F.E. Marsh :: 374. Sin

GENESIS iii

As the River Forth can be seen winding its way towards Edinburgh from Stirling, so we see the course of sin in the chapter before us.

1. Sin is often a pleasant thing in contemplation (Gen. 3:6). Sodom apples are pleasant to look upon, but a mouthful of dust is the outcome of tasting. The bait is caught at, as a desirable morsel by the fish, but the hook is there as well. The food in the trap is tempting to the bird, but the prison-cage comes afterwards.
2. Sin is disobedience (Rom. 5:19). There is no mention of Eve taking an apple, as is often said. The sin was disobedience to God’s command. The meaning of the word transgression is “to go beyond the command of God,” as the schoolboy, who goes beyond the boundary prescribed by the schoolmaster.
3. Sin is prolific. One sin leads to another. As the one thistle will produce many thistle seeds, so one sin begets many others. Eve was led to lust with her eyes, and following in the train came the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.
4. Sin is the knowledge of evil (Gen. 3:5). Knowledge is good when it leads us to know God, for to know Him is to trust Him (Psalm 9:10), but knowledge is evil when it enables the sinner to sin in a more clever way, and when it is purchased at the price of punishment, as the boy found when he was sent to gaol for stealing the apples, although he only wanted to know how they tasted.
5. Sin is contagious. “And gave” (Gen. 3:6). As the feverstricken patient will communicate the disease by shaking the hand of another, so the sinner spreads a pestilence by his actions.
6. Sin is optional. Satan did not force Eve to sin; she was enticed by him (1 Tim. 2:14), and she in turn enticed Adam, and “he did eat” (Gen. 3:6), but in each case it was a voluntary action.
7. Sin involves others (Rom. 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:22). No one lives to himself, everyone is exerting an influence either for good or evil. Many a man owes his taste for the drink to his drinking father or mother.
8. Sin brings shame (Gen. 3:7). Moral nakedness (Rev. 3:17) and a conscious unfitness for God’s presence is the cause of shame. A naked soul is a Christless soul, for He alone is the garment of salvation (Isaiah 61:10).
9. Sin brings fear (Gen. 3:10). Conscience makes cowards of us all. But how did man obtain a conscience? By sin. It is consciousness of coming judgment that fills the sinner with dread, even as the terrified animals flee before the prairie fire.
10. Sin brings punishment (Gen. 3:14-19). By the very necessity of His own nature God must punish sin. He can by no means clear the guilty. No man can break the law of nature without being punished; even so with the law of God, and the command to repent and believe in Christ.