A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on the first Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2025.
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day (Gen. 1:27-31).[1]
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:15-17).
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 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.” To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living (Gen. 3:6-20).
I have a confession to make: I did not read Anne of Green Gables until I was in my forties. I suppose waiting four decades was long enough, but it wasn’t like I didn’t have opportunities before. Of course, my younger sister read all the books growing up, and we even went on a family vacation to Prince Edward Island to visit the Anne of Green Gables museum, but I was preoccupied with other important things, like sports, books, friends, and girls (not necessarily in that order). But about ten years ago I finally read L.M. Montgomery’s novel and loved it, especially the main characters, Anne, Matthew (of course), and Marilla too.
If you’ve never read the book, the premise of the book is simple: An orphan, Anne Shirley, is misplaced in the home of an elderly brother and sister. They needed a boy to help with work on the small farm but instead got animated Anne, whom they intended to send back to the orphanage. When Anne found out, she was heartbroken, lamenting: “You don’t want me because I’m not a boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really did want me.”[2] But Anne eventually did get to stay, on the condition she would be on her best behavior. To which Anne replied, “I’ll try to do and be anything you want me, if you’ll only keep me.”[3] I’ll let you read the book to find out the rest, but I want to draw your attention to Anne’s plea: “I’ll try to do and be anything . . . if you’ll only keep me.” Her desire to be part of a family sadly led her to define her being by her doing, rather than the other way around. I think we do the same.
“What do you do?” I’m often asked in social settings (Typically, they’re surprised by the answer). But the answer often affects how someone else sees me. Vocabulary and topic of conversation changes when they are in the midst of a minister. But it’s not just me. For example, a “successful person” in our society is typically defined by their achievements, and if we agree with this metric, before long we begin to believe that our value as a person is defined this way. Such thinking, sadly, can lead to all kinds of problems, as Kendra Dahl observes,
If we believe our value is defined only by what we do, we’ll be plagued by envy and exhaustion. Someone will always do it better, and it’s not clear who gets to declare the winner. After all our striving, we’ll either despair about our inability to do enough, or we’ll fall into a sort of wearying pride of our apparent ability to keep up. And once we achieve all that we’ve been working for . . .It will turn to dust in our fingers. Value we hustle for is value easily lost.[4]
To which I would add, and such value “lost” leads inevitably to a sense of hopelessness.
This is yet another reason we must listen to God’s Word rather than the world in understanding who we are. We need only look, for example, to the first chapter of the Bible where we read:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Gen. 1:27).
Before God commissioned man to be “fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (1:28), before he put man in the garden to “work it and keep it” (2:15), he revealed his image-bearing being. From the beginning, we are defined by who we are, and who we are is defined by who created us, and who created us called our creation not merely “good” with the rest of creation but “very good.”[5]
Created Very Good
In considering our being, it is important to remember how the Bible begins, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).The Bible starts not with us but God.And in his self-sufficient independence, he created, not out of need but desire.He wanted to create us and so did, “in his own image, in the image of God” (1:27).Theologians debate what this means precisely, to be made “in the image of God,” but we may at least understand it as including intellectual, moral, and spiritual capacity.
When we confess, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”We understand that our chief end begins with who we are. We were created to the glory of God to glorify God. But while this is our chief end, we know experientially we don’t. As Scripture confirms, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). And this is a significant problem for us all, because we were created originally in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness.[6]
Fallen in Sin
When Eve and subsequently Adam ate the forbidden fruit, they disobeyed God’s singular command, breaking the Covenant of Works for all and forever. Theologically, we call this “the Fall.” From righteousness and fellowship with God the the man and woman fell, rendering them dead in sin, wholly defiled in body and soul.[7] As the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it, “Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.”[8] As a result, they gifted their posterity the guilt of sin and a fallen nature. We are, as our Confession of Faith describes us, “utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.”[9] In a word, we are depraved.
But that’s not the worst of it. Fallen in sin, we have become enemies of the God who created us in his image, and every ancestor of Adam is under the wrath of God without hope but for the grace of God. Since the Fall, we have not progressed in reconciling ourselves to God but repeat the same sins just as those who have gone before us. (So much for the myth of progress.) If you want to understand what is wrong with the world today, start with yourself. We do not venture far into Genesis before we see this play out between two brothers, wicked Cain’s murder of righteous Abel (Gen. 4:8), and so the repetitive history of sinful man continued. From Adam’s progeny proceeded not progressive improvement but more of the same, until we reach this summary statement: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Gen. 6:5-6). Man’s sin grieved God, who destroyed the sons of disobedience and yet preserved righteous Noah. And the world repopulated again, which was filled again with the wickedness of man and the continual evil intentions of his heart. And here we are today, no worse but no better off than our ancestors.
Hope for Redemption
Considering the reality of our condition can lead to despair, as it should. We’re a mess. But considering the reality of God’s mercy and grace leads not to despair but hope. Consider, for example, God’s pronounced judgment upon the first sin, beginning with Satan in the form of a serpent, followed by the woman, and then the man (Gen. 3:14-19). It’s a passage of Scripture in which, if you focus on man’s judgment, you can read it as if we are cursed, but if you focus on what God provides to sinners, like you and me, you will see something very different.
The first thing we should notice is the distinction between what God says to the serpent and what he says to Adam and Eve. To the serpent, God’s says, “cursed are you,” a statement he will not repeat to those made in his image. To them, those whom God commissioned to be fruitful and multiply, to subdue the earth, and work and keep the garden, their punishment is in keeping with their commission. For those called to be fruitful and multiply, God multiplies “pain in childbearing” (Gen. 3:16). For those called to subdue the earth, thorns and thistles sprout. For those called to work and keep the garden, fruit comes only by toil, sweat, and pain.
Of course, we know the punishment well, because we live it. But have you ever considered God’s mercy and grace in it? For example, what were Adam and Eve due? Death: “in the day that you eat of [the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). They should have been justly executed immediately, but they weren’t. Death is promised, but not until the end of a lifespan, when dust returns to dust. And whether one’s life is short or long, since our first parents were created, life continues, even today. That you and I are sitting here today is a mercy, and every moment sustained by God’s grace.
Or, consider the great pain in childbearing, which every mother knows well, but also consider that with the pain there are children, who are not a curse but a heritage and reward from the Lord![10] Let’s not forget that the first woman was named not “fruit-eater” but “Eve,” meaning “life-giver.”[11] Similarly, as promised, there is great pain in producing food from the ground, but this also means there is food, that we might, as Solomon counsels, “eat [our] bread with joy, and drink [our] wine with a merry heart” (Eccles. 9:7). Cheers! Yes, indeed, our first parents were punished, and we with them, but even in God’s punishment for our sin, we see his mercy and grace too.
For this reason, we should not interpret God’s punishment apart from his mercy and grace nor interpret it as our ultimate problem. Our ultimate problem isn’t God’s punishment; it’s our sin. Which is why we should look back to God’s curse upon the serpent and look for God’s mercy and grace there too, where God promises,
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 (Gen. 3:15).
It is here God reveals the true identity of the serpent, and his hatred of those made in God’s image. But there is within God’s pronounced curse upon Satan a curious distinction between “your offspring” and “her offspring,” or literally “seed.”
As God promised enmity through Satan’s seed, so he promised hope through the woman’s, a promise to be delivered according to God’s perfect timing. Paul explains it this way: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). Born of a virgin that he might not sin. Born under the law that he might keep it. Born not at enmity with God but our ancient foe. Born to live, and die, and resurrect from the dead, conquering both sin and death. Born to redeem us from the devil’s dominion, that we might become the children of God.
The prophetic pronouncement in Satan’s curse is then, ironically, the greatest news given to man. Theologically referred to as the “protoevangelium,” or first gospel, we hear not only of the promised seed of woman, but also of his certain victory over Satan: “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15b). In this verse, the Hebrew verb translated “bruise” is the same verb used twice, but it may be understood differently in context, as the NIV translates it, “he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” For, what the serpent does to a man’s heel is notably different than what a man’s heel does to a serpent’s head. Indeed, what Satan did leading his offspring to crucify the Son of God was vile but not victorious, deadly but not defeating. The ultimate victory was won by the one who crushed the serpent’s head.
And so, while time continues, history repeating itself with seemingly endless consistency, there will be a last day, and every person will stand in judgment before the Son of God. On that day, the offspring of Satan will be revealed and readied for eternal damnation, the anguish of their suffering even more consistent than their sin upon the earth. But all who look to the promised Son of Hope in faith will be found righteous and right with God. And though our human hearts may cry with little Anne of Green Gables, “I’ll try to do and be anything you want me, if you’ll only keep me,” God’s Word tells us Christ has done it all, redeeming us the image-bearers we were created to be, kept in Christ, for all eternity.
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] I’m thankful to Kendra Dahl who references this quote from L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables in her book A Place for You: Reframing Christian Womanhood (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2025), 26.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid., 30.
[5] Gen. 1:31
[6] Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24
[7] “The Confession of Faith,” 6.2, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 26.
[8] “The Shorter Catechism,” Q. 13, Ibid., 363.
[9] “The Confession of Faith,” 6.4, Ibid., 27.
[10] Ps. 127:3-5
[11] Gen. 3:20
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