the existence of this discussion. This happened in the Bible and it keeps coming up in the Bible. What are you

Why Many Leaders Downplay Sin

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going to do? And at the same time, if you want to remain popular, you're going to have to downplay it. You're going to have to discredit it, or by some other tactic, minimize its unpleasantness. You're going to have to breeze over it in such a way that no one takes it literally, and no one makes the mistake that you take it literally. That's clerical suicide. That's why we're studying it. You're not going to hear this anywhere else, I'm sad to say.

Paradise Lost And Why It’s Shown

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You see, we go from creative, flourishing, flowering majesty to damaged, failing, decaying, cast out, rejected. Mankind starts out as a favored, protected companion, but ends up a spurned, exiled, cursed enemy. The entire world changes in chapter three. It becomes our world. That's the saddest thing of all. We know nothing of the world of chapter one and two. Chapter three is the world we live in. Very difficult subject matter, but we must face it if we want to know what God is saying to us in the rest of the Bible. Now, many of you are going to ask, well, then why didn't we just start with chapter three? Why didn't the Bible just start with what's contained in chapter three? After all, the first two chapters are pretty short on details anyway. If what you say is true, John, and the rest of Scripture tells the story of how God plans to unwind what happened in this third chapter, if it's so important to the rest of the story, how about we just start here? If we're only going to get a tiny teeny glimpse of creation, why not just skip it altogether and start right off with the origin of our universal sin problem? I mean, that's what's ailing us now, right? That's what you're telling me. How the universe was made doesn't really add or detract from the fact that Jesus had to die to overcome the event of this third chapter, does it? For example, the very important to the creation word firmament is mentioned nine times in just the first chapter of Genesis alone. Well, it only shows up eight more throughout the rest of the Bible. In telling contrast, we don't get the word sin until the fourth chapter, and yet it comes up almost 400 more times by the time we finish the book of Revelation. Seems obvious what the real subject is, so I'm gonna ask it again. Why even talk about what it was like before sin? Well, simple, and I think you know the answer. Listen to me. God wants the impact of the tragedy of the third chapter to hit us hard. Listen, God isn't the only one who absorbed the damage from the hand grenade of sin. Sin affects the whole race of man. God doesn't want you to forget that Adam stole something very precious from you, too. Now, is God bringing all of that out because he's vindictive and passive aggressive? Is God like some jilted girlfriend who pass who posts old pictures from long gone good times just to make us regret our mistakes? Of course not. God put, listen to me, God put our happiness, joy, and glory in his word because he wants you to see what he still wants to offer you. The picture of our lost paradise is not solely to make us regretful. There is some of that, but it's also to make us hopeful. This is what you were meant to be. This is what God wants you to return to and what he's working so hard to obtain for you. And tell, let me tell you, nothing tells us the intensity of God's desire to put us right back in the garden than the price he's paid to make that happen.

Doubt As The Root Of Sin

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Okay, one last general comment before we begin. In his summarized Bible commentary, Keith L. Brooks states something quite profound about this crucial chapter. He says that the conclusion, in other words, the message or the lesson we can glean from what happens here is simple. Listen, he says the lesson we learn from chapter three is doubt is the root of all sin. Not sure there is any other deeper truth than that. And you'll see why as we make our way through this chapter and make our way through it, we will. No chapter three skipping for you and me. And I have to say, if you wondered why the world is in the mess it is, stick around as we dive into this extraordinary history. Let's get

Reading Genesis 3:1-6

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started. I'm going to read the first six verses just to make sure we're aware of the entire context of what's happening here. Genesis 3:1. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. Verse four. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. 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. Truly, as I've said, one of the most pivotal moments in human history. I think I said that already, but repeating oneself with something like this is expected and forgivable, wouldn't you agree? And I'll tell you what. In fact, I'll say it again. This is one of the most important, most pivotal moments in human history. In fact, it's in the top four. The others being the birth of Christ, the death of Christ, and the resurrection of Christ. From what we can tell here in the early part of the chapter, mankind hasn't even been around for very long, but he's already off to a really bad start. For the first time, mankind is tempted. I feel like quoting K.L. Brooks again. Doubt is the root of all sin.

Rejecting The “Myth” Escape Hatch

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Now, let me say that there are some respected, at least respected by me, which I admit doesn't mean much. Nonetheless, there are some scholars who unfortunately try to downplay this scene. And I'm not talking about secular scholars, you know, historians or anthropologists, that sort. They'll never butt into this. They'll leave it here without comment. As far as they're concerned, this is of no value to them or anyone else. It's no more important nor relevant to modern man, to the modern man of science than the scribblings of a child. Those are not the scholars I want to highlight here. I'm talking about a completely different set of scholars. I'm sad to say that I've heard Christian and Jewish actually, I've heard Christian and Jewish biblical scholars, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so much, try and poo-poo this message. They say things like, well, you know, I'm not here to debate whether or not this actually happened. It doesn't matter to me whether or not this is the record of a true event, a legend, or some sort of religious myth. What's important is the story it tells. Wrong. That nonsense is nothing but selling out to the to the intelligentsia. I've lamented so many times about good, brilliant theologians who defy their conscience by disregarding the Bible in favor of getting approval and acceptance from their peers in other scientific disciplines. Listen, you're not going to get invited to any holiday parties thrown by the anthropology department if you go around telling people that Eve had a conversation with a snake. So your best bet, if you're a theologian looking for acceptance, is just to appear to regard this whole passage like everyone else does, as nothing but primitive gibberish, despite the fact that your conscience tells you otherwise. Listen, Bub, if you want to fit in around here, keep all that inerrancy. Of scripture stuff to yourself. And that's nothing but tragic. You see, if everything hinges on the truth of this passage, I cannot say that enough. If this is nothing but some morality play, then why did Jesus die? If this is mythology intended to teach us not to talk to serpents, then there's nothing of value in the Bible. My friends, this event is the one that brought the very Son of God off his throne and onto a cross. Never ever dare say that the story of Adam and Eve is a fable. You will never be able to look Jesus in the face. You'll never be able to confront Jesus. You'll never be able to be in his presence if you don't believe this is true because this is why he died. Do you think that the very agent of all creation would die for an allegory? Yeah, me either. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, good answer, by the way, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. Listen to this. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and ye shall be as God's knowing good and evil. 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.

Why God Allowed Temptation

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And by the way, why did God allow this to happen? Surely he must have known that Eve was vulnerable to temptation. Now, before you accuse me of something, I'm not saying Eve was vulnerable to temptation because she was a woman. In fact, I'll say the opposite. Eve was vulnerable to temptation because she carried within her Adam's nature. Temptation was dangerous to Eve because she was a human. Temptation can be fatal to a human. Which brings me back to my question. Why, knowing the weakness of the human race, knowing mankind's deadly predilection for temptation, did God allow the serpent to tempt Eve? Was God asleep? Was he on vacation, away at a conference? Or did he just not care? Now I'm not going to dwell here, but I at least want to bring this up. This very point was mentioned by J. Vernon McGee in his commentary on this verse. The thought, if nothing else, is provocative. In fact, let me directly quote him because my summary will not do it justice.

Innocence Versus Righteous Character

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Dr. McGee asks the same question we've been driving at throughout this lesson, quoting Dr. McGee, why the temptation? Then he answers his own question, which if you know anything about him, he does a lot. He goes on to say, if we go back to chapters one and two, listen very closely to this. If we go back to chapters one and two, we find that man was created innocent, but man was not created righteous. What is righteousness? He continues. Righteousness is innocence that has been maintained in the presence of temptation. You see, temptation, still quoting Dr. McGee, temptation will either develop you or destroy you. It will do one of the two. The Garden of Eden was not a hothouse, and man was not a hothouse plant. Character must be developed, and it can only be developed in the presence of temptation. Man was created a responsible being, and he was responsible to glorify, to obey, to serve, and to be subject to divine government. God never intended mankind to be a delicate, pampered, kept plaything. He had always had a reason in mind for creation. Yes, we were made to be his companion. That's obvious, but God never wastes any effort. When he made Adam from the dust of the earth and then Eve from Adam's rib, it was so that all their children could be of use to their creator. And it's never been in God's plan to form creatures fully developed at birth, or in the case of Adam and Eve at their creation. He gives all of us what we need to get started, listen, and then provides along the way whatever we're going to need to progress. God surrounded Adam and Eve with all the resources they needed to realize his plans for them. But they needed to grow. Listen, growth is, well, growth in fact is always quite unpleasant. Growth, by definition, is expansion beyond current physical borders. And yes, at times that hurts. Temptation, trial, testing was necessary for mankind to develop into the creature God intended him to be. And so he allowed Adam and Eve to be tempted. When we are paraded in front of the heavenlies, we are going to be tempted, tested, tried souls that God can show off and say, that's how glorious I am. Look at the tempted, tested, tried souls and how righteous they now are. You'll never get that without going through growth, and growth can be painful. Many think we're only tempted or tested when God isn't present. Not so. God knows everything and directs everything. Never forget that. Sometimes he'll test you, and sometimes he'll allow the devil to tempt you, but he never allows those things to destroy you. That's biblical. If we lay these things before him, he'll allow us to grow in them. Seems counterintuitive, but scripture is full of that sense.

Next Time And Ministry Updates

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We'll pick it up right there next time. See you then.

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We hope this study has blessed you. God's word is a great treasure, and it's our belief that a thorough, purposeful study of it will bring all of God's children to an understanding of his eternal plan of redemption. It is our prayer that this will be so for all of our listeners. Please join us again soon. New content is being added all the time, so make sure you check back often. For more information on Chapel Ministries, including our YouTube channel and podcasts, please visit www.chapelontheweb.com. And if God has laid it upon your heart to share materially with us, we encourage you to follow the links to our secure giving page. Please note, Chapel Ministries is not an IRS registered nonprofit organization, and your donations to this program are not tax deductible. It's our hope that you do not rely on taxing authorities to decide for you who is worthy of your generosity.