ORIGINAL SIN

When I looked at the story of mankind’s original sin, in the book of Genesis, that we’ve heard tonight, I was struck by its astonishing depth. It sets out to depict and dramatise the broken state of affairs that seems to be true of us and our relationship with the God who made us. With supreme simplicity, it accounts for such a lot that we are familiar with in our human life and experiences – the toil, the pain, and above all the aching sense of loss.

It’s a gem of a story, like a jewel, perfect in every detail, but like a gem tough to break into. If you try, an awful lot of questions get thrown up, most of which are completely unanswerable: questions such as ‘How did evil get into the world seeing as God made all of it?’ or ‘Is the fall part of God’s plan?’ You see how impossible they are to answer. So I was a bit stuck to know what to say, until I thought, well, what if there hadn’t been a fall? What if there was no such thing as original sin?

So I’d like to take you down that path. You may find, as I did, that it’s a dead end, not leading anywhere. But you may also find some of the ideas we pass along the way to be thought-provoking. That’s how they struck me anyway. So I invite you to sit back and enjoy my very own alternative Bible. It’s original certainly; it’s probably very sinful, too. But my hope is that it leads you, as it led me, to realize again what a mysterious way God moves in.

We take up the story where it started tonight:- The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she was tempted in her mind, and communed with herself, saying, “How can I be sure whether to obey God or to believe the words that the serpent has spoken to me? I will take some of the fruit and bring it to my husband.”

So she took some of the fruit, and although she desired it mightily, she did not eat it, but instead she took it to Adam and said, “Husband, look, this is some fruit taken from the tree in the middle of the garden. Will you eat it?” Now when Adam saw how his wife offered him the beautiful fruit in her hands, he looked up into her eyes and said, “Woman, what have you done? Did the LORD God not forbid us to eat of this fruit? How, then, have you disobeyed him?”

And Eve replied, “The serpent came to me in the garden, saying, ‘You will not die when you eat this fruit, for God knows that when you do your eyes will be opened, and you will be like him, knowing good and evil.’”

And Adam, hearing these words, fell silent, for he too desired to understand how to judge between good and evil. “For behold,” he said, “the LORD God has put us here to work in the garden and to take care of it. But how can we know whether our work is pleasing in his sight unless we can also tell good from evil? How long will we continue in God’s favour if we continually do what is evil in his sight out of ignorance?”

But Eve, knowing her husband’s thoughts, said, “Has not the LORD God made us himself? We are formed from the very dust of the earth which is the work of his own hands. How can what he has made contain even the tiniest part of evil? For us to work evil, must there not have been evil planted in us by God? And this cannot be, since God is all goodness, and cannot bring forth from himself the seeds of evil.”

Adam lifted up his heart and replied, “Fair consort, you are both lovely and full of a deep wisdom. I will not disobey the LORD God and eat the forbidden fruit. So may we never die, but remain in peace together in this garden for all eternity.”

And the man and his wife went to seek the LORD God to tell him of their faithfulness. And as they went they sang this hymn: O great and mighty God, Who has formed everything from nought, From your everlasting goodness, We praise you and bless you for giving us life, For putting only your wisdom in our hearts, And for sparing us the pain of free-will. We seek you now to you offer our obedience, Not because we have chosen it, But because that is how you made us: we have no choice.

And the LORD God came near and saw that the woman still had the fruit in her hand. And Eve trembled because she remembered that God had said, “You must not eat it, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” But God said to her, “Be not troubled in your heart, for actually I did not say, ‘You must not touch it,’ but only, ‘You must not eat it.’

Because you have done this, “Blessed are you above all my creatures, for by holding in your hands the fruit that can bring the knowledge of good and evil, but yet not eating of it, you have resisted temptation to the uttermost, You will live forever in perfect peace with your husband Adam, working in and caring for this garden where I have set you to be. Thorns and thistles you will never see. Though you are made of dust, you will never return to dust, but will continue just as you are now, perfect, for all time.”

Now, since the eyes of both of them were not opened, they did not realize that they were naked. They never made any coverings for themselves, so that clothes were a thing unknown. When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness; and he named him Seth, and during the 800 years after Seth was born, he had many other sons and daughters.

All of his sons and daughters lived in constant harmony, and not one of them knew death. So generation was added to generation, and in the ninth generation was born a boy named Noah.

Now Noah had a warning from God that he was going to send rain upon the earth. “Seven days from now I will send rain upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. Now I can see that all I have made is good, and there are many of you now, so you and your helpers must make a flotilla of numerous vessels to float upon the water until the floods recede, for I would not cause any harm to my people, or to anything that lives upon the earth.”

After further generations, there arose prophets, who spoke of God’s purposes, saying, “The word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘Behold, you are all very good. Continue to exist in perfect peace and harmony, as you work together to enlarge the garden you all live in. I am the changeless one, and will not change anything in what I have made. Those of you who live somewhere near the forbidden tree in the centre of the garden, remember my words to your forefather Adam, for he who makes no mistakes does not learn from them. Just continue to increase and multiply as I commanded you in the beginning.”

The story goes on in much the same way: perfect kings, no threats from outsiders (of course there weren’t any outsiders), men and women of unimpeachable honour, living endlessly blameless lives, having a non-stop succession of perfectly behaved children.

By the beginning of the first century AD when God’s own son visited the earth, there was beginning to be, even by then, rather serious overcrowding. Jesus did not have any teaching or good news to impart. When the crowds heard the message that God’s kingdom was near, they experienced no joy, as there was no need for them to be rescued or redeemed. They needed no encouragement. You see, they already lived as God’s subjects.

Later on, others arose to proclaim God’s greatness. One man, named Paul, wrote several long letters to his friends. One of the best known is addressed to “You intelligent Galatians.” But these writings contained nothing new or controversial. They did not seek to change attitudes or to bring comfort, as this was not necessary. They do not require interpretation or discussion. There are certainly no sermons preached.

As for the future, well, we don’t know what it has in store for us. It’s getting quite hard to move around, as there are so many of us. There’s a chap called John who thinks that we’re going to have to get used to the idea of moving out of our garden. He says we’ll have to start living an urban lifestyle in gigantic buildings in a gigantic city. It could be quite lively, I suppose, but I don’t really understand much about it.

Here ends the alternative Bible! It’s not the truth. It’s only one idea of how things would be if Adam and Eve had not sinned. And as we all know very well indeed, it isn’t the way God runs his world. You may know of a remarkable mediaeval carol called ‘Adam lay y-bounden’. The words go something like this:- Adam lay bound, bound in a bond 4000 winters thought he not too long. And all was for an apple, an apple that he took, Well, that’s what the clerics find, written in their book. But, had the apple never taken been, Then Mary would never have been heaven’s queen. Blessed be the time the apple was taken. For that we must sing, ‘Thanks be to God.’

Now. whether or not you go along with those words, the longer you stay with the story of the fall, the deeper and more mysterious the truth you find within it. When you reflect on how God’s plan has actually unfolded through the ages, a plan far greater than you or I can comprehend; when you reflect that this plan culminates in the redemption brought by Jesus to sinners everywhere, to a world so broken by sin that being told of the nearness of God’s kingdom really does feel like good news; when you reflect upon all of this, the more appropriate become the words of that great hymn, ‘God – truly – moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.’