Pandora’s Box Genesis 3:1-13
I was scanning the radio stations the other day and came upon one that was playing all Christmas music all the time. We cannot deny Christmas is right around the corner. Someone once said to me as glorious as Christmas is, if we did not need Jesus and the cross on Good Friday we would not have Christmas. And that is a true statement.
We are going to enter Advent, the time in the Christian year to prepare ourselves for the birth of our savior. And I think that in order to do that realistically we need to look at why we need we need a savior and then what our savior accomplished for us.
Genesis 1 tells how God created heaven and earth. Genesis 2 tells how God created man and woman. And then in Genesis 3 we have the fall. Sin entered our lives. So what really happened that day that is defined as sin?
We’re told Adam and Eve ate an apple. There are two things here that I noticed; one, the Bible just says fruit; somehow it came down to us as an apple. Second, if you read carefully you will notice the woman doesn’t have a name yet.
Genesis 1:27, “God created mankind in his image…male and female he created them.” The word “mankind” in Hebrew is Ha-Adam; this is where we get the name Adam. God uses the same word to describe them both. Ha-Adam, mankind, two halves of a whole. Adam doesn’t give his wife the name Eve; in Hebrew Chauvah, which means life until after the fall. Anyway, to keep it simple Adam and Eve ate the apple and sin entered the world.
Adam and Eve were under God’s grace, God provided everything, and as a loving God surely he could forgive this, so what happened?
God gave us free choice and through that free choice we see our human nature. It was through the eating of the fruit that our nature was fully exposed. We know what we should and should not do and we choose the wrong option. And it is that part of our nature that we cannot get away from, and that is the root of our sin. And it is this failure to choose God’s way that allowed other things to enter the world that day, in essence, eating the fruit opened ‘Pandora’s Box”
Genesis 3:10, “Adam tells God, ‘I heard you in the garden and I was ashamed…’”
Shame entered the world. Our shame is our fear of being exposed for doing something wrong, our fear of being held accountable. And it is our shame that exposes our actions as sin.
Genesis 3:6, “When the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining knowledge…”
The fall exposes our pride. The fruit was pleasing to look at, it was pretty. We all can want “pretty” things; and we can all go after them whether or not they’re good for us.
It was desirable for gaining knowledge. In other words, God had something they wanted. We can all be this way too. We see others with more power, influence, possessions; I’m just as good as you, I want those too.
Pride, but also envy and jealousy. We want what others have because we’re envious, they have something we don’t. We’re jealous, we want what they have.
The fall also exposes our nature to avoid blame, our nature to try to pass blame on to others.
Genesis 3:12, “The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the ‘”
Let’s just back up a few lines to verse 6, “she also gave some to her husband, who was with her…” The serpent deceived Ha-Adam, all mankind.
All mankind has temptation, what tempts you may be different than what tempts me, but all Ha-Adam, all mankind gives in to something, and we can all be tempted to blame someone else for our mistakes. I never would have thrown the rock through that window if you didn’t tell me to.
And it’s interesting that this nature of blaming others goes hand in hand with our shame; we blame others to keep from feeling shame. Look at Adam, verse 12, “…the woman…” Adam was there the whole time yet tries to put all the blame on her. Adam goes even farther, “…the woman you put here…” He’s trying to blame God for his actions. Have we ever done that? God, you shouldn’t have let me do that.
And by making a differentiation between himself and his wife, by blaming someone who is different, prejudice entered the world. They look different, it’s their fault. They live different, it’s their fault.
Reading this one could wonder why God just didn’t say “Well, that didn’t work out, back to dust you go, I’ll start over.” God loved Adam and Eve, God loves HA-Adam, all mankind unconditionally since day one and that love is greatest at the cross.
So our sinful nature is us making wrong choices, shame, pride, and prejudice. Jesus takes all of these to the cross.
In Matthew 26:39 Jesus is praying in Gethsemane, “My father, if it is possible may this cup be taken from me. But not as I will, but as you will.”
Jesus is God, of course it’s possible but he chooses the Father’s way. The human Jesus shows us how we can be tempted to go against God, the God Jesus shows us we should always choose God’s way.
Matthew 27:28-29, “They stripped him and twisted a crown of thorns and placed it on his head…then they knelt down in front of him and mocked him.” This would be shameful for anyone. Jesus is God yet he endured this shame by men even though he did nothing wrong so that even when we do something wrong we never have to be ashamed before God.
Luke 22:70, “They all asked, ‘Are you the Son of God?’ He replied, ‘You say that I am.’”
Jesus could have let pride dictate his actions, “You want to know if I’m the Son of God, let me show you!” He could have created great fissures in the earth or great storms to pass by, but Jesus gives up his pride and dies as a criminal on the cross so we will not feel pride in what we can do but we will feel pride in what he did for us.
Jesus is God, the most powerful presence in the universe yet he gave up everything on the cross so we will see that power, so we will realize where true power resides, and so we will not be envious and jealous of others.
Luke 23:24, “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus could have just as easily said, “I die here because of the sin you do!” Jesus went to the cross because the Father designed it that way. He didn’t blame it on our sin, and because of this we don’t have to blame our sins on others. Because Jesus didn’t blame the cross on our sin we can stand before God and say, “I sinned” And we will know God still loves us and he always will.
John 19:26 “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple he said, ‘Here is your mother.” From the cross Jesus is removing those prejudices that came at the fall and reestablishes one Ha-Adam, one mankind, one family. Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” All Ha-Adam, all mankind; all the same, equal in the eyes of God. The message Jesus gives us, the message reinforced by Paul: all mankind is the same, there is no difference between me and anyone else in the world.
Sin came into the world because Adam and Eve exposed our nature by choosing against God and this opened the Pandora’s Box of shame, pride, blame and prejudice. Jesus at the cross deals with all these by his sacrifice.
We may choose against God but by faith in Jesus and the cross our transgressions cannot condemn us. Because of this, as believers we don’t need to be ashamed before God, he doesn’t denounce us for our mistakes.
Through Jesus giving up everything on the cross we can see where and in who true power resides. We can release pride in our accomplishments and have pride in Jesus accomplishment. We can let go of envy and jealousy and know God is in control.
Because Jesus went to the cross not blaming us for our sin, we can stand up, take responsibility and not blame others for our mistakes. And we can have confidence in knowing God will not change how he sees us or how much he loves us.
And from the cross Jesus places us into one big family, all the same, all equal.
As humans our nature was exposed by Ha-Adam in the garden. As Christians our nature was expunged by Jesus at the cross.