Genesis 3:13

THE EXCUSE OF THE TEMPTED

‘And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’

Genesis 3:13

I. The record before us is the History of the First Sin.—It needed no revelation to tell us that sin is, that mankind is sinful. Without, within, around, and inside us, is the fact, the experience, the evidence, the presence of sin. It is sin which makes life troublous and gives death its sting. The revelation of the Fall tells of an entrance, of an inburst of evil into a world all good, into a being created upright—tells, therefore, of a nature capable of purity, of an enemy that may be expelled, and of a holiness possible because natural. From man’s fall we infer a fall earlier yet and more mysterious. Once sin was not; and when it entered man’s world it entered under an influence independent, not inherent.

II. The First Sin is also the Specimen Sin.—It is in this sense, too, the original sin, that all other sins are copies of it. Unbelief first, then disobedience; then corruption, then self-excusing; then the curse and the expulsion—turn the page and you shall find a murder!

III. The Original Sin is also the Infectious Sin.—The New Testament derives this doctrine from the history, that there is a taint or corruption in the race by reason of the Fall; that it is not only a following of Adam by the deliberate independent choice of each one of us which is the true account of our sinning; but this rather—an influence and infection of evil, derived and inherited by us from all that ancestry of the transgressor. Not one man of all the progeny of Adam has drawn his first breath or his latest in an atmosphere pure and salubrious. Before, behind him, around and above, there has been the heritage of weakness, the presence and pressure of an influence in large part evil. Fallen sons of a fallen forefather, God must send down His hand from above if we are to be rescued ever out of these deep, these turbid waters.

Dean Vaughan.

Illustration

(1) ‘It is pitiful to read in the narrative how, when asked regarding their sin, the man sought to put the blame on the woman. “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” That is often the way—when a man has done wrong he blames somebody else. A drunkard said it was his wife’s fault, for she was not sociable at home and he went out evenings to find somebody to talk with. A young man fell into sin and said it was the fault of his companions who had tempted him. No doubt a share of guilt lies on the tempter of innocence and inexperience. Yet temptation does not excuse sin. We should learn that no sin of others in tempting us will ever excuse our sin. No one can compel us to do wrong.’

(2) ‘At once upon the dark cloud breaks the light. No sooner had man fallen than God’s thought of redemption appears. “It shall bruise thy head.” This fifteenth verse is called the protevangelium, the first promise of a Saviour. It is very dim and indistinct, a mere glimmering of light on the edge of the darkness. But it was a gospel of hope to our first parents in their sorrow and shame. We understand now its full meaning. It is a star-word as it shines here. A star is but a dim point of light as we see it in the heavens, but we know it is a vast world or centre of a system of worlds. This promise hides in its far-awayness all the glory of the after-revealings of the Messiah. As we read on in the Old Testament we continually find new unfoldings, fuller revealings, until by and by we have the promise fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ.’