Genesis 3 outlines the fall of mankind from perfection into sin.
If you remember, in Genesis 2: 16 - 17, God tells Adam
| Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: | |
| but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. |
Now we come to Genesis 3, and there are two new players in the story, Eve, Adam's wife, and the serpent. They're having a conversation in the garden. There is no surprise, on Eve's part, that she is conversing with the serpent, so Man must have been able to communicate easily with the animal kingdom.
Note that the serpent was characterised as a "beast of the field" (Genesis 3:1). A beast, according to Dictionary.com, is a large four footed mammal - similarly to a tiger or an elephant.
Genesis 3:1 described the serpent as being "subtil" or "subtle" or "crafty" or "clever" or "wiser" (depending on the biblical translation). The King James version "subtil" (or "subtle") refers to the serpent's craftiness or ability to be cunning.
So the serpent and Eve are having a conversation. And the serpent asks a question:
Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?To which Eve responds:
| ... We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: | |
| but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. |
Now, let's look again at what God said to Adam:
| but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. |
God said that in the day they ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, they would "surely die" - He didn't say, "don't touch it, lest you die". The other thing was that there were two trees in the middle of the garden - Eve merely refers to the fruit as "the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden" - she did not differentiate between the trees.
So there are now discrepancies between what God said to Adam and Eve's understanding of God's instructions.
Perhaps what may have happened was that when Adam told Eve God's instructions about the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, he may have said to her, "To be on the safe side, don't touch any of the fruits of the trees in the middle of the garden, lest you die." But, as we know, that was not what God said to Adam.
So, now we get into half truths. The serpent says to Eve,
| Ye shall not surely die: | |
| for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. |
The serpent knew that death did not come from merely touching the fruit. But he also implied to the woman that God was keeping something from her. The implication was that when she ate of the fruit, she would become aware, her knowledge would increase, she would become like a god, and she would know good and evil.
| And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. |
So, here was Eve in the middle of this splendid garden that was full of trees laden with fruits that were good to eat. She probably picked the fruit, waited to die, saw that she was still alive, and then examined the fruit. She saw that it looked good. And she determined that God robbed her of wisdom, because she now saw the tree as being able to make her wise. So, she ate the fruit and gave it to her husband, and Adam also ate of the fruit.
The moment Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, they became aware. They had lost their state of being innocent and pure. They had lost the wisdom that God had given them, when He made them perfect. They realised that they had disobeyed God. They suddenly became aware of right and wrong. And in the guilt and shame, they realised that they were naked and exposed physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. So, they made themselves clothing, aprons, from the leaves of fig trees, and went into hiding from God. The aprons covered the parts of their bodies that were obviously different from each other, and not the whole body.
| ¶ And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. | |
| And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? |
Now, God returns to the garden to spend time with Adam and Eve. He comes in "the cool of the day", which may have been evening time, when it was not hot. He came "walking in the garden", taking on human appearance. And Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord God. They knew His voice.
So, God didn't come with thunder and lightning, intimidating Adam and Eve. He came in the form of the Second Person of the Trinity. He walked leisurely into the garden at a calm, restful time, calling them from a distance so they would know that He was approaching. Yet, they hid. So the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God asked a question: "Where are you?"
God did not ask this question because he didn't know where Adam and Eve were hiding. Nor did he not know why they were suddenly terrified of Him. He wanted them to come to the place where they acknowledged what it was that they had done.
Here is Adam's response to God:
| And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. |
Man was no longer pure and holy. He was now in a state of shame and had put on fear. These were two emotions that Adam and Eve had not experienced before. They experienced trickery. They had lost the innocence that God had placed in them. The purity within them was now gone. Sin brings shame, fear, guilt, separation from God, and death.
Adam had become aware of his new sinful state that had occurred through his disobedience of God. He felt exposed, ashamed, guilty and afraid. So, he went and tried to hide himself from God's presence.
| And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? | |
| And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. |
When God questioned Adam about his disobedience, he shifted the blame to God. He said, "It was the woman who You gave to me that gave me the fruit, and I ate it." (Sharon's paraphrased version)
When God questioned Eve, she said that the serpent had tricked her, and so she ate of the fruit.
God did not question the serpent, because the animal was incapable of the level of reasoning that Man was capable of. He also knew that Satan had used the serpent to trick Eve. And this was where God began His sentencing for the sin.
The Webster-Merriam's definition for sin as:
1 a : an offense against religious or moral law
b : an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible <it's a sin to waste food>
c : an often serious shortcoming : fault
2 a : transgression of the law of God
b : a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from GodSin is disobedience to God. Sin separates us from God.
There are always consequences for our actions, good or bad. And God had told Adam that in the day that he ate of the fruit of the tree, he would die. So, God now metes out punishment for the disobedience.
You will note that while there were literal consequences for the serpent, there were mystical or spiritual consequences for Satan, who had used the serpent to tempt Eve.
¶ And the LORD God said unto the serpent,
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and I will put enmity between thee and the woman,
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God first addressed the serpent and Satan, who had used the serpent to trick the Woman.
The sentence on the serpent was two-fold. God cursed it, took away its limbs so that it was forced to slither on the ground and eat directly from the ground. And He now instilled enmity between the serpent and the woman.
But there is also a spiritual sentence that we should not over look. Satan was cursed, and there is now an enmity between him and the woman, between his seed and her seed.
The punishment that He meted out was to apply literally to the serpent and spiritually to Satan. To the serpent, God cursed it to move about on its belly, to eat dust, and for there to be natural enemity between it and Woman, and between it's offspring and the Seed of the Woman.
I should probably note here that the Woman probably found the serpent to be pleasing, which would be one reason for Satan to have used the serpent to speak to Eve. However, now they would naturally hate each other. While the serpent would bruise the heel of the Woman's Seed, He would crush the head of the serpent.
Unto the woman he said,
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Please note that biologically women do not produce seeds. Women produce eggs (ova) and men produce seeds (sperms). This Offspring of the Woman would come without a sperm from man. This Seed that God speaks of is not of Man, but comes through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit through a virgin impregnation and a virgin birth. God had put a provision for redemption. This happened in the virgin birth of Jesus who was conceived, not by man, but through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. This was the provision that God put in place immediately in Eden to combat sin.
To the woman, God's curse was for painful pregnancies, desires to be with her husband despite the painful pregnancies, and painful childbirth. Additionally, the equality that she had enjoyed with Man was now gone, since God now decreed that the man would rule over her.
And unto Adam he said,
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thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;
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in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
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When God spoke to Adam, He pointed out that he had chosen to listen to the voice of his wife, than to the voice of God. God cursed the ground, as Adam's punishment. No longer would he have comforts and pleasures from trees that grew without need for care. He would now have to work very hard to obtain food from the ground. He would now have to battle thorns and thistles and a hard ground, to produce food. Additionally, God stated that Adam would return to the ground, when he died, since he was dust and must return to dust.
Let's go back a little and re-examine Genesis 2: 17. Remember what God had said to Adam,
| but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. |
What He said to Adam now at the sentencing in Genesis 3: 17 - 19 is that he would have sorrow in producing food and eating food from the earth all the days of his life, until he returned in death to the earth. Is there a discrepancy there?
No. Genesis 5: 5 stated that Adam lived to be 930 years. Remember that we discussed earlier that a day, to God, is like a thousand years. So within the day that Man had eaten of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, he died and was returned to the soil, from which he came. He died physically within that day. But, Man also died spiritually immediately after he ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Remember, his eyes became open, he became aware, he became ashamed, he became afraid, he hid himself from God. And death had entered Adam. Sin is a separation of man from God. And that separation was immediate. So the spiritual death was immediate and within that Earth day; the physical death was gradual, but still occurred within the day that Man had eaten of the fruit.
21Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
Wesley's concordance, located in Biblos.com at http://bible.cc/genesis/3-21.htm noted that God allowed animals to die, so that Adam and Eve would understand what death was, and that the death of these animals were an atonement for the sin that Adam and Eve had committed against God.
In His goodness and mercy, God took the skin from the animals and made robes for Adam and Eve and covered them, since the fig covering was insufficient.
It is also interesting to note that the animal's death was immediate, whereas Adam and Eve's deaths were gradual.
Here's an interesting thing that God said:
| ¶ And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: |
The tree of life had been in the middle of the garden beside the tree of knowledge of good and evil - yet Adam and Eve hadn't even considered eating of that fruit. Eating of that fruit would have granted life, even with the death sentence that Man had received from eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
God observed that Man had become more knowledgeable, just like the Triune God, knowing good and evil. With evil added to his nature, Man, living forever, would become irreparably corrupt. Without the need for salvation and reconciliation with God, Man would continue in his sinful state - rejecting God and the need to reconcile with Him.
God's intervention that prevented Man from eating of the tree of the life was another means of reconciling Man and returning him to the state of being good and pure and holy before He allowed Man to eat of the tree of life.
So God put Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden and placed Cherubims to guard the Garden and a flaming sword that moved in all directions to protect the tree of life.
Reference:
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible (2011). Retrieved July 11, 2011 from http://gill.biblecommenter.com/genesis/3.htm
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