GENESIS 3
THE FALL
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Once again, let me state that the historicity of this account is of paramount
importance. What we are reading here is not myth or legend as so many would
claim. This is history, just as it occurred and is recorded here in Genesis 3.
The trustworthiness of all of the rest of Scripture, not to mention the whole of
the doctrine of sin, rests upon the historicity and authenticity of this
account. As you have it in
Romans 5:12-14,
Therefore, just
as through one man sin entered the
world, and death through sin, and
thus death spread to all men, because all sinned;
(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when
there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from
Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the
likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come.
And again, in II
Corinthians 11:3,
But I fear, lest
somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve
by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ.
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Now
the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the
LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said, "You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’"
And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees of the
garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,
God has said, 'You shall not eat it,
nor shall you touch it, lest you
die.’ Genesis 3:1-3
3:1-3
At the creation, God designed serpents to be the most intelligent of all other
creatures in the animal kingdom. They were greater in intelligence than dolphins
or chimpanzees. It was for this reason, no doubt, that Satan chose one for his
disguise and purpose. Later in this chapter, we learn that at that time,
serpents did not exist in their current form. Though their form is not described
for us here, I suspect that they were creatures that were tall, prominent and
beautiful.
Notice that Eve didn’t question the serpent’s ability to speak. No doubt, that
was because she herself was so newly created that she was unsophisticated and
still in the process of discovering the intricacies of the world around her as
well as that of all of its creatures. It is apparent here, however, that when
the serpent spoke, it was actually Satan who was speaking through it. As you
have it in
Revelation 12:9,
So the great
dragon was cast out, that serpent of old,
called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the
earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Now, we need to keep in mind that Adam and Eve began their lives in a state of
innocence. So, as such, they were
neither righteous nor unrighteous. Innocence is an untried or untested state of
being. Also, having been created in the image of God, they possessed a free
will. God allowed the serpent’s temptation to test Adam and his wife to see if
they would obey his command not to eat of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
If they obeyed, they would become righteous. If they disobeyed, they would
become unrighteous. In either case, afterwards they would no longer be innocent.
They would either progress or they would fall. It is still so today, by the way.
Someone has said, Temptation will either
develop you or it will destroy you. As you have it in
James 1:12,
Blessed is the man who endures temptation;
for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord
has promised to those who love him.
Coming back to our text, the first words out of the serpent’s mouth were couched
in a question … a question of feigned surprise ... a question subtly and
viciously aimed at Eve's trust in God. We could paraphrase it this way,
Really! God won't let you eat any of the
fruit of this whole garden?! The implication was clear.
Satan was launching an attack on the
character of God ... namely, God's
goodness. He was implying that, in reality, God was stingy, arbitrary,
unreasonable and uncaring. Nothing, of course, was further from the truth. God
is, in fact, generous, wise, reasonable and loving. Satan, however,
the father of lies, often levels his attacks at God’s character and
God’s Word. Slandering God is one of his greatest tools. So, right out of the
box, he slandered God to Eve. Are you familiar with Satan’s tactics, by the way?
In the book of II Corinthians we read,
...lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his
devices. II Cor. 2:11.
In essence, Eve replied, No, we can eat
from them all the fruit trees ... just not from the tree in the midst of the
garden. God said we can’t eat of it nor touch it or we will die. Some have
suggested that Eve was adding to God’s words here because, back in 2:17, it
doesn't say that Adam was told not to
touch the tree. I would just point out that Eve was not yet a sinner and was
utterly incapable of stretching the truth or lying about what God had said.
Therefore, I take it that it was true that God had also told them not to touch
the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil.
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Then the serpent
said to the woman, ‘You will not surely
die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened,
and you will be like God, knowing good
and evil.’ Genesis 3:4-5
3:4-5
Did you notice that Satan called God a liar? As Jesus put it to the Pharisees in
John 8:44,
You are of your
father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a
murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because
there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his
own resources, for he is a liar and the
father of it.
Satan's lie also had a twist to it. He sugar-coated it with a half-truth. It was
true indeed that if Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, she would come to know good
and evil. But, the question was, would she know good and evil like God knows it?
No. Therein, lay the half truth. God himself has never participated in evil in
order to understand or know it, you see. If Eve disobeyed God, touched or ate
the forbidden fruit, she would only know evil … and ... she would know it by
having participated in it … resulting in the exact opposite of becoming like
God! Satan had slyly set Eve up for spiritual and physical death, you see. The
moment she disobeyed, touching and eating the forbidden fruit, she became an
ungodly sinner ... dying spiritually
… to be followed up later by her actual physical death … completing the picture
of what she had actually become. Sad. Very sad.
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So when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food,
that it was pleasant to the eyes, and
a tree desirable to make one wise,
she took of its fruit and ate. She also
gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were
opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves coverings. Genesis 3:6-7
3:6-7
There were three things about the fruit of the forbidden tree that appealed to
Eve. They were the same three broad avenues that tempt you and me today. As you
have it in First
John 2:16,
For all that is
in the world; the lust of the flesh
(good for
food), the
lust of the eyes (pleasant to
the eyes), and
the pride of life (desirable
to make one wise); is not of the Father but is of
the world.
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life ... these
things were temptations to Eve. For us sinners today, however, they are deeply
ingrained urges in our inherited nature.
Now, there is a very important theological distinction to keep in mind here. The
Bible says that Eve was
deceived. Adam, however, was not
deceived at all. As you have it in
First Timothy 2:14,
And Adam was not
deceived, but the woman being deceived,
fell into transgression.
Adam knew the serpent was lying and
yet he deliberately sinned against
God when he ate the fruit. He was not deceived as Eve was. Thus, Adam became the
original sinner who polluted and passed on the sin nature to the entire human
race. Our sin nature was not passed down by Eve. It came from Adam.
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And they heard the sound 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 among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to Adam and
said to him, ‘Where are you?’ So he said, ‘I heard your voice in the garden, and
I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ And He said, ‘Who told you
that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that
you should not eat?’ Genesis 3:8-11
3:8-11
What Adam and Eve heard in the garden that day, were actual footsteps of Jesus
and the swish of his garments. The description here is of the physical
manifestation of the pre-incarnate Son of God. When Adam and Eve heard him
coming, they hid themselves. This is immediate evidence, by the way, of the
spiritual death they had suffered. Their desire for God was gone. They were
closed to God … cut off from him … because of sin. So it was on that fateful day
and so it is for all of the rest of mankind unto this day. As you have it in
Romans 3:10-11,
As it is written:
'There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is
none who seeks after God.'
Man was now a "runner" from God. He would never again be a seeker of God.
However, Elohim came into the garden that day seeking his man and woman anyway!
He called out to Adam … Where are you?
Notice the immediate effect of Adam's disobedience in his reply.
I heard your voice in the garden, and I
was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself. The moment Adam had
disobeyed and eaten the forbidden fruit, he had experienced a fundamental change
deep down inside ... way down in the bedrock of his spirit. It had literally
died. The outward manifestations of it were shame and guilt. Adam said,
We were ashamed because we are naked.
But, their problem was not nakedness at all ... far from it. Shame comes from
guilt. So, like all guilty sinners, they attempted to resolve it by covering it
up and placing the blame everywhere but where it belonged. No fig leaves would
ever cover up what they had done. Their naked bodies were not the problem at
all. Their shame came from a source far deeper than their skins. They had
disobeyed God … causing them to die to God ... spiritually. Their disobedience
cut them off from God and left behind nothing but the bitter fruits of guilt,
evasion, self-deception and isolation. As you have it in
Isaiah 59:2a,
But your
iniquities have separated you from your God...
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Then the man
said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with
me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.’ And the LORD God said to the woman,
‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The
serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ Genesis 3:12-13
3:12-13
Typical, is it not? Sinners are masters of evasion. When asked about his sin,
Adam simply pointed his finger at Eve. Then, when it came to her sin, Eve simply
pointed her finger at the serpent. The only way you and I can appropriately deal
with sin in our lives is to be brutally honest about it before God. As you have
it in Psalm 32:5,
I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, ‘I will
confess my transgressions to the LORD,’
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
The sinner's prayer can only be … Lord
Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner, and save me for thy great mercies sake.
How much better it would have been for that original pair, had they answered the
Lord in that way. But, they didn’t.
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So the LORD God
said to the serpent: ‘Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all
cattle, and more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go, and you
shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put
enmity between you and the woman, and
between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise
His heel.’ Genesis 3:14-15
3:14-15
The first of the Lord’s judgments fell upon the
serpent, which Satan had used as his tool.
God’s judgment began with the creature itself and God permanently changed its
physical appearance. Exactly what its original form was, we are not told. I
suspect it was a tall and beautiful creature. But, immediately, God took it down
to the ground so that, ever after, it and its descendants would eat the dust of
the ground while crawling about on their bellies. This was not because the
serpent itself had done anything wrong. It was because God often reveals truth
through his creation and its creatures. Make no mistake about it, the serpent is
the fearful, lowly and loathsome creature that it is today because of the role
it played as Satan’s instrument in
the Garden of Eden in bringing down the human race.
The Lord's second judgment fell upon the one who was
behind the serpent.
His words were directed at the spirit-being, fallen angel, Satan. As you have it
in Revelation 12:9,
So the great
dragon was cast out, that serpent of old,
called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the
earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
God's words could be summarized like this,
One day I will send a man to Earth who will destroy you. This is an
extremely important prophecy in the Word of God. It concerned God’s coming
Savior who he would one day send to planet Earth. Let's break these words down
further.
a.
God said ... I will put enmity between your
seed and her Seed.
This refers to the war ... the animosity ... that would one day exist between
Satan’s children (the enemies of Christ in the first century) and Jesus Christ
himself (Eve's
Seed). Satan's
seed then, refers to Satan backed
and instigated men that opposed Christ when he was on Earth. The woman’s
Seed refers to Christ himself. This
enmity (animosity or hatred) is illustrated in the clash between the
Pharisees and Jesus in
John 8:43-44a. There, Jesus says,
Why do you not
understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my word.
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you
want to do.
This is why the very same crowd that applauded Jesus on Palm Sunday, were
screaming …
Crucify him! ... just three days
later. Apart from Christ, all men and women fall under the category of Satan’s
seed, by the way. They are all his children. He owns them and does with
them as he pleases. Consider the following scriptures and see if it is not so:
And a servant of
the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in
humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them
repentance, so that they may know the truth, and
that they may come to their senses and
escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.
Second Timothy 2:24-26
I will deliver you
(Jesus, speaking to the Apostle Paul)
from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you,
to open their eyes, in order to turn them
from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may
receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by
faith in Me. Acts 26:17-18
He has delivered us from the power of
darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love...
Colossians 1:13
b. God said ...
He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
This Hebrew word for
bruise means to crush.
The prophecy is that the Seed of the woman will one day destroy the serpent
(Satan) … like crushing the head of a snake. The Bible says that in the last
days, Christ will destroy Satan at the end of the Millennium (Revelation 20:10).
The rest of this statement …
you shall bruise his heel … refers
to the day when Satan would wound
Christ at the cross by means of his Roman and Jewish minions. Mel Gibson’s
movie, The Passion of the Christ,
vividly portrays that bruising of the Seed’s
heel.
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To the woman he
said: ‘I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
In pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your
husband, and he shall rule over you. Genesis 3:16
3:16
The Lord’s third judgment fell upon Eve.
It had two parts and is greatly misunderstood. The Lord’s words here were
directed towards Eve’s child bearing (specifically to her pain in childbirth)
and toward what her role toward her husband would be, sexually. Carol and I have
had five children and her labor and pain in bringing each one into the world was
always a very sobering experience for me. Frankly, it made me wonder why, after
going through such an ordeal, any woman would ever sleep with her husband again!
But, they do. God made it so, when he spoke this to Eve so long long ago. As you
have it here …
Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.
These words were not talking about a man being the boss, as is so often taught.
Rather, they refer to the husband being in control of the sexual side of the
marriage relationship.
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Then to Adam he
said, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the
tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it':
Cursed is the ground for your sake; In
toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles
it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat
bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; For
dust you are, and to dust you shall
return.’ Genesis 3:17-20
3:17-20
The Lord’s fourth judgment fell on Adam. It
also had two parts:
a. First, God said,
Cursed is the ground for your sake.
Enter … the curse. From that day on,
the earth became reluctant and resistant to yield its fruits to man. It would
henceforth fight man. Sweat and toil would become the norm for man to get the
earth to produce a living for him. The days when the earth's priority was to
yield her fruits to man ... were
over. Henceforth, its priority would be to resist man and, all too frequently,
reward his efforts with
briars and thorns.
Ever notice how difficult it is to get a garden to produce? But the weeds, why
they just spring up like crazy, don’t they?! Why? It’s the curse. It will be
lifted, however, during the Millennial reign of Christ. As you have it in
Isaiah 55:12-13,
For you shall go
out with joy, and be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills shall break
forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their
hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up
the cypress tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree;
And it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not
be cut off.
This will also be the case in the New Heavens and New Earth. As you have it in
Revelation 22:3a,
And there shall
be no more curse...
b. Second, God said,
to dust you shall return.
Enter … physical death. Adam's beautiful body would one day die and rot and
simply turn back into dust. And not just Adam, I might add, but you and I as
well. As you have it in
Romans 5:12,
Therefore, just
as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death
spread to all men, because all sinned..."
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And Adam called
his wife's name Eve, because she was
the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife
the LORD God made tunics of skin, and
clothed them. Genesis 3:20-21
3:20-21
Eve's name means life. Adam named her
this (as the NIV so reads), because she would become the mother of all living. I
take that to be the correct rendering. By the way, after the fall, did you
notice how lovingly our Lord began to minister to Adam and Eve? Right away, he
made them clothes and put it on them. The first blood of an animal that was
spilled ... was spilled by the hand of God ... so that he could clothe Adam and
Eve. Isn’t our God thoughtful and gracious? His loving kindness endures forever.
I am reminded of a promise to you and me in this regard. In
Philippians
4:19-20, we read,
And my God shall
supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now to
our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Isn’t he wonderful? He knows our every need and looks to them regardless of what
we have done or failed to do. My, how
faithful he is to all of his children.
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Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man
has become like one of Us, to know
good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of
the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’; Therefore the LORD God
sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.
So he drove out the man; and he
placed cherubim at the east of the
garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which
turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:22-24
3:22-24
You will remember that, in the midst of the garden, those two very special trees
were still there.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the one that was
forbidden and had been violated.
The tree of life was not
forbidden. I take it that
the tree of life ... now that Adam and Eve were fallen, dying
sinners ... would have perpetuated the life span of Adam and Eve indefinitely,
had they been allowed to keep on partaking of its fruit.
Did you notice that they had to be forcibly
driven out? Understandable, is it
not? But ... what a picture of what they had become. They could no longer just
be told or be reasoned with ... they had to be removed!
Also, notice that the garden had to be
guarded now. Once sin had entered the heart of man, he could no longer be
trusted. God’s spoken word and will was no longer sufficient for Adam and Eve
for they would now do as they pleased ... whether God liked it or not. Enter …
the
cherubim and the
flaming sword. Cherubim are probably the most awesome of God’s
created spirits. There is a great deal of information about them in the first 10
chapters of Ezekiel. There, Ezekiel describes his encounter with them in great
detail. He says they are huge creatures … so much so that when he looked at them
… they actually made his stomach queasy. They were also swift as lightning …
moving from place to place like flashes of light and with such thunderous noise
that Ezekiel says it sounded like the voice of God! We also
find them around God’s throne in Revelation 4, where they were seen as
ceaselessly crying out,
‘Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.’ Revelation 4:8b
In addition to Cherubim being stationed to guard the Garden of Eden, God also
placed a flaming sword that moved in every direction to keep all intruders away
from
the tree of life. No doubt, Adam
and Eve and their offspring got the message ... although I’m sure they probably
tested it. Against those odds, I suspect that one try was quite enough though,
don’t you?
One last word here … the question is often asked,
What became of the Garden of Eden?
Is it still with us today? Actually, it was destroyed in the Flood,
along with the rest of the original world of which we have been reading. As you
have it in Second
Peter 3:5-6,
For this they
willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth
standing out of water and in the water, by which
the world that then existed perished,
being flooded with water.
Scripture taken from the New King
James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.