Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: By that sin fell the angels.
GENESIS III. 15 95
And we have accepted that view of it. But whatever was the cause, we know that some of the angels chose the evil and fell. Man chose the evil and fell also. The story of his Choice and Fall is told in this third chapter of Genesis. And the first point to notice about it is that it was brought about through the temptation of one of the fallen angels. The narrative in Genesis speaks of the serpent. And throughout the narrative the language is accommodated to the beast. But he would be a dull interpreter who saw no more in this story than an old serpent myth. We interpret Scripture by itself. And it is certain that in later Scripture it is freely recognized that the author of Eve's temptation was Satan, the first of the fallen angels. What does that mean ? It means that when an angel falls, he falls more utterly than man. Xo one tempted the angels to their fall. They deKberately chose the evil of themselves. And so their fall was into evil — evil absolute. Henceforth the fallen angels are only evil in will and in purpose. And their work is to do evil continually. So the prince of the fallen angels comes, and, out of the evil that is in him, tempts man to his ruin.
3. Redemption of Men, not of Angels. — Thus both angels and men have fallen, but the difference in their fall is very great. First, men have not fallen into evil absolutely like the angels. Their moral darkness is still pierced with some rays of light. And, secondly, men may be redeemed from their evil ; the fallen angels may not. For there is an organic unity among men. There is a human nature. And when men fall they fall together — it is man that falls, not men. There is no angel nature; for, are we not told that " they neither marry nor are given in marriage ? " Each of the fallen angels fell by himself alone. Deliberately he chose the evil for himself. So, when he fell, he fell never to rise again. Robert Burns may say —
Auld Nickie-ben, 0 wad ye tak a thought an' men' ! Ye aiblins might — I dinna ken —
Still hae a stake: I'm wae to think upo' yon den, -^ Ev'n for your sake!
But it is a purely human sentiment. There is no warrant for
96 THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES
such expectation or possibility in Scripture. The warrant is very plainly all the other way. But man falls that he may rise again. For there is a solidarity in man. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. And if One will but come and take this human nature on Him, enter this flesh of sin and condemn sin in the flesh, then will the way be open to man to return to the love and obedience of his God. And He has come. And when He came "he took not hold of angels; but he took hold of the seed of Abraham " (Heb. ii. 16).
ii. Its Meaning.
Thus the great conflict began. Tempted by Satan, man fell, but not utterly or irrecoverably. He will henceforth keep up a continuous warfare with Satan. There will be enmity between Adam and Satan, and between their seed, from generation to generation, till One shall come to win the victory for man.
1. There is a gospel in the very strife itself. For to begin no battle is to leave the victory with the Serpent. To open no world-wide conflict is to leave the world to the Prince of the world. To put no enmity between the seed of the Serpent and the seed of the Woman is to see no difference at last between them.
^ When you send your boy to college or into the world, you do not ask for him a wholly easy life, no obstacles, a cordial, kindly reception from everybody. You do not expect to see him free from anxious doubts and troublesome experiences of soul, and cruel jarrings of his life against the institutions and the men whom he finds in the world. It would be very strange if they did not come to him if he is genuinely good and pure. " Marvel not," said Jesus Christ to His disciples, "if the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." ^
2. The enmity between man and sin has been the great impressive truth of human history. Mankind has never been reconciled with sin, never come to have such an understanding with it that the r«ice everywhere has settled down and made up its mind to being wicked, and asked nothing better, and been at peace. That is the greatest fact by far, the deepest fact, the most pervasive fact, in all the world. Conscience, the restlessness
* Phillips Brookfl.
GENESIS III. 15 97
that comes of self-reproach, the discontent that will not let the world be at peace with wrong-doing — it runs everywhere. No book of the remotest times, no country of the most isolated seas, no man of strongest character, no crisis of history so exceptional, but that in them all you find man out of peace because he is in sin, unable to reconcile himself with living wrong — the enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. It is the great fact of human existence.