1. The Kingdom Lost
Week 3 • Day 1
Last week, we learned how God used His powerful rule to create a kingdom place (the cosmic temple), so that His kingdom people (human image-bearers) would flourish. Then we explored how God delegated His rule so that as God’s kingdom people multiplied, they would learn how to “work and keep” the garden in a shalom relationship with God and one another. This calling gave human image-bearers tremendous purpose. Each kingdom endeavor done in the name of God brought glory to the King of Kings!
However, with great power - the ability to rule on God’s behalf - came great responsibility! In the garden, Adam and Eve were faced with a choice. Would our human parents trust the rule of God the Father and the ways of His kingdom or would they succumb to the rule of the serpent?
Unfortunately, they both chose to submit to the kingdom of the serpent. They broke God’s healthy boundaries, “touched the stove”, and were forever scarred by their actions. This week, we will begin to explore the ramifications of God’s image-bearers bending their knee to the kingdom of the serpent.
THE SERPENT KINGDOM AND GOD’S RULE
In the creation narrative, we learned that God delegates His rule to humans. In response to this kingdom truth, humans and the creation bring glory to God in these 2 ways:
God’s people are designed to listen and obey the truth of God’s kingdom rule.
The center of God’s kingdom place is true eternal life and the true knowledge of good and evil.
...but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. - Genesis 2:17
In the garden, the forbidden fruit came from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. At this point, the one ruler who had been prescribing the label of “very good” (creation) and “not good” (for man to be alone) was God Himself. Instead of trusting God to lead them toward what was good, Adam and Eve grasped for a kingly role that was strictly meant for God. In other words, the man and the woman wanted to sit on their own thrones and follow their own rules apart from God.
In the serpent kingdom, humans follow their own knowledge of good and evil.
When you look around the world, you may have observed that when we rule according to our own human understanding of good and evil, our manufactured kingdoms tend to crumble rather quickly. As humans multiply, whose knowledge of good and evil is accepted and rises to the top? How do we know which understanding of good and evil is the true and correct understanding? How do we know if our own interpretations of what is good and what is bad won’t be influenced by peer pressure or the latest cultural fad? Without our objectively good and true King in the position of final authority and rule, things quickly descend back into chaos.
THE SERPENT KINGDOM AND GOD’S PEOPLE
In the creation narrative, we also learned that God rules by forming and filling His creation. In response to this kingdom truth, humans and creation bring glory to God in these 2 ways:
God’s people are designed to multiply and love one another.
God’s kingdom place was meant to extend God’s blessings to all nations.
Humans were commanded to be fruitful and multiply so that God’s people would continue to increase and His glory would spread to the ends of the earth. Now, under the rule of the serpent kingdom, the process of “multiplying” (childbirth and raising children) has become a painful, and sometimes life-threatening, experience.
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. - Genesis 3:16a
These multiplying image-bearers were meant to cooperate and express their ruling authority over the earth so that we all could partner with God and watch His glory spread across His place. In the serpent kingdom, instead of using their rule over creation, humanity would now express their powerful rule over one another creating disharmony and hostility. God says to the woman:
Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. - Genesis 3:16b
This week, we will see how this disharmony and hostility will routinely spiral out of control and spread the effects of the kingdom of the serpent all over the world.
THE SERPENT KINGDOM AND GOD’S PLACE
In the creation narrative, we learned that God rules by creating. In response to this kingdom truth, humans and creation bring glory to God in these 2 ways:
God’s people are designed to create and contribute to the kingdom on His behalf.
God’s kingdom place provided the materials needed for people to create for the glory of God.
In God’s kingdom place, humanity was meant to harvest earth’s plentiful natural resources. The design of creation was to facilitate the fruitfulness and flourishing of God’s image bearers. Here is God’s new description of His kingdom place as a result of humans bending the knee to the kingdom of the serpent:
And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. - Genesis 3:17-18
God designed humans to create and contribute in His kingdom place as an endeavor that would yield tremendous blessing. Instead, God curses the ground and human work is met with resistance, pain, toil, and eventually death.
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. - Genesis 3:19
Here is the point...
Adam and Eve - our human parents - abused God’s rule delegated to them by completely abandoning His kingdom rule, by bending the knee to the serpent, and by crowning themselves on their own thrones.
In response, humans have become a people that will multiply in disharmony and hostility toward one another, extending the kingdom of the serpent across the world.
In response, God’s place has become incredibly resistant to the human effort to work and keep it as we toil to bring our own glory, but ultimately bring our deaths.
It’s at this point that many doubts about Christianity arise. “If there is a God who is in control of all things, why didn’t He stop humans from choosing sin? Did He create humans to fail and does that mean He really does not love us at all? Did He know we would experience pain and suffering throughout the world and do nothing about it?” These questions typically come up because we, as descendants of Eve, the mother of all living, can all relate to this bleak existence described in Genesis 3. It is the human experience for you and for me so long as we live in this world that has been affected by the kingdom of the serpent. While peering into the mind of God may be difficult, a much greater question is whether or not there is any hope to be found? Will God do something about this or does He delight in watching the human project fail?
GOD’S RESPONSE: THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM
In the opening verses of the creation narrative, we learned that God rules over all things! In response to this kingdom truth, humans and creation bring glory to God in these 2 ways:
God’s people are designed to love God and walk with Him as our Heavenly Father.
The Bible is all about the Lord establishing His kingdom place of residence with His people wherever they go.
Humanity abandoned their part in the relationship, yet God remains merciful!
Did you ever notice how God never directly curses the man or the woman? Even though God had every right to eternally curse humanity for choosing to follow the rule of the serpent, God chooses to forever curse the ground instead. God’s mercy towards our first human parents keeps the door slightly opened to His image-bearers for a rescue! Could it be that one day, humans could be brought out from the serpent kingdom and brought back into His kingdom family in order to walk with God in a loving relationship again? There is a glimmer of hope!
Additionally, it would have been easy for God to stop the entire creation project at this tragic fall within His kingdom place. Yet at the end of the chapter, God shows His mercy by merely cutting humans off from the Garden of Eden and access to the tree of life. So why is this merciful? God recognized that if Adam and Eve were to eat from the tree of life, they would live forever under the rule of sin. Yes, the exile from the Garden place serves as God’s punishment, but it also serves God’s mercy signaling that humans might one day return back to His kingdom place free from their choice to submit to the serpent. This too is a slight glimmer of hope!
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. - Genesis 3:22-24
Yet it still seems like this serpent needs to be dealt with once and for all lest the next generation of humans succumb to his kingdom rule.
In the immediate micro-context, God physically provides Adam and Eve with the skin of a killed (or “sacrificed”) animal to cover the guilt of their actions and their deep sense of shame that resulted. In this scene, God rules by creating - He creates a way to cover His image-bearers, pursue humanity, and meet them in their brokenness. He creates a way to restore His fallen image-bearers even in the midst of their own sin.
Genesis 3:20a And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
In the futuristic macro-context, God demonstrates the power of His rule over all things by cursing the serpent and then forming and filling a plan that was designed to crush the serpent and his kingdom rule. Genesis 3 contains what is called the protoeuangelion, or the “first gospel” promise! In this first iteration of the gospel message, God reveals His plan to delegate His rule to a specific image-bearing offspring of Eve so that this special “serpent-crushing” human would defeat the serpent kingdom once and for all. From the very beginning, God sets in motion the gospel plan to destroy the enemy and reestablish His own kingdom rule over all things! Pay attention to the mutual destruction of the one who will defeat the serpent.
Genesis 3:14-15 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
There is hope that one day, God will rescue His kingdom family of people.
There is hope that one day, God will return His family back into His kingdom place.
There is hope that one day, God will restore our delegated rule as image-bearers once more.
There is hope that one day, the serpent-crusher will come and reestablish God’s powerful rule and God’s kingdom over all!
Genesis 3 is unique in its acceptance of the difficult human experience of life under the kingdom of the serpent. It also explains the cause, the purpose, and the results of sin. While we may not have all the answers to explain God’s will behind the origin of sin and the serpent, we can find hope in Genesis 3 as it points us to the one thing that will give us the God-given strength we need to persevere in the midst of our current reality of sin and suffering all around us. There is hope in the good news of God’s mercy and in the one who would come to crush the serpent while allowing the serpent to bite his heel!
With the hope of God’s kingdom in mind, we now watch as the gospel of the kingdom unfolds! How would God actually pull off this rescue, return, restoration, and reestablishment in a world full of sinners?
Share the Gospel: Genesis 3 is unique in its acceptance of the difficult human experience of life under the kingdom of the serpent. It also explains the cause, the purpose, and the results of sin. While we may not have all the answers to explain God’s will behind the origin of sin and the serpent, we can find hope in Genesis 3 as it points us to the one thing that will give us the God-given strength we need to persevere in the midst of our current reality of sin and suffering all around us. There is hope in the good news of God’s mercy and in the one who would come to crush the serpent while allowing the serpent to bite his heel!
