Bible Study: Genesis 3
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good Morning
Let’s share any Prayer Requests and Praises Reports.
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Let’s pray
Text: Genesis 3:1-7
Text: Genesis 3:1-7
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
This chapter is one of the most essential parts of all of Scripture...
There is no Gospel without this chapter...
Understanding the cross and Jesus’ sacrifice is not possible without first understanding the Fall of man.
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This section of our study will show how the guardians of the eden and the the garden sanctuary are now tested for fidelity to their King.
Although the term “covenant” is not used here, one does not need the word in order to communicate the concept.
For instance, the word “covenant” does not appear in 2 Sam. 7:1–17, but Scripture later describes the arrangement between God and David as a “covenant.”
So, this is the very first covenant in the whole of the Bible...
The first covenant in all of history.
In this covenant...
A covenant of works...
Obedience entitles humanity to life with God...
However, disobedience brings death.
The consequences of their failure can only be reversed through the justification and sanctification that comes through Christ’s fulfillment of the covenant of grace...
And thanks be to God that we are now saved by grace through faith as human history has shown...
Not a single human has ever ben able to keep the law except for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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The sudden and unexplained arrival of the cunning serpent presents a a major challenge of immense importance to Adam and Eve.
Their choice in the matter is to disregard God’s instructions...
Something every human being is guilty of...
This was an act of willful rebellion that has terrible consequences for the whole of creation...
And we can’t say anything about it ourselves as we do the same thing every day...
We do the same thing every time we sin...
And any claim that we are sinless has been proven by Scripture to be false.
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As a result, God’s creation is thrown into disorder...
We now live in a sin sick world...
It is filled with chaotic effects that resulted in the disruption of all the harmonious relationships that God had previously established.
Sickness, pain, suffering, disease, cancer, hate, hunger, fatigue, anxiety, depression, pride, and death...
And the list goes on...
All of it is birthed out of sin and disobedience to God’s perfect commands.
All these things were not part of the original creation...
They only infected our world after the Fall of man.
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In verse 1 the word “serpent” actually means “snake.”
The apostle John identified this creature as Satan as did the apostle Paul.
So, the serpent was a manifestation of Satan...
In Ezekiel 28:11–15 we find a description of Satan’s dazzling beauty:
11 Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me:
12 “Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God: “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared.
14 You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.
In Isaiah 14:13-14 we see Satan’s motivation to challenge God’s authority:
13 You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’
In the New Testament John the Beloved says in 1 John 3:8:
8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
So, we can conclude that Satan was a fallen archangel and, thus, a supernatural spirit, had possessed the body of a snake in its pre-Fall form.
Remember God’s declaration that “everything he had made … was very good” so the serpent being evil indicates that Satan took-over the snakes body.
This fits with the character of Satan who was crafty and deceitful as he is the father of lies.
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Eve was the object of his attack...
Directly attacking the family order...
For it should have been Adam that defended his family...
Satan here subverts the marriage institution by bypassing the man and tempting the woman to usurp his authority.
But Satan chose Eve whom he knew he could device.
And Adam just stood their and did nothing.
Nevertheless, the husband is held accountable for obeying her.
This brings to mind 2 Timothy 3:6 which says:
6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,
This is a tactic Satan and his demons continue to use...
Men have a responsibility to protect their families...
They are to be the spiritual leaders...
Yet the cowardice of men or the absence of men you for example run away or are not present in their families has lead to much destruction with the Fall of man being the first instance of this which had universal effects.
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We see this too with the rise of woman pastors...
Scripture is clear when it says in 1 Timothy 2:12-14:
12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.
13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve;
14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
The order of creation...
Something that happened before the fall is the reason why elder/pastors have always been men.
In fact, the qualification of being an elder is the very thing Paul talks about next after saying this statement as seen in 1 Timothy 3:1-2:
1 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.
2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
In context and following proper hermeneutics it is not possible to justify female pastors...
That is why many times the first sign of a church going apostate is when the church installs a woman pastor.
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This has nothing to do with men or woman being better...
No gender is better than one.
But male and female have separate and distinct roles and Satan the author of confusion attacks this.
That is why the issue we see today with woman pastors has to do with obedience to God.
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Though Eve was sinless at the time, she was temptable and seducible...
And how did Satan tempt her?
He started with making her doubt God’s Word...
He caused her to doubt God’s goodness.
That is why the Serpent says:
“Did God actually say?”
In effect Satan said, “Is it true that He has restricted you from the delights of this place?
This is not like one who is truly good and kind.
There must be some mistake.”
So, he insinuated doubt as to her understanding of God’s will...
And lead her a false interpretation of God’s commands.
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Eve received Satan as if he was an angel of light that appeared to her...
She some him as some kind of credible messenger from heaven with the true understanding...
But what she was mesmerized by was his cunningness.
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Notice too that Satan tempts Eve by emphasizing God’s prohibition and deliberately avoiding an mention of God’s provision...
So, he is reducing God’s command to a question and casting doubt upon God’s sincerity and defaming His motives
Eve gradually yields to Satan’s denials and half-truths and starts minimizing the threat.
If we go back to Genesis 2:17 pay attention to what God says:
17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
There is nothing about not touching the tree...
Yet, in verse 3 Eve adds this prohibition...
This addition to the original prohibition may be due to Adam giving this additional instruction to Eve for her protection.
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In verse 4 & 5 we see how tricky Satan can be with his words.
Satan, emboldened by her openness to him, spoke this direct lie.
The serpent not only directly contradicts what God has said but goes on to present the fruit of the tree as something worth obtaining:
By eating it, the couple will be like God, knowing good and evil.
The irony of the serpent’s remarks should not be overlooked.
The couple, unlike the serpent, has been made in the image of God.
In this way they are already like God.
Moreover, being in the image of God, they are expected to exercise authority over all the beasts of the field, which includes the serpent.
By obeying the serpent, however, they betray the trust placed in them by God.
This is not merely an act of disobedience; it is an act of treachery.
Those who were meant to govern the earth on God’s behalf instead rebel against their divine King and obey one of his creatures.
When Satan says, “You will not surely die” it is sometimes claimed that the serpent is correct when he says these things to the couple, for they do not “die” as Adam lives to be 930 years old.
However, this action leads to spiritual death.
Adam and Eve’s eyes are opened and God acknowledges that “the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.” later in the chapter.
Yet the serpent speaks half-truths, promising much but delivering little.
Their eyes are indeed opened, and they come to know something, but it is only that they are naked.
They know good and evil by experience, but their sense of guilt makes them afraid to meet God...
In reality they have become slaves to evil.
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And while they do not cease to exist physically, they are expelled from the garden-sanctuary and God’s presence.
Cut off from the source of life and the tree of life...
They are in the realm of the dead.
What they experience outside of Eden is not life as God intended, but spiritual death..
That is why Satan is called a liar and murderer from the beginning.
His lies always promise great benefits but it is just an illusion.
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In verse 6 we see that Eve decided that Satan was telling the truth and she had misunderstood God, but she didn’t know what she was doing.
Her decision is based on practical values, aesthetic appreciation, and intellectual gratification.
It was not overt rebellion against God, but seduction and deception to make her believe her act was the right thing to do.
The New Testament confirms that Eve was deceived as seen in passages like 2 Corinthians 11:3 which says:
3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
However, the fact that Adam was “with her” and that he knowingly ate what God had forbidden indicates that Adam’s sin was both an act of conscious rebellion against God and a failure to carry out his divinely ordained responsibility to guard or “keep”both the garden and the woman that God had created as “a helper fit for him.”
The disastrous consequences of Adam’s sin cannot be overemphasized, resulting in the fall of mankind, the beginning of every kind of sin, suffering, and pain, as well as physical and spiritual death for the human race.
So, when Adam sinned it was a direct transgression without deception as we read earlier in 1 Timothy 2:14 which says:
14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
By God’s appointment Adam represents the race as its federal head...
Thus, his sin brings death upon all as attest to in Romans 5:12–19 which says:
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.
14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
Adam also represents, as a model and prototype, humanity’s hostility against God.
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So, we can see from this account what “sin” truly is...
Sin is essentially failure to trust in God.
It is an act or state of unbelief, and an assertion of autonomy.
Sin manifests itself in both doing what God has forbidden and failing to do what He has commanded.
True religion consists of communion with God based on trust.
And genuine trust bears fruit in obedience.
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In verse 7 we see that now that Adam and Eve are ashamed of their nakedness, they attempt to clothe themselves.
The innocence noted in Genesis 2:25 which says:
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Has now been replaced by guilt and shame, and from then on they had to rely on their conscience to distinguish between good and their newly acquired capacity to see and know evil.
Additionally, it is important to note that nakedness in the Old Testament suggests weakness, need, and humiliation.
That is also why crucified victims were hung up naked in order to bring they more shame.
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Please note too that the first experience of guilt is expressed in terms of an awareness of nakedness...
And redemption is linked to God’s providing a covering for human sin which we will see later in this chapter.
Text: Genesis 3:8-13
Text: Genesis 3:8-13
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.”
In verse 8 we witness that God appeared, as before, in tones of goodness and kindness, walking in some visible form.
He came not in fury, but in the same way He had walked with Adam and Eve before.
However, conscious of the Lord God’s presence, they hide themselves.
They shrink from the intimacy with God they formerly enjoyed in the garden.
Their expulsion from it matches their attitudes and actions.
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Next God asks, “Where are you?”
The question was God’s way of bringing man to explain why he was hiding, rather than expressing ignorance about man’s location.
Shame, remorse, confusion, guilt, and fear all led to their clandestine behavior.
There was no place to hide; there never is.
This reminds me of Psalm 139:1–12 which says:
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
Additionally, both the words “man” and “you” in verse 9 are singular in Hebrew.
So, God confronts Adam first, holding him primarily responsible for what happened, as the one who is the representative (or “head”) of the husband-and-wife relationship, established before the fall.
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Adam’s sin was clearly evidenced by his new knowledge of the evil of nakedness, but God still waited for Adam to confess to what God knew they had done.
The basic reluctance of sinful people to admit their iniquity is here established.
Repentance is still the issue.
When sinners refuse to repent, they suffer judgment; when they do repent, they receive forgiveness.
All are sinners...
But will we repent of our sins and turn to God...
Or will we try to sweep our sin under the rug and foolishly attempt to hide from God?
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Verses 12 and 13 show how Adam and Eve aligned themselves with Satan by distorting the truth, accusing one another, and ultimately accusing God.
Their efforts to conceal their sin only exposed it even more.
Adam pitifully put the responsibility on God for giving him Eve.
That only magnified the tragedy in that Adam had knowingly transgressed God’s prohibition, but still would not be open and confess his sin, taking full responsibility for his action, which was not made under deception.
The Eve’s then desperately tries to pass the blame to the serpent, which was partially true but it did not absolve her of the responsibility for her distrust and disobedience toward God.
Text: Genesis 3:14-19
Text: Genesis 3:14-19
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.”
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.”
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.”
Among God’s weighty judgments against Satan, the woman, and the man we find hope...
We find the promise of salvation for God’s people.
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God starts off and addresses the serpent first.
In verse 1 it was declared that the serpent was “more crafty” but now God declares the serpent more cursed.
The serpent was indicted for its part in tempting the woman.
Additionally, the serpent will be viewed with contempt from now on.
This is conveyed both literally and figuratively by the serpent’s going on its belly and eating dust.
Having deceived the woman, the serpent will have ongoing hostility with the woman, which will be perpetuated by their respective offspring.
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It should also be noted that “dust” is the symbol of abject humiliation...
We see this in Scripture in passages like Psalm 44:25:
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground.
And Psalm 72:9:
9 May desert tribes bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust!
Satan’s curse is an indignity lasting forever.
Satan’s final defeat under the heel of the Messiah is delayed so that God’s program of redemption through the promised seed of the woman may be accomplished.
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So, after cursing the physical serpent, God turned to the spiritual serpent, the lying seducer, Satan, and cursed him.
The “first gospel” is found in verse 15 when the Word of God says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspringe and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
I fact, due to the announcement of the defeat of the serpent by the seed of the woman, Jesus the Messiah, theologians have long referred to Genesis 3:15 as the protoevangelion, or “the first gospel.”
This verse is the first promise of redemption in Scripture...
And this verse is prophetic of the struggle and its outcome between “your seed” (Satan and unbelievers, who are called the Devil’s children) and her seed (Christ, a descendant of Eve, and those in Him), which began in the garden.
So, in the midst of the curse passage, a message of hope shone forth—the woman’s offspring called “He” is Christ, who will one day defeat the Serpent.
Satan could only “bruise” Christ’s heel (cause Him to suffer), while Christ will bruise Satan’s head (destroy him with a fatal blow).
Paul likewise encouraged the believers in Rome with similar language that can be found in Romans 16:20 which says:
20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
So, believers should recognize that they participate in the crushing of Satan because, along with their Savior and because of His finished work on the cross, they also are of the woman’s seed.
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Additionally, we can see that all of humanity is now divided into two communities...
The redeemed, who love God, and the reprobate, who love self.
The division finds immediate expression in the hostility of Cain against Abel which we will discuss in the next chapter of our study in Genesis.
This prophecy finds ultimate fulfillment in the triumph of the second Adam, and the community united with Him, over the forces of sin, death, and the devil.
Subsequently, the rest of Genesis traces a single line of Seth’s descendants, observing that it will eventually produce a king through whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
Ultimately, this line of descendants leads to Jesus Christ...
If you recall we covered this in our sermon series on the Gospel of Luke when we cover Luke 3:23–38 which recorded Christ’s genealogy going all the way to God the Father.
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Next, God issues judgment against Adam and Eve which will carry on into every male and female...
Women will be frustrated by her natural relationships within the home...
This will be seen through painful labor in bearing children and subordination toward her husband.
So, this is a constant reminder that a woman gave birth to sin in the human race and passes it on to all her children.
She can be delivered from this curse by raising godly children, as indicated in 1 Timothy 2:15:
15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
And Just as the woman and her seed will engage in a war with the serpent, because of sin and the curse, the man and the woman will face struggles in their own relationship.
Sin has turned the harmonious system of God-ordained roles into distasteful struggles of self-will.
Lifelong companions, husbands and wives, will need God’s help in getting along as a result.
The woman’s desire will be to dominate and to to lord it over her husband, but the husband will rule by divine design...
This is explicitly clear in the biblical model of the relationship between husband and wife as seen in Ephesians 5:22–33:
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
30 because we are members of his body.
31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
If we are not faithful to God’s model of the role of male and female then the the marriage ordinance will continue to be frustrated by the battle of the sexes.
The words from the Lord indicate that there will be an ongoing struggle between the woman and the man for leadership in the marriage relationship.
The leadership role of the husband and the complementary relationship between husband and wife that were ordained by God before the fall have now been deeply damaged and distorted by sin.
This especially takes the form of inordinate desire (on the part of the wife) and domineering rule (on the part of the husband).
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So, Eve will have the sinful “desire” to oppose Adam and to assert leadership over him, reversing God’s plan for Adam’s leadership in marriage.
But Adam will also abandon his God-given, pre-fall role of leading, guarding, and caring for his wife, replacing this with his own sinful, distorted desire to “rule” over Eve.
Thus one of the most tragic results of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God is an ongoing, damaging conflict between husband and wife in marriage, driven by the sinful behavior of both in rebellion against their respective God-given roles and responsibilities in marriage.
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Men will be frustrated in his activity to provide food.
God’s punishment of the man involves his relationship with the very ground from which he was formed.
Because he has eaten that which was prohibited to him, he will have to struggle to eat in the future.
Given the abundance of food that God provided in the garden, this judgment reflects God’s disfavor.
Adam will no longer enjoy the garden’s abundance but will have to work the ground from which he was taken.
The punishment is not work itself, but rather the hardship and frustration that will accompany the man’s labor.
To say that the ground is cursed and will bring forth thorns and thistles indicates that the abundant productivity that was seen in Eden will no longer be the case.
Underlying this judgment is a disruption of the harmonious relationship that originally existed between humans and nature.
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Additionally, God telling Adam “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife” reveals reason given for the curse on the ground and human death is that man turned his back on the voice of God, to follow his wife in eating that from which God had ordered him to abstain.
The woman sinned because she acted independently of her husband, disdaining his leadership, counsel, and protection.
The man sinned because he abandoned his leadership and followed the wishes of his wife.
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Man, by sin, became mortal.
Although he did not die the moment he ate (by God’s mercy), he was changed immediately and became liable to all the sufferings and miseries of life, to death, and to the pains of hell forever.
Adam lived 930 years but in the end he still returned to dust as it says in verse 19.
Further, our body will return to the ground and it will die (which was not true of the original created order.
For this reason, the Bible looks forward to a time when nature will be set free from the consequences of human sin; i.e., nature will no longer be the arena of punishment, and it will finally have glorified human beings to manage it and bring out its full potential.
Just look at what it says in Romans 8:19–22:
19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope
21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
Text: Genesis 3:20-24
Text: Genesis 3:20-24
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.
God’s words of judgment on the serpent, woman, and man are immediately followed by two observations that possibly convey a sense of hope.
First, the man names his wife Eve, which means “life-giver.”
Adam’s choice of the name Eve demonstrates his faith in God’s promise that the woman will bear children, including the seed who will defeat Satan.
Second, God clothes the couple.
While this final action recognizes that the human couple is now ashamed of their nakedness in God’s presence, as a gesture it suggests that God still cares for these, his creatures.
Because God provides garments to clothe Adam and Eve, thus requiring the death of an animal to cover their nakedness, many see a parallel here related to the system of animal sacrifices to atone for sin later instituted by God through the leadership of Moses in Israel, and the eventual sacrificial death of Christ as an atonement for sin.
So, the first physical deaths should have been the man and his wife, but it was an animal—a shadow of the reality that God would someday kill a substitute to redeem sinners.
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The couple is then expelled from the garden.
The tree of life, then, probably served in some way to confirm a person in his or her moral condition
According to Genesis 2:15, the man was put in the garden to work it and keep or guard it.
Outside the garden the man will have to work the ground, but the task of keeping or guarding the garden is given to the cherubim.
By allowing themselves to be manipulated by the serpent, the couple failed to fulfill their priestly duty of guarding the garden.
Consequently, their priestly status is removed from them as they are put out of the sanctuary.
The placing of cherubim to the east of the garden is reflected in the tabernacle and temple, where cherubim were an important component in the structure and furnishings.
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Additionally, we see that Adam and Eve are protected from an eternal bondage to sin and misery that would result if they ate of the tree of life.
So, God’s concern seems to have been that man not live forever in his pitifully cursed condition.
Taken in the broader context of Scripture, driving the man and his wife out of the garden was an act of merciful grace to prevent them from being sustained forever by the tree of life.
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The coming heavenly Adam or the second Adam, who bears the curse of toil, sweat, thorns, conflict, death on a tree, and descent into dust, will ultimately restore access to the tree of life, tearing apart the veil of the temple on which cherubim were sewn.
When Christ opens the way to eternal life, the barring of the way to life is removed.
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
Please join me one more time in prayer.