Eternal Sin
“She took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”
— Genesis 3:6
Adam sins. He abdicates his responsibility to serve and guard the Garden sanctuary (and his wife) as God’s “palace servant” priest.
This primeval sin constitutes a failure to “cover” the holiness of God the Father.
“Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.”
— Genesis 4:8
Sin begins to mature. Cain abdicates his responsibility to be his “brother’s keeper”. He fails to “serve and guard” his brother as Adam failed to serve and guard God’s holiness (integrity), and his bride from doctrinal trickery.
This primeval sin constitutes sin against God the brother. (Jesus)
“The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.”
— Genesis 6:2
Sin matures until the whole of humanity becomes grossly infected by sin and rebellion against the Creator. The sons of Seth - who were the “first to call upon the name of the Lord” - have all been “leavened” by intermarriage with godless people. Sin has matured so extensively that only one person on earth remains who continues to “call upon the Name of the Lord.” His name is Noah. Everyone else is so evil that the Creator “repents” that He created mankind. This is one of the saddest moments in the Bible save for the wholesale rejection of God on the cross.
This primeval sin constitutes sin against God the Holy Spirit. “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh….” — Genesis 6:3
This “intermarriage” of the God’s Covenant people with worldly rebels is the final, full maturation of sin which “cannot be forgiven.” This is sin against the Lord Holy Spirit, the unpardonable sin. When mankind fully matures in rebellion against God the Father and God the Son, rejecting the final plea of God the Holy Spirit, there is no more “room” for repentance. Man’s “iniquity” becomes “complete.”
This sin is a shadow of hell. Matured sin makes human beings fully into sons and daughters of the condemned serpent spirit. Losing the image of God in themselves, they become like the character Gollum in the Lord of the Rings. Beyond hope. Sentenced by God to eternal destruction, eternal exile. The flood waters are a shadow of baptism, which for some, rescues them. But for others who do not hearken to God’s warnings, these same waters will drown them eternally.
New Creation
Noah and his family are the only ones saved from God’s final wrath against the rebellion. This is creation’s “reboot”. But, instead of Noah’s sons and daughters maturing in faith and the fear of the Lord after God’s holy Judgement, they repeat the sin cycle all over again….
“This new ‘garden’, like the Garden of Eden before it, becomes the site of a fall. There are several echoes of the Genesis 3 account in 9:20-27. The fruit is taken and ingested (v.21), there is a revelation of nakedness (vv.22-23), covering up with clothing (v.23), the realization of knowledge (v.24), a curse on the seditious tempter (v.25), and a judgment (in this case positive) on the two other protagonists (v.26-27).” - Alastair Roberts (The Falls of Man)
“Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.”
— Genesis 9:22
Noah’s son Ham sins against his father by “uncovering his nakedness” - that is, exposing his shame in order to have his “robe of authority” for himself - just like Adam. Ham’s sin bears a curse. Instead of having Noah’s authority over his brothers, he is reduced to being a slave and not a lord.
Ham’s sin repeats the sin in the Garden against Father God. Noah represents Father God in this “new fall”.
“Now Cush (Ham’s son) became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.”
— Genesis 10:8-9
Nimrod is a “new Cain” who builds “the great city”. The designation of Nimrod being a “mighty hunter” suggests that he is a “hunter of man” like Cain. Dare we say that instead of being his “brother’s keeper”, he becomes his “brother’s hunter”?
In this way, Nimrod’s self exaltation over against his brother’s marks him as one who repeats the sin against God the brother.
“It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” — Genesis 11:2-4
The Covenant line of Eber (the Name from which we derive the name “Hebrews”) becomes “divided”. Eber has two sons, Peleg and Joktan. Joktan and his descendants move “eastward”. (A direction in the Bible which constitutes a move further away from God.) Nimrod and his descendants found “Babel” in the “land of Shinar”, in the “east”. The narrative arc of this story suggests that half of the Covenant line of Eber must have linked up (intermarried?) with Nimrod and his descendants, and together they built “a city” and a “tower” in defiance of God. If this is true, which a careful reading of the Scripture suggests that it is, then we have another instance of sin maturing AGAIN against the Lord Holy Spirit, which leads up to the Judgement of God against half of humanity at the Tower of Babel.
After this Judgement, the Covenant story starts over again - like in the story of Noah - with one person. His name is Abram……
Now, what do these threefold “falls” mean for us today in the church?
“Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—
— Mark 3:28-29
Sin matures in history. It starts as a small mustard seed (as sin against the Father), but it grows into a giant tree. “And this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
— Matthew 13:32
When sin matures to the level of sin against God the Holy Spirit, mankind will no longer bear the image of God, but of the devil. This final stage of sin in man is irremediable. Jesus will pass sentence on people who reach this final stage. And the sentence is eternal destruction.
What does this matured sin look like so we can recognize it?
The Bible reveals (in shadow form) that this sin can be detected when people no longer hearken to God’s “voice” anymore through the Holy Spirit, (Holy Bible), and in turn, “link up” (intermarry) with “the world” and its “politics”, taking a “stand” against God and His Son.
In other words, when the church becomes “worldly”, lending her strength (intermarrying) with the world and its projects rather than the Kingdom of God “project”, then you know that “the axe” is already being laid at the root of “the tree”.
It happened to Israel in the first century after they rejected the Father and the Son and the final witness of the Holy Spirit who was speaking through the apostles. And the final result of Jerusalem (Harlot) being “in bed” with the Roman “Dragon” was the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. - - just as Jesus predicted.
This is also a “shadow” of a greater Judgement to come…. If we have eyes to see and ears to hear that is.