Remsen Bible Fellowship, 11/15/2023
Introduction
Last week we looked at the fall narrative of Genesis 3:1-7: a snake, a creature both crafty and cunning, entered into the garden of Eden, where God had placed the man and the woman. This sly serpent engaged the woman in conversation, asking “did God really say, you cannot eat of any tree that is in the garden?”
As we discussed last week, this question wasn’t honest. Satan knew the narrow prohibition God had given - one “no” in a world full of “yes”. But by totalizing the “no” the snake is introducing into the woman’s mind a question: did God actually say what he said? How could he lay prohibitions on something which would be good and pleasurable for me? What kind of a God is that? Maybe it would be better if I were my own God.
In all of this, Adam stood by silently. He never confronts the snake. Never corrects or confronts his wife. He silently allows the snake to lie to his wife and then he passively follows her into sin. And when they ate, their eyes were opened. The snake had told a half truth. He promised their eyes would be opened, and they were. But instead of the awareness of evil giving them god-like omniscience, instead it brings them an awareness of their own nakedness, their shame, their now-bankrupt state before God. And so they sew fig leaves together, making loincloths. And they hide.
Disobedience Brings Shame
8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
We can see immediately the dissonance between this scene and what life in God’s world was meant to be. God came and made his presence known in the cool, or the Hebrew says “wind”, of the day. It seems that the original pattern was something like this: the man and woman worked during the day and God would come and commune with them in the evening. But on this day Adam and Eve aren’t out in the living room of the garden. They’re hiding away among the trees.
So God calls out, “where are you?” He’s not looking for both of them, though. Notice that verse nine says God called out to the man, and then the Hebrew form of “you” in verse 9 is in the singular: God is saying, “Adam, where are you?”
Why is this? Well, as we said last week, though the woman was first to sin, and she is at fault for what she did, God holds the man responsible. He, as the keeper of the garden and head of the family, was responsible to teach God’s word and protect the family from false teachers and the dangerous threats - the very things he failed to do by passively watching the snake and following his wife.
So when God came into the garden, and the man and the woman were hiding in shame, Adam was called to account.
Men, this pattern hasn’t changed. God holds husbands and fathers responsible for the state of their homes. The spiritual temperature, state, condition of those in your home is your responsibility. You’re not God, you can’t make people believe or obey or any of the rest. But you are responsible to create conditions and take actions conducive to obedience - to following God. And if you don’t, God will call you to account.
If you’re skeptical, or think I’m stretching the text beyond what it can carry, look briefly at Colossians 3:18-19.
18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
This text in Colossians (continuing on the 4:1) follows the pattern of household codes in the Roman empire. Paul isn’t just stringing together a list of random commands, these all hang together explaining how a Christian household was to function. Verse 18 says wives are to submit to their husbands - and why? - because this is fitting in the Lord. The language of “fitting” speaks to the fact that it is in line with how the Lord designed human beings and the household. Then verse 19 states that husbands must love their wives and not be harsh. Why would his love and a lack of harshness matter? Because he has authority, but to exercise that authority in a way that was harsh or unloving would be abusive. But God’s solution for the potential abuse of authority is not to deny or remove the authority, it is to hold those in authority responsible for their actions.
For the man to try and walk away from the role of responsibility has disastrous consequences. That’s what Adam did.
Adam’s passivity led to Eve’s sin, which leads not to her liberation or their mutual freedom. Instead it leads to them being naked and ashamed. In verse 10 Adam answers God, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He’s naked in every sense of the word, and he’s terrified to face God in that state. As well he should be.
God speaks back, but God’s reply isn’t looking for information. He’s offering Adam a chance to confess and repent, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
And here we find the next step in the downward spiral of sin: rather than owning his actions, and taking the chance God gives to repent, Adam turned to blame his wife. “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Adam’s passive sin led to blame shifting - he tries to blame his wife, but ultimately he’s trying to blame God: “the woman you gave to be with me.” As if God’s good gift is at fault for Adam’s failing.
Interestingly, God doesn’t engage with Adam’s blame-shifting, he just asks the woman a fair question: “What is this that you have done?” She, too, doesn’t want to take the blame: “the serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
The man and the woman thought there was a possibility of life, happiness, and wisdom outside the blessing of God. But their rebellion, their disobedience, has left them naked, afraid, and ashamed. Disobedience - to God’s word and to his patterns -brings destruction.
God Will Crush the Snake through the Seed of the Woman
God doesn’t ask the snake what happened. He simply turns to the beast (which, as we discussed last week, was possessed by Satan) and pronounces a curse.
14 The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
The first part feels a little obscure to us: don’t all snakes go around on their bellies? It’s unclear if the curse on the snake is meant to introduce a new condition upon him - namely, that he had legs, but henceforward all snakes would be belly crawlers, or if God is simply highlighting the accursed nature of this belly-crawling. The idea of being forced to go on your belly and eat dirt carries with it the concept of defeat, groveling, and humiliation.
As the snake naturally goes about on his belly, groveling, so the high-angel, Satan, who had perhaps been created for the purpose of guarding the earth (Paul calls him “prince of the power of the air” in Ephesians 2), will now be cast into a state even lower than the animals. The guardian cherub of Ezekiel 28:16 is told in the following verse that,
“Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.”
How would this ultimately come about? In verse 15 God promises to put enmity between two houses: the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Some theologians call this the antithesis. This thread is one which is developed throughout the Bible. There is consistently a line of promise, first through Seth, then after the flood through the family of Shem. Then there is the choosing of Abraham; Isaac is his child of promise; then Jacob is chosen over Esau; and Judah the 4th born of Jacob is promised to rule over his brothers. The line continues throughout the Scriptures as those who align themselves with the promises of God are pictured as Seed of the woman, whereas those forces - both human and demonic - which are arrayed against the chosen people of God are considered to be seed of the serpent. This pops up even in subtle ways, such as the battle between David and Goliath when special attention is given to the scaly nature of Goliath’s armor. The fact that the author slows down to note a seemingly irrelevant detail tells us he’s trying to paint a picture: David wasn’t just battling the giant. He was battling the snake behind the giant.
One man, David, stands forward for the chosen people of God, stepping out to face the snake-like giant representing the enemies of God’s people, the serpent and his forces. And if you remember how that story ends, David strikes Goliath’s head and then chops off his head. That story was a scene in the bigger story which starts here in Genesis 3:15. The contrast between the snake and his seed, and the woman and her Seed.
And this story finds its ultimate culmination in the cross. God himself becomes incarnate, the eternal Son of God took on human flesh - born of a virgin, he truly is the Seed of the woman. Seed, that which is planted, is usually associated in biblical euphemism with the male. But in this promise, and in its great fulfillment in Christ, that expectation is subverted, when the one born of a woman with no human father rises to be the true and better Adam. The second Adam who took responsibility at the cross. Unlike the first Adam, who failed to take responsibility for himself or his family, Jesus - our covenant head of the family, the husband of the bride (his church) - goes to the cross, taking on responsibility for all of the sins of the world. Were any of your sins Jesus’ fault? No. But as the head of the family, he bore responsibility for them and paid the price. And now all those who believe in his name are given the right to become children of God. Their ransom price is paid in full.
The snake thought that the first tree was the end for humanity. But God intervened and cursed the snake. And then the snake thought another tree would conquer God - when Christ hung on the cross, surely the devil thought he had won. He had bruised the heel of the Seed of the Woman. But little did he know that on that very cross his own fate was finally sealed. Christ, by purchasing with his own blood those for whom he died, plundered Satan’s house. He crushed his head and robbed Satan of his power. The devil still prowls around, but he has been defanged.
Do pain and sorrow still exist? Oh yes, they do. Satan wasn’t the only one cursed. But the great deceiver and accuser no longer has the power he once did before the cross and resurrection of Jesus.
Think about this with me. Here, our first parents had just committed cosmic treason. Rebelled against their creator, trying to grasp for more when he had already given them the world. And instead of immediately condemning them forever, before he has even turned to explain the consequences of the folly and wickedness, he gives them a word of promise. The first gospel is preached before God pronounces his curses upon humanity. Our God is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. But mark this: he will by no means clear the guilty.
The Woman’s Role Will be Much Harder
16 To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,
but he shall rule over you.”
God’s words to the woman fall basically into two parts: the multiplication of pain related to children, and the contention with her husband.
On the physical side, God says that the woman would experience much greater pain in childbearing. “Multiply” seems to suggest that there was actually the possibility of pain in a sinless world, but that pain increased exponentially after the fall. And what would, in God’s original design, simply have been a physical pain becomes instead the possibility for all kinds of pain from bringing forth children into a world of sin.
She must experience all of the great discomfort and worries of pregnancy. The pain and fear related to raising children in a home with sinful parents, and then letting them out into a world full of the temptations given by the flesh and other sinful human beings - not to mention the devil himself. For the first woman, she watched this come to traumatic effect when her eldest son, Cain, killed his younger brother, Abel.
And of course, for some women, this child-related pain comes from being unable to have children. That is a pain related many times in Scripture. So this central piece of the woman’s identity: her capacity to mother children, is now laden with the potential - frankly, the certainty - of much attendant pain.
Furthermore, the woman is told that her desire would be “contrary to her husband.” Some translations say “toward your husband.” The ESV is following the meaning of the word as it is used in the next chapter, when God says that sin “desires” Cain in a way “contrary” to his best interest.
What seems to be at play here is this: the woman should have a good and natural desire for her husband. The desire to be with him, to be loved by him, to be cared for by him - these are natural and good desires. Where they go ary, this side of the fall, is that her desires make her want to subvert their God given roles. Because her desire is for him, but they are both sinners, her desire will descend to trying to manipulate and control him. This is where nagging comes from. This is where making “husband improvement plans” comes from. This is where wanting someone to “fix” your husband comes from.
Ladies, I’m not saying your husband doesn’t need help - God knows we all do, that was so true even before the fall that he made a woman! - but your husband will never be helped by you trying to take the reins and lead him. If you want a better husband, spend time calling out the good things. Earnestly pray for his growth. Read and meditate on how to apply Ephesians 5:22-24 and 1 Peter 3:1-6 in your life. This side of the cross and resurrection, this aspect of the curse can start to be undone in Christian marriages. The curse made it hard, but Christ has set us free. So start trusting God’s sovereign control, and quit trying to control your husband.
The Ground is Cursed and Man will Die
As we turn now and look at what God says to the man, I need to just flag the fact that I’m going to tackle some of this in more detail, Lord willing, on the morning of Christmas Eve. But we do need to cover it briefly this morning.
17 And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Notice how God rehearses for the man the reason why this curse is falling: because he listened to the voice of his wife leading him into sin, and disobeyed God. Because of this, notice carefully, God cursed the ground. The very earth which Adam was to rule over, cultivate, subdue and bring order to, was now subject to chaos because of human sin. Thorns and thistles are going to gain the upper hand, which anyone who has gardened or farmed or simply tried to have a nice lawn can attest to.
Man’s labor, the reason for which God had placed him on the earth, was now going to be exponentially more difficult. This tracks the same pattern as what God said to the woman. She was created for relationships - to be a helpmeet to Adam, and a lifegiver as they multiplied upon the earth. Those roles, central to her identity, became much more difficult. For man, the mission of bringing order to God’s world was the task he was assigned at the beginning. And now, this side of sin, that work is filled with struggle and pain. The ground itself bears the weight of our sinfulness.
But God says this life of painful toil will not go on forever - not because of anything good, though. The painful toil will end in your death, when to dust you shall return.
There is a widespread notion in the world that work is a bad thing. That work should be avoided. That work is a curse to be “worked” around. And Christians can adopt this sort of thinking and try to baptize it with Genesis 3, thinking that God made work as a curse. But that’s the opposite of reality. Work is what human beings were made for. Productive labor is something all people - but men especially - need. The curse is not that such a need exists. God made us for this very purpose. The curse is that this will often be difficult, trying, and will many times result in failure. And at, to use Solomon’s phrase, the end of your vain life: you will die, and return to the dust.
Because we live east of Eden.
East of Eden
20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
The man and the woman were cast out, sent east of Eden. But not before Adam had given Eve her name. You may have noticed I didn’t refer to her as Eve (at least not often) this morning. That’s because she didn’t actually receive that name until verse 20. And it’s ironic. That after death enters the scene, then Adam calls her Eve - which sounds like “life-giver” in Hebrew. And of course, as we noted in the curse on the snake - through the woman salvation would come. True life would come, when the Seed of the Woman rose to crush the serpent’s head.
But in between there would be much pain. Adam and Eve were cast east of Eden, cut off from the tree of life. Their free access to God and the life he gives was broken. There now needed to be death in their place to cover their nakedness and shame. The first animal sacrifices in the Scripture are made here by God himself, as he clothes the man and the woman in garments of skin. An animal had to die so that they might be covered.
Conclusion
The question we should be left with as we conclude this chapter is this: is there any way back to the garden? Can you regain access to the tree of life?
The answer is through the Seed of the Woman. Because of Christ’s work in our place, you can now approach God. If you repent of your sins, your rebellion against God and his ways, God will forgive your sins and begin to undo the effects of the fall. He will begin the process of conforming you to Jesus’ likeness. For those whose faith is in Jesus Christ, we will one day be reintroduced to the tree of life:
Revelation 22:1-3, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.”
Adam and Eve blew it. And we all deal with the consequences, and we follow in their footsteps daily. But in Christ, that condemnation and curse can be removed. And you can have the promise of eating from a better tree, for all eternity. Take your sin to Jesus.
Curses and a Promise