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Genesis 3:8-15
What do you do when you know you are in trouble?
If you look closely at my right wrist you will see a small scar. It’s still there as a reminder after 50 plus years. One day I was running through the kitchen to go out to play. The inside door was open, but there was a storm door. My hand hit the latch but for some reason it slid off without opening the door. The momentum carried my hand through the window of the storm door, and I was bleeding. I thought, “I’m really in trouble. I was running in the house, and that was enough to get me in trouble, but now I broke the window in the door! And I’m bleeding, maybe I’ll have to go to the doctor and who knows what that will mean!” So, what did I do? I listened to my little 7 or 8 year old brain that said, “you better go hide.” Of course, that only made things worse when my mom found me because I had to hear about how hiding was a bad thing to do because I might have bled to death. Well, I’m still here. I didn’t bleed to death. I didn’t even need stitches. But every time I read about Adam and Eve hiding from God I think about what I did.
Genesis chapter three answers a lot of questions for us. It tells us why, if God said that everything he created was very good, it’s not still that way today. It tells us why people do bad things and why the world is such a mess. The answer to all those questions is that Adam and Eve sinned, and everyone born since that day has been born in their sinful image.
What did Adam and Eve do that was so bad? The one, overarching, grievous sin that led to all other sins and the ruin of God’s perfect creation, was that they didn’t trust God’s word. What was God’s response? He graciously gave them another word. He gave them a promise though which they would be rescued from the punishment they deserved.
The moment Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit they knew they were in trouble. God had said that they were free to eat from any other tree in the garden, even from the tree of life. They only had one commandment. “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” And he told them why. He didn’t want them to suffer. He didn’t want them to experience evil. He warned them that if they didn’t trust his word in this matter they would experience evil, they would suffer, they would die.
But Satan told them something different. He suggested that they question God and not trust his word. He suggested that God was not thinking about them, but about himself. The real reason he didn’t want them to eat from the tree was that then they would be equal to him. They would be like God knowing good and evil. Eve says that the serpent deceived her. Another translation could be that he gave her false hope.
Eating from the forbidden tree didn’t have the effect Adam and Eve were let to believe it would. When God created them he hadn’t given them clothes. Since they were perfect and God is perfect there was no reason to feel shame in each other’s presence. But as soon as they ate they felt shame. When they heard God walking in the garden they realized that they were in trouble and they foolishly tried to hide from God among the trees.
When God confronted them they further demonstrated the effects that their sin had on them. They played the blame game. Adam blamed Eve, the one he had rejoiced over when God brought her to him. In fact, he implied that it was all God’s fault, after all, creating Eve was his idea. And Eve blamed the serpent.
Maybe you never broke a window and ran off to hide like I did, but I’m sure you see yourself in Adam and Eve. You have felt shame in your nakedness, or in the times you might have given in to the temptation of looking at the nakedness of others. None of us want to think that Jesus was naked on the cross, but he probably was. He bore even that shame for us. Like Adam and Eve you have tried to hide, maybe not physically, but you have tried to hide things you have done that are sinful so that, you think, no one will find out. But God knows. Like Adam and Eve you have played the blame game. It’s very popular in our world. “If she was a better wife I wouldn’t have had an affair.” “If he was a better husband I could more easily respect him.” “If my boss paid me what I deserve I wouldn’t speak badly about him, or I wouldn’t have to steal.” If people wouldn’t have teased him he wouldn’t have brought his gun to school. Like Adam and Eve, when we know we are in trouble and we know we are caught, we try to blame anyone or anything we can think of. Because sin has affected our thinking we don’t do the one thing we should do- take responsibility, admit our sin and say, “I was wrong, it was my fault, forgive me.”
Adam and Eve felt shame. They hid. They played the blame game. But look at what God did. He would have had every right, as soon as they touched the forbidden tree, to vaporize them with a bolt of lightning. He could have found them and grabbed them by the shoulders and shaken them shouting, “what have you done! You have ruined everything!” But instead, he gave them an opportunity to confess. He knew what they did the moment they did it. He knew exactly where they were, yet he walked in the garden as he always had and called out to them. Instead of admitting what he had done Adam talks about his feelings, feelings that betray what he had done. He wouldn’t be afraid of God or ashamed of his nakedness if he had not eaten from the forbidden tree. And when God continues to be merciful and asks if he had eaten from the forbidden tree, which was obvious, he evades the question.
If you or I were God, our anger would be boiling. We would be a volcano ready to explode. But consider the patient love of God!
He does address the serpent for his part in Adam and Eve’s fall. A curse was placed on him. And, you know what’s coming in verses 16 and following. God is going to let Adam and Eve know that he always keeps his word. The consequences he promised will come. There will be pain and suffering, and they will die. They will be banished from the beautiful garden he had created for them and the tree of life will no longer be available to them. But, so as not to crush them, so that they might know his love and grace and have hope, he gives them a promise, he invites them to trust his word.
You know the promise God gave. You probably had to memorized it for a Christmas service. It sounds a little different in the EHV translation, but it is an accurate translation: I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel.
The first important thing to notice, after the fact that God is still speaking with his now sinful creatures which is an act of grace in itself, is the fact that he is not asking them to do anything. He states what he is going to do and what is going to happen in the future no matter what. It’s not dependent on anything they do. It’s not dependent on whether they believe it or not. It’s just like eating from the forbidden tree. God’s word was true even when they didn’t believe it and trusted Satan’s word instead.
By God’s grace, we know who this seed of the woman is. It is Jesus who came to crush the serpent’s head, to destroy the devil’s work. He did it by becoming man and placing himself under the law just as we are under the law. When Satan tempted him to trust his word more than the word of the Father, unlike Adam and Eve, unlike you and me, he did not listen to Satan. He proclaimed that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He always trusted the word of God more than the word of Satan or the world, or science. He took upon himself the curse that Adam and Eve brought into the world. He experienced suffering, pain and even death. But most importantly, he took upon himself the ultimate punishment that we deserve for our sins. He was forsaken by the Father – he suffered the essence of Hell. He took upon himself the curse of sin and by doing so, he not only crushed the serpent’s head, but he opened the door to paradise for us. Because of what he did for us, we will one day get to live as Adam and Eve did before they sinned, and eat freely from the tree of life. We will get to walk and talk with God without fear or shame for all eternity.
What do you do when you know you are in trouble? The fact that we feel shame, try to hide what we did and, when caught, try to blame others, is evidence that we are children of Adam and Eve. We have sinned and deserve to have the last word we ever hear from God be “Depart from me you cursed.” But instead of getting what we deserve, God gives us, a word, a gracious promise, he invites us to trust his word. He promised Adam and Eve a seed, a child who would crush the serpent’s head. He has told us who that seed is. It is Jesus. He promises us that because of Jesus the curse of our sins has been removed. He promises that because of Jesus you and I will be raised from the dead and be able to live in his presence and eat from the tree of life. Trust his word. Trust his gracious promise.
