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Genesis 3:14-17: The Final result.

^“14 So the Lord God said to the snake, ‘Because you have done this,

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

¹⁷ To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat from it,”

We saw yesterday that Adam and Eve engaged in a ‘passing the buck’ exercise. But the Lord God wouldn’t allow them to get away with it. In His words recorded here, he showed that Adam and Eve both carried responsibility for what had happened, and they would have to bear the consequences. But He started with the serpent. Adam and Eve sinned and were held responsible. But there would not have been any sin apart from temptation; and there would not have been temptation but for the Tempter. God turned His fire on him first of all.  In verse 15 there is a remarkable early prophecy of what was to take place at the cross. It is often referred to as the ‘protoevangelion’ – the first announcing of the good news. The final score was being read this early on in the game. The outcome was not in doubt – even back then. Yes, there would be intervening years of spiritual conflict, but the Messiah come and would be victorious.

Genesis 3:11-13: Passing the buck.

¹¹ And he said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?’ ¹² The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’ ¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The snake deceived me, and I ate.’ NIV

I’m writing this piece in a corner of a café, in Leeds General Hospital. I’m waiting for my wife, Jilly, as she undergoes an endoscopy procedure this morning. As I observe people around me, I wonder why they are here. What are their fears? What are their ailments? What will be the outcome of their tests? And so on.

When I visit a hospital – something I do all too often – I am astounded to see how rife sickness is in this world. Every single day (even the day after Boxing Day!) these places are busy, busy. I am deeply grateful that we have good hospitals with professional, caring staff. Many of them are over-stretched and under-compensated, but still they are to be found at their posts, with cheery smiles and willing hands. Thank God for them.

But this morning I am struck by the thought that the illness, pain, and concern I see around me had their origin in the garden of Eden, in the sin of Adam and Eve. But for them, I wouldn’t be here. No-one would. We have sickness in the world (and pain and death) because we have sin in the world.

Here’s another thing which can be traced back to the garden and our first parents: this terrible tendency to pass the buck. Someone said, ‘Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and the serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on!’

The world would be a better place if more people were prepared to hold up their hands and say, ‘Yes, blame me. I’m at fault. I take full responsibility for what has happened. I’m not pointing the finger at anyone else. I’m the man! Look no further. I’m the culprit. I’m the one you want. I’m turning myself in.

Ironically, this is the beginning of healing and restoration to God. The way back begins with repentance: confessing, and forsaking sin. To ‘confess’ means ‘to speak the same thing’. It is to agree with God that you are a sinner and you have sinned in precisely the ways He has said. You’re not wriggling and squirming, but you are honestly facing up to what you have done. The grace of God means we can be so honest, because He has provided Jesus to die in our place. We know we can confess without fear of fine, imprisonment or execution, because Jesus has born our punishment. For mankind, confession is the way out of the cell and into freedom.

PRAYER: Thank you most merciful God, that there is a way back home to you – a way you have made at such cost to yourself. Thank you with all my heart.

Genesis 3:8-10: Sin separates

^“8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ ¹⁰ He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’ “ NIV UK

One of the consequences of sin – in fact one of the most profound consequences – is that it separates people from God (Isaiah 52:1).

There is such a beautiful picture painted here of ‘’the LORD God…walking in the garden in the cool of the day…’’ (8). It speaks of God’s closeness and accessibility: His desire for human companionship, friendship and fellowship. But sin ruined all that. It brought shame and fear into the relationship from man’s side.

Realising the lost connection with heaven people attempt to solve the problem in their own ways. We sew together the ‘’fig leaves’’ of religiosity and good deeds, to try to cover our sin and guilt. But it doesn’t work. What we need is not a righteousness of our own making, but the clothing in that righteousness which is God’s gift (21). It comes through faith in Jesus (Romans 1:17; Romans 3:8,9).

‘God does not wait for Adam to find his own way back, but hastens in search of him.’ F.B.Meyer: ‘Devotional Commentary’, p.16.

PRAYER: Thank you Lord. You came to where we were to lift us to where you are.

Genesis 3:1-8: The pattern of temptation

“Now the snake was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ ² The woman said to the snake, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”’ ⁴ ‘You will not certainly die,’ the snake said to the woman. ⁵ ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ ⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. ⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” NIV UK

‘’When the woman saw…’’ (6).

That was the top of the slippery slope. She experienced what John calls: ‘’the lust of’’ the ‘’eyes’’ (1 John 2:16).

‘’When the woman saw…she took some and ate it.’’

But it didn’t stop there: ‘’She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.’’ He should have known better. But there’s a warning here: we can quickly involve others in our sinning.

 In spite of clearly knowing God’s command (2, 3), when this fish spotted the juicy morsel dangling on the end of the line, she was quickly hooked.

A children’s chorus says, ‘Be careful little eyes what you see.’ There is such wisdom in that little song. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that regularly temptation gets onto the premises of our lives by means of the eye-gate. Yet we often allow ourselves to be vulnerable because we like what we see and we want to look. Then we decide to linger in our looking, and before we know it we’re whooshing down the icy ski slope and we don’t know how to stop.

‘They order of temptation is always the same: the tempter without, and within the strong desire for sensual gratification, with the secret hope that somehow the consequences may be avoided. The eye inflames passion; passion masters the resistance of the will; the body obeys its impulse; the act of gratification is followed immediately by remorse and guilt. Then we need the second Adam!’F.B. Meyer: ‘Devotional Commentary’, p.16.

PRAYER: Lord please help me to nip sin in the bud. Thank you too that ‘a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came.’’ I can place no hope in myself; my trust is in Jesus.

Genesis 3:1-5: Not ignorant.

“Now the snake was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’  ² The woman said to the snake, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”’  ⁴ ‘You will not certainly die,’ the snake said to the woman. ⁵ ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ NIV UK

Anyone who is familiar with Genesis 3 should not be ignorant of Satan’s devices. Basically, he employs the same strategies today:

• He often misquotes God’s Word (1b). No, God did not ‘’really say’’ (Look at 2:16, 17). He said something similar, but ‘’the serpent’’ got it wrong – quite deliberately.
• He regularly contradicts God’s Word (4). Note that Eve started well. She clearly knew what God had said and she quoted it to the devil (2,3). She started out on solid ground. It’s a tragedy that she didn’t dig her heels in there and refuse to budge. (Contrast this with Jesus who, in His temptations, never moved from the fixed point of God’s Word).
• He repeatedly suggests that you’re missing out (5). He sells you the lie that God is spoiling your fun. ‘If only you would do what He definitely told you not to do, your life would be so much happier.’ That’s his line, and the human race has fallen for it again and again since our first parents were in the garden. Satan markets sin as ‘golden delicious’. When we take a bite we find that what looked shiny on the outside is rotten on the inside. We don’t want it any more. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. But it’s too late. We’ve already bitten.

PRAYER: Lord, give me eyes to spot the deception, and ears to discern the lies I’m being told. Please enable me, through Jesus, to be an overcomer.

Genesis 2:20b-25: ‘This is it!’

“But for Adam no suitable helper was found. ²¹ So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib  he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.  ²³ The man said,

‘This is now bone of my bone,  and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called “woman”, for she was taken out of man.’ ²⁴ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.  ²⁵ Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” NIV UK

Although man exercised such delegated authority, and had a special relationship with God’s other creatures, there was still an aching void which remained un-filled.

‘But what is power without love, or a throne without a consort? Eve was, therefore, given to crown Adam’s bliss; taken from his side, as afterward the Church from the opened side of Christ. See John 19:34 and Eph.5:25.’ F.B. Meyer: ‘Devotional Commentary’, p.16.

I heard someone say that when Adam woke up from his sleep he said something which, in the original, has the idea of, ‘This is it!’ (23). This was what he had been waiting for; this was who he had been looking for. Now he felt a completeness hitherto unknown

The marriage of one man to one woman is God’s invention, and like the rest of His creation it is ‘good’. Also, like the rest of the created order, it has been affected by the fall. Sin spoils marriages and ultimately blasts people apart. But if we will keep looking to the One who gave us the gift of marriage, and if we trust in His resources, we can nevertheless know a wonderful harmony and intimacy.

Genesis 2:18-20: Delegation.

^“18 The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’  ¹⁹ Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.” NIV UK

What an act of humility on God’s part to turn over the job of naming the creatures (He had made) to the man (He had made). When you stop to consider, what a lesson this is in the art of delegation. It was, though, in keeping with man’s status as vice-regent, under God, over creation. God turned this major responsibility over to man and did not interfere (19).  F.B. Meyer says it well:

‘Love is God’s best gift to man. Without it, even Eden would not be Paradise. That Adam was able to name the animals, affixing a title suggested by some peculiarity or characteristic, indicated his royal supremacy; and insofar as we live in God, that supremacy is restored. See Dan.6:22; Mark 1:13.’ ‘Devotional Commentary’, p.16.

Our love of the natural world and the animal kingdom goes back to the garden of Eden; our fear of it (or certain aspects of it) goes back to the fall. Human beings can have beautiful relationships with the ‘dumb’ creation. Even so, these are not enough to satisfy the deep need of the human heart.

Genesis 2:16: Killjoy God?

^“16 And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;” NIV UK

I heard a preacher say that some people have this kind of image of God where He is leaning over the balustrade of heaven, asking, ‘Are you having fun?’ ‘Well knock it off’, He says. He’s seen as the divine spoilsport.

It’s fascinating to note in this verse, following on from the mention of a command, God says, ‘’You are free…’’ There is so much we can do. There’s so much in life we can ‘taste’. But where God erects a fence it is to protect us. He doesn’t want us to ‘’die’’. That, of course, is what did happen when the first people trespassed across this known boundary. They sinned to their own eternal harm. We break God’s commandments and find that we ourselves are broken on them. If we break them, it is even more the case that they break us.

How liberal, how utterly generous God was with Adam and Eve. There was only one tree that they were not to regard as a food source. Everything else was their’s. But there is something about ‘forbidden fruit’ which always seems fascinating. The ‘serpent’ ensures we are obsessively drawn to it. Then we eat…and we wish we hadn’t! It is always the same.

‘For best results, follow the Maker’s Instructions.’

God is a worker.

^“15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” NIV UK

‘’My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working’’ (John 5:17).

The famous preacher/author, Chuck Swindoll, once quipped: ‘Many Christians think Manual Labour is the President of Mexico!’

God is a worker. This is the story of Genesis so far. God is a hard worker: that’s how the universe got to be here. God is an abundantly creative worker: that’s how the world with all its variety (including you and me) came to be here. God has established a pattern of six days for work and one for rest. If we follow His example, we will not descend into workaholism, but we will certainly not be lazy either. Christian workers who violate this principle, however sincere they may be, are probably heading for burn out at some point. Even if not, it sounds like saying you know better than God. However spiritual it may appear, it’s not right. In that direction lies a train wreck.

But a proper understanding of today’s single verse will motivate us to work; to see its value and beauty and dignity. But it also shows that the work God calls us to join Him in is not destructive of the earth, but it is rather to ‘’take care of it’’. If the human race had taken note of this, and not been so greedy, we would not have the environmental disaster on our hands that we are currently facing.

Here is an extension of the thought about work from the pen of F.B. Meyer: ‘ Every man is entrusted with a garden, that he may keep it. God’s goodness is no excuse for idleness. Whether your heart and life shall produce weeds or flowers and fruits depends on you. Ponder Prov. 4:23; 24:30, 31.’ Devotional Commentary, p.16

PRAYER: Lord God, thank you for the gift of work. Help us to work hard at whatever tasks you have given us. Thank you that we can all be difference makers in this world when we do our work through you and for you. Lord have mercy on our planet. Forgive us for our careless rape of its resources. Please forgive us for all we do to destroy the earth rather than care for it, and lead us to repentance, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.