Expositions of Holy Scripture | Page 5

unhindered. So
long as God's 'Thou shalt not, lest thou die' rings in the ears, the eyes
see little beauty in the sirens that sing and beckon. But once that awful
voice is deadened, they charm, and allure to dally with them.
In the undeveloped condition of primitive man temptation could only
assail him through the senses and appetites, and its assault would be the

more irresistible because reflection and experience were not yet his.
But the act of yielding was, as sin ever is, a deliberate choice to please
self and disobey God. The woman's more emotional, sensitive,
compliant nature made her the first victim, and her greatest glory, her
craving to share her good with him whom she loves, and her power to
sway his will and acts, made her his temptress. 'As the husband is, the
wife is,' says Tennyson; but the converse is even truer: As the wife is,
the man is.
3. The fatal consequences came with a rush. There is a gulf between
being tempted and sinning, but the results of the sin are closely knit to
it. They come automatically, as surely as a stream from a fountain. The
promise of knowing good and evil was indeed kept, but instead of its
making the sinners 'like gods,' it showed them that they were like beasts,
and brought the first sense of shame. To know evil was, no doubt, a
forward step intellectually; but to know it by experience, and as part of
themselves, necessarily changed their ignorant innocence into bitter
knowledge, and conscience awoke to rebuke them. The first thing that
their opened eyes saw was themselves, and the immediate result of the
sight was the first blush of shame. Before, they had walked in innocent
unconsciousness, like angels or infants; now they had knowledge of
good and evil, because their sin had made evil a part of themselves, and
the knowledge was bitter.
The second consequence of the fall is the disturbed relation with God,
which is presented in the highly symbolical form fitting for early ages,
and as true and impressive for the twentieth century as for them. Sin
broke familiar communion with God, turned Him into a 'fear and a
dread,' and sent the guilty pair into ambush. Is not that deeply and
perpetually true? The sun seen through mists becomes a lurid ball of
scowling fire. The impulse is to hide from God, or to get rid of thoughts
of Him. And when He is felt to be near, it is as a questioner, bringing
sin to mind. The shuffling excuses, which venture even to throw the
blame of sin on God ('the woman whom Thou gavest me'), or which try
to palliate it as a mistake ('the serpent beguiled me'), have to come at
last, however reluctantly, to confess that 'I' did the sin. Each has to say,
'I did eat.' So shall we all have to do. We may throw the blame on
circumstances, weakness of judgment, and the like, while here, but at
God's bar we shall have to say, 'Mea culpa, mea culpa.'

The curse pronounced on the serpent takes its habit and form as an
emblem of the degradation of the personal tempter, and of the perennial
antagonism between him and mankind, while even at that first hour of
sin and retribution a gleam of hope, like the stray beam that steals
through a gap in a thundercloud, promises that the conquered shall one
day be the conqueror, and that the woman's seed, though wounded in
the struggle, shall one day crush the poison- bearing, flat head in the
dust, and end forever his power to harm. 'Known unto God are all his
works from the beginning,' and the Christ was promised ere the gates of
Eden were shut on the exiles.

EDEN LOST AND RESTORED
'So He drove out the man: and He placed at the east of the garden of
Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep
the way of the tree of life.' --GENESIS iii. 24.
'Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right
to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.'
REVELATION xxii. 14.
Better is the end of a thing than the beginning.' Eden was fair, but the
heavenly city shall be fairer. The Paradise regained is an advance on
the Paradise that was lost. These are the two ends of the history of man,
separated by who knows how many millenniums. Heaven lay about
him in his infancy, but as he journeyed westwards its morning blush
faded into the light of common day--and only at eventide shall the sky
glow again with glory and colour, and the western heaven at last
outshine the