The Origin Of Evil (Genesis 3)

Valley View Baptist Church                                                                 Pastor Curt Audet

6N656 Route 25                                                                                    May 17, 2026

St. Charles, IL  60174                                                                       vvbcil.com

“The Origin Of Evil” (Genesis 3)

#11 in the message series Harbors For Our Soul

BI: God’s design of man in His image allows for moral choices to be made for good or evil.

When God created the “heavens and earth” He made the triumphant announcement that it was all created ‘Good’.  There was nothing in all of heaven or all of earth that was not good in Creation.  By day 6, all things were called ‘very good’. 

Biblically, evil is presented as an intruder into God’s good, created world.  Evil is not an eternal equal opposite to God.

Evil Intrusions Upon God’s Good Creation

• A high-level angel—Lucifer, aka, Satan—asserted himself aspiring to be God.  Leading1/3 of the angelic population.

• After perfect obedience to God for a period of time, the first Man and Woman disobeyed God. (Genesis 2-3)

Genesis 1 sets humanity apart from every other category of Creation.  People are made in the image of God.  People were created Good.  From this start, the Man and the Woman were able to make decisions of right and wrong.  They continued to make “good” decisions until the crisis of Genesis 3. In terms of human moral choices Good and Evil can be seen as this simple:                              

Good – Obedience to God’s Command.

Evil – Disobedience to God’s Command.

Opportunity to sin was already available to Man and Woman.  The words of the Serpent were not their first opportunity to disobey God.

As Christ-followers, you and I openly confess Jesus Christ as our Savior and our Lord—which means ‘master’.  In doing this, we aim to proceed in our bodies from one obedience to our Master Jesus to another obedience to our Master. each moral choice strung together through our lifetime since we came to Christ. Galatians 2:20 gives words to this aspiration of the Christ-follower: 

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

We know, however, that it is always within us the capacity to make an evil moral choice.  For the redeemed child of God, we aim to increasingly seek God’s glory.  For the unredeemed, condemned soul, you are driven by your own will with little or no interest in honoring or obeying God.  The Bible describes a war-within us between our life-long sinful patterns, and the Holy Spirit residing within us leading to us to sanctification which is ‘holy living’.

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Romans 7:18-25)

“¹For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery . . . ¹³For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another . . .  ¹⁶But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” (Galatians 5:1,13,16-15)

If you have no interest in living a holy life; and you maintain this attitude of complacency through the weeks, months and years, it becomes evidence that you are still lost in your sin, and have never been born-again by the Spirit of God.

“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’?” ² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, ³ 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.’” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ 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.” (Genesis 3:1-6)

In Genesis 3, the origin of evil seems to begin with the Woman and the Man’s moral choices.  But as early as v.1, there is a ‘crafty’, ‘cunning’, ‘manipulative’ talking snake with an evil attitude all ready to disobey God. This morning, we will explore two important questions as we consider the origin of evil. The first, is this:

I. When did evil enter God’s good world? (Gen 2; 3:1-5; Revelation 12; Isaiah 14; Ezekiel 28; Job 1-2; Luke 10:17-20)

By Genesis 2:3, everything—as I pointed out earlier—was declared GOOD by God. No evil is prevailing by the end of the six days of Creation, or into the seventh ‘day of rest’.  No demonic snakes. No disobedience against the Lord at all.  No evil. 

Genesis 2:3 begins to chronicle the life and times of the Human race.   2:4-25 then describes the making of and the marrying of the Man and the Woman which all fits within Day 6.

In 2:9 The Tree of the Knowledge Of Good & Evil is introduced. The warning comes in 2:16-17, “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.”  The Tree itself was not evil. God introduced moral capacity of the Man and the Woman here.  God said, ‘Don’t eat of its fruit.’  The fruit wasn’t poisoned; God’s command was not evil.  The act of evil would come only in the act of disobeying God.   In that moment—here at the setting of this consequential Tree—the people would exercise their moral judgement to disobey.  Still, we have this demonic Serpent already in the Garden of Eden.   How did this happen?

(a) Angelic Rebellion – “Now war arose in heaven, [the archangel] Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, ⁸ but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. ⁹ And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” (Rev 12:7-9)

Between the 7 Days of Creation and the Woman’s conversation with the Serpent, this angelic rebellion took place. The Serpent is identified here as the great red Dragon, ‘that ancient Serpent’, ‘the Devil’, ‘Satan’, ‘the Deceiver of the whole world’.  He is the leader of one-third of the angelic beings created by God (Rev 12:3-4).

Satan voraciously attacks the human race.  Partly, because he cannot prevail against God himself—but he can presumably ‘hurt’ God by hurting His image bearers.  His goal in attacking the human race is twofold.  First, to lead as many people as possible away from God.  And, second, to prevent the Plan Of Redemption for all people from ever happening; Redemption first enters Scripture in Genesis 3:15 –

“I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring (Jesus); he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

God’s curse upon Satan—possessing the Serpent—prophesies that Satan would deal mighty blows against the Woman’s child (eventually, Jesus), but that coming child would defeat Satan and redeem humanity at the same time.

(b) Descriptions of Satan’s sin of pride. “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! ¹³ you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the

stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; ¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ ¹⁵ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.” (Isaiah 14:12-13)

“You were the signet of perfection,  full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. ¹³You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering,

On the day that you were created they were prepared. ¹⁴You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. ¹⁵You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.”

(c) Jesus describes Satan’s dramatic fall.  “¹⁷The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!’ ¹⁸And he said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. ²⁰Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’” (Luke 10:17-20)

So, our first question was: When does ‘evil’ enter God’s created world?Evil entered this world when the angel Lucifer/Satan (aka, Day Star) was cast from the heavens because of his pride, arrogance and rebellion.  He came to the earth, and serves the dishonorable purpose of leading a rebellion of disobedience against God among humans ever since and up to this day and until his time is up. Our second question is easier to answer:  

II. When did evil enter the human experience?  (Genesis 3:1-6; Romans 5:12-21) We can pin this down to Genesis 3:6.  In vv. 1-5 Satan presents his deceptive and evil pitch.  In v. 6 the Man and Woman sin, make a morally evil choice to disobey, which also called ‘sin’.  This begins the impact of death upon humanity.

The Serpent of old, Satan, tempted the moral choice, authority and clarity of the Woman and the Man.  A ‘temptation’ is an enticement to evil, aka, ‘to disobey God’s command’.

v. 1 – The Serpent used twisted, manipulative words. Filled with evil, he asked the woman of what God actually said in the command about this Tree.   See the twist?  He misquoted God and claimed God forbade eating of any of the trees.

v.2-3 – The Woman misquoted God!  God told them not to eat of this Tree only; she added. neither shall you touch it.  Satan’s first victory over humanity.

v.4 – Satan flat out contradicted God:  You will not die!  Rebellion is evil.

v.5 – Satan then impugns God’s character.   He claims God lied to protect His own God status!  Furthermore, Satan misrepresented the consequences of knowing evil experientially in the disobedience and rebellion.  Satan sure knew experientially this.  One day—in God’s timing—Satan will be fully defeated!

v.6 – At this point the Woman bought what the Deceiver was selling. 

• The Tree was good for eating.
• The Tree was beautiful in appearance.
• The Tree of Knowledge led to wisdom.
• The moral line of ‘evil’ was crossed when she ate.
• The Man was near! He shared right away the fruit she gave!

How evil entered the human experience.  (Romans 5:12-21)

¹²Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned . . . ¹⁵ But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many . . . ¹⁷For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

¹⁸ Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men . . . ²¹ so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Satan is influential,  persuasive and effective in leading in rebellion. Still, you and I can never say, ‘The devil made me do it’.  He will lead you to sin if he can.  Even Adam and Eve could never say, ‘The Satanic Serpent made us eat of the forbidden tree.’  No.  God gave us a moral choice capacity.   With this we choose to do either Good or Evil.   We can choose to obey God’s command for our Good and for His glory.  Or we can choose to disobey God’s Word and act out evil ultimately even destroying ourselves.  

People may say, “Wait, eating the fruit of the tree that God had made is not evil!”  No, not of itself.   But when God commands to ‘not eat of it’, then disobeying Him is succumbing to evil.     

Definitions:

Good – Obedience to God’s Command.

Evil – Disobedience to God’s Command.