Part 4: Sin

[Intro: It’s a fine day today, so Bible study is happening outdoors.]

Iino: Spike!!

Gō: Let’s play soccer, not volleyball!

Doc: Hey guys, why don’t we make a start?

According to the Bible, the world God created was “very good”, but that seems true no longer. What would you say are the biggest problems in our world today?

Iino: What about war?

Iino: All I see on TV these days is heart-wrenching news like that. 

Yoshiya: You’re right, but even if it doesn’t escalate that far, I reckon the problem starts in people’s hearts. The hostility and hatred people have for one another; even in our own families, wherever you look there is strife. 

Gō: What about natural disasters? It feels like lately they’ve been particularly devastating. It’s a big issue.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “sin” (tsumi)?

Iino: Crimes.

Gō: I thought you might say that!

Iino: What do you mean? What’s wrong with my answer?

Yoshiya: “Sin” (tsumi) in the Bible is actually different from committing a crime. Right, Doc?

Doc: Yes. Today, let’s take a look at what the Bible has to say about sin. Last time we saw that God created human beings as his “image”. As the “image” of God, humanity was made to reflect God’s glory, to represent God to the world, and to relate to God in the “very good” uchi fellowship established between God and human beings in paradise. God blessed the man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, with every good gift and in return they were to love, serve, and worship God in joyful obedience.

But in the garden of Eden, there was one thing prohibited. Iino, could you read the next passage for us?

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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.” 

Old Testament, Genesis 2:16-17

Why do you think God gave this command to Adam?

Iino: Isn’t this a bit of a trifling command though? It’s not on the same level as “don’t steal” or “don’t lie”. 

Doc: Haha! “Trifling”; that’s an interesting comment!

Doc: But yes, it’s not a particularly “moral” command, is it? Even so, what do you think is the reason that God gave this command?

Gō: Was it to test them? At the beginning in the garden of Eden humans had total freedom. God said to them, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden.” But this freedom they enjoyed in the garden was paradise under God’s rule and in obedience to him. So, didn’t God give this command to test them, to see if they would really obey him or not?

Yoshiya: Right. It makes sense that the Creator is the master and the created people are his servants.

Yoshiya: The Creator is superior to his creation by definition. I think the command was given to make that clear. 

Doc: Excellent ideas! Thanks for sharing them. We can see that humanity was created male and female. They were created not only to enjoy fellowship with God, but were also created to enjoy relationships with one another as man and woman, and God gave them authority over the rest of the creation. They were commissioned to extend God’s uchi fellowship-circle out from the garden to the ends of the earth. Nothing and no-one was to be left outside (soto).

Yoshiya: Yeah, but last time, we talked about how something went wrong somewhere.

Doc: You’re exactly right. Actually, Genesis chapter 3 is where everything changes. Here, it seems that one of God’s creatures has already turned his back on uchi fellowship with God, and has made himself an outlaw or outsider. In outright rebellion against God, he comes in the form of a serpent to tempt God’s image-bearers to follow him outside…

Let’s read what the Bible has to say. Gō, would you?

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Old Testament, Genesis 3:1-6

Why did the woman eat the fruit?

Iino: Because the serpent tempted her to. Until this point, she may have never even noticed the tree, but after listening to the serpent, she notices the tree, and it looks absolutely delicious.  

What tactics did the serpent use to persuade her to eat it?

Yoshiya: It used God’s words to ask, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’”? I think the serpent knew exactly what God had commanded, but it deliberately made God out to seem like a stingy character. 

Iino: I think Eve’s answer to the serpent was interesting. She answered, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it”, but actually, “you must not touch it” was not in God’s command, was it?

Gō: Yeah, and the two phrases, “lest you die” and “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” are different as well, aren’t they? The way Eve tells it, it sounds like the reason for not eating the fruit is to avoid having to die. The way I read it, God just commands them not to eat and tells them the consequence of disobedience, rather than the reason not to eat the fruit.

Yoshiya: Yeah, I agree with you, but I guess we kind of do the same thing as Eve did? For example, we’ve all heard people warn us, “Don’t be loud on the train: it’s a nuisance.” But we tend to hear this kind of warning as, “If you make yourself a nuisance on the train, someone’s going to get mad at you.” Just like God’s command: it was originally a “no-no” just because God said so, but Eve re-interpreted it as a reason for her not to eat: “If I eat this fruit, I’m going to die, and I don’t want that.”

Iino: Interesting. I can see what you’re saying. I think another one of the serpent’s tactics was to deny God’s word outright: “You will not surely die.” So, especially when Eve is thinking, “I don’t want to die, so I won’t touch the fruit,” the serpent takes away her only real reason for being obedient. Because if she’s not going to die when she eats the fruit, there’s no reason to obey the command any more.

Gō: And maybe she starts to think that the reason God told her not to eat the fruit was because it wasn’t in God’s interests for her to become like him.

Iino: I wonder if talking to the woman rather than the man was another one of the serpent’s tactics?

Doc: I think so. 

What was the man doing while the serpent spoke with the woman?

Gō: Well in verse 6 it says, “her husband who was with her.” So, he must have been there the whole time. Was he just standing there doing nothing?

What should he have done?

Yoshiya: When the serpent came close, he should have chased it away!

Iino: He should have gone running to God saying, “Emergency! Come and help!”

Gō: He should have killed the serpent!

Doc: You’re all right! If Adam had done any one of those things, we would have a different story, wouldn’t we? But unfortunately, he didn’t do anything. In fact, he took the fruit that she offered, and they ate it together. 

Genesis chapter 3 does not contain the word “sin”. But it is clearly a story about sin. What do we learn about the Bible’s understanding of “sin” from this story?

Gō: Sin is doing what God has said not to do. It’s a rebellion against him.

Iino: I see. So, even if you never committed a crime according to the law, you could still be sinning every day.

Doc: Exactly. And what I want you to notice is that sin is more of a heart problem than about individual acts. What do you think was happening in Eve’s heart before she took the fruit from the tree and ate it? 

Yoshiya: Well first, she was doubting God, wasn’t she? She thought about what God had said, about what the serpent had said, about which was right, and ultimately, she chose to obey the serpent.

Doc: Exactly. Because that’s what was in Eve’s heart, she took the fruit from the tree and ate it. And because Adam, who was by her side, took the fruit and ate it as well, we can assume that his heart was in the same place as hers. 

In response to the sin of Adam and Eve, God punishes them and their descendants. As part of that punishment, they are sent or driven outside (soto) the garden paradise. Let’s look at this passage in the Bible. Yoshiya, may I ask you to read?

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.

Old Testament, Genesis 3:22-24

Doc: The cherubim mentioned here are heavenly messengers or angels. But let’s take a second to think about what it means to know good and evil. What do you think that refers to?

Gō: Well, I don’t think it means that Adam and Eve didn’t even know what good and evil were before they ate the fruit.

Yoshiya: Yeah – I think they could surely tell right from wrong. They must have known that it was evil to do what God had forbidden.

Iino: Okay, then what does it mean?

Doc: To “know good and evil” in this sense is a bit like what a judge does. For a judge to make a ruling, they have to know or decide what is right and what is wrong. So, on a global level, who is able to make judgments like that?

Iino: God! I see. So, when Adam and Eve tried to “know good and evil”, they really wanted to be like God.

Why do you think God sent/drove the man (and woman) out of the garden?

Yoshiya: It says, “lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever”.

Gō: Because God didn’t want humans who make their own judgments about good and evil to live forever. 

Doc: The tree of life represents eternal life, God’s good uchi fellowship. In rebellion against God, forever making their own judgments about what is good and what is evil, human beings would be miserable. That wasn’t God’s intention for his creatures. So here we see his kindness in not allowing them to eat of the tree of life and live forever in this miserable state. God had a different plan. 

How is life different for the man and woman outside (soto) the garden?

Gō: Now, the man needs to “work the ground” just in order to live. But isn’t this also what humans were doing in the garden?

Yoshiya: True, but in Eden, they were laboring in paradise and in perfect conditions. Outside of Eden, now human work is a struggle.

Doc: Right. Let’s think again about how the Bible depicts sin. 

Is “sin” according to the Bible something you are familiar with personally? What about sin’s effects on your life and the lives of others around you?

Iino: It makes sense to me. When we first talked about sin earlier, I said that war is the world’s biggest problem. But as I’ve thought about it more during our conversation, maybe the deeper problem is that everyone thinks they are right, and everyone decides for themselves what is good and evil. 

How do you think God feels about human sin? And about your sin in particular?

Gō: I bet he’s sad about it. I mean, the humans he created “very good” and blessed so much turned against him. 

Yoshiya: Yeah, and I think he’s saddened by my sin too. 

Doc: Well, today, let’s end by reading a Bible passage from the Old Testament. In the latter half of the Old Testament, in Isaiah 51:3 (8th century B.C.), it says, 

“For the Lord comforts Zion [a poetic name for the city of Jerusalem];
he comforts all her waste places
and makes her wilderness like Eden,
her desert like the garden of the Lord;
joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the voice of song.” 

Doc: This suggests that there may be a way back to paradise after all. We’ll consider that possibility next time!

The ESV Bible. Crossway, 2001, www.esv.org/.