It is a real delight to be with you. This is a church that my family and I have gotten to know very well over the years. I don't know how many years ago it was that I spoke at one or two of your family camps, and if you know how much I don't like camping, that expresses how much I like you. And Dale and Joanne and their whole family have been friends for decades now, and we know and love many of the families here. Helps that I think that you're all related somehow, but we love to be here.
As you may remember, I grew up in Jennison, so we're here visiting some family and doing some family things for a few days, and then Friends of ours from East Lansing have a wedding in Hudsonville, so we're here. And this weather is curing me of any nostalgia for the winter wonderland that is Michigan. But we love Michigan, we love West Michigan, Grand Rapids, and it's good to be with you, and thanks for welcoming us here.
Our text this morning is Genesis chapter 3. I will say by way of introduction and some warning that this is an ambitious sermon for a guest preacher to attempt. But you are OPC, and so I figure I can come with an ambitious sermon for you. I will tell you ahead of time that there will be nine points to the sermon, and I understand I will do the math to move through most of those points quickly. I also know that your pastor preached recently on Genesis 3.15, so that is not going to be the focus of this morning's message.
But I thought at the close of 2025, the beginning of 2026, do something rather simple and also expansive with this morning's sermon, and that is to try to remind you what the Bible is all about. That's as simple and as expansive as this sermon is going to be. What is the Bible all about? and remind, for some of you, and some of these points I think will be connecting some dots or highlighting some themes, seeing some connections you may not have made before. So, most of this sermon is going to be on the macro level. tracing out a number of themes to give you some different hooks, some different ways to think about what the whole story of the Bible is about.
But in order to do that macro piece, we need to start micro and get some of the right details. So, let's read Genesis chapter 3. I will read through the chapter, and I'll stop here and there just to remind you of what's in these verses, which will be familiar to many of us. Of course, we have creation, we have Adam and Eve, and then chapter 3, the fall.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made, He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
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. And the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
So we see here in these opening seven verses, Adam and Eve in their sin. And then the rest of the chapter will show the result and what happens because of their sin. Joy is replaced with sorrow, comfort with cursing, pleasure with pain, intimacy is replaced with expulsion, and we have an all too familiar picture of the way things are rather than the way things were supposed to be.
There are two speeches that follow, I want you to notice Adam and Eve's response when they are caught in sin. So, this is the first speech, or you might say dialogue with God, and then we will have God's punishment.
6 · DeYoung reads Genesis 3:8-13, God's interrogation of Adam and Eve, highlighting the four prosecutorial questions God asks
Verse 8, 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.
7 · DeYoung interprets God's interrogation as prosecutorial rather than ignorant, showing how the questions function rhetorically to invite confession and establish guilt
So, recall in verse 7, the first thing they see after their sin is their nakedness. That's what they see. And the first thing they hear is the sound of the Lord. The sound of the Lord walking is a description of intimacy, except now, instead of being comforted to know that they are in the presence of the Lord, His approaching footsteps, as it were, now they are afraid. They hide themselves among the trees in the garden.
And in this conversation with the man and the woman, did you notice, the Lord only asks questions. He asks four questions. He is like a courtroom prosecutor. He asks the questions, not because He is ignorant of the answers, but in order to prosecute His case against the couple. Where are you? Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree I commanded you not to eat? What is this that you have done? Those four questions. He's not looking for answers that he's ignorant of, but he is inviting a response.
8 · DeYoung uses a contemporary parental analogy to illustrate the rhetorical nature of God's questioning—the father asking 'where have you been' when he already knows
Adam understands, where are you, to be a rhetorical question. This is like a father seeing his child stumble in after curfew and smelling alcohol on his breath, perhaps, and saying, where have you been? The father knows very well where he has been. He is inviting a response to see if the wayward child will admit his fault.
9 · DeYoung expounds the theological significance of God addressing Adam first despite Eve sinning first, connecting this to Paul's teaching about covenant headship
The Lord addresses the man, Eve sinned first, but notice He holds the man accountable, not to the exclusion of the woman, but more than the woman. Romans chapter 5 says, sin entered the world through one man. Have you ever thought about that? Why does it say sin entered the world through one man when Eve, in fact, is the first one who sinned? Paul makes that point in 1 Timothy 2, so that's significant in some way. But because Adam was the head of his household, and he was the covenant head of the human race, sin entered the world, not through the woman, but through Adam. He was to be the protector, the leader of his wife. And so, the Lord addresses him.
10 · DeYoung identifies the twin patterns of human response to exposed sin—shame and blame—and applies them directly to the congregation's contemporary experience
We see essentially two responses from Adam and Eve as the Lord asks questions, and their two responses are likely two responses that every one of you and I have had when confronted with sin. These may still be the two most common responses to sin, shame and blame. Shame, they see they've been exposed. Many of us have experienced that, probably all of us if we're honest. We've been found out. We feel dirty. We're embarrassed. We're unclean. Everyone knows. Maybe even this very morning you are sensing that about your sin, as if everyone were looking at you, as if they knew. That's what Adam and Eve experienced. Now they see themselves naked. They're ashamed.
And then there's blame. The man blames the woman and blames God. I only took what she gave me. She was God's good gift, and now she is some kind of malicious mistake. It's her fault. Wouldn't be the last time that a husband would blame his wife for his own sins. The woman blames the serpent. Now, she has some claim to being something of a victim. She was deceived, but it was still her own sin.
Isn't this what happens with sin in all of our lives? We feel shame. And when we don't run to Christ with that shame, we have to do something, and so we blame. We blame our children. We blame our parents. We blame our siblings. We blame stress. We blame disappointments. We blame illness. We describe ourselves as if we were just passive actors in the story of life.
Now, of course, I should hasten to say there are real victims in life, and sometimes people feel shame for things they should not be ashamed of. But we see here with Adam and Eve, first the shame, then the blame.
11 · DeYoung reads God's threefold judgment on the serpent, the woman, and Adam, the central text that will structure the sermon's nine biblical-theological themes
Look at verse 14 through 19. Here's the Lord's response to their sin. The Lord God said to the serpent. Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all the 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 and childbearing. In sin you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but 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.
12 · DeYoung expounds the judgment on the serpent, noting the Hebrew wordplay, the threefold curse, and the symbolic meaning of serpents crawling on the ground as a sign of Satan's ultimate defeat
Notice he first addresses the serpent. There's no dialogue with the serpent. This is important. One of Eve's mistakes, her first mistake, is to dialogue with the devil. When you feel the devil tempting you in some way, you don't dialogue. As soon as you start wanting to listen and argue in your spirit, the Lord does not dialogue with the devil. He tells him, and He curses him.
There's a play on words here. It says earlier in chapter 3 that he was crafty. The Hebrew word is arum. Now he is to be cursed. The Hebrew word is arur. There's an obvious play on words. You were crafty, now you're cursed.
Three aspects of the curse for the serpent, crawling on the belly, eating of the dust. Why eating of the dust? It's to prefigure his total defeat, and crushed by the seed of the woman. When you see snakes, and I know most of you don't like to see snakes, and you see them slithering on the ground, that is to remind you of the ultimate defeat of the serpent. and of the dragon and of the devil. When you see that snake, it is to remind you something of the curse and God's defeat over evil.
13 · DeYoung uses a personal story about moving to North Carolina and encountering snakes to make the theological point about serpents as visible reminders of God's curse and triumph over evil
When we moved to North Carolina eight and a half years ago, we were told, I believe this is true, that North Carolina has more venomous snakes than any other state in the country. It's a claim to fame. Just be careful if you come and visit. My wife really does not like snakes. Not many wives do like snakes. And so we were very nervous. I think we sort of had the picture, you know, when Indiana Jones comes down into the temple area and the ground, we are picturing that North Carolina might be sort of like that, just snakes everywhere. Thankfully, it's not that, but every summer season we see a couple of copperheads, and you know those are the bad ones, and then the black snakes, those are the good ones.
But every time you see them slithering on the ground, it is a reminder of the Lord's triumph over evil, the curse.
14 · DeYoung makes a precise exegetical observation that Adam and Eve themselves are not cursed in Genesis 3—only the serpent and the ground—preserving a measure of hope even in judgment
I want you to notice something that maybe you've missed before, and I'm sure in earlier sermons in my ministry I said this not quite correctly, because technically Adam and Eve are not cursed in Genesis 3. Now, they feel the effects of the curse, but technically, so you have the snake, the ground, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve, very deliberately, are not said to be cursed. The snake is cursed and the ground is cursed. It won't be until Cain that there is a curse. It's to remind us that even here with the consequences of sin, some blessing, some hints of redemption remain. It isn't until murder, a sin against the image of God, that Cain receives a divine curse.
Here in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve are not actually said to be cursed, but the ground is and the serpent.
15 · DeYoung expounds the specific judgments on the woman and the man, showing how each curse targets their primary sphere of domain and how the punishment fits the crime
The second speech is given to the woman. She will have pain in childbearing, which I think means not just the act of labor, but the whole experience of bringing forth children from pregnancy to birth to raising children. Children are among God's greatest gifts to us, and they open us up to unimaginable experiences of delight and blessing and joy. And also, every mother's heart knows it opens you up to pain, physical pain, heartache, loss, grief, even the simple act of letting go, this is all a part of the curse. To have children will now not be an unmitigated good, but will come with attendant sorrows.
And then to the man, his sentence is the longest. He is given a sentence that relates to his specific area of domain. You've probably seen this before. So what is the woman's chief area? Not solely, but chief area of domain here in Genesis 3 is as a helper to the husband and as a mother of children, and so her chief domain, childbearing, is cursed. The man is given to tend to the garden, so his chief area of work, labor, receives a curse. And the punishment fits the crime. He ate, and so we read that He will only eat now in sweat and toil. Eating is mentioned five times in these three verses. His sin was eating, and now He will be punished in what He eats. His primary sphere was the ground, and now that work will be a chore. Each one is condemned to a permanent disadvantage in life, the serpent, the woman, and the man.
16 · DeYoung uses a hymn allusion to summarize the cosmic scope of the curse affecting all creation
This is, as the hymn tells us, far as the curse is found, the whole creation subject to futility.
17 · DeYoung reads Genesis 3:20-24, the conclusion of the chapter describing Adam naming Eve, God providing clothing, and the exile from Eden with an angel guarding the entrance
And then, verses 20 through 24, the most devastating consequences for their sin will be their exile from Eden. The man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man. And at the east of the Garden of Eden, He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
18 · DeYoung pivots from detailed exposition of Genesis 3 to the macro-level project of tracing nine biblical-theological themes that originate in this chapter and run through the entire canon
Now, I work our way through that passage rather quickly to remind you what's in it and to get some of the basic categories. And now what I want to do with our time remaining is try to use what is introduced here in Genesis chapter 3. This is the fall. In almost the whole rest of the Bible, if the Bible is creation, fall, redemption, and then recreation, you have two chapters of creation, you have one chapter of fall, and then everything until Revelation 21 and 22 is God's act of redemption. And that's what unfolds even as the curse spreads in chapter 4.
But now having been reminded of these categories, I want us to think about the whole story of the Bible. Nine ways, you ready?
19 · DeYoung traces the first biblical-theological theme: the Bible as a story about promised offspring, from Genesis 3:15 through the patriarchs to the virgin birth of Christ
Number one, here's the most obvious, and it's from Genesis 3.15. How can you tell the story of the Bible? How can you think about it? Number one, the Bible is a story about babies, babies.
In the midst of these echoes of judgment, there are whispers of grace, and we see it most obviously in verse 15. The woman will have a child. Now, there will be enmity. This is what you see in the very next chapter with Cain and Abel. You have Abel, the seed of the woman, you have Cain, the line of the serpent, and there is literal enmity. There is murder between the two. And yet, it is an act of faith that Adam names her, in verse 20, the mother of all living. That was an act of faith. They've experienced the effects of their sin, and yet he says, I will call you Eve, the mother of all living. Life is not yet snuffed out. Through her seed, Eve will outlast her adversary. That's why chapter 4 begins, did you notice? Now Adam knew his wife and she conceived. There's a reason chapter 4 begins, because it's already picking up the theme of Genesis 3.15.
Wait a minute, is this the end? Chapter 4, she has a child, maybe this one to come. will be realized. And so throughout the Bible, it is to Abraham and Sarah awaiting a promised child. And it's the promised son of David, and it's the prophecy in Isaiah that the virgin shall give birth. The Bible is a story about babies and ultimately the Christ child. That's number one. You saw that one already.
20 · DeYoung uses a playful academic metaphor to signal increasing theological complexity in the remaining themes
Let's go 101 to 201.
21 · DeYoung establishes the typological connection between Eden, the tabernacle/temple, and the New Jerusalem, all sharing cubic dimensions and representing God's dwelling place with humanity
Number two, you can also tell the story of the Bible as a story about banishment. If you noticed before that the temple and the tabernacle are a kind of Garden of Eden. You go read the creation of the tabernacle and the temple, think about the tabernacle, you have that explicit language that the Spirit of God was upon Bezalel and Oheliab, just like the Spirit of God was hovering over the deep in Genesis chapter 1. It's very deliberate. The Spirit was at work in this creation, and then the tabernacle is going to be a kind of picture of the Garden of Eden. You can look at the scenes that are depicted upon the curtains of the tabernacle, many of the same colors, the vegetation, the pomegranates. That tabernacle you were to enter into, and it was to be a depiction of the Garden of Eden. Just like the cherubim guarded the east side of the garden, we'll come back to that, the Levites guarded the east entrance into the Tent of Meeting. And the garden is a kind of holy of holies. Maybe you've seen this in your study Bible before. The new Jerusalem in Revelation 21 is said to come down out of heaven with the same length, height, and depth. It's a cube, same on all three sides. There's only one other cubic dimension in the Bible, the same height, length, width, only one other cubic dimension in the Bible. It's the Holy of Holies, because that New Jerusalem is like the Holy of Holies.
22 · DeYoung articulates the central theological problem created by the fall: how can a holy God dwell with an unholy people? This question drives the entire biblical narrative from exile to restoration
So, you have this picture of the garden to the tabernacle to the temple to the New Jerusalem. So I say this is a story, the Bible is a story about banishment, because from Genesis 3 onward, the question that should be uppermost in our mind is, how does a holy God live in the midst of an unholy people? How does a holy God dwell in the midst of an unholy people?
Notice, God did not destroy His paradise. He removed them from the garden. I think it's very deliberate. It's God saying, I don't destroy my goodness, I don't uproot my garden, I uproot you. You are now banished from my paradise.
23 · DeYoung traces the symbolic meaning of 'east' throughout Genesis as the direction of exile and judgment, establishing a pattern that alerts the reader to spiritual danger
And if you're familiar with the John Steinbeck novel, perhaps you know this phrase, east of Eden. It's here at the end of Genesis chapter 3. It occurs several times, this imagery in Genesis, because east, no problem if you live on the east side of whatever town, but in the Bible that the east is the place of expulsion. It's the place of the nations. It's the place of outside of God's presence.
That's why if you're thinking biblically and you come to Genesis 13, and Abraham and Lot, they don't have enough space, and so they have to pick, and Abraham lets Lot pick, and he chooses a land to the east. Your alarms should be going off. Not a good choice lot. Adam and Eve kicked out to the east of Eden. Cain, it says, settled to the east of Eden. The Tower of Babel was settled by whom? By people from the east. The east was the place outside of the presence of God. And here in the garden, the first, most decisive banishment, God's people are removed from paradise.
24 · DeYoung catalogs multiple instances of banishment throughout Scripture, showing how Eden's exile establishes a pattern that culminates in the Babylonian exile
But it was also a type of the many banishments in Scripture that occur as a result of sin. Think of all the times in the Bible the response to sin is expulsion. Angels banished from heaven in that angelic rebellion. Cain banished from the land. The nations scattered and banished after the Tower of Babel. The unclean within Israel have to go outside the camp. Excommunication in the church is putting the unrepentant sinner outside of God's people. And then, most cataclysmically in the Old Testament, Israel is finally, after centuries of the Lord's patience, they are banished and they go where? They go to the east. They have to go to Babylon.
25 · DeYoung connects the typology of Eden to the church as the present-age type of paradise, and extends the banishment theme to Jesus' teaching on final judgment
It's a type of... you have the land with the tabernacle and the temple is all a type of the Garden of Eden. It was to be a type of paradise on earth, just like, believe it or not, the church in this age is to be a type of that Garden of Eden. That heavenly place on earth, which is why we don't kill infidels, we practice church discipline, which is why they had all things in common is not a recipe for the nation's economic policy, it's for the church, God's people sharing with one another.
How does Jesus describe final judgment? The wicked will be what? Banished to outer darkness. where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. All of this is an echo of Genesis 3.
26 · DeYoung reveals a Hebrew wordplay between Adam's commission to 'keep' the garden and the angel's role to 'guard' it from him, showing the ironic reversal of his failure
And there's a play on words here in the Hebrew as well. The man was supposed to keep the garden, and now the garden is kept from him. In Genesis 2.15, the word is translated care. He is to care for the garden, and there in Genesis 3.24, Where it says, a cherubim and a flaming sword turned every way to guard, it's the same Hebrew word. Care, guard. Keep the garden, he didn't do it, now he is kept from the garden.
27 · DeYoung introduces the third biblical-theological theme: the Bible as a story of homecoming, with the sacrificial system as the means and the New Jerusalem as the destination
The sacrificial system then is about how a holy God can dwell in the midst of an unholy people. They've been banished. Here's a third way you could tell the story of the Bible. If one way is to say the Bible is about being banished, then you can also say the Bible is about coming home. Think of our heavenly citizenship. We look for a better country and a heavenly one. He has prepared for us a city, and we see in Revelation it is a garden city. The promised land is a type of that Eden that was and the kingdom that is coming.
28 · DeYoung traces the geographical endings of the Pentateuch to show how each book concludes with Israel not yet home, structurally pointing forward to the ultimate homecoming in the New Jerusalem
Now, you're saying, do your math, Pastor, we're only on number three, I understand, so I don't have time to take you to all of this, but you can look this up on your own. The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, every book in the Pentateuch ends with a geographical notation. Genesis, so they come down because there's the famine, they're there, and Joseph provides for them, says that the God's people are in Egypt. And then in Exodus, the end of Exodus, says they're in their wilderness journeys. Then at the end of Leviticus, we're told they're at Mount Sinai because they're receiving the law. At the end of Numbers, it says that they looked out and they were on the other side of the Jordan and they could see Jericho. And then Deuteronomy 34, Moses' death, ends there as he looks out on the plains of Moab.
So, you have Egypt, wanderings, Mount Sinai, looking at Jericho, plains of Moab. Why does the Pentateuch tell us that at the end of each book? It's for a reason, because it's telling us at the end of each book God's people are not in the Promised Land. They're somewhere else. They're Egypt. They're wandering. They're Mount Sinai and the Sinai Peninsula. They're looking at Jericho. They're not there. They're on the plains of Moab. Because that whole... those five books of Moses are directing God's people to look for the homecoming of which that promised land was a type that is finally fulfilled for us with the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem.
29 · DeYoung summarizes the second and third themes in parallel structure before moving to the fourth theme
So if the Bible is a book about banishment, it's also a book about coming home.
30 · DeYoung introduces the fourth theme—the Bible as a story about clothing—rooted in God's provision of garments after the fall, showing God's role as both Creator and Savior
Number four, you can also tell the story this way. The Bible is a book about clothes. Some of you are getting excited. It's a book about clothes. Here's what I mean. You see in verse 21, the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them. He made for them. He rested on the seventh day from all of His labors. You can say after creation, this is the very first thing God made. He rested from all creation. And the first thing He has to make for Adam and Eve are clothes. He has to make for them something they did not need at first. The Creator who made the heavens and the earth. is also the Savior who is making a covering for Adam and Eve.
31 · DeYoung contrasts human self-justification (fig leaves) with divine atonement (animal skins), establishing that sin can only be covered through sacrificial death
Now famously, they grasp for fig leaves to cover themselves, but that won't do. Sin cannot be covered by your own efforts. That's what this is telling us. You can't go and grasp your accomplishments, your portfolio, your education, your family lineage. your sports loyalties, and cover that up and say, I'm a good person. It doesn't work that way. Fig leaves don't cover them up. God has to make something for them. And notice, it says they're skins. They tried fig leaves. God provides clothes of skins. So, the Bible is teaching us their sin and your sin will now only be covered by means of death. An animal had to die. to get the skin to cover God's people because of their sin. Only by pain and blood can sin be covered.
32 · DeYoung traces the clothing motif from Genesis through Zechariah and Revelation, showing how the Bible is fundamentally about receiving divine righteousness to cover human shame
The Bible is a story about clothes. And not just shrouding their nakedness, but we could trace throughout the Bible. Think of Zechariah 3, the high priest who is like a man plucked from the fire and removes his dirty clothes and puts on him fine linen, which is symbolic of the Lord's righteousness upon him. Or Revelation 19, when God's people are given wedding clothes, pure and spotless. The Bible is a book about clothes. They had an original righteousness and they were naked. They sinned and they realized what they didn't have. They tried to cover themselves. God made skins for them through pain and blood and death, and then you tell the rest of the Bible it's about how to get this nakedness, this dirt, this filth covered with clothes that only God can give us.
33 · DeYoung introduces the fifth theme—the Bible as a story about eating—connecting the forbidden fruit with the sweat-earned food and Israel's dietary laws
The Bible, number five, is also a story about eating. I told you this is good. It's about clothes and eating. Everything initially in the garden was given for food, except one tree. And they ate of that, and now we are told they will eat by the sweat of their brow. This story is filled with eating. And so later in Israel's history, they will have to distinguish between the animals they can eat and the animals they can't eat. And there will be feast days in Israel that are marked by eating, and God's people will be saved by eating.
34 · DeYoung traces the 'take and eat' motif from Eve's sin through Jesus' institution of the Lord's Supper to the wedding feast of the Lamb, showing how salvation reverses the fall through the same action
Jesus in John 6, unless you feast on Me, unless you eat of this flesh and you drink of My blood, you can have no part in Me. And as I think Derek Kidner pointed out, and I heard Ligon Duncan point out, this connection between the woman's sin in verse 6, when the woman saw 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 and ate. She took and ate. The whole story of humanity was shaped there by the woman. because she took and she ate.
And you go to the upper room then, before Jesus' betrayal and His death and crucifixion and His resurrection, and you recall what He says at that Passover supper to the disciples, echoing these very words from Genesis, He says to them what? Take and eat. Sin came into the world. when someone took and ate. Salvation can be yours if you will now do the same, take and eat. And what is the depiction of the heavenly reality in Revelation? It is this wedding where you're given clothes, and what do you do at a wedding? You party. You feast. It is a wedding supper of the Lamb. The Bible is a book about eating. Through eating, our destruction came. Through eating, by faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, our salvation will come, and heaven then is that place where there is eating aplenty. The Bible is a story about eating.
35 · DeYoung traces the tree motif through Scripture: from blessing to curse to hiding place to the tree of life barred, culminating in Christ's crucifixion on a tree and the restoration of the tree of life in Revelation
Number six, the Bible is a story about trees. In chapters 1 and 2, trees are a sign of a bountiful provision. And then the tree becomes the place where sin enters the world. And then, did you notice, the trees are the place where they run and hide. And then in verse 24, they are barred from the tree of life. So trees were the blessing, then they hid themselves among the trees, not very successfully, then they are barred from the tree of life. Deuteronomy 21 tells us, then cursed will be anyone who hangs on a tree. So the tree will be a place of cursing, just like this tree in the garden was the place of cursing. And then you make the connections from Galatians 3, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one fulfilling that prophecy from Deuteronomy. who was cursed by God as He hung on a tree. And then, to revelation again in the new world, we will eat from the tree in the middle of the garden city whose leaves will be for the healing of the nations.
That's why we can say the Bible is a story about trees. Humanity was ruined by a tree, saved by a tree, restored in the new heavens and the new earth by a tree. That's what the book is about.
36 · DeYoung introduces the seventh theme—the Bible as a story about angels—focusing on their role as guardians of God's presence, beginning with the cherubim in Eden
Number seven, the Bible is a story about angels. Most of us have our theology of angels largely based on St. Clarence of Bedford Falls, but there are... there's better things to think about angels in the Bible. What do angels do? Angels are servants. They're messengers. That's what the word ongeloi means in Greek. They are bridges. Think of Jacob saw angels ascending and descending on a ladder because angels are intermediaries between heaven and earth. They're also patrol officers. They're like guardians. It's one of the major functions of angels in the Bible. They guard things. Think about it. Here in Eden, an angel, a cherubim, so the cherubim are the guardian angels. The cherubim is placed at the entrance on the east, guarding access to the tree of life. The angel is a guardian of the sacred, a guardian of God's presence.
37 · DeYoung extends the guardian angel theme to the Ark of the Covenant and the Exodus, showing the consistent pattern of angels guarding access to God's holy presence
Now, think about the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat, the lid. Remember what's on the lid? Two cherubim, two angels, because angels, cherubim in particular, They guard access to God's presence. During the Exodus, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way. We see something similar in the book of Daniel. They guard things.
38 · DeYoung catalogs angelic involvement in Christ's life, climaxing with the resurrection angel who rolls away the stone not to release Jesus but to invite witnesses in
So angels in the life of Christ are everywhere. They announce His conception. They're there to sing at His birth. They attend Him after His temptation. They strengthen Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. And then, fast forward to Easter, Sunday morning, the angel at the tomb. There's a great earthquake, and the guards are afraid, and the women come. The angel says, do not be afraid, you're looking for Jesus, He's not here, He's risen just as He said, come and see where He lay. And the stone, notice, is not rolled away so Jesus could get out, that had already happened. The stone, we read, was rolled away so the women could get in. The angel pushes the boulder aside as a proof for the sake of witness, not to help Jesus get on His feet. Sometimes we forget that. He rolled the stone away so the women could get in, not so Jesus could get out.
39 · DeYoung makes a theological point about the resurrection's effortlessness through the detail of the folded grave clothes, showing that Christ's victory over death was complete and unstrained
In fact, technically there is no account of the resurrection. You say, wait a minute, I knew, I knew I couldn't trust a PCA pastor. Here's what I mean. Technically, there's no account of the resurrection in the Gospels, meaning we are given no account of Jesus opening His eyes and disrobing and taking off the grave clothes and presumably passing through a sealed tomb. There's no account of struggle or coming to life by fits and starts. He was raised by the power of God. That's what we're told. But there's no sense of difficulty. In fact, you ever wonder why does John tell us that they went in and they saw the linen grave clothes folded up in the court? Why give us that detail? I think for two reasons. One, to tell us this was not a struggle. This was not a mummy coming back to life who had to tear himself open and just left shreds of his garments. No, this was a very orderly process. This was not difficult. So, he got out of those funeral pajamas and he folded them up. That's the second reason. He doesn't need them anymore. This was not hard to get out of. And I won't be needing these again, just like...I'll just put the...I'll put the hotel robe right here. I'm not taking that one with me.
Don't need the grave clothes because the wages of sin is death, and when sin has been atoned for, death has no claim on him. He literally could not stay dead.
40 · DeYoung completes the angel theme with the resurrection reversal: the angel at the tomb no longer guards to keep people out but invites them in to witness that Jesus cannot be kept in
You say, what does this have to do with angels? Well, remember, what do angels do? All throughout the Bible, they guard things. They guard the presence of the Holy. They keep... Adam and Eve from getting into Eden, they keep people from getting into the Ark of the Covenant, they guard the presence of God. That's why there is this amazing reversal, because now this angel standing watch over the empty tomb is not there to keep people out, but to announce to the world that Jesus could not be kept in. So no longer is it, I'm guarding you from access to this place where the Holy One of Israel has dwelt. In fact, I'll roll the stone away, and why don't you come in, and now that you've seen it, they go and tell the world, death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered. Their God-given role of guarding the sacred is now at the resurrection to announce to the world that the sacred One, the Holy One, has gotten out and is on the loose in the world.
41 · DeYoung signals the eighth theme and accelerates the pace as he moves toward conclusion
Let me quickly say, number eight, the Bible is a story about marriage.
42 · DeYoung establishes marriage as the eighth theme, rooted in the creation pattern of complementary pairs and ultimately imaging the union of heaven and earth, Christ and the church
You come to Revelation and you have two cities, the Babylon or the New Jerusalem. You have two masters, a beast or a lamb, and you have two women, the whore and the pure bride. Revelation is about the bride getting ready. And in a way, you can say the whole Bible is about the bride getting ready. It's about marriage. It's about the complementary marriage of a man and a woman. Think about this. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So, the first pair in the Bible, the heavens and the earth, that's the first cosmic couple. And then we find other couples throughout creation. The sun and the moon are coupled together. morning and evening, coupled together, night and day, sea and dry land, plants and animals, all of those are couples. And then at the apex of creation is the man and his wife. Marriage was created as a picture of the fittedness of heaven and earth. Ephesians 5 puts it, Christ and the church. The meaning of marriage is more than just sacrifice and commitment. Marriage by its very nature is this complementary union of Christ and the church, each part belonging to each other.
43 · DeYoung concludes the marriage theme by showing how Revelation consummates the reunion of heaven and earth, the first couple separated by sin, and applies this to contemporary debates about marriage definition
So why does Revelation end with those two images coming together, a marriage and then Chapter 21, heaven coming down to earth, because heaven and earth is the first couple. And the whole story of the Bible is about that couple, as it were, had a divorce because of sin. Heaven and earth separated. And now, because of Christ and the consummation, that marriage takes place, and every husband and wife is a picture, meant to be a picture of that cosmic pairing. The Bible. ..this is why marriage is...you can't just say, well, if we...we can maybe bend a little bit on marriage or what constitutes marriage and our government can say one thing. No, it's not a little theme in the Bible. It's the story of the whole Bible.
44 · DeYoung signals the transition to the ninth and final theme
And then finally...
45 · DeYoung introduces the ninth theme by showing how Revelation 12 recapitulates Genesis 3's cast of characters—woman, seed, and serpent—now expanded in apocalyptic form
The Bible is a story about a boy and a girl and a snake. It's a good story. It's a true story. So one more time, think about Genesis, think about Revelation. You come to Revelation chapter 12, the second half of Revelation. Maybe you're chugging through there at the end of your Bible reading plan this year. You're almost there. Revelation 12 opens like a play, and the curtain opens, and one by one, characters are introduced, and in the reverse order in which they came, they leave the stage.
So the curtain is opened, and you see there a man and a woman. It's a woman and a son. It's not Mary, but here it's a picture of really the church and the Christ child, a man and a woman. And then the dragon enters. and then the beast, and then the false prophet, or the second beast, and then the prostitute. Those are the characters. Those are still the main characters. You want to know people get all lost in what's happening in all of the nations of the world. Yes, they matter, but you know what matters more? Here's the story God tells us in Revelation, a story about the church, the Christ, the dragon, the beast, and the prostitute, worldliness.
46 · DeYoung traces Revelation's reverse-order elimination of the Genesis 3 characters, showing how the snake is finally destroyed and the man and woman remain—now as husband and wife
And then from chapter 17 on, so those characters come on, one by one, you can check this on your own, one by one, they leave in the reverse order and they came. So first Babylon is overthrown, and then the false prophet, and then the beast, and then finally chapter 20, the devil himself, that ancient serpent is thrown into the abyss where there is burning fire. And so we're left, by the time we get to chapter 21, the snake is gone and you have a boy and a girl. Now it's not a mother and a son, but it's a husband and a wife, because the story of the Bible, the covenant promise throughout the Bible is, I will be a God to you, you will be My people, and I will be your God.
47 · DeYoung traces the covenant formula from the Old Testament through John's incarnation to Revelation 21, showing the progressive fulfillment of God's promise to dwell with His people
Genesis 17, Exodus 6, Leviticus 26, Jeremiah 7, Jeremiah 30, Ezekiel 36, Hosea 1, till John 1.14, the Word became flesh and made His tabernacle among us. And then Revelation 21 says, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and they will be His people, and He will be their God. Revelation 21.7, the One who conquers, I will be His God, He will be my Son. I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple, the covenant people. will no longer be alienated from their God.
48 · DeYoung concludes the sermon by synthesizing all nine themes into the fundamental story: a man, a woman, and a snake, with the snake destroyed and intimacy with God restored
There's a man, there's a woman, there's a snake, and the snake is burnt up forever. Revelation uses the analogy of the two most intimate human relationships, a husband and a wife, and a parent and a child. These two most intimate, precious relationships in different ways, this is what it's like, God with His people. That's the story we're telling. God and man no longer at enmity. Everything that went wrong in the garden has been set right in the garden city to come. No more snakes, just a man and a woman forever.
49 · DeYoung closes with a pastoral prayer asking for renewed engagement with Scripture and spiritual growth in the coming year
Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word, which is unending in the lessons You have for us, the insights You give to us. It is a book that we can never exhaust. May we never grow tired of it. Pray that in this closing week of the year, and as we approach a new year, that You would give us new reasons to learn, to grow, to repent, to change, and that in this coming 2026, we may more than ever before know You, love You, serve You, and know Your great love for us as Your people. In Jesus we pray. Amen.