The Curse of Freedom

I am not great with movie quotes. No matter how much I love a movie or how many times I’ve seen it, I still can’t manage to get the quotes right. However, there is one movie that I watched way back when I was a teenager that has stuck with me until now. The movie was called “City of Angels”, starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. It’s a sad love story about an angel named Seth who falls in love with a human and ends up falling from heaven because of that love. When Seth first falls in love, he meets another fallen angel named Nathaniel who explains to him how he can become human. He explains that it is as easy as falling, that you just need to choose to do it. He tells Seth, “He gave these bozos the greatest gift in the universe - you think He didn't give it to us, too?” Seth asks, “Which gift?” And, Nathaniel replies, “Free will, brother, free will.”

The way Nathaniel describes “free will” is really the way we see it, as a gift. Really, we see free will as the ultimate gift and the ultimate good. People celebrate the fact that God made us “autonomous” (literally, a law unto ourselves). Our society particularly thinks that God ultimately created us so that he might serve us. God really just wants you to be happy, healthy, and wealthy. God wants so desperately for you to believe in him, for you to like him. We think that God loves to see us exercise our free will.

But in reality, this free will that we admire so much is just a cage. All we need to do is look at the world around us and see that we really aren’t all that free after all. Our pursuit of freedom in our relationships leads us to deny the worth of another life. Just look at the recent debates surrounding abortion for any reason at any time. Our pursuit of freedom in our emotions leads us to deny the very natural order of things. Just look at the utter confusion surrounding gender and identity. Our pursuit of our rights and our resistance to marginalization leads us to marginalize and devalue other humans who are made in the image of God. Just look at the rise in far-right hate groups and the terrible events at Charleston and Charlottesville.

The truth is, we may think we are free, but we are really slaves to sin. There is a very clear way that we can know that we aren’t really free: we die. Sure, we may think that if we apply the right rules, implement the right government, then people will stop hating, stop lying, stop devaluing other humans, but no matter what we do, people are still hateful, deceitful, and murderous. We may think that gaining knowledge through science will finally deliver us from the curse of death, but in spite of over 300 years of scientific advancement, the maximum age hasn’t really changed at all.

Running against the current of our modern views of freedom, we find that the Bible has a very different view of the matter. As we’ve already seen, the great choice that Adam and Eve faced as they stood before the Tree of Knowledge was indeed a question of freedom. The question was very simple: would they live in dependence on God, trusting him for the knowledge and life that they wanted, or would they be free from God and live by their own terms? In listening to the serpent, they thought they were achieving wisdom and life on their own terms, but what they received in the end was bondage and death. This truth is soberly reinforced in two ways. We saw one way last week, when Cain, who is told to master his sin, becomes instead the sin he is told to master and murders his righteous brother, Abel. The other way we see it is in the genealogies that follow in chapters 4 and 5. There is a theme that runs throughout them: Person X became the Father of Person Y, then X had other sons and daughters, and then he died. Yes, life goes on, but with every new generation we have the sober reminder that the last generation died. As Paul says in Romans 5:14, “Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even though people didn’t sin in the same way as Adam”.

But Death is not the only thing that reigned in the line of Adam. We find at the end of Chapter 4 that the lineage of Cain also brought a history of rebellion. The pinnacle of this rebellion is exemplified in the seventh from Cain, Lamech. To understand where Moses is going with this, we have to remember the promise that God made in Genesis 3:15, that there would be enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Cain was ruled by Satan, and Moses wants us to see that his descendants were ruled by Satan as well. And there is no greater example of this than Lamech. There are three characteristics of this sinful line that are exemplified in Lamech.

First, notice in chapter 4:19 that Lamech took two wives. Up to this point, nothing has been said about the deeds of the members of this genealogy, until we come to Lamech, and the first thing Lamech is said to do is redefine the marriage relationship. The word used here for “took” is the same word used in Genesis 2 where God “takes from Adam’s side” and makes Eve. Keep in mind, God gave Eve to Adam as the perfect helpmate, but now Lamech “takes” two wives.

Second, Lamech devalues human life. Like his forefather, Cain, Lamech frivolously murders a young man for striking him. The language here is very stark. First of all, Lamech is a grown man, but he says that he killed a “young man”. This term literally means “adolescent boy”. Second, the actions are starkly different. The wound that Lamech suffered was little more than a bruise, but the word used here for “killed” is the idea of violent murder. So, you get the picture. Lamech violently murders a 12-year-old boy for bruising him, then writes a song and has his wives memorize it.

Finally, Lamech uses religion for his own ends, just like his forefather, the serpent. Just like the serpent distorted God’s word in the garden, so too Lamech now takes the gracious promise of protection that God made to Cain, distorts it, and then uses it for his own ends. Lamech was the first preacher of the prosperity Gospel. He believed that God was useful for protection. He believed that God existed to prosper him. He believed that God would bless the one who just reached out and took.

But even in his freedom, Lamech proves to be a seed of Satan. And the truth is, all of humanity is just like him, even the most religious. Once, when confronted by the religious leaders, Jesus told them in John 8:44-45 that they were “of their father, the devil, and their desire was to do his will.” Paul says in Eph. 2:1-3 that we were all walking after Satan before we came to Christ. Lamech was not free. He was just acting upon the desires of his heart, which were wicked and turned towards Satan. And, we are not free, either. If you are outside of Christ, you are a slave to sin just like your forefather, Lamech.

But, lest we think that all is lost and that there is no hope left for humanity, Moses reveals a second genealogy at the end of Chapter 4. This second line begins with Adam through Seth. We find very quickly that this line is different from the line of Cain. And just as Lamech was the seventh from Cain and the ultimate example of rebellious life, Enoch is given as the seventh from Adam through Seth, and the ultimate example of the life lived dependent on God. There are three characteristics given here that I want you to see about the life that is dependent on God.

First, notice in 4:26 that the son of Seth, Enosh, starts a new path. Unlike the seed of the serpent, those who were the seed of promise seek God for their provision and blessing. They patiently wait on the Lord for his deliverance.

Second, just like with Lamech, Moses pauses in the lineage of Seth to tell us a little more about this seventh descendent, Enoch. And, the most notable characteristic of Enoch’s life was that he “walked with God”. This is the very reason for which God created humanity, that he might walk in fellowship with them. We find that in Genesis 3:8, as God apparently had a practice of coming to the garden to walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. We also find that the end goal of the Law of God is that we might walk with God.

Micah 6:8: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

            Finally, the one who lives dependent on God is ultimately delivered. Moses tells us that God chooses to bless Enoch by “taking him up”. As a result of this life of faith, God delivered Enoch from the judgment that was to come on the world through the flood.

            But, even after Enoch, people still sought to be free from God. We see that all too painfully in the flood that will come next, the tower of Babel, the kingdom of Egypt which so cruelly enslaved the Israelites, and ultimately in the empire of Babylon, who destroyed the temple of God and took his people into captivity. And, the problem isn’t just a problem for the Gentile nations. We find that the Israelites themselves, God’s own chosen nation, lived in constant rebellion against their gracious God.

            But, even while the nations rebelled, God promised that he would have a people who would call upon his name. In Psalm 105:1, he says that he will use his people to call the nations to himself. In Zephaniah 3:9 he promises that he will change the speech of the nations that they might call out to him. Then, Jesus is born, and we find that some of the first people that come to him are wise men from the East. As he starts his ministry, he goes to the far-flung edges of Palestine first; places that were full of outcasts and Gentiles like the Decapolis and Samaria. John notes at the opening of his Gospel that the world didn’t receive him and even his own people didn’t receive him, but to all who did receive him he gave the right to become children of God.

            After his death, his disciples began to tell people that his name was the source of healing and eternal life. Peter and John, in Acts 3:6, tell a crippled man, “In the name of Jesus, stand up and walk”, and he does. Peter, standing before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:12, tells them that there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved, except the name of Jesus. Paul tells the members of the church of Corinth in 1 Cor. 1:2 that they are “saints” (chosen ones) along with everyone in every place who calls upon the name of Jesus.

            Brothers and sisters, Jesus is the true seed of the woman. Enoch was faithful to walk with the Lord. We also find in Jude 14 that part of that “walking with God” that Enoch did was to prophesy against the evil generations of his day. He warned of the coming judgment of God. He also warned of an “Elect One” who would come and bring all nations into submission to God. But, Jesus completed what Enoch could not. Enoch may have walked with God, but he could not bring all of humanity to God because he was still born in sin. Enoch may have prophesied against the sin of his generation, but he could not bring about the work of God.

1 Pet. 3:18-20: For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

Jesus, in his death, has brought us to God. He has removed the curse of death which was upon us because of the sin of Adam and our own sins. Romans 5:17 says “For 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.” Not only that, but Jesus has also made us part of a new humanity who is this “Seed of the Woman” who will crush the head of the serpent. Rev. 12:10-11 says, “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.””

            Friend, you may think that you are free, but you are a slave. The greatest proof of that slavery is the death that is coming. You can’t escape it, you can’t really even choose it. The only hope you have is not in yourself, but in Christ who can deliver you from the kingdom of darkness into his marvelous light.

            Brothers and sisters, the greatest gift that God has given us is not “free will”. The greatest gift he has given us is Himself! Let us find our source of truth and joy in him as we walk with him.