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[Announcer] (0:01 - 0:17) Think about the Bible like you never have before. You're listening to Christian Questions. Access more audio, videos, and Bible study resources at ChristianQuestions.com.

Our topic is: "Did God Curse the World?" Here's Rick and Julie.

[Rick] (0:19 - 0:26) Welcome, everyone. I'm Rick. I'm joined by Julie, a longtime contributor.

Julie, what's our theme Scripture for this episode?

[Julie] (0:26 - 0:48) Genesis 3:17: "Then to Adam He said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat from it; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life."

[Rick] (0:49 - 1:40) There are two fundamental lessons we can learn about God from having a general knowledge of the true message of the Bible. First, we know that God is love, as He created humanity for the sake of having an eternal human family. Second, God is just. His love for humanity is not weak and unreliable.

It is based on a solid foundation of justice. When Adam sinned, this justice aspect of His character was plain to see, as Adam would no longer have eternal life. He would now be destined to live out his life outside of the Garden of Eden in a different environment than he had originally been given.

Adam, Eve, and the generations they would produce would now make their living off of a cursed earth. What would this mean for them? Did their disobedience doom the whole world to a cursed life of hopelessness?

[Julie] (1:41 - 2:25) Rick, this topic came about because I was responding to an email question from a listener who wrote us, and I used the expression, "The Curse of Sin and Death." I wanted to add the Scripture citation so I could have that for my answer. I'm looking...concordance..."Curse of Sin and Death." There was no phrase.

I feel like I've been hearing it all my life, so I realized there's a lot of expressions that I've used and heard, because this topic is full of misconceptions, like "humanity is cursed," "we live under God's curse of sin and death," "Jesus removed the curse of Adam"--

no Scripture for any of these. Who cut these pages out of my Bible? What's going on?

So here we are. We're going to untangle a little bit of this.

[Rick] (2:25 - 3:11) We need to untangle that because, you're right, that Scripture doesn't exist. To begin with, we need to establish what God did and what He didn't do back in the beginning when sin became a part of the human experience. Eve was tempted by Satan's deceptiveness and his lie, and she disobeyed God's clear command.

What or who did God "curse," and what were the long-range implications? Those are the really important questions we need to start with. Let's go back to that environment and see if we can figure this out.

After sin entered, God spoke to Adam and Eve. Sin is now...they have both partaken of the fruit, and here's where we're dropping in to see what happens. Julie, let's go to Genesis 3:11-13:

[Julie] (3:12 - 3:39) "And He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman whom You gave me to be with, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."

You gave her to me, so it's technically Your fault, God! That was pretty bold! Verse 13: "Then the LORD God said to the woman, What is this you have done?

And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate." It's the serpent's fault! And that's true, but Adam, Eve, and Satan were all at fault.

[Rick] (3:39 - 4:07) You're right. They were all at fault. So Adam, Eve, and Satan are all implicated in this very grave disobedience.

They are all subject to "something," and that something is what comes next. God then proclaims the consequences of sin in the Garden of Eden, and here, when He's proclaiming these consequences, here is where "curses" begin. Let's go to Genesis 3:14-15.

[Julie] (4:08 - 5:28) Here's Curse #1. "The LORD God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life;

and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." Before we get into what all that means, I just wanted to point out here that Hebrew word for "cursed" here--"cursed are you more than all cattle"--it's "arar." It carries two connected ideas that older Lexicons describe with these two rare English terms.

The first is "to execrate." To execrate means to denounce something as evil, detestable, or morally corrupt. It's not just a feeling of disgust.

This is the act of God, saying, "This is wicked and it must be rejected." That's the moral side of a curse. "To imprecate" (the second rare English term) means to invoke a curse or pronounce a penalty.

That's the judicial side, that spoken sentence that places someone or something under judgment. God curses the serpent. That means God morally rejects the deception (execrate) and pronounces his judgment against Satan (imprecate). That's why that Hebrew word carries such weight, because it captures both sides of what God's doing in Genesis 3.

[Rick] (5:28 - 5:32) These words "execrate" and "imprecate" that we never use...

[Julie] (5:32 - 5:32) Right.

[Rick] (5:32 - 5:42) ...are very, very important in understanding the truth of the matter.

Satan, in the form of a serpent, is execrated and imprecated!

[Julie] (5:42 - 5:44) Let's just say he's "cursed."

[Rick] (5:44 - 6:31) Yeah, okay. He stepped out of harmony with God, he misrepresented God's command, and he lied. As a result of God's loathing his choices, looking down with anger and disdain upon those choices, he would be debased from his former glory. Ultimately, he would be destroyed by the offspring of the woman he deceived.

It said in those verses that "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between her seed and your seed, he will bruise you on the head." You bruise the serpent on the head, you kill it. You'll bruise him on the heel--you wound him, but you won't kill him. You've got this dramatic loathing and disdain for what Satan had done, and this dramatic prophecy that puts it in place that says, it's going to end with your destruction eventually.

[Julie] (6:32 - 6:46) That serpent's curse is unique because it includes both this humiliation of being brought low and prophecy, because that first curse is also the first promise of redemption. We think that that "her seed"--that is eventually leading to Jesus.

[Rick] (6:46 - 6:54) Right, and that's the big part of that. In the very beginning, when you have the worst thing happening, you have the best thing promised.

[Julie] (6:55 - 7:00) Aww, yeah.

[Rick] (7:00 - 7:09) This is showing you the balance of God's anger and disdain for sin. Let's continue. God's consequences continued with Eve and with Adam. Let's look at that in Genesis 3:16-17:

[Julie] (7:09 - 8:03) "To the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Then to Adam He said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat from it;

(here comes Curse #2) cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles

it shall grow for you." This curse on the ground also includes both sides of this Hebrew idea--God's moral rejection of the disorder that sin brought into creation and His judicial pronouncement on the ground that would now resist human effort. It's not that the soil was evil but that sin disrupted God's order,

and the curse reflects His moral response and the judicial action.

[Rick] (8:04 - 8:17) God did not curse Eve or Adam, but He did curse the ground because of Adam, for his sake. It was a pronouncement, but Eve or Adam were not individually cursed.

[Julie] (8:18 - 9:04) That's right. Adam sinned and it says "because of you" the ground is cursed. This is an interesting Hebrew word.

It's used elsewhere in Scripture to mean for your benefit or for your good. It strongly suggests here in Genesis 3:17, by looking at the Hebrew, that there's a double meaning. Yes, the ground is cursed because Adam sinned, but the ground is cursed for Adam's sake to teach and shape and discipline.

God allowed the struggle of labor and this resistance of soil as a teacher, showing us what life apart from God's direct care is like and to prepare us for the need for a Redeemer. Even in judgment, God was working for our ultimate good. He cursed the ground for Adam's sake, meaning this new difficulty had purpose.

[Rick] (9:04 - 10:03) You can see that in cursing Satan, it showed that his destruction would come from the seed of the woman. There's hope there. In cursing the ground, it shows a purpose.

God is not just angry without meaning, angry without direction. He has a purpose to all of this. God's cursing of the ground meant that he literally, in a literal sense, that he ceased to develop and cultivate its productivity to the level of the Garden of Eden.

Remember when they were put in the garden, it was here. It's ready for you. Go to work, cultivate what I've given you.

The ground outside of the garden would now grow things much more haphazardly without the refinements of God's hand to maximize its efficiency. Adam's consequence was now to manage this alone, not with God's hand but with his own hands, and not with God's help and intervention in the development of things. That's what he was left with.

Again, let's go to what that looked like. Genesis 3:18-19:

[Julie] (10:03 - 10:16) "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

[Rick] (10:16 - 10:40) It's interesting; you were taken from the ground, you will return to dust. It's all put in order. While this curse made sustaining life difficult--and that's what it did, it made sustaining life difficult--death would be the direct result of Adam's disobedience. Not part of the curse, but it's Adam's disobedience.

That's an important point here, Julie.

[Julie] (10:40 - 11:30) Yeah, because God never said, Adam, you are cursed. He didn't do that. Adam received a judicial sentence of death because of sin.

We didn't read it, but back in Genesis 2:17, before sin, before the curses, God said, "In the day you eat of it" (He was talking about the tree of knowledge of good and evil) "you will surely die." Dying was the penalty for Adam's sin, but a curse is different. That's a judicial penalty with God's explicit "cursed are you." God never pronounces that over Adam.

This death sentence affects all of his descendants--obviously, you and me. The Scriptures describe humanity's condition under sin as being "under God's wrath," not under a universal curse. If we want to be technical about it, we're under His wrath, not under a curse.

[Rick] (11:30 - 12:10) What this means is they were taken out of the Garden. That means no more tree of life, and the "dying thou shalt die" means that your life is going to just expire because I am not sustaining it. That's different from the curse on the ground.

Very, very different. It's really important to see that. The ground is cursed; Adam and Eve are not.

Satan is cursed. That's a different situation here. Our original question is, has God cursed the world? Up to this point, has God cursed the world?

Has God cursed people? We want to make sure that when we say the world, we're not looking at just the physical earth, but the world as in society. Has God cursed society?

[Julie] (12:11 - 12:19) No! He only speaks a curse twice in Genesis 3, and both times that curse is targeted-- serpent, ground. Neither time is it directed towards humanity.

[Rick] (12:20 - 12:20) No.

[Julie] (12:20 - 12:21) So far, so good.

[Rick] (12:21 - 12:47) So far, so good.

Let's continue. This curse of the ground--this is interesting--became a very prominent factor throughout human history. Cain, one of Adam's sons, would also experience a curse related to the ground after he murders his brother Abel.

We want to touch on that because there's this continuity of the curse of the ground coming up. Genesis 4:2-5:

[Julie] (13:08 - 13:31) "...And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard."

It says "Cain was a tiller of the ground," the cursed ground by now. Isn't it interesting that Cain's occupation puts him in constant contact with the consequences of sin. He's trying to produce something good from something that's resisting him, which if you think about it, kind of mirrors how he resists God. His heart is hard; his life bears thorns instead of fruit.

[Rick] (13:32 - 14:08) We're going to see that bearing of the thorns instead of fruit very, very quickly here, because God did not receive his sacrifice, and he basically showed Cain a way to become acceptable, but Cain didn't. Cain is warned by God, but no--in Cain's anger, he murders Abel. Now you've got dramatic consequences that happen as a result of that, and the meaning of those consequences is very, very, very important.

Let's look at this. What are the consequences of this first murder? Genesis 4:10-12:

[Julie] (14:08 - 14:32) "And God said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground (here comes another curse).

Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth."

[Rick] (14:32 - 16:04) This is dramatic. Cain was cursed! God's loathing, His disdain for Cain's jealousy and the murdering of his brother was justly exercised by the removal from Cain of what he had done so well, the tilling of the ground that had been cursed.

Let's get this straight. He (Cain) had his hands in the soil, and he was apparently very good at bringing fruitage out of the ground. And God says, now that you have done what you have done, you are now removed from that ability.

You no longer have that ability. You are cursed from the ground. You are taken away from your connection with creating sustenance from the ground.

The rest of your life, you're a vagrant and a wanderer because you have done this heinous, heinous crime. You've got this curse, and it's very, very, very, very significant. The tilling of the ground was no longer something Cain could do.

It's important, Julie, to recognize this curse upon Cain is very unique. Also the fact that everybody up to this point is vegetarian because they're eating only from the fruit of the ground. If Cain is not able to produce it, you can see how his life becomes much, much, much more difficult.

Pause there. Okay, we've got that curse in place. Now let's look at this curse on the ground coming up many years later, because the strain of this curse upon the ground again comes into focus years later.

Let's go to Genesis 5:28-29:

[Julie] (16:05 - 16:26) "Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son. Now he called his name Noah, saying, This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD has cursed" Now that's an interesting prophecy.

How would Noah do this? Will he somehow lift the curse of the ground?

[Rick] (16:26 - 17:22) It is. It's fascinating. In all of my looking at Scriptures and studying the curses and all these things, I never saw this connection before.

It was very, very fascinating to me to see this rise up out of the Scripture. Lamech says that my son Noah, who has just been born -- prophetically says -- he will be the one to "give us rest from our work," from the curse of the ground. Like, okay, how does he do that?

Some commentaries go down all kinds of different roads... well, maybe he developed implements of tilling the ground that were not there before. Sure, perhaps.

However, I think that there is a very significant Scripture that helped us to understand this. After the flood--so this is many years later--Noah followed God's commands, and in so doing, here's what happened. The depth of the difficulty from the curse on the ground was actually partially lifted, according to Scripture.

Let's look at Genesis 9:1,3 (this is after the flood):

[Julie] (17:23 - 18:01) "And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant."

What changed was the human diet could now include meat. Survival would no longer depend solely on agriculture. That makes sense because with this alternative food source, the effect of the curse is mitigated, not the curse itself.

There's still thorns and thistles and sweat and toil. But again, this shows God's mercy, even in judgment. It's amazing how many times we can read these Genesis Scriptures and still get special little nuggets of happiness.

[Rick] (18:02 - 18:29) Yeah, something new and something that's encouraging in the context, because when you think about God cursing the ground, it's like, oh, this is terrible. This is bad. And it is.

But God is not a God of anger that just sits in loathing. His plan shows that He's got other things in mind. These little pieces, as you put them into place, help to understand that, okay, there's more to it than just the anger.

Let's expand our minds to be able to include those things.

[Julie] (18:29 - 19:02) Real quick, if you go back just a chapter, Genesis 8:21: "I will never again curse the ground on account of man." He didn't remove that Genesis 3 ground curse, but He promised He wouldn't add another one or curse the ground further. The next verse, Genesis 8:22: "While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

He gave them and us predictable seasons. Again, that curse is mitigated because God provided more stability and predictability. But the ground itself remains cursed at this point to this day.

[Rick] (19:02 - 19:14) There's hope in the context of this curse of the ground. All right. We've got this curse of the ground.

We have the curse of Cain. We had the curse of Satan. Up to this point, Julie, has God cursed the world, the people, the society?

[Julie] (19:15 - 19:32) No, because the curse on the ground, yes, it created a world of frustration and futility. It resists human effort. But the Apostle Paul picks up this same theme in the New Testament and shows us the condition continues, but only temporarily.

So no cursing of the whole world yet.

[Rick] (19:32 - 19:51) Okay. Right. Now a New Testament view of the Old Testament Law;

when we say the Old Testament Law, we mean the whole Law, not just the Ten Commandments, but Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy as well. All of those pieces. The question is, does God curse the world with His Law?

[Julie] (19:51 - 20:21) Okay, wait. Before we go further, it's important to note we're going to be using this "curse of the Law" expression. It's often misunderstood.

Christians blend the curse on the ground with this curse of the Law we're going to talk about, and the death sentence. They treat them as all curses, but they're not. When we mix them up, it's confusing.

Remember, the death sentence of mankind wasn't a curse, it was a judicial penalty because of sin. Remember Genesis 2:17? "In that day you eat of it, you shall surely die."

Okay, now let's go with the Law.

[Rick] (20:22 - 20:39) Now we're going to look at the Law and what's called "the curse of the Law." I want to keep these things separate to see how they are dealt with. The Apostle Paul acknowledges the Jewish nation's disloyalty to that Law, and their just consequences.

He shows that there is a "curse of the Law." Let's look at Galatians 3:10:

[Julie] (20:39 - 21:40) "For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written (and then he next quotes from Deuteronomy 27:26), CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM THEM." Paul uses two different words for "curse" here. Together they echo those same two ideas that we saw in Hebrew; God's moral rejection of disloyalty--our favorite word "execrate"--and the judicial penalty that follows--our next new word, "imprecate."

Israel's failure to keep the Law placed them under the Law's covenant curse, not a universal curse on humanity. Paul's saying that Israel, under the Mosaic Covenant, placed themselves under that conditional curse if they broke the Law. That's why he's quoting Deuteronomy 27:26. That's where there was that covenant ceremony where Israel said "Amen" to both the blessings and the curses. They violated the covenant they agreed to.

[Rick] (21:41 - 22:35) You have this, the apostle calls it the curse, because he says "cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the Law." He is talking to the nation and to individuals. Notice the individual accountability here.

Each individual was responsible to live up to the Law to the best of their ability. God always has and always does look for personal loyalty. That becomes a very, very, very important part of His picture, and that's where sin and consequences and curses all become part of our understanding of His plan.

Let's go a little bit further. The Apostle Paul then uses the truth of the nation's disobedience, being loathed, being disdained by God, to build the case for faith. He's acknowledging the nation didn't live up to the Law.

Now here's what unfolds next. Galatians 3:11-12:

[Julie] (22:36 - 22:48) " Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH. However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE BY THEM."

[Rick] (22:48 - 23:41) Apostle Paul is quoting from Habakkuk 2:4 and Leviticus 18:5. He's saying no one is justified by the Law before God. He said that's evidence. It's provable.

You can't see anybody becoming justified. Now, I will tell you that the one exception for that was Jesus himself, because he did fulfill the Law. Because he fulfilled the Law, he was able to give his life as a ransom.

But when you look at humanity in general, nobody, nobody is justified by that Law. They can't be made right before God, because he says the righteous shall live by faith, not by the Law. It's something higher, something different.

Faith, not works, can bring us back to favor with God. The question is, faith in what? Or, as we will see, faith in whom?

Let's look at Genesis 3:13-14. <Editor's note: Galatians 3:14-15>

[Julie] (23:42 - 23:54) "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us-- for it is written, CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE..." Before we get into the cursed part, it says "Christ redeemed us."

Who's "us?"

[Rick] (23:54 - 24:07) He, in this verse, is speaking specifically to those with Jewish background, because he's talking about the Law. He's talking to the Jewish Christians and explaining their redemption.

[Julie] (24:07 - 24:10) Okay, we're Gentiles. What does that have to do with us Christians?

[Rick] (24:10 - 24:18) Well, it doesn't have a lot to do with us Christians at this moment, but if we read the next verse, we're going to see this thing expand a little bit. Let's go to the next verse.

[Julie] (24:19 - 24:28) <Galations 3:14> says: "... in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the spirit through faith."

[Rick] (24:29 - 25:16) The redemption that goes to the Jewish people from Jesus, that takes them out from under the Law, is in place so that the blessing can go to the Gentiles afterwards. Remember, Cornelius is the first Gentile converted to Christianity. You can see the effect of the curse is lifted for those Jewish people who come to God through Christ.

The penalty of sin and death is taken away so the Gentiles could now become part of this. All together, they are to become the seed of Abraham. That's the key here.

That's what this is focusing on. Justification by faith in Jesus and his redemption, that's what brings life. Nothing else is possible to bring life into play.

[Julie] (25:16 - 25:20) Okay, what about this "curse to everyone who hangs on a tree?" How does that go back to Jesus?

[Rick] (25:21 - 25:32) Hanging on a tree was a penalty under the Jewish Law to take the already dead body of a criminal who committed particularly heinous crimes and to put them up on a tree.

[Julie] (25:33 - 25:34) So everyone can see it.

[Rick] (25:34 - 26:33) Right. It wasn't torture. It was an example.

When we recognize that Jesus hung on a tree, essentially, when he hung on the cross, he took on all of the ignominy, all of the sadness, all of the disgrace of humanity in their worst sins, and he gave his life for it. He, essentially, the Scripture tells us that he "nailed" the Law to the cross. He nailed the Law to the cross.

He hangs on a tree, and he takes all of that voluntarily. In Hebrews, it says that he made light of the of the cross, the shame of the cross. It was a horrible shame, and he said, "I'm willing to do that because of what comes from it."

This Law's public sign of falling under divine judgment was absorbed by Jesus just like everything else. He voluntarily absorbed the death penalty from Adam. He absorbed the severe penalty of the Law being hung on a tree.

He put it all in order, and he said, I'm taking all of this and making it all right.

[Julie] (26:34 - 27:12) He wasn't hung on a tree. He died by crucifixion, but he was displayed, and that was said to be that public sign that he fulfilled that Law. The curse of the Law wasn't the same as the curse of the ground in Eden.

That curse of the ground affected the entire human experience, but the Law's curse applied only to Israel because of the covenant that they agreed to keep. We need to keep those distinctions clear because it helps us understand how Jesus fulfilled each one. One was the ransom. He died for all, and then here, this hanging on a tree visual was how he fulfilled the Law and showed that he was the public sign that someone had fallen under divine judgment.

Do I have that right?

[Rick] (27:13 - 27:53) Yes, yes, and so now what we see is the calling out of those Jewish individuals and those Gentiles to become the seed of Abraham. "If you are Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise," "in thee and thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." That's how it all fits together, and you can see Jesus just absorbs it all, puts it all in order. Basically it's saying to us, trust him, trust what he said, trust what he did, trust who he is, and follow in his footsteps. Sin and the curse and all of those things, all of those things are going to be taken care of because of him.

Julie, let's pause. Up to this point, has God cursed the world, the society? Has God cursed everybody?

[Julie] (27:54 - 27:56) Not yet, no. No.

[Rick] (27:56 - 27:57) Okay.

[Julie] (27:57 - 28:01) I just see hope so far, because there's always a glimmer of hope with all this.

[Rick] (28:01 - 28:28) Right, right. On the contrary, what we're seeing is there's hope, there's something different, there's something new, so let's look at what is different, what is new here. What's the end result of all of this?

We have seen that God did not curse the world, but there were dramatic consequences for sin throughout all of human history. We've touched on that. Romans 8:20-22 is a really good set of verses that explains the sin and the context in which it comes.

It's very descriptive.

[Julie] (28:28 - 29:23) "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now." Some Christians assume that the whole world was cursed, and they do that by kind of blending Genesis 3, that cursed ground, with this Romans 8, the creation subjected to futility.

But Scripture never says God cursed the world or cursed humanity. Remember in Genesis, those are targeted curses--the serpent, the ground. With the consequences of sin--this death, decay, futility--affects everyone.

Paul never says "The world is cursed!" He said creation is "subjected to futility," waiting in HOPE for restoration.

[Rick] (29:23 - 30:51) That's such a great word. They were "subjected to futility." You're going to work at it, and it's not going to work...and they're going to work at it, and it's not going to work...

Paul's telling us that the circumstances of toil, strain, and futility, he's telling us--pay attention--that they're temporary. He's pointing to the coming birth of something new. Yet he also reminds us that as the original consequences for sin were toil in providing from the cursed ground and pain in childbirth, those consequences are still needed for the coming change.

He talks about the toil and difficulty relating to the ground. He talks about the new birth of a new world as related to the difficulty in childbirth. He's going back to the original circumstances and issues and saying, there's hope here.

There's hope here. It doesn't end. This is just the beginning.

It's not an ending. Let's look at how that ending works. This is marvelous!

This takes this whole concept of curses and anger and puts it all in a grand context. Here's a glimpse, just a glimpse, of what the sacrifice of Jesus did relating to the original curse and all that was attached to it. Let's look at Revelation 22:1-3.

Julie, before you read those, just remember that curses began within the first few chapters of Genesis, okay? We have the curse upon the ground and the curse of Satan.

Here we are in the last chapter of the Bible. We're going from the very beginning and the circumstances to the very ending of Scripture. Let's see what it says:

[Julie] (30:52 - 31:52) "Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it and His bond-servants will serve Him." It says "there will no longer be any curse."

This is a very special word. It's only used once, and it carries the thought of something banned from God's presence, something that cannot exist in a holy realm. Creation had been restored before this point.

Nothing unholy exists. Satan got destroyed two chapters earlier. This is a final, fully purified state in the new Jerusalem.

The curse of the ground that began in Genesis is over by the time we get to these texts. Here we are right back looking at the Garden of Eden with this tree. God's plan was always the "restoration of all things," Acts 3:21.

[Rick] (31:53 - 33:02) It is remarkable, and it talks about this water of life as crystal coming from the throne of God, and then it says, "and of the Lamb." See, that's an important description here. We've got the throne of God Almighty and of the Lamb--of Jesus Christ in his glorified state--having provided the way to get here.

It describes, like you said, the tree of life and twelve kinds of fruit, and it's constantly yielding that fruit, and there's life, and there's something wonderful, and there's a lot of vitality here. Healing. There's healing

because there's no more curse, because the throne of the Lamb, because the Lamb was faithful even unto death. He died and he was raised and put it all in order.

It is very, very remarkable. No more curse, period. Let's just take a look at one Scripture that just gives us a sense of what that looks like.

I hate to do this, Julie, with just one Scripture, because there's loads of Scriptures that talk about this. Let's just look at this one. Isaiah 11:9:

[Julie] (33:02 - 33:10) "They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea."

[Rick] (33:10 - 33:38) "The earth is full of the knowledge of the LORD." That's a very different environment than a cursed ground. It's a very different environment than we're having the Law,

cursed is everyone who can't live up to the Law, because you can't get there. Now the knowledge of the Lord is everywhere, and it covers the earth "as the waters cover the sea." It's complete.

There are no voids in the way the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth. This is all because of Jesus.

[Julie] (33:38 - 34:33) It's all on the earth, the resurrection. We might hear: "We live under the curse." "The world is cursed."

"Humanity is cursed." "We live under God's curse of sin and death." "Jesus removed the curse of Adam."

People use these as a figure of speech to describe humanity's condemned condition. It's kind of an umbrella term for everything that's wrong with the world, not a technical reference to a biblical curse. Technically, we would say we live under the consequences of sin, not under a divine curse.

Why does this matter to us, to be so specific? Understanding what God did and did not curse reshapes how we see Him, how we see ourselves, and how we see the world. First, it protects us from imagining this angry, vengeful, out of control, unmerciful God.

He cursed the serpent and the ground, but never the human race. His justice allowed consequences, but His love always showed us restoration.

[Rick] (34:34 - 35:04) Second--let's go a little bit further-- this helps us to correctly interpret suffering. Sickness, decay, toil, and pain aren't signs of God's rejection.

They are the natural results of living in a world allowed to feel the weight of sin so that we can learn and grow and long for righteousness. That's why it's there. We need to understand and be able to embrace what suffering and sickness and decay and toil are really, really there for.

[Julie] (35:05 - 35:21) Third, it reminds us that all this is temporary. Creation--remember we read it's "groaning." That's not despair.

Paul compared them to labor pains. Something better is coming. This ground curse is going to be lifted.

Futility will end, and God's kingdom will be a time of restoration.

[Rick] (35:22 - 37:23) Absolutely. The final point here: All of this reveals the heart of God. We started this particular episode saying God is love. Here, we're coming around to showing how that actually works.

Even in judgment, He was preparing blessing. Even in consequences, what was He doing? He was pointing to Christ.

Even in the curse of the ground, what was He doing? He was shaping humanity for redemption so that when we look at all of these things, you don't see an angry God that's out of control. You see a God that says, these are necessary things.

These are despicable before my eyes, but I will allow them for the purpose of My plan to unfold through My son, Jesus. When we wrap this up, did God curse the world? The biblical evidence answers this question with a staggering NO!

The evidence also verifies that God's wisdom allowed sin to have its day even though God loathes it. His plan to have Jesus voluntarily absorb the consequences of original sin shows us that God's intentions have always been to bless the world eternally. Worldwide blessing, NOT worldwide curses!

That's the point. That's what we need to be looking at. That's what we need to focus on, is when we see the curse on the ground and we see all of these other pieces, to recognize they're part of a grand plan.

They're part of something so much bigger that you can't see sitting in our little chair looking and saying, well, what's the answer? The Scriptures tell us from beginning to end that this was allowable so that an eternity of life and peace and joy and godliness would prevail, both on earth and in heaven. Think about it.

Folks, we love hearing from our listeners. We welcome your feedback and questions on this episode and other episodes at ChristianQuestions.com. Coming up in our next episode: "Is It Necessary to Confess My Sins?"

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