Written by Mitchell L. Chase |
Monday, June 26, 2023
While God’s creation is good, the corruption of sin and death has wreaked havoc. We see the sorrowful things of the world around us and we know that injustice cries out for justice, that fractured lives long for wholeness, and that the moral guilt weighing upon the consciences of God’s image-bearers needs a remedy. Genesis 3 is a useful apologetic for Christians as we help others around us see why things are the way they are.

This article is part of the 10 Things You Should Know series.
1. The fall refers to the rebellion of God’s image-bearers in the garden of Eden.
Genesis 3 is a threshold in the Bible’s storyline. While dwelling in a sacred space and surrounded by the blessings of God, Adam and Eve did what God had forbidden. God had made them in his image, but they defied his word and sought a kind of knowledge in an unsanctioned way. Made for communion with God, they experienced alienation. Made for trust and hope and life abundant, they descended into sin and shame. They fell.
2. The fall is a nonnegotiable piece of the Creation-Fall-Redemption-Consummation paradigm.
One of the most popular schemas for the Bible’s “big story” is the fourfold chain of words: creation, fall, redemption, consummation. Creation tells us what God made, the fall tells us what happened to it, redemption tells us what God has done to address what happened, and consummation tells us where everything is headed. If the notion of the fall were removed, the implications would be disastrous. Let’s engage in a thought experiment. If there is creation but no fall, then what explains all that has gone wrong in the world? If there is redemption but no fall, why would redemption be necessary? If there is consummation but no fall, why would the Christian’s hope be oriented toward a new heavens and new earth and resurrection life?
3. The serpent in Genesis 3 was Satan, the archnemesis of God and God’s people.
The tempter in Genesis 3 does not have the best interests of Adam and Eve in mind. The serpent counters and twists God’s words. But throughout the account, the tempter is never called by name. If interpreters suspect that this is Satan himself tempting Eve, they would be correct, because he is certainly the archenemy of God’s people and the purposes of God. The New Testament confirms this identification. God told the serpent that it would be crushed (Gen. 3:15), and Paul told the Romans that “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom. 16:20). John says in Revelation, “The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).
4. The fall is treated as a historical event by later Scripture.
Because the Holy Spirit has inspired the writings of Genesis through Revelation, and because God does not err, we can trust the biblical accounts in what they reveal about God and God’s dealings with the world he’s made. Later Scripture does not contradict earlier Scripture, but we continually see how earlier Scripture is clarified and confirmed by the progressive revelation across the writings of the biblical authors. In Romans 5:12–21, the obedience of Christ contrasts the disobedience of Adam. In 1 Corinthians 15:21, Paul says that “by a man came death.” And in 2 Corinthians 11:3 and 1 Timothy 2:14, he mentions the deception of Eve. The New Testament treats the Old Testament account of the fall as a historical rebellion of a real Adam and a real Eve.
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Written by Mitchell L. Chase |
Friday, June 23, 2023
By teaching the doctrine of the bodily resurrection, local churches will be casting a more accurate vision of future life. Better than going away to heaven is being raised to dwell forever with the Lord in a new creation. The new creation will be material, not just spiritual, so a life of embodied immortality fits with the future consummation. 

Biblical doctrine is not just for the head but for the heart, for daily life as a disciple of Jesus. So it is, too, with the doctrine of bodily resurrection. Thinking about the future will help us here and now. In local churches that are pursuing faithfulness to Christ, we will want to connect the importance of sound doctrine to the lives of our church members.
How, then, does the doctrine of bodily resurrection shape the life of the local church? Let’s reflect on four ways.
Preparing to Die
First, the doctrine of the bodily resurrection confronts us with the reality of death. Our local churches are filled with people heading toward the grave. Memorial services are held for the young and old. By giving attention to the Bible’s teaching on the bodily resurrection, local churches face the truth that our earthly lives will come to an end. After all, something won’t rise unless it has first died. The writer of Ecclesiastes is right: “All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return” (Eccl. 3:20).
Humans have an invincibility problem, especially when we’re young. We know people die, but we don’t imagine it will one day be true of us. Facing the truth of our mortality will sober our minds, and we need that effect often. A responsibility for local churches is preparing people to die. Our sermons and Bible studies, our catechisms and songs, must operate from an awareness of our perishable frame.
As people reflect on their coming death, fear is a normal and understandable response. People fear the fact of death, the process of death, the timing of death, and what their death will mean for those left behind. By teaching about the bodily resurrection, churches are arming and aiding their members who may be tempted to fear what is to come. Death is the end of earthly life, but local churches must preach and teach and exhort one another with the good news that earthly death will end as well.
Pointing Beyond Disembodiment
Second, the doctrine of the bodily resurrection aims our hope beyond the disembodiment of heaven. What are some popular conceptions about the life to come? Playing harps on clouds, becoming angels with wings, living forever away from this creation, or dwelling in some kind of ghostly or ethereal existence. These notions aren’t just believed by people outside the church. These are common notions among church attenders. Local churches have a responsibility to educate their people about what exactly our future hope entails.
Disembodiment is not the best thing about what is to come. At death, the believer goes to heaven. Death disrupts the union of soul and body.
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Written by Mitchell L. Chase |
Sunday, June 4, 2023
If we will spend time thinking about the intricacies of Genesis 3 and the interconnections across Scripture, we will see how pivotal this chapter is in the biblical storyline, and we will recognize the many notions that grow out of the garden ground. If we situate the fall in Scripture’s storyline effectively, an exploration of Genesis 3 will result in greater joy in the good news about Jesus. By tuning our ears to creation’s groanings, our hope will be stirred along the way.

When a floating shelf fell from our living room wall, we heard multiple sounds at the same time. The small clay pot cracked, the frame with the picture crashed, the shelf itself was especially loud, the candleholder clattered, and a short rectangular wooden sign whacked the floor. Sitting in the living room as this happened, my wife and I jumped up to intervene and deal with the mess. It turns out that one of our sons had been on the other side of the wall and banged it at the right—or wrong—spot, causing the shelf to shift and collapse under the weight of its contents.
Not every fall is the same. But the more items involved and the greater their weight, the louder the crash and more numerous the sounds.
What would a breaking world sound like? And how long would the sounds of such a fall last?
Genesis 3 gives Bible readers the explanation of what happened between Genesis 2 and 4. The middle chapter ushers us into different conditions. In Genesis 2, the man and woman are together and without shame and in covenant with each other. The garden has plentiful food, there is a commission to multiply and subdue, and there is a benevolent Creator, whose words of wisdom will be life and peace for his image bearers. Then in Genesis 4, an older brother murders his younger brother, and this tragedy happens after the elder’s sacrifice is rejected while the younger’s is accepted.
What explains the transition from peace to tragedy? What accounts for the rise of wickedness? The content of Genesis 3. It’s the scene that changes everything for everyone. It’s the part of the movie that has such explanatory power, you’re just confused if you return after leaving the room for a few minutes.
During a series of talks addressing temptation, D. A. Carson once said:
What’s the importance of Genesis 3 to our thinking? The primary importance is that it sets the stage for the entire Bible storyline. Problems and solutions must match. If you want to understand what the Gospel is about, what Jesus is about, what the cross achieves, then you must understand the nature of the problem they address.1
There are different ways to conceive of the Bible’s storyline. You can think of the Old Testament as what anticipates Jesus and the New Testament as what announces his arrival. You can view Scripture as the epic of God’s redemptive story where he promises, advances, and then fulfills his plan to raise up a Savior for sinners. You can notice how the Bible begins with the story of creation and ends with the hope of new creation.
One helpful and popular way to conceive of the Bible’s storyline is with four words: creation, fall, redemption, consummation. What would consummation mean without our understanding of what was reaching a culmination?
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