Download - The Fall - Luke's presentation 2014
Gen 3
God’s Gift
Our
Rejection
REVIEW; EVERYTHING SO FAR..
God (Our meaning & purpose in life!)
Jesus (God in the flesh/Incarnation)
Faith (Man’s response)
1. Sacred Scripture
2. Sacred Tradition
“..in the light of Christ..”(2 Cor 3:14, 4:3-6)
The understanding of Genesis, chapter 3,
which is called The Fall,
is to be interpreted 'in the light of Christ’.
In this session, many things will be
taught, that are NOT in
the scriptural text of Genesis 3.
Here's why...
The misconception of EVIL…
CCC 387 Without the knowledge Revelation
gives of God, we cannot recognize sin
clearly and are tempted to explain it as
merely a developmental flaw, a
psychological weakness, a mistake, or the
necessary consequence of an inadequate
social structure, etc.
This is … SIN
CCC 386 Sin is present in human history;
any attempt to ignore it or to give this dark
reality other names would be futile.
CCC 1850 Sin is an offence against God.
Sin sets itself against God’s love and turns
our hearts away from it. ..it is
disobedience, a revolt against God…
The origin of Sin is revealed…
in the light of Christ.
CCC 385 We must approach the question
of the origin of evil, by fixing the eyes of
our faith on him (Jesus) who alone is its
conqueror.
CCC 388 We must know Christ as the
source of grace in order to know Adam as
the source of sin.
CCC 386 To try to understand what sin is,
one must first recognize the profound
relation of man to God, for only in this
relationship is the evil of sin unmasked in
its true identity as humanity's rejection of
God and opposition to him..
We look back at… God & man
REVIEW OF CREATION:
GOD, the creator
God created all things; seen and unseen
God created out of love; God is love
God is the source of life; God is the life
God is good; all that God made is good
God is one of proclamation;
not manifestation
REVIEW OF CREATION:
The dignity of ‘Man’
1. Man is made in the image and likeness of
God, formed from the earth, had God
breathe into his nostrils, and became a
living soul.
2. No other creature is in the likeness and
image of God; no other creature has both
a corporeal body and a living soul.
REVIEW OF CREATION:
Original Holiness
1. Man has a divine intimacy with God; there
is no death, no suffering, man has
original/sanctifying grace and has a share
in the divine life..
2. No other creature has this relationship /
holiness with God…
Through God’s divine providence, only man
is able to know and love God. (CCC 356)
This is achieved by sanctifying grace.
Grace: The unmerited favor / gift from God.
Sanctify: To be made holy.
REVIEW OF CREATION
Original / Santifying Grace
CCC 377 … free from the triple concupiscence..
REVIEW OF CREATION
Harmony of Original Justice
CCC 376 There is inner harmony of the
human person, harmony between man and
woman, and finally, harmony between the first
couple and all creation..
Gen 2:25 And they were both naked,
the man and his wife,
and were not ashamed.
CCC 404 We do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature.
As long as man remained in the divine intimacy, the harmony of original justice would be transmitted / handed down to all of mankind. (CCC 376)
REVIEW OF CREATION
The transmission Original
Justice
God also gave: Free Will
Ecclus 15:14 God made man from the beginning,
and left him in the hand of his own free choice.
Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the
man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you
may freely eat.
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, you shalt not eat of it; for in the
day that you eat of it, you shalt surely die.
Tree of the knowledge
of good and evil
EVIL is a “lack of…” (Fr. Robert Barron)
EVIL is a “deficiency…” (St. Augustine)
CCC 276 The "tree of the knowledge of good and
evil" symbolically evokes the insurmountable
limits that man, being a creature, must freely
recognize and respect with trust.
Is it about… Forbidden Fruit?
“Do not think that it is about food, or about
bad / forbidden / poisoned food,
or about an evil planted thing…
for God did not create any evil thing…
(St. Augustine)
It’s about: Obedience
…But by the precept He gave, God
commended obedience… an abstinence
from one kind of food in the midst of great
abundance of other kinds that was so easy
to keep,—so light a burden to the
memory,—and, above all, found no
resistance to its observance in lust…”
(con’t St. Augustine)
Building the muscle
of ‘self-control’
Personal excerpt from a corporate motivational
psychologist on ‘goal setting’.
Now, we start Gen 3, The Fall
Gen 3:1 ‘Now the
serpent was more
subtil than any beast
of the field which the
LORD God
had made.’
What is: wise / subtle / crafty?
Augustine/Aquinas on fallen angels..
“…evil, NOT by nature, but by will…”
subtle: e'rom, phronimos, prudentes
(one who is skilled in knowledge / prudentia)
Mt 10:16 …be as wise as serpents,
and as pure as doves.
What is: The Serpent…?
Draconem (Latin): huge serpent, dragon
Drakien (Greek): “to see clearly”
Rev 20:2 “…the dragon, that serpent from
the beginning, which is the Devil…”
God allows Satan to ‘test’ the righteousness
of Job... just like in Gen 3 (Job 1:6-12)
A quick view on Angels… part 1
Angels are spiritual creatures, created before man. St. Augustine and the Church Fathers say they were created when light was created; “Let there be light”. The word “angel” does not refer to their species, but to their ministry. ‘Angel’ means messenger or proclaimer. Therefore, these spiritual beings are created to spiritually tell men of God’s glory…
… and probably on the first, and greatest of these was the ‘son of the dawn’, that is, Lucifer, or the devil. All these angel were also given a free choice to choose the truth of God “I PRAISE YOU GOD”… or to choose the pride of self, “I am God!!” The fallen angels chose pride of self, and Jesus himself says that the father of these pride filled angels, is this serpent, the devil.
A quick view on Angels… part 2
Is the Devil REAL?
YES! Jesus affirms it!
Jesus speaks of the devil, saying:
John 8: 44 …the devil... He was a
murderer from the beginning and has
never stood for truth, since there is no
truth in him… he is a liar and the father of
lies.
The fallen angel; The Devil
He is the main fallen angel, as Jesus says:
Luke 10:18 I watched Satan fall from
heaven like lighting.
The prophet also speaks of the devil:
Isaiah 14:12 How you have fallen from
heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground, who
laid the nations low!
PRIDE of the Fallen Angel
Isaiah echoes the words of Jesus
Isaiah 14:13 You said in your heart, “I will
ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God!
Jesus speaks of the ‘heart of the Devil’
John 8:44 “When he (the Devil) speaks a
lie, he speaks of what’s his own character,
for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Devil; the Tempster
The devil is speaking of his own personal experience of pride and lust.
Gen 3: 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Gen 3:5 For God knows that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
PRIDE
Now, Satan's pride is passed unto the
woman who “saw”; that is, to say in her
own heart.
Gen 3:6 And when the woman saw…
she took of the fruit, and did eat..
Triple Concupiscence
What did she see…?
Gen 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired if you want to be wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
What was Adam doing..?
“…(she) gave also her husband (Adam) with
her; and he did eat.” Gen 3:6
“He (Adam) fell into disobedience.. into
impurity, because of pride and his desire
to please a woman. For he was so
concerned about pleasing and bowing to
to his companion…”
St Catherine of Siena- The Dialogue
Lust
Gen 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
Previously, naked and not ashamed, now, the faculty / perception towards the corporeal form has exceeded the faculty of the spiritual intellect. (St. Aquinas)
False Justification
Then, when questioned by the Lord God:
Gen 3:12 And the man said, The woman
whom You gave [to be] with me, she gave
me of the tree, and I did eat.
Gen 3:13 And the LORD God said unto the
woman, What [is] this [that] you have
done? And the woman said, The serpent
beguiled me, and I did eat.
The movement of Sin
Gen 3: 4-6 Temptation
Gen 3:6 Pride
Gen 3:7 Lust; and lost of innocence
Gen 3:8-10 Fear
Gen 3:12-13 Denial; false justification
Sound’s familiar in our lives, doesn’t it..?
What is: Sin ?
Disobedience “If you love me, keep my
commandments”
What is sin? A separation from God;
a rejection of God’s friendship.
To not choose the source of Life, the result
will always be death.
This sin, is the first sin of man;
called Original Sin
CCC 389 The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the "reverse side" of the Good News that Jesus is the Saviour of all men..
A Cathecism definition of original sin:
CCC 405 …is a deprivation of original holiness and justice …it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, …an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence.
The consequences of
Original Sin
To properly understand original sin and
it’s tragic consequences, it must be
approached by understanding the loss of:
original holiness, original justice
and the loss of grace.
Original Sin:
Loss of Original Holiness
The fear in Gen 3:8-10 is the loss of original
holiness.
CCC 399 Adam and Eve immediately lose
the grace of original holiness. They
become afraid of the God of whom they
have conceived a distorted image - that of
a God jealous of his prerogatives.
What are the Curses…?
(St Augustine)…disobedience was the
punishment of disobedience… man’s
misery is his own disobedience to himself,
so, because he didn’t do what he could do,
now, he wants to do what he cannot…
This is concupisence; the loss of harmony
in the faculties.
The Curses are actually the
loss of Original Justice
CCC 400 The harmony in which they had
found themselves, thanks to original
justice, is now destroyed: the control of
the soul's spiritual faculties over the body
is shattered; the union of man and
woman becomes subject to tensions,
their relations henceforth marked by lust
and domination.
Original Sin is transmitted
down to humanity
Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin;
and so death passed upon all men, for that
all have sinned:
Rom 5:19 For as by one man’s
disobedience many were made sinners, so
by the obedience of one shall many be
made righteous.
The loss of
Original / Sanctifying Grace
Sin can become ‘bad to worse’
In Rom 6:19, Paul teaches the importance of
sanctifying grace:
iniquity unto iniquity (The effects of original sin)
et iniquitati ad iniquitatem
justification unto holiness (The effects of sanctifying grace)
justitiae in sanctificationem
This is a type of:
“iniquity unto iniquity”
Adam Cain Lamech
Gen 4:23-24
In the person of Lamech, 7th from Adam,
are the manifestation of the sins…
Original Sin is washed away and
Justification retrieved again… through
Baptism in the Trinitarian formula.
Sanctifying grace is continually
received through the sacraments.
***..a footnote on Baptism.
“…He (God) would not allow any evil to
exist in His works, unless His omnipotence
and goodness were such as to bring good
even out of evil."
(St Aquinas, quoting St Augustine)
WAIT!!!
God isn’t finished yet…
Protoenvangelium
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed
and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel.
God has plans of Salvation…
Adam Cain Lamech
Gen 4:23-24
Adam Seth Enoch
Gen 5:3 Gen 5:23-24
Enoch, the 7th from Adam, is taken by God.
This is a prophesy of God’s plan of
salvation and the church.
THE END
Closing Prayer
Dear Lord JESUS,
May it be known all over the world,
That Satan, the prince of darkness is real,
He disguises himself s the light,
Entrapping and enhauling the unprepared,
He spreads the seeds of disruption,
Then sits back, waiting to gather the crop.
Closing Prayer con’t
As I draw nearer to JESUS’s fiery Love,
I also draw the evil of Satan’s attacks,
JESUS, protect me from such great evil,
Let not Satan or his friends approach me,
Keep me under you harmonious protetion
For I am your follower of righteousness.
Amen
THE END