The Fruit of Our Rebellion is Ripe

The law of the harvest doesn’t lie. We will eventually reap what we sow. We have to go back farther than the sexual revolution of the 1960’s in the United States to find out when the seeds of our destruction were being sown. Yes, the “free love movement,” feminism, and open homosexuality began to become overt during this time, but it was only an earlier harvest.

If we were to look at the first rebellion of mankind against God and His created order, we would find that it was then that the seeds of what we are experiencing today were first planted. I am speaking of more than the seeds of human depravity and sin. I am speaking of the seeds that would bear the fruit of rebellion among the human race in the areas of sexuality, the so-called battle of the sexes, and the collapse of the family.

In the account of the fall of man in Genesis 3 we have a complete reversal of God’s divine order. Man was created first, and then woman to be a compliment and helper to him. Together the man and the woman would exercise loving dominion over all the earth, particularly the animals. The order of submission and leadership was simple, but straightforward–man, woman, animals. However, disorder and rebellion were introduced when Satan used an animal, a serpent, to lead the woman into temptation. In turn, the woman led the man into sin by offering the fruit to him, and he followed her by eating it as well.

The divine order is not a coincidence. As a matter of fact, when the Lord confronted the three rebels in the Garden, he started with the man at the top–Adam (v. 9), who blamed the woman (and God who made her, v. 12), and then she blamed the serpent (v. 13). When giving out the consequences for each one’s sin, the Lord began in the order of the sin as it was committed–first the serpent, then the woman, and finally the man.

Satan’s rebellion came when he no longer wanted to be a mere creature that had to serve his Creator. He aspired to set up his own throne, making himself like the Most High God himself (Is 14:12-14). And having been cast out of heaven (Is 14:12, 15; Lk 10:18), he would seek to usurp the co-regency of Adam and Eve through deception and become the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air (2Co 4:4; Mt 4:8-9; Eph 2:2). When this happened, mankind was thrust into a world in which sin and depravity were introduced and the seeds of their rebellion would begin to grow.

Eve wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil. But God knows evil like a surgeon knows cancer–from the outside. Eve and her husband would know it like the one whose body is destroyed from within by the disease. Since Eve led her husband to take the fruit, she would feel the tug to rule her husband as leader in the home, and yet he would rule over her in a way that many have described as the battle of the sexes–with some men crushing their wives (and other women in general) to “keep them in their place,” while some women use sinful methods to gain control over their husbands. When the man and woman came together in loving intimacy, a child might come as a result. But the reminder of their rebellion would follow as the woman would feel the great pain of childbirth that came because of her sin.

And since Adam gave over his authority to his wife instead of lovingly leading her in holiness, he would find that his work with the earth’s soil would not so easily bear its yield as it had before, but instead it would bear thorns and thistles with no effort. Just as his marriage would take great effort to bear joyful fruit, so too the work of his hands would require great effort. Where Adam had been lax in his leadership, he must now make extra effort in all areas of his life in order to benefit from the blessings they contained.

Now in our modern world, far removed from that idyllic garden, we are not much different. Men and women are still listening to the whispers of the serpent and desire to be their own gods. They snub their Creator’s wisdom by choosing to further deface the image of God in them and seek to reassign the gender and sexuality which their good Creator has given to them. They think they are wiser than God, and they will reap the whirlwind–both in this life and in the life to come, unless they come to their senses and seek the mercy of God.

Today some men seek to become women, and women seek to become men, mutilating their God-given bodies in rebellion against the Maker. In doing so, men continue to crush women by taking their place as a “woman.” And women who think they can take on masculinity by mere choice are destroying their own selves, still seeking to lead men as a “man.” Romans 1 tells us that God has given such people over to their depravity in a downward spiral of folly. This depravity not only seeks self-destruction, but it seeks a total destruction of everything ordained by God–marriage, family, Christianity, and morality. We are seeing the wholesale reaping of the seeds of our own destruction.

 So, what is our hope? There in the account of the Fall is also the seed of our hope. The scarlet thread of redemption is first announced in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Jesus Christ is the serpent-crushing Messiah who came to bring salvation to our world. But He came not only to bring eternal life, but life abundant here and now. He came so that men and women would be set free from their sin: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1Co 6:9-11).

And Jesus’s death upon the cross came to redeem our families and marriages as well (Eph 5:22-6:4), so that husbands and wives are put back into a right relationship with one another, and children are given a loving home that sets an example for them of the love of Christ for His Church. Husbands love sacrificially and wives submit to their husbands in the way that Christians submit to the Lord Himself. This harmony is a picture of the reality of Jesus’ love and sacrifice for the Church, and the love the Church should have for her Lord. Like a broken bone that is set in place to heal correctly, Jesus’s atoning death on the cross sets right the brokenness of men and women, no matter how badly fractured we may be. This is biblical manhood and womanhood.

This article originally appeared in the Sept/Oct 2021 issue of the VOICE magazine.

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