#7: “The Curse and Christ”
SCRIPTURE: Genesis 3:14-24
INTRO:
Verse 3 of the well-known Christmas carol, “Joy to the World,” says:
No more let sins and sorrow grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found.
What is “the curse”? Let’s look at Genesis 3:14-24. The Contemporary English Version
has it:
The Lord God said to the snake: “Because of what you have done, you will be the only
animal to suffer this curse – For as long as you live, you will crawl on your stomach and eat
dirt. You and this woman will hate each other; your descendants and hers will always be
enemies. One of hers will strike you on the head, and you will strike him on the heel.”
Then the Lord said to the woman: “You will suffer terribly when you give birth. But
you will still desire your husband, and he will rule over you.”
The Lord said to the man: “You listened to your wife and ate fruit from that tree. And
so, the ground will be under a curse because of what you did. As long as you live, you will
have to struggle to grow enough food. Your food will be plants, but the ground will produce
thorns and thistles. You will have to sweat to earn a living; you were made out of soil, and
you will once again turn into soil.”
The man Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all who
live.
Then the Lord God made clothes out of animal skins for the man and his wife.
The Lord said, “These people now know the difference between right and wrong, just
as we do. But they must not be allowed to eat fruit from the tree that lets them live forever.”
So the Lord God sent them out of the Garden of Eden, where they would have to work the
ground from which the man had been made. Then God put winged creatures at the entrance
to the garden and a flaming, flashing sword to guard the way to the life-giving tree.
As we look at this curse brought on by the sin of Eve and Adam, it is both interesting
and amazing to consider how Christ, who provided the cure for the curse, actually bore the
detailed aspects of it…