“Cause and Effect”
Genesis 3:8-24
We are returning to the book of Genesis, Chapter 3 where we left off a couple of weeks ago. Adam and his wife were left, sitting, itching and waiting for God to come. They had done the only thing God had told Adam they were not to do. They had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They didn’t die, but they did realize they were naked and had created coverings for their bodies out of fig leaves.
What would God say?
What would God do?
Because of the great sin they had created.
Waiting must have been agonizing.
When they finally heard the sound of God walking in the garden, they hid.
Obviously they didn’t trust their attempt to cover their bodies to be enough. They were embarrassed. God called out, “Where are you?”
Can you hear the heartfelt cry of an anguished father?
It certainly doesn’t sound like an angry commanding king. It wasn’t like God didn’t know where they were. God was quite aware that a gulf had been created between Him and humans. In His question you can sense the sorrow over His human’s lost condition. God knows He will need to be the one to bridge the gulf humans had created.
The way God came to the first humans is the same way God comes to all of humanity. He demands an answer. It wasn’t like they could stay hidden from God. In fact, all humans will one day have to give an answer to God, on the day of judgment.
Adam eventually answers with verse 10,
“I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
It was sin that made Adam afraid of God’s presence and afraid of God’s voice. Humans have been running from God’s presence ever since and refusing to listen to His Word.
Ironically, at the same time, because we are made in God’s image, we really want to be in His presence and hear His voice yet, down deep inside because of our sin, we are afraid of Him.
God asks two more questions,
“Who told you that you were naked?
Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
Again, God knew the answers to these questions. God was trying to give Adam an opportunity to come clean and repent. But Adam doesn’t. Instead, he blames the woman and technically blames God because God was the one who gave her to him. Adam was not only trying to cover his body he was trying to cover his sin. Few of us are willing to simply say as David did in 2 Samuel 12:13,
Then David said to Nathan,
“I have sinned against the Lord.”
Okay, Adam isn’t going to come clean, so God then turns to the woman and asks,
“What is this you have done?”
The woman’s responds with,
“The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Which wasn’t exactly blaming the serpent but instead giving him credit for deceiving her. Being deceived and doing what one knows is wrong, is still a sin.
God next addresses the serpent. What an idiot Satan was. Why did he stick around? Did you notice God didn’t ask the serpent a question? God knows he is a liar and wouldn’t answer truthfully anyway. Instead God pronounced a sentence on him immediately, no questions asked.
The first part of the sentence goes to the serpent, the animal Satan used to bring the temptation. Instead of walking, like any other animal, the serpent would have to slither on the ground. The eating dust all the days of his life part, was meant for Satan. To eat dust has the idea of a “total defeat.” God’s judgment on Satan was that he would always fall short of victory and inevitably know defeat.
Next, God declares there would be hatred between Satan and the woman and also her offspring.
This was no love lost for Satan, but the seeming friendship the woman had with the serpent earlier in the chapter was now finished.
God goes on to prophesy the doom of Satan. The first of many prophecies of Jesus’ ultimate defeat over Satan.
God announces that Satan will wound the Messiah,
“you will strike his heel.”
Which makes sense because that is the body part a slithering snake can reach and in essence not that severe.
But ultimately the Messiah would win over Satan with a mortal wound,
“He will crush your head.”
God also offers a prophecy of a virgin birth, with the Messiah coming from the seed of the woman, but not the man.
God had a plan, which wasn’t ruined when humans sinned. God’s plan was to bring forth something greater than humans in the innocence of Eden. God wanted more for His creation.
His plan was to bring forth redeemed humans. In order to be redeemed, humans needed something to be redeemed from.
God turns back to the woman and tells her from now on she would experience severe pain during childbirth.
The next verse has some nuance that was not translated clearly.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
The Hebrew word for “desire” is better translated as “turning.” God had placed both man and woman in the Garden with equality, Arnold Voigt, a Luthern minister put it this way, (https://whatdoesthismean.net/topic-2/#:~:text=Thus%20the%20Hebrew%20conveys%3A%20%E2%80%9CYou,Intervarsity%20Press%2C%201988%2C%20pgs.)
“The will of God for his human creatures is described in terms of “made in the image of God,” companionship, partnership, “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” The accounts suggest equity-with-differences, beings-in-partnership, as God’s creation design and intention. In the perfection of Paradise there is no need for superordination or subordination; both “walk with God.”
But now that the woman had turned away from God, equality would be challenging. She would have to live with her husband being in charge. Which in a strange way puts the punishment in Adam’s corner.
He had already failed at protecting his wife. Although difficult, trying to live out the equity which began in the Garden seems so much better.
God does get back around to Adam. God doesn’t curse Adam but instead God curses the ground for Adam’s sake.
Part of that curse was the production of thorns and thistles. The very thing the crown on Jesus’ head was made of when He was on the cross.
The curse of the ground meant that Adam would have to work with sweat and pain for provision. Up to this point Adam had enjoyed the luscious fruits of the Garden of Eden. Now, he would produce good food, but it would be at a personal cost of energy and exertion.
Finally, God pronounced the death part of this act of sin. There would be an end to Adam’s toil, but the end would be death, not deliverance. Dust was from where Adam came, and dust would be where he would go.
A tough blow to Adam and his wife. But notice that Adam looks at the positive side of things. At this point in the story we read that Adam gives his wife a name.
Eve, which in Hebrew means “to breathe” or “life,” because she would become the mother of all the living.
Adam heard what God had said. He believed God when He said Eve would bring forth a deliverer from the woman to defeat Satan. This took faith on Adam’s part, because up to this point Eve had borne no children. That comes next week.
Next, God doesn’t leave Adam and Eve in their itchy leaves. He makes clothes for them, out of skins. The first sin created the need for a sacrifice. An animal had to die to cover their sin. Hebrews 9:22,
“In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Today, we are clothed with a garment of righteousness that was purchased with the life of the perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ. The blood of Christ offers all who accept it, forgiveness.
Lord’s Supper.
