Chapter 3
“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which
the LORD God had made . And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said , Ye
shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” ( V1)
I must confess to the reader that Genesis 3 is one of my favorite
chapters to teach and preach out of. There is so much here, and if you
understand what happened in Genesis 3, a lot of other doctrinal questions will
sort themselves out. As Kyle Stephens has said “Everything that’s wrong with
you is in Genesis chapter 3”
Here in the first verse we have the introduction to the being that Dr.
Ruckman refers to as ‘the old friend of the family’. We know that this is no ordinary serpent, as
the book of Revelation refers to him as
the devil ( Rev 12:9). This serpent has angels. It is interesting that the
first thing your Bible tells you about the devil isn’t that he’s a murderer or
destructive or a liar; the first thing it tells you is that he’s subtil. There is a good subtil ( Prov 14:1), just
like there is good wisdom and bad wisdom.
But when the serpent comes to Eve, notice that he comes under the guise
of a creature that is under their dominion. This is a great disarming
tactic. Had he shown up full of bluster
and pride, that might have given them pause.
In similar situations, most of the trouble that arises in a church will
not come from an opposing pastor, but rather from a member.
Carrying this idea of subtil forward, when the Antichrist arrives, he
doesn’t conquer through warfare, he conquers though peace (2 Cor 11:3). Two other people in the Bible are mentioned
as being ‘subtil’, (2 Sam 13:3, Prov 7:10) and in both situations, the person
involved is involved in a sexual sin.
Having a complete Bible, we know some things about his character that
Eve did not.(John 8:44, Heb 2:14, 1 Pet 5:8). We know that he knows scripture and quotes
them (Matt 4), but he either misquotes them or uses them to exalt himself. For an interesting study, look at the
passages he was quoting in Matt 4 and see where he stopped quoting. . We know that he has ministers (2 Cor
11:14-15, 11:4, Gal 1:6-8) and that he has men who study the Bible in order to
destroy other men (Matt 2:1-2). We know he can appear as an angel of light (2
Cor 11:14), but that in his true form he is a cherub (Ezek 28, Rev 4:7) with
some sort of connection to multi-headed fire- breathing dragons (Job 41,
Ps 74:14 ,Rev 13). The descriptions of
him (Ezek 28:11-17, 10:14, 1:10) indicate that he is (or was) beautiful and
wise, covered in precious stones, with a body like a man, but glowing. His wisdom is
corrupted ( Ezek 28:17), but word of God is incorruptible (1 Peter 1:23). He is
associated with music. We know that, as a cherub, he has the face of a bull
(Ezek 1:10 compared to Ezek 10)
We know from Isaiah 14 that he is interested
in worship. He is much more concerned with what happens in a church house than
what happens at a bar or pool hall. Knowing this, the persistence of the worship of calves and bulls in the history of the
children of Israel (Baal -Hos 13:2, 1 Kin 17-19, golden calves, Molech, etc. ) as well as
the pagan cultures around the world, starts to make a
bit more sense.
In Job 1:6-7, this character has access to the
throne of God. As the serpent, he is mentioned 5 times by name in this chapter
of Genesis. The connection in your Bible between 5 and death will be elaborated
on later.
His attack on the man and his wife begins with the questioning of God’s
word. This tactic, alas, has not changed.
But notice that it is a ‘positive’ question. We feel at complete liberty to lump it in
with other stupid questions like 2 Tim 2:23-25, 1 Tim 1:4, 1 Tim 6:3, Titus
3:8-9. It is a question to which he
already knows the answer as we will see shortly, and though he spoke to eve, I
have full confidence that both of them were present.
“And the woman said unto the serpent, 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 . And the serpent said unto the woman, 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.” ( V2-5)
To quote Kyle Stephens, “To debate right
and wrong in the clear light of scripture is Satanic.”
In
your Bible, personal pronouns that begin with a‘t’ like thee, thou, thine are
singular, in that it is a single person being addressed. Personal pronouns
beginning with a ‘y’ as in you, yours or ye are addressed to more than one
person. The serpent didn’t tell her that she wouldn’t die; he told her that YE
wouldn’t die.
Either way, Eve nominates herself as spokeswoman of the human race and
proceeds to misquote God. The provision was never against touching the tree,
just against eating it. While teaching
this chapter in Sunday school, one of
my students asked why God would deliberately put something in their care that
would kill them. He seemed to think it
was unfair of god to ‘tempt them’ like that. I
asked him if he was ever ‘tempted’ to eat poison ivy. He said ‘no’. Well why not, I asked him. Because it’s
poisonous. I told him it wasn’t
particularly fair for his parents to allow poison ivy to exist in the world
knowing it was bad for him. How dare they tempt him that way?
The serpents lie was 4/5ths true. God did know what was going to
happen. Their eyes would be opened. They
would be as ‘gods’ and they would know good and evil by the time it was over
with. What he left out however, spelled
doom for Adam’s race. He left out that
God knows more than he told you (1 Chr 28:9-10). He left out that opened eyes
aren’t always good ( Hab 1:13). He left out that being ‘as gods’ doesn’t fix
anything ( Ps 82) and he neglected to
mention that it is the knowledge of good
and evil that condemns the sinner ( Deut 1:39, Rom 4:15, 5:13).
Notice that this perfect woman is still capable of misquoting God and
resenting God’s authority. Think of that next time you want to blame your ‘sin
nature’ for the fulfillment of your lusts. Men are damned by believing a lie
(John 8:44-47) and saved by believing
the truth (John 5:24). In verse 3, Eve breaks Deut 4:2, and Rev 22:19. When she
quotes God, she leaves out ‘freely’ and
‘surely’ and adds the words
‘touch it’, but when Satan rephrases what
she’s said, he puts ‘surely’ back in! He
obviously knew EXACTLY what she had been told, as he quotes it better than she
did!
But before we are too harsh on great grandmother Eve, keep in mind that
her descendants are still in the business of misquoting God, or telling
themselves that ‘God didn’t really say that.’ There’s good money in retranslating the Bible
every few years, and there appears to be an almost endless appetite in Eve’s
children to read the latest perversion. For example, the American president Jimmy
Carter once said “God inspired the Bible, but didn’t write every word in the
Bible”. This is a case of a man whose mind is so open his brains have fallen
out. He has no problem taking the exact
same stance in regards to God’s word that the serpent took. Mr. Carter’s mind
should be closed for repairs. When a modern educator says, ‘the truth shall make
you free’, what he means is ‘if you ignore your conscience and convictions and
come to us with an open mind we’ll dump enough garbage into it so that you can
peacefully co-exist with your sin’. It’s nonsense like that that led Bob Jones
Sr. to say “Education without salvation is damnation.”
In verse 4 he tells her that they won’t die,
which runs directly contrary to Romans 6:23. The fact is, the only thing wrong
with what she did was the fact that God said not to. Our modern world is full of people who will
look at the sin of their choice and say ‘whats the harm?’ The biblical answer
is that if God said not to, that’s reason enough.
In verse 5, Eve was ‘biting off more than she could chew’, bringing
herself under John 8:47, Deut 1:39, Romans 4:15, and 5:13. We have been paying the price ever
since. They became ‘as gods’ ( Ps 82 and
in doing so gave themselves over to the ‘god of this world’ ( 2 Cor
4:3-4). The serpent accuses God of an
ulterior motive, telling our ancestors that
God was somehow holding out on them. This tactic worked so well with Adam and Eve,
and it appears to work just as well with their children, as any honest man will
attest.
In light of Prov 23:6-7, one has to wonder why, if eating of this tree
was such a good idea, that the serpent didn’t eat? Ever since Gen 3, when man’s heart was
changed by what went in his mouth, men’s hearts since then have showed themselves by what comes out of their
mouth. (Matt 15:19) .
The testimony of 1 Tim 2:13-14 is that Adam
was not deceived. He knew exactly what he was doing and fully understood the
implications of his actions. As children
of Adam, I don’t know that we always have a clear grasp on what horrible crime
this was against God. I talked to a man once he told me that he didn’t believe
in Hell because, to his thinking, the punishment was far more severe than the
crime. I informed him that jails are full of people who don’t think they did
anything wrong, certainly not anything worth incarceration. What you think of
your sin is irrelevant, the issue is what does God think
of your sin? Adam lived a life of immortality and fellowship with his Creator,
but chose to follow the whims of yet
another created creature, and in doing so, caused doom for all his descendants.
Hollywood denies the Bible, yet steals plotlines from the Bible on a
regular basis. This is one example. Most movies are either about love or death,
and in this chapter we have both. We’ve all seen the story of Snow White, the
fair maiden who was convinced of a witch to eat the poisoned apple. She then
fell into a sleep that resembled death until the Prince came by, and out of his
love for her, resurrected her from that eternal death. By the same token I was dead in trespasses
and sins until the Prince of Life came by and quickened me by his love.
We live in such a biblically illiterate age that the question will come
up ‘what is sin’? According to the Bible, sin is the
transgression of the law (1John 3:4, Ps 19:7). It includes all unrighteousness
(1 John 5:17, Ps 33:4), knowing to do right and doing it not (James 4:17),
doing, but not in faith ( Rom 14;23, 10:17) pride and wicked works (Prov 21:4)
and even foolish thoughts (Prov 24:9).
Certainly this incident in the garden meets all those definitions.
Sin operates as deceitful (Heb 3:13). It easily besets ( Heb 12:1), is
powerful ( Prov 5:22, Rom 6:14) and hurtful (Prov 8:36, Rom 6:23). The condemnation of the devil was to seek a
higher place than what his Creator had given him. He tried to convince Eve to
do the same. Eve, discontented with what God had told them, sought out ‘new revelation’. It always amazes
me the people most concerned with the ‘lost books’ of the Bible are the ones
who don’t read the ‘found books’ of the Bible.
Those who chase after a ‘new word’ from the Lord spend little time
looking at the ‘old word’.
So paradise is lost, at least for now, as our ancestors trade an
inheritance incorruptible for something that wasn’t even true. They traded something they couldn’t lose for
something they couldn’t keep. D.L. Moody
said “This world that so many think is heaven, is the home of sin, a hospital
of sorrow, a place that has nothing in it to satisfy the soul. Men go all over
it and then want to get out of it. The more one sees of the world they less
they think of it….Someone has said that the world is a stormy sea, whose every
wave is strewed with the wrecks of mortals that perish in it.”
“And the eyes of them both were opened , and they knew that they
were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together , and made themselves aprons.”
(V7)
Babies are born naked (Job 1:21) but soon thereafter it is the habit of
the human race to cover themselves. Here the first man and the first woman make
clothes to cover their sin (laundry is part of the curse), and that clothing is
made from their own efforts, which are grossly insufficient ( Is 64:6). Every
man-made religion in the history of the world is just a fig leaf for the
conscience. Not only is their ‘fig leaf’ religion uncomfortable and laborious,
the fig leaves will eventually rot and have to be replaced. Religious rituals
like the Mass are just a fig leaf that needs to be replaced at regular intervals
to cover up the troubled conscience Sin
brings guilt, guilt brings shame, and shame compels the sinner to hide. Fig
leaves do nothing to resolve the situation, they merely cover it up. Adam
and Eve hid behind leaves, and modern man hides behind indifference, ignorance
and indulgence. As Dr. Ruckman has said, “Modern psychology is a pillow case
which weak people hide to rid themselves of the fear of judgment and hell after
they have seared their conscience”
If you spend much time talking to men and women about their souls,
you’ll see this same dynamic alive and well.
You can ask a man what he plans to do about his sin, and he’ll say ‘You
got your religion, and I got mine’, which doesn’t even answer the question. He will try to jump track on you, asking ‘what
about the heathen that don’t know?’ (as opposed to the heathen that do, like
himself) or he’ll hide behind the old stand-by “that’s just your
interpretation.” You can ask a man has
he received Christ and he’ll say “I don’t exactly accept him and I don’t
exactly reject him”. If you stay in the ministry very long you’ll see
unregenerate sinners and their fig leaves of all shapes and sizes. All of these
remedies have the same thing in common, they cannot take away your sin; can
only cover it up. One religion really is
just as good as another. They are all no good.
Adams
descendants always try to cover their sin with their own manufactured
righteousness. Man’s righteousness is always built on self-exaltation, and his
own works, along with blame-shifting, and comparison with others. Instead, Adam’s
seed need to run to the Lord of Life (Mark 10:17) and hide in the Rock of Ages
(Ps 17:8, 27:5)
Interestingly, and as an aside,
notice that all this takes place in a garden, specifically near a
tree. As time progresses on, and man dabbles
in idolatry, it seems to happen over and over again near a tree or a grove (Deut
6:21, Ex 34:13-15, Judg 3:7-9, 1 Kings 14:15-23, Is 1:29). Hollywood itself (where ‘stars’ congratulate
themselves on a well-produced deception by awarding each other with tiny golden
statues) is built on an old holly grove, hence the name. A few years back,
while door knocking, I noticed something very peculiar; whenever somebody had
some sort of statue of Mary or St. Andrew or whatever in their front yard, it was never out there by itself in the
open. They are always placed near a bush
or a tree of some kind.
Equally interesting is how death entered the world via a garden, and the
tomb that Jesus was laid in was in a garden. Death won in a garden by the first
Adam, and death was defeated in a garden by the last Adam. Also, notice that when people establish graveyards, they plant trees there, and put flowers on the
grave. It seems obvious that somehow we understand as a people that death is
associated with a garden, and so we try to make our graveyards look like
gardens.
“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? And he said , I heard thy voice in the garden,
and I was afraid , because I was naked; and I hid myself . 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 ?”( V8-11)
They heard his voice walking ( John 1:1). They didn’t seek him out, he sought them out.
They hid from him when he came ( Isaiah 53) This has always been the way with
God in that the offended party extends grace to his enemies and seeks them out
for reconciliation. (Luke 19:10, Luke 15, Rom 3:11, Ezek 34:11-16). God always makes the first move, and it is
the sinners responsibility to respond to God’s offer (John 12;32, John
16:7-10, Rom 10:18, Col 1:23). Men, if
left to their own, will always search
out a religion that will ‘suit’ them, even if it is made of fig leaves.
“And the man said , The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she
gave me of the tree, and I did eat . 13 And the LORD God said unto the woman,
What is this that thou hast done ? And the woman said , The serpent beguiled me
, and I did eat . 14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast
done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the
field; upon thy belly shalt thou go , and dust shalt thou eat all the days of
thy life:” ( V12-14)
Here Adam invents ‘the blame game’ that anybody with more than one child
is very familiar with. He blames his
wife, and in doing so, blames God for what happened. My wife, when I try to pin something on her with my feeble excuses
of ‘I would have done this if you hadn’t needed me to do that’ will
quietly say ‘Nice try, Adam.’
God never responds to Adam’s foolish attempt to shift blame. He moves
right on to Eve, who , apparently a
quick learner, proceeds to blame the serpent.
God never even asks the serpent anything. One of the characteristics of the human race is
hiding, but rest assured, God can put his finger on your sin.
If you grasp the idea that Satan, in his true form has the face of a
bull, it makes a lot more sense that he was cursed above ‘all cattle’.
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy
seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
(V15)
Here is the first bright spot in the entire chapter. Someone is coming
that will fix all this; the seed of the woman.
Of course, a woman doesn’t have a seed, so that leaves the biologist who
has rejected the Bible scratching his head.
For an individual to qualify as the seed of the woman, he would have to
have no human father. This is the first direct prophecy of Jesus Christ.
Also notice that not only does the woman have a seed, but the serpent
will have a seed ( Isa 7:14, Rev 12) and that there will be enmity between
these two individuals. A great deal
of your Old Testament is various attempts by Satan to mess up the lineage of Jesus Christ
before he is born. He tries it in
Genesis 6, he tries it with Lot, Abram,
Judah, Jeconiah. Over and over again, the family line of Jesus Christ is put in
jeopardy. There is an old saying “The devil knows more because he’s old than
because he’s the devil.” He knows if he can mess that seed up, the prophecy
can’t be fulfilled. But since the scriptures cannot be broken, God emerges
victorious over and over again.
There is a teaching that at Calvary, Satan wounded the heel of Jesus,
and Jesus wounded his head. Although I don’t entirely disagree with that
teaching, I just can’t settle it within myself from the Bible, because the
Bible never refers to Satan being ‘bruised’ at Calvary. What I see, is the completion of this
prophecy happening at the return of Jesus Christ in Rev 19. Coupled with
Ps 68:21, Hab 3:13, and Roman 16_19-20, it seems really clear that , if that process
began at Calvary, it is finished when Christ returns and wins the kingdoms of this world back from the
god of this world (Phil 3:18,Rom 16:17-18, Is 65:25) in open, armed combat.
Since I am always fascinated with types, I couldn’t help but notice
that, just as the Antichrist is wounded in the head by the Rock of our
salvation Jesus Christ, Goliath is wounded in the head by a rock by David, a
type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn’t the Bible an amazing book?
“Unto the woman he said , I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and
thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall
be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” (V16)
God, having dealt with the serpent, proceeds
to work his way backwards up the chain of command. Woman, already created in a
subordinate role, has a bit more put on her as a result of her sin. She has to now submit herself to another
equally fallen creature ( Eph 5:22, 1 Peter 3:5). I personally cannot imagine
having to be married to a man myself,
but to be told to go one step further
and submit yourself unto him, even when
he’s an idiot, takes some special dispensation of grace.
Unfortunately for a woman trying to live for God, the traits that got
Eve in trouble still manifest themselves in her daughters and plague them. Eve
was curious about things that didn’t concern her. That still happens (Micah 7:5). She trusted
in her emotions and acted on sight (Gen 3:6). A woman, if she isn’t careful,
will find herself being subtle, beguiling, and rebelling against authority (Gen
27, Prov 7). She is to submit, and one of the marks of the modern women’s
‘liberation’ movement is a push back against this biblical mandate. Uncut hair is a sign
of her submission. If she cuts it, it is a shame unto her (1 Cor 11:6). In the
garden she was ashamed. Modern woman is not (Zeph 3:5) The cutting of her hair is somehow tied to her
ability to judge angels (1 Cor 6:3)
There’s a Bob Jones Sr. story about how a young girl at their school
felt the dress requirements were too strict, and she chose to show her
rebellion by going ridiculously overboard in her obedience. In the military we
called this ‘malicious compliance’. She chose to wear an extra-long skirt that
drug the ground behind her. The wise old man Dr. Jones walked past her one day
and said ‘Good morning Eve’.
Her husband is put over her (1 Cor 11:3). She
is to keep silent in churches (1 Tim 2:9-15) to prevent her from being
deceived. She has no authority in a church to prevent her from deceiving anyone
else (1 Cor 14:34-35). That’s why you
should avoid the religious system called the Mystery Harlot, whose ways are the
ways of Jezebel (Rev 2) and whose religious devotion is directed towards ‘Our
Lady’.
A
woman experiences sorrow, and not just in childbirth. Women cry more, and bear a lot more sorrows
that pierce their heart. They hurt in ways their husbands cannot understand.
Every tear that has ever been shed by a woman is Eve’s fault.
All in all, a woman trying to live for God can only do it by God’s
grace, and with God’s help. She has to fight her own heart, as well as the
entire world system. It’s a huge responsibility, and God forgive any man stupid
enough to take that sort of thing lightly.
We need to pray for our wives and daughters.
“And unto Adam he said , Because thou hast hearkened unto the
voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee ,
saying , Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow
shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt
eat the herb of the field; In the sweat
of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of
it wast thou taken : for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (
V17-19)
It’s worth pointing out her that, contrary to what is taught in some circles, God didn’t
curse Adam. He didn’t curse Adam’s seed,
or Adam’s blood. He cursed the ground.
If God had cursed Adam’s seed or blood, that certainly would explain why
people die, but it would hardly offer an explanation into why plants and
animals die. Everything you eat, comes out the cursed earth, and so all of creation suffers because of Adam’s sin with an
eventual redemption and restoration
promised ( Rom 5:12, 8:22).
Of course unregenerate man, having rejected the light of scripture,
fumbles around in the dark and makes death into an ally instead of the
enemy. Evolution (which doesn’t work at
all) especially doesn’t work without death.
As Richard ‘Koo-Koo’ Dawkins said “We’re going to die, and that makes us
the lucky ones.” Dr. Ruckman adds “Darwin’s
followers brag about their upward progress as they march helplessly towards an
open grave and the lake of fire”
Since we’re on the subject, the Bible teaches that death is the payment
for sin (Rom 6:23) Satan can execute this payment or at least could before
Calvary ( Heb 2:14, Job 1-2, John 8:44). Man is powerless against it , though
he’ll give everything he has for one more heartbeat, one more minute, one more
breath.(Ecc 8:8) You die for your own sin (Deut 24;16, 2 Chron 25:4).
If you don’t believe verse 18, you really should try growing something. The
ground is cursed whenever man puts his hand to it. I have personally seen grape
vines that I’ve cultivated fail to produce fruit and barely stay alive despite
help while grape seeds carried by birds
into the nearby forest flourished. But at the same time, Adam was commanded to
work before the fall, so work is not a curse. Hard work, toiling work, tedious
work, work where the very elements push back against you; that’s the result of
the fall. God gave man plenty to do
before the fall, and after the fall the idea was to wear man out; to make the
task of living so difficult that man would have little time left to get into
trouble without neglecting his responsibilities.
Every weed, very crop failure, every
famine is the consequence of Adam’s sin.
Thorns are part of the curse, so when Jesus bore our curse, is it any
surprise to you that he wore a crown of thorns?
God sometimes makes people live under
conditions caused by their ancestors. There were plenty of Israeli children
born in Babylonian captivity that had nothing to do with the reasons for the captivity. The fact that the
children grew up in bondage wasn’t a judgment on the children, it was a
judgment on the parents. By the same token, our sorrows are the continuing
legacy of Adam’s disobedience. God will console you over the effects of sin, but
not relieve you over it.\
Most of man’s technological strivings since
the Garden have either been attempts to get around verses 17-19 (air
conditioning, labor-saving devices, etc.) or better ways to kill, maim and
destroy their fellow man (Ecc 7:29, Psa 106:39). Man is obsessed with
his body, and his comfort, to the neglect of his soul (Prov 11:30, James 1:21,
Heb 10:39). He fears the first death, when he should fear the second death (Rev
2;11, 21:8 Matt 10:28).
“And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother
of all living.” ( V20)
Adam named her, not god. God’s name for her was ‘Adam’. That’s why every
woman has a man’s name. My wife before I
married her had her father’s name. When
she became my wife, she took my name.
“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of
skins, and clothed them.”(V21)
Here is one of 2 times
in the Bible where God makes clothes for
people. It’s also a beautiful
illustration of how God’s ways are not man’s ways. Man’s way involved his own
effort, and his own righteousness to cover up sin. God’s way involved the
shedding of blood, and always has.
What follows is speculation, but it’s speculation that I am quite
confident in. The Bible does not say
what kind of animal the skins were made from, but I have confidence that it was
probably a male lamb of the first year without spot or blemish, because that’s
simply the way God does things in your Bible.
This lambs (or lambs) were the first living things to die, and the sight
no doubt horrified Adam as a lamb was slain to cover his iniquity. Adam had a choice; take what God offered or
go on with his fig leaf religion. Adam
chooses the lamb, and God clothes him in righteousness bought by the shed blood
of an innocent creature (John 1:29, Gen 22:8).
Blood has a voice (Gen 4:10), Christ’s blood says ‘forgiven.
“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: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth
from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the
east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every
way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” (V22-24)
God once again refers to himself in the
plural, and makes a cryptic remark regarding the tree of life. Apparently Adam,
despite the changes wrought in him and in the natural world by his
disobedience, could still have taken of the tree of life and lived
forever. Man is sent forward to till the
ground in order to feed himself (Ecc 6:7).
A
bull-faced guard is placed to keep Adam and his descendants away from the tree.
The garden was ‘east of Eden’ and the cherubim was placed at the ‘east of the
garden’ so Adam and Eve obviously went further east when they left. In your Bible, trips that go from west to
east usually end poorly.
So now the day closes on this
tragic story as two sin cursed
people leave the comfort and
fellowship of their creator to go scratch out a living in a world they helped ruin.
The only bright spot on the
horizon is the promise that the seed of the woman would come and fix it all
someday.
Now that begs the obvious question, why didn’t Adam die that day?
As noted previously, there is a common
teaching that Adam died ‘spiritually’ that day, but there is no scriptural case
to be made for that since Adam’s spirit is never referred to as being dead.
Neither are any of Adam’s descendants ever referred to as having a dead spirit.
To get
some understanding on why Adam didn’t die that day, there are some things the reader needs to understand. First
of all, ‘the world’ is not the same as ‘the earth’. The earth was made by God in the beginning
(Gen 1;1) and is defined as the dry land portion of the planet. (Gen 1:10, Prov
8:23-26). The earth belongs to God (Duet 10:14). The world however, sits upon the earth, and
is distinct from it (1 Sam 2:8, Jer 51:15). The world, belongs to Satan (2 Cor
4:4) and includes all the kingdoms and people inhabiting it (Matt 4:8, 1 John
2:15). Therefore, ‘the world’ doesn’t
begin in Gen 1, it begins in Gen 3. And according to Rev 13:8, Jesus Christ was
slain “from the beginning”. Christ’s death on the cross ‘pre-paid’ for Adam’s
transgressions, somehow.
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