Welcome again to Things Unseen. This week we're thinking about what Christians have long

referred to as the Fall, the events described in Genesis chapter 3. As a young Christian I grew up

not knowing one Bible commentary from another, and I confessed that the first one volume commentary

I bought when I was in my mid teens, I bought because it was cheap, and I didn't know it was

full of old fashioned liberalism until I took it home and then discovered that it viewed the

events of Genesis chapter 3 as what they called etological myths. That is, for example, a story made

up to explain why snakes slither rather than walk. But the truth is that if Genesis doesn't record

actual historical events, the rest of the Bible begins to fall to pieces, including the teaching

of Jesus and the apostles. So, for example, while Genesis 3 verse 21 doesn't give us details of the

divine tailoring by which God made garments of skins for Adam and Eve after they had sinned,

it does tell us that these events really took place in our world.

So, what we read in the early chapters of Genesis is a record of once and for all events,

just as once and for all as the incarnation and the crucifixion and the resurrection.

But that said, at the same time it's clear that there are important patterns in what happened

in the Garden of Eden. In scripture teaches us that there's a pattern of disobedience and its

consequences here that Christ had to come to reverse in order to save and restore us in the world,

and the New Testament records and explains how he did that.

So, while Genesis 3 records specific events in the temptation of Adam and Eve, I think we're

right to see a pattern here of the way in which Satan continues to tempt us as God's people.

We saw one element of that. Yesterday, he uses God's best gifts to tempt us to make bad choices.

Not under Genesis 3 calls the serpent the craftiest beast of the field.

Today, I want to draw attention to a statement Paul makes in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 11.

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