What's it all mean? Try Genesis 3

One of the most important chapters in all of the Word of God is Genesis 3, the turning point in the story that offers the divine explanation for the presence of evil.

“The fall of man is the only possible explanation for evil--and for sin, sorrow and suffering--in a world made by a benevolent, perfect Creator,” says Jordan. By the time you get to the end of Genesis 3, you see that man is a fallen, deluded, deceived, self-righteous buck-passer who’s hiding from God and using his religion as a means to disobey God’s Word.

“In this chapter, you see the subtlety of the devil, as well as the powerlessness of human nature, human performance and human merit.

“You see the effects of sin. You see human nature’s tendency to cover up its shame with human performance. You see the grace and love of God to guilty sinners. You see the seed line of a promised Redeemer.

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“In one chapter, God lays out the whole skinny of the whole human history. Genesis 3 is one of the most unsavory, objectionable passages to tear up a college education that’s ever been written.

“In it you find that the root source of all questioning of the Word of God comes from Satan. Where do people get off questioning God’s word? The devil.

“Genesis 3 shows that the desire to be godlike in knowledge is satanic in origin. Having that itch of, ‘I gotta know, I gotta know, I gotta know,’ isn’t something God gave you. Satan is the force to be reckoned with when it comes to the intellectual realm.

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Paul warns in Colossians 2:8, [8] Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

In Colossians 2:20, he writes, [20] Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances.

Jordan advises, “It’s so important that you get a real grasp of this issue of the rudiments of the world because Paul is making a reference to something basic about the religious system.

“Something that’s rudimentary; it’s the basic operating element of a thing. A rudiment is a fundamental operating principle. The ‘rudiments of the world’ have to do with the methodology of the world system in which we operate.

“The ‘rudiments of the world’ is the source of the traditions of men, which is the source of the vain deceit and the philosophy of men.

“In Galatians 1, there’s a world system Paul calls ‘the present evil world.’ II Corinthians 4:3-4 says, [3] But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
[4] In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

“You always hear people argue about, ‘Well, if God would let this happen and let that happen . . .’ but, you see, ‘the god of this world,’ i.e., Satan, has no problem with all the things happening in the world today! It’s HIS system! It’s the system designed to carry forward and express HIS program!

“Paul says in Ephesians 2:2, [2] Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.

“Notice there’s a course that the world follows, and Paul says that, in Christ, you died to that. You know, we sing about the Cross and people love to quote the first part of Galatians 6:14 but very few people can quote the whole verse.

“The verse says. [14] But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

“Notice there’s a crucifixion, not just of my flesh and my old man, but of the world. I’m crucified to the world and the world is crucified unto me.

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“When you start out to think about this issue of the ‘rudiments of the world,’ you really have to go back to Genesis 3 where all this stuff begins to unfold.

“What you learn about life and about the way the world works, and the way you function in it . . . it’s fascinating to me that in all my years of taking the Scripture and dealing with people, helping them understand how the Word works in their life, the more and more I’ve realized you don’t really get very far from Genesis 3 because there’s a PATTERN and COURSE set up in that chapter.

“I think about how God creates man and puts him on the earth and says, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’

“Satan looks at this guy and sees this man made of dirt and says, ‘Huh, that’s the guy supposed to take this stuff away from me?! This guy, he’s just made out of mud! He can’t fly; he can’t do all the wonderful things I can do! Is God off His rocker?!’

“But he’d never seen a mud man before. There was never a man before Adam and Eve; they were the first. So, when you’ve never seen something before and you don’t know exactly what it can and can’t do, you study to figure out how it’s all going to operate.

“When Satan comes to Eve, he’s already developed a scheme in his mind about how to handle this new thing God created; this human. When Satan begins to interact with Adam and Eve, he has this operating plan in his mind about how he’s going to do things.

“What happens in Genesis 3 is you begin to see the rudimentary way sin, and the world system, is going to attack, and how it’s going to defend itself and how it’s going to seek to encompass others in it.

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“Genesis 3:1 tells us, [1] Now the serpent was more subtil 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?

“Satan asks, ‘Yea, hath God said?’ The first thing he attacks; the first realm of interest for the Adversary is a spiritual one. It’s what God’s saying because he knows God’s the authority.

“The issue in the Bible from Genesis 1 to the end is the issue of authority. Who’s going to run things? That’s the issue in your life, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t you think it’d be the issue in the Bible?

“The main theme of the Bible from the beginning to the end is the authority of a throne, a crown over the universe. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ That’s Genesis 1.

“What does Colossians 1:16 say He created? A government in the heaven and a government in the earth. When He created, He created it for someone. Who was it? The verse says, [16] For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

“He created that government for Jesus Christ and then Lucifer says, ‘I think I ought to have it,’ and there’s this rebellion. Now the question is, ‘Who ought to have the authority,’ and that angelic conflict extends all through the Scripture.

“You just knew that when God went to reclaim things, and put a man made out of dirt on the earth and said, ‘You go do it!’ that Satan would come against that. What you see in Genesis 3 is Satan’s methodology unfold there on the way he’s chosen to counteract what God’s doing.”

(new article tomorrow)