Rescue from the Fall: A Meditation on Genesis 3 and Mark 3

From the readings for this week, Genesis 3 and Mark 3 make an interesting distinction.  In Genesis 3, we have the sad and familiar story of mankind’s Fall into sin.  Not merely a transgression against the Word of God which forbade Adam and Eve to eat from that Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but a horrible new slavery to which their newly opened eyes could not turn away.  The devil, guised as a serpent, deceived Eve into lusting after divine prerogatives, and she having succumbed to the devil’s temptation, led her husband into the same.  The consequences of their Fall extended not only to themselves, but to the whole human race which would descend from them, so that every male and female child ever to be born would be infected with their sin and death, slaves to the devil who had deceived them.  The Fall of mankind is not just an ancient tale to be allegorized, but a real and penetrating horror that no person can escape.  The Fall of mankind is the advent of death, where the devil, a murderer from the beginning, becomes a master of mankind’s new weakness toward sin, and his natural inclination away from his Maker.

This fallen state into which we are born is evidenced in every human breast:  that heart which first beats in the mother’s womb, shall stop beating someday.  Be they old or young, wealthy or poor, male or female, powerful or weak, that heart will someday stop beating and their breath will leave them.  There is no mythical age of accountability to soften the blow—even babies in their mother’s wombs die before they are born, and children of tender years perish in both accidents and disease, or at the hands of wicked men.  The problem of the Fall persists in every human person, such that we have become twisted from our original design.  We no longer yearn with all of our being toward the good and the beautiful and the true, but rather our hearts become captivated by the ugly, the perverse, the tortured, and the evil.  No longer content with our identity created in the image of the only true God, we are enamored with titles and honors heaped back and forth between sinful men and their corrupted institutions.  No longer at peace in the love of God, we prefer the taste of twisted lust.  Succumbed to the deadly poison of sin, there is no level of our being which is uncorrupted, no passion or talent or intellect devoid of its putrescence.  Dead and dying inheritors of hell, we fall not only from our vaunted position as the crown of God’s good creation, but we fall under the lesser power and manipulation of the devil, who having tricked our race into imbibing his poison, now uses it to both allure, to accuse, and to destroy us.  The devil, with his legions of fallen angels, fearfully mighty even in their great wickedness, become not only our irresistible slave masters, but the ceaseless voice of accusation which calls for our eternal condemnation before a just and holy God.

To read Mark 3 in its proper poignancy, one must first grasp Genesis 3 in all its terror.  It is far too easy to forget that the world is fallen, and we along with it are fallen slaves of the evil one.  We have given ourselves the wonders of modern technology, and with it, cocooned our pride into believing we are our own saviors—that there is no real God, at least not of any significance, and that the devil is a myth of the dark age nincompoops.  We watch rockets blast off for other worlds, fight diseases with chemicals, administer nations with philosophy, and build our own Babel to show forth our presumptuous divinization.  But amidst all the wonders and baubles which distract and delude our intellect, the evil one still lurks, still deceives, still manipulates.  And when we have exhausted ourselves in endless pursuits of pride, lust, envy, avarice, greed, gluttony, perversion, sloth, and their innumerable variations, the dark voice of the accuser whispers our condemnation into our terrified shell of a body, even as that last flicker of life passes from us.  The devil, content to destroy as many as he may by whatever means are most convenient, cheers us along in our impotent self idolatry, then speaks the word of the Law’s condemnation before the Holy Judge.  It is only we who are fooled—God is not mocked, and whatever we sow, we shall reap.

What hope can there be for anyone?  With Almighty God as our Judge, and the devil as our accuser, what hope can mankind ever have of escaping death and hell?  Ah, but this is the beauty of Mark 3.  Who is it that shall come and offer life in the place of death?  Who will come to exchange healing for disease?  Who will break into the devil’s house to bind him, and then pillage the people he has taken for his own stolen goods?  It is Jesus Christ.  Jesus comes to set the captives free, to heal the sick, to raise the dead.  Jesus, the very Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, and yet conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, comes forth as the champion of all mankind.  Before Him, the prince of darkness shrieks in terror, and his demons flee in hysteria.  Before Jesus every knee bows and every tongue confesses that He is Lord of All, to the glory of God the Father.  Jesus is the one who comes in all divine power and authority to deliver mankind and all creation from their just condemnation:  from their slavery to the devil, and their destiny of death and hell.

But how does He accomplish this for us?  The power of death is sin, and this is the power the devil has used to enslave us.  And so Jesus must take our sins upon Himself, together with the fullness of our condemnation.  To preserve the holiness and righteousness of our God, Jesus could not unjustly absolve sin without paying for it first—and so Jesus goes to the Cross to pay the debt we could not pay.  It is not a debt owed to the devil (he is as guilty, if not more so, than we are,) but a debt owed to divine justice, because the Word of the Lord’s Law cannot be broken.  There must be a new Word, a Word of Peace, Mercy, and Redemption:  A Word of Gospel. 

This Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who will repent and believe.  It is the Word who is Jesus, who makes satisfaction for our sins, thereby rescuing us from death, hell, and the power of the devil.  This Word of Gospel is born out in the world by the power of the Holy Spirit, who creates faith in all who hear.  This Gospel, this Good News, is that whoever believes and is baptized, shall be saved through the Vicarious Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This Gospel gives to us the very Name that is above every Name, who was crushed for our transgressions, and by whose stripes we have been healed.  Jesus has become our salvation, and there is no demonic power of hell that can stand before Him, no accuser of the brethren whose voice shall be heard.  Washed in the most holy blood of Jesus, our sins are forgiven, and there is no longer any condemnation for those who abide in Him and His Word.

To know our Fall and our Salvation, to hear the Holy Spirit speak to us the terrors of the Law and the sweetness of the Gospel, is to be at the divergence of two paths.  The path that would receive the grace of salvation by faith in Christ alone, is the path of life which abides in His Word forever.  The path which rejects the Gospel, which blasphemes the work of the Holy Spirit who declares our salvation in Christ alone, is the path of eternal damnation enslaved forever to sin, death, hell, and the devil.  At root there are only two paths, and two Words of God.  The Word of the Law reveals God’s holiness and condemns us because of our wickedness, sentencing us to the hell we and the devil deserve.  The Word of the Gospel heals and forgives us, seals us in Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection life forever.  These are the two great paths:  one of faith in Jesus’ Gospel which leads unto life, and one of unbelief which blasphemes the Holy Spirit and leads to death.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, working through the Word of Christ’s Gospel:  Choose life.  Amen.