The Dangers of Biblical Illiteracy

The Book of Genesis, particularly the first few chapters, is foundational to grasping the central message of the Bible.  So, in our ongoing series, the purpose of which is to better understand the gospel of salvation, we’re discussing the verses that explain the critical why of Christianity.  Why did Jesus have to die?  If we don’t understand the necessity of Christ’s death according to the Bible, then we can’t really explain the gospel.  And that seems to be a problem which some have perceived as growing, particularly scriptural illiteracy among evangelicals.  Dave, I don’t know how anyone can effectively witness without knowing the Book of Genesis.  Last week we looked at Verse 17, of Genesis, Chapter 2, in which God presented a condition to Adam and Eve, telling them that if they ate the fruit of a certain tree in the Garden of Eden the penalty for their disobedience would be death, spiritual death, which meant spiritual separation from God forever, and physical death which would begin with their first sin.  Some time after that Satan tempted Eve with lies.  Her response, as well as her husband’s is found in Genesis 3, beginning with verse 6.  “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.”  Well, there’s sin, there’s disobedience, there’s the first statement with regard to man’s sinning that we know about.  

Dave:

It is an account of sin entering the world, but you know it seemed to be justified.  It’s good for food, what could be wrong with eating food?  It was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise.

Tom:

So it’s good for her, or so she was told, but not by God.

Dave:

No, but God said don’t do it.  So the problem was they disobeyed God.  They rationalized, of course the serpent told them, but they rationalized, what could be wrong with this?  So God doesn’t know.  So when man thinks that he knows better than God, he’s in trouble.  That’s what we’re talking about in the scriptures, search the scriptures daily.  Some people think, well, it’s not all inspired but some of it is inspired so I will decide what part is inspired.  So that’s like Eve deciding that God didn’t know what He was saying when He said don’t eat the tree, he made a mistake.  I mean, it’s good for food, it will make me wise.  Another problem of course is imagining that a physical thing could produce wisdom.  Wisdom is not a physical quality, it’s not even a quality of intelligence, but it’s something else.  The Bible says if any man lack wisdom let him ask of God, and Eve thought she could get it by eating of this tree.  It’s the basis for all ritualism you know, that some physical act will produce spiritual life, spirituality.  But the basic problem is that it was just disobedience, plain disobedience and rationalizing it and justifying it from human wisdom.

Tom:

Dave, you’ve mentioned this before; it doesn’t seem like all that big a deal.  I can’t even think of something to compare it with, but it’s just taking a piece of fruit, taking a bite and offering it to, I mean, it’s not murder, it’s  not rape, it’s not something that we would say today, it’s not genocide of any kind, but it brought about all those things.  It was a major change in the universe, in creation.

Dave:

Often people justify their disobedience to the Word of God by saying that very thing—well, it’s not a big thing.  Wait a minute, if you would disobey God for not a big thing that’s even worse.  Now if there was some real big reason for disobeying God, maybe you could try to justify yourself, but if you’re going to disobey God, you’re going to thumb your nose at Him, you’re going to rebel against Him for something that is inconsequential, why can’t I let that go?  And this Garden was full of trees with food that was good to eat, that was pleasant to the eyes. Why not be content with that and why not obey God?  So we have — this is the heart of it, rejecting God’s Word, this is what God has said.  Now of course Eve had found a guru, I think, and I don’t think there is any doubt about it, she wanted to take that tree.  God had told her not to, don’t walk on the grass, well, that’s where people want to walk.  Don’t open this package; well that’s then what they want to do, [open] Pandora’s Box.  So I think she had always wanted it, and along comes a guru who tells her what she wants to hear.  And I think that’s the problem with most people in a cult.  They have found someone who is telling them what they want to hear.  If you rationally examine it, or you compare it with the Word of God, it isn’t true, but they want it and so when someone tells them, you know, and seemingly justifies it, a religious leader, this is the beginning, you could say of all cults.  This is an interpreter of the Bible, oh, you think God said that?Well let me tell you what God really said, and that’s how it all begins, and it’s a tragedy.

Tom:

Now the penalty is death, “the day you eat thereof you will surely die.”  We’ve talked about this penalty before.  The context here of this segment is why did Jesus have to die?  But before we get to that—let’s look at death, it’s separation from God forever, this disobedience.  They can say, oh well okay we blew it, God will forgive us, and then we will kind of get back to it, and so on.  But that’s not what happened.

Dave:

God takes it very seriously, and we need to take it very seriously as well.  We have all the evidence in the universe around us. There are definite physical laws, you know, you jump as high as you can, you do come back to this earth.  It would be a strange earth if sometimes when you jumped you just kept going.  You put certain chemicals together and you’ve got a definite reaction.  There are certain laws, the Law of Thermodynamics, for example.  We can count on it because God has prescribed some rules.  You can’t even play a game without rules with everybody.  You’ve got 2 teams, 11 men in each out there in the football field and they are each following different rules.  It isn’t going to work!  And then when the referee calls them for a penalty they complain that he’s being narrow-minded.  It just wouldn’t work!  So God has put rules on this universe, thank God that He has.  Well, isn’t it amazing then that people think that—but when it comes to going to heaven, when it comes to eternal life, when it comes to this matter of sin and redemption, there shouldn’t be any rules.  You know, you’ve got your religion, I’ve got mine, you’ve got your way to God, let’s be reasonable with one another.  Now wait a minute, it’s not with one another, it’s God himself.  And as we said earlier, you don’t negotiate with God, you don’t make a deal with God. When God says don’t eat of this tree, He means don’t eat of this tree, and He means that for our good.  He wants us to be in fellowship with Him, He wants us to partake of His life.  This is something that science can’t explain.  We don’t know what life is, but Jesus said a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of fame that he possesses.  A man’s life is spiritual, really, in the final analysis and that only comes from God.  So now man is separated from God.  God cannot tolerate this!  I mean what it would be if God allows rebellion in His universe.  It’s a horrible world that we have now and God is going to bring an end to this one of these days as he did with Sodom and Gomorrah.  So this seems like a very small thing, but they are disobeying God.  God has to be God, and in fact they did become little gods, you know, we’ve got about 6 billion little gods running around this world, each one ruling over his own little empire. And because of that we have a clash of egos, husband against wife, parents against children, brother against brothers or sister, and nation against nation, murder, rape, self-centeredness.  Eve was very selfish at this point, she didn’t even consult Adam, but all she was interested in was something for herself.  As you mentioned earlier, Satan didn’t tempt with immorality, he tempted her with a high self-esteem, he tempted her with becoming god-like, becoming wise, and this is the self-centeredness of this whole thing.  This is where self had its awful birth, and this is why Jesus said, Except ye deny self, take up the cross and follow me, you can’t be my disciple.  So it’s a very serious thing to disobey God.

Tom:

So the separation that came about, which we mentioned earlier, it’s spiritual separation, they were separated from God forever.  The death process began. Adam lived to 900 and some years, I am not sure how many.  So the process of death, separation from God forever began.

Dave:

Well, in fact the spiritual separation from God affected our physical bodies.

Tom:

Verse 7, it says, “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked….”  Here was the very thing that God didn’t want, He didn’t want them to know or understand or have anything to do with evil, but now because they had sinned, they had an understanding of evil which, well, the scripture says, “the wages of sin is death.”

Dave:

—“And they sewed fig leaves together” to try to patch it up.  You can’t patch it up Tom; we can’t patch up this world.

Tom:

Again, this has to do with self, they were trying to cover themselves, cover their sin with what they were going to do.  It’s really in a sense, it’s works righteousness, although it’s hardly righteous at the time.  

Dave:

It won’t work.

Tom:

Dave, we’re just about out of time.  What we are pursuing here is why Jesus had to die.  Death had entered the universe through the sin that we just talked about, and God brings the solution. He brings the only solution that we have to be reconciled to Him after this sin.