Eternal life is innocence restored (Journey to Eternity #1)

There has been so much extra-Biblical speculation about the implications of the Garden of Eden story that it’s very hard to read the story on its own terms. When I was a kid, I couldn’t get over how ridiculous it was for God to be mad enough to burn billions of people in hell over a stupid apple. Well, it would be ridiculous if that were the truth. But if we read the actual text of Genesis 3, it offers us a brilliant allegorical illustration of the loss of innocence and trust that every human being goes through and which God is . A written summary for last weekend’s sermon is below. Here is the audio:

Original sin, part 3: What really happened in Eden?

On many movie DVD’s, there is an option to watch the film with a running commentary from the director and the actors. I often feel like we’re watching the “with commentary” version of the film whenever we read the story of Eden in Genesis 2-3, because the actual words of the text are usually drowned out by the background noise of the Reformers reading Augustine reading Paul reading Genesis. For Eden’s commentators, the focus is entirely upon Adam and Eve’s disobedience of God. Every other detail is mostly superfluous. When I read the story, however, I see the accent falling in a very different place, because Adam and Eve “die” when their eyes are opened to their nakedness (Genesis 3:7).