Genesis Lesson 4
MAN’S FALL AND GOD’S REDEMPTIVE LOVE
Genesis 3:1-24
Key Verse 3:15
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your
offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
When God finished all of his creation, in six days, everything was very good. There was no disorder, pain, disaster, disease, survival of the fittest, disharmony, sin, or aging; most importantly, there was no death. The world was full of life, freedom and peace. Beginning with Genesis chapter 3, however, we see all of the kinds of troubles, pain, suffering and evil things that we experience now in the world. Now, all living things in the world have to compete according to the principle of “survival of the fittest,” fight against pain and suffering due to disease, and eventually age and die. The world is full of deceit, murder, rape, corruption, violence, war, pollution, selfishness and all kinds of evil. How did evil come to exist in the world? Why does God allow evil to exist in his creation, when he is absolutely good and almighty and righteous? Didn’t God have the power to block evil from entering into his world? These kinds of questions have been asked by many philosophers throughout human history. Dualism claims that there are two principles in the universe, good and evil. But this explanation is not thorough enough and, what is more problematic, it is unbiblical. St. Augustine thought about the origin of evil and concluded that evil was the absence of good. God is goodness itself and therefore, if anything leaves God, it becomes evil.
Genesis chapter 3 reveals how evil entered the world. It does not explain how evil came into being. It shows how sin entered the world, and that sin is the source of all our sufferings and pain. The fall of man through Satan’s temptation can be understood better when we think about Jesus’ victory over Satan’s temptation (Mt 4:1-11). Genesis chapter 3 is the story of failure, and Matthew chapter 4 is the story of success. Today’s passage teaches us how man was tempted by Satan and the result of disobedience; we can, however, see the love of God in the midst of God’s judgment.
Satan’s Temptation and Man’s Fall (1-6)
First, Satan’s Temptation (1-5). While Adam and Eve were peacefully working hard in the garden, an intruder came. It was Satan. Revelation 12:9 says that Satan is called the great dragon, the ancient serpent, the devil, and the one who leads the whole world astray. Satan has other names as well, such as ruler of the kingdom of the air, prince of this world, god of this age, Beelzebub, and the prince of demons (Mt 12:24, 2Co 4:4, Eph 6:12). Satan does exist, and is a spiritual being, like an angel. Satan is an invisible being, but has great influence over men.
In the Bible there are three angels mentioned: Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer. Michael is an archangel, a great warrior who fights against God’s enemies (Jude 9; Rev 12:7; Dan 12:1). Gabriel is the special messenger of God who delivered the news of the birth of John the Baptist and the birth of Jesus Christ (Lk 1:19,26,27). The word “Lucifer” has the meaning of “morning star.” Isaiah 14:12-15 teaches that Lucifer wanted to exalt himself above the throne of God and therefore was cast down from heaven. Jude verse 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 say that Satan was a creature that had served God, but that he had committed a crime and did not keep his position. Ezekiel 28:12-17 says that Lucifer had been anointed as a guardian cherub before he fell. Originally Satan was full of wisdom and beauty. But after he had received many blessings, he began to want to be equal to God and he was cast out from heaven. Here, we learn that we can become angels if we serve God humbly, but that we become Satan if we are proud.
Genesis 3:1a reads, “Now the serpent was craftier than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.” “Crafty” means “adept in the use of subtlety and cunning.” The snake was the most beautiful and superior of all the animals. The snake is a beautiful color; it can change itself according to situations and attacks its prey when it has a chance. The snake is craftier than any of the other animals (Mt 10:16). When Satan appears on earth, the snake was ruled by Satan and became Satan’s instrument. Satan has the ability to take possession of a man’s or an animal’s body, because Satan dwells in a body (Mk 5:9,12). The Hebrew word nakash means “snake”, and refers to a “bright and straight standing animal.” The serpent is shrewd but masquerades as an angel of light (2Co 11:13,14). Jesus said in John 8:44 that from the beginning Satan was a murderer and the father of lies. God’s character is to give life but Satan’s is to destroy it. Satan does not have truth in him and his native language is lying. Satan also means “accuser” and “condemner”. Satan makes man defy God, casts him into unbelief, and makes him leave God.
Verses 1b-5 tell us how Satan tempted man. First of all, Satan began by planting doubt in the heart of the woman. Consider verse 1b: as the woman was being happy among the beautiful trees of the garden, Satan approached her through the snake and talked to her as if he were her friend, saying, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” This question sounds deceptively like a simple quote of God’s words. But if we look at it carefully, we can see that it confuses the word of God and perverts the meaning of God’s words. Satan omitted to mention God’s gift of unlimited freedom to eat from any tree in the garden. He also did not mention God’s holy command, “You must not eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When you eat of it you will surely die.” Satan asked the question in the negative, as if God had not allowed Adam and Eve to eat of any tree in the garden. Satan made the woman doubt God’s command so that she might be persuaded that it was not fair. Satan’s words described God as if he were just a selfish man; as if God wanted to keep something delicious all for himself. In this way, Satan broke the trust of God in her heart. Once she began to doubt the goodness and love of God, she began to fall.
Satan also added the word “really,” and, in doing so, made the woman doubt the word of God. This “really” implies that she should think twice about the word of God, rather than just simply trusting and believing it. The word of God has power when man simply believes and obeys it. But Satan tempted man not to trust it absolutely but to think twice about it. These days, when liberal theologians analyze the word of God using human reason, they make it relative, which makes man doubt the word of God. Satan can use such theologians as his instruments. Doubt has the power to destroy man. A skeptic, David Hume, said that skepticism was like a mouse that destroys man’s heart.
There is an interesting story about four cows in Aesop's Fables. Once upon a time, in a field, there were four cows living happily. They had such a good relationship among them that they were together in doing almost everything, including eating and sleeping. A lion wanted to attack and eat them. But it was too difficult to attack all four of them at once. No matter how hard the lion tried to separate them, he could not do so. Then one day, the lion whispered to one cow that was lagging a little bit behind the others, saying, “The other cows spoke ill of you!” The lion lied to the other cows in turn. From that time on, the four cows doubted each other. In the end, they were all separated, and the lion could attack them one by one and eat them all. In this same way, Satan’s strategy is to plant doubt in the heart of man and destroy unity and fellowship between God and man, thereby destroying man.
It was inconceivable for Eve to doubt God. But Satan planted the seed of doubt of God in her heart. Satan opened a door for her to consider the possibility that God was not as good as she had thought. Satan said, “Did God really say that you must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" Satan’s words imply that the woman should think about why God did not allow her to eat of the tree, rather than simply believing. When we are physically weak, we become sick. In the same way, when our souls are tired and weary, we easily fall into Satan’s temptation. It is then that Satan will visit us, like a friend, and plant doubt, saying, “Does God really exist? If God does exist, why is the world so full of trouble and injustice? Does God really love me? If God loves me, why doesn’t he help me? Is the Bible absolutely true? Do I have to take up my cross all the time and live?” Once we begin to doubt, one doubt leads to another, and we end up going off in a strange direction. When we doubt, we become fearful and we become powerless. When we have this kind of doubt we should know that it is the work of Satan and we have to attack it with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. If we do not do so and think about it more quietly, then we fall into Satan’s temptation.
Secondly, Satan makes the woman proud. The woman should have refused Satan from the beginning when Satan talked to her. But she lost her bearings and continued to talk to Satan. If we read verses 2 and 3, we see that, “The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”'” What she said in these verses is totally different from what God said in Genesis 2:16,17. She omitted freedom by not saying “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden.” Satan took out freedom and she followed his lead and also omitted freedom. If we remove freedom, all that is left is legalism. She also changed “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” into “the tree that is in the middle of the garden,” and added the words, “you must not touch it,” thereby exaggerating the negative side of God’s command. Cults always add or omit or change the word of God. To change the word of God means not to acknowledge God as God and not to trust God absolutely. She also weakened the absolute command of God by saying, “or you will die” instead of “you will surely die.” When we look at what she said, we can know that her heart was not grateful to God and that it was a burden to her to obey the holy command of God. Because she began to have a fellowship with Satan, his poison began to work. She neither honored the word of God nor gave thanks to God (Ro 1:21). The strategy to win over Satan’s temptation is to know the word of God accurately and hold on tightly to it. Psalm 119:11 reads, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
Satan had located her weak spot, and hit her with a one-two straight punch. "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (4,5). Satan planted false confidence in her that she would not surely die. In doing so, Satan directly opposed the word of God. When doubt about the word of God grows in one’s heart, one eventually rejects the word of God. After Satan planted false confidence in her heart, Satan planted pride in her heart, so she believed that she could be equal to God. It is not possible for a creature to be equal to its Creator, but Satan tried to assure her that it could happen if she ate of the tree. It was at that point that she must have begun to think about the possibility of being like God. When a person becomes proud, he becomes spiritually blind and cannot see anything clearly. If he becomes proud, he breaks the spiritual order and says what should not be said and thinks that he is somebody. The root cause of man’s fall is pride, the desire to be like God. St. Augustine said that pride is the root of all sin. God hates pride. God opposes the proud but exalts the humble (1Pe 5:5). Pride is the way to destruction (Pr 16:18).
Satan also made the woman doubt the love of God. Satan implied that God did not want her to eat of the tree because she would be like God if she did. When we doubt the love of our shepherds, we do not trust them, and our relationship with them is broken. In the same way, when we doubt the love of God we do not trust him and eventually we betray him. The secret of our victory in any situation, in all circumstances, is not to doubt the love of God. Apostle Paul went through many difficulties in serving God. But he was convinced of the love of God through Jesus Christ (Ro 8:32). So he could sing the song of victory in all circumstances. Romans 8:35-37 reads, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?.... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Satan’s intention was to make the woman disobey God and thereby lose her life in God. Satan not only wanted to destroy her life but also to make her his own slave. We need to understand Satan’s intention.
Second, Man’s Fall (6). How did the woman’s eyes change after she was tempted by Satan? Consider verse 6: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” Before the Fall, man did not have an inborn desire to sin, and therefore had the strength to reject temptation from outsiders. But man sinned, and this shows that his sin is intentional and therefore he is responsible for his sin. The woman could have escaped Satan’s temptation when she heard it. The Bible says that the way for us to overcome Satan’s temptation is to resist it (1Pe 5:8-9). James 4:7b reads, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” But the woman enjoyed her fellowship with the devil. First she listened to what he said. Then she looked at the tree and began to think. Then, finally, she took the fruit with her hands and ate it. Then, she gave it to her husband.
After she heard Satan’s sweet tempting words she became greedy. When she looked at the tree with greed, she saw that it was good for food (an appeal to physical desire), pleasing to the eye (an appeal to the mind and the sense of beauty) and desirable insofar as it could provide wisdom (an appeal to reason). In her heart there arose the cravings of a sinful man, the lust of his eyes and his boasting of what he has and does (1Jn 2:16). Satan tempts man in these three ways.
After she was tempted by Satan, such a strong desire arose in her heart that she could not resist it anymore. So she took the fruit and ate it. Then she gave it to her husband and he also ate it. In this way they disobeyed the word of God’s command and sinned. She gave more weight to the words of the serpent than to the words of God. And the man heeded the word of the woman more than the word of God (17a). This shows that to whom we listen is a matter of life and death. Through Adam’s disobedience, sin entered the world. Romans 5:12 reads, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.” Through Adam’s sin, sinful desire was inherited by his descendants and death began to rule instead of life for all men. This is original sin. We did not sin like Adam, but we were in Adam when he sinned and therefore we were under his influence, the way the child of a slave is like a slave. Each person dies not only because of Adam’s sin but also his own sin as well.
Adam fell into Satan’s temptation and disobeyed God, and in this way he failed. Through Adam’s failure all men who were in Adam failed too. But God never fails. Jesus came as the last Adam and redeemed Adam’s failure by defeating Satan’s temptation even before he started his ministry. Adam and Jesus Christ can be compared in many ways. Adam was tempted in the garden, where nothing was lacking, but Jesus Christ was tempted in the desert when he fasted for 40 days. Adam failed because he did not revere the word of God, but Jesus triumphed by respecting the word of God. The woman omitted and altered God’s words, but Jesus quoted the word of God accurately and defeated the devil (Mt 4:4,7,10). Through Adam’s disobedience, all men came to die (Ro 5:13), but through the obedience of one man, Jesus Christ, God's abundant provision of grace and of righteousness reign in life (Ro 5:17). In Adam, all died; in Christ, all will be brought to life (1Co 15:22).
Alone, we are weak and cannot win over Satan’s temptation. But when we are in Christ we can win over Satan’s temptation, because Jesus has triumphed over Satan’s temptation. Hebrews 4:15,16 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Jesus became our high priest, and he has compassion for our weakness and he helps us. Therefore we should approach the throne of grace with confidence in order to receive mercy and find grace. We thank God who gave us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
God’s Righteous Judgment (3:7-24)
What was the result of Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God’s command? They thought that they would become Godlike when they disobeyed God. Instead, they lost everything and their expected blessing turned into a curse. Instead of becoming like God, they became corrupt, powerless, fearful, shameful and slaves of the devil.
First, The result of man’s disobedience (7-13). Verses 7-13 describe the result of man’s disobedience. First of all, men experience evil and are filled with shame and self consciousness. In verse 7 we read: “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Their eyes were opened, as Satan said they would be, but they did not become like God. Rather, their eyes were opened toward evil, and they lost their spiritual purity. They were filled with shame and guilt because they were naked. They covered themselves with fig leaves. At that moment man lost his purity, and from that moment he has been eager to cover himself. The glory of God left men when they disobeyed him (Ro 3:23). People are curious about evil and they want to experience it. They think that they can enter an interesting other world if they experience evil. They think that they can come out of evil whenever they want after they experience it. But this is not true. When a man experiences evil he is possessed by its power and he cannot free himself from it. A German theologian, Karl Heim, said that sin is like a prison to which we can have a key, and may enter freely. But once we enter the prison, the door will be locked and we can no longer escape. We cannot do anything. We are locked in by our own crime. Nothing in the world, no power and no human effort, can remove our sin. People realize that they are condemned to sin. Then they try to cover their sin using will power. They try to cover it by their religious effort or sacrifices or donation of money or good deeds or even self torture. Yet they cannot cover their sense of guilt permanently. They can cover it for a while. They can cover their outward nakedness but they cannot cover their inner nakedness, their spiritual nakedness. The inner nakedness can only be covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Secondly, men try to hide from God. If you look at verse 8, you will see that “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” The word of God gives us salvation and comfort. Yet at the same time, if we sin, it gives us a sense of guilt. When Adam and Eve heard the voice of God they hid themselves among the trees. Before they sinned they had been joyful and thankful when they heard God’s voice. They ran to God and enjoyed his fellowship and his love. The voice of God was their joy, happiness, life, and hope. But once they had sinned, God’s voice caused them fear and anxiety and a sense of condemnation. No one chased after them but they ran away from God and hid themselves among the trees.
We cannot hide from God. A Psalmist who realized that God knows everything confessed, “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord….Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast” (Ps 139:1-10).
Thirdly, when men sinned, they lost the meaning of their existence. Consider verse 9: “But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’” When Adam sinned God came to him first. God comes to us first and he seeks us first (1Jn 4:19). This is God’s love and grace for us. If God does not seek us and come to us we cannot be saved. It is because sinners cannot come to God first. But God has mercy on men who sinned and comes to them first. When God came to Adam he asked, “Where are you?” He was not asking where Adam was hiding, but rather a question regarding Adam’s existence in the sight of God. When man leaves God, he becomes a lost man. When a man is in his Creator, God, his existence has meaning. Man has meaning to his existence and is happy when he works hard for the glory of God. But when man leaves God he loses the meaning of his existence. He does not know where he should be and the reason for his existence and what he should live for and he begins to wander. When a man loses the meaning of his existence he loses the purpose of life and his mission and the image of God all at once. God had mercy on Adam and Eve and helped them to realize their lost situation by asking, “Where are you?”
God’s voice asking, “Where are you?” is also God’s voice of love, trying to help men to repent. God wanted man to realize his lost situation and repent and come back to him. After he sinned, Adam hid among the trees, covering himself with fig leaves. But God wanted Adam to take off the clothes of his pride, his disobedience, his self consciousness and his hypocrisy, and come to God in honesty and sincerity and confess his sins. God said, “Where are you?” It is God’s voice of love and righteousness. It is the voice that calls for repentance. God still asks “Where are you?” of those who live in lost situations and who are trying to cover themselves with the fig leaves of worldly knowledge, money, power, and glory.
Fourthly, man began to have inner fear. Verse 10 says, “He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’" When Adam had a correct relationship with God, he did not know the word “fear”. Adam and Eve could live happily in the love of God, serving God with all their hearts and minds. There was no fear as long as they had a loving relationship with God, because there is no fear in perfect love (1Jn 4:18). But once they had disobeyed God’s command and their love relationship with God was broken, they began to have fear in their hearts. The fear was planted by Satan. God does not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline (2Ti 1:7). It is only when a man sins that he loses peace and suffers from fear and anxiety.
Verse 10 also shows that man has a guilty conscience as a result of his sin. When Adam had a right relationship with God, his nakedness was not a problem at all. But when he had sinned against God, he felt fear and suffered from a guilty conscience because he was naked. Conscience was planted by God in order to help man to realize his sin and repent. Conscience is the moral capacity given to all of Adam’s descendants. That is why people suffer from a guilty conscience when they sin. Conscience leads man to realize his sin and leads him to repentance, but at the same time it condemns man and cannot lead him to God. Later on, conscience is replaced by the law.
As we see now, once man sinned, there appeared, among other things, shame, fear, a sense of guilt, self-consciousness, anxiety, a desire to hide, and the desire for sin. Where do all these things come from? Existentialists interpret all of man’s inner problems as mere psychological phenomena. Was They are not psychological phenomena but rather the result of man’s departure from God. When Adam obeyed God, he could live under God’s rule, which is God’s kingdom. But when Adam disobeyed God in obedience to Satan, he entered into a world ruled by Satan. The world of Satan is darkness and death.
Read verse 11: “And he said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?’" God came to Adam and helped him to become aware of his lost condition and repent. Adam knew that there was shame and fear as the result of his disobedience. Then God wanted Adam to confess his sin freely and repent. But Adam justified his sin and turned his responsibility on someone else. He said in verses 12, “The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’" Adam said that everything happened because of the woman God had put with him, and thereby foisted all of the responsibility off on God. He deceived himself by not accepting his sin. In the same way, when we justify ourselves instead of confessing our sins and repenting we make our problems more complicated and our sins increase all the more. However, when we confess our sins God is faithful and forgives all of our sins and purifies us (1Jn 1:9,10).
God also asked the woman, “What is this you have done?" The woman answered, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate." In this way the woman also justified herself and pawned off the responsibility onto the serpent (13). Because of their sin, men broke their relationship with God. They also broke the relationship between themselves, and they lost their trust in each other. Adam and Eve could not bear each other’s weaknesses and blamed each other and laid responsibility on others and fought each other. When men’s relationship with God was broken men’s mutual trust was broken and their relationship with nature was also broken.
Second, God’s righteous judgment (14-24). Verses 14-24 are God’s curse. God’s curse is God’s righteous judgment against man’s sin. God’s justice must be established. If God’s righteous judgment did not exist, justice would not be upheld. If God’s justice is not maintained, the whole universe will not be supported. Nothing can stand and everything will be destroyed. As the Judge, God pronounced his righteous judgment in turn against the serpent, the woman and the man, as they all had sinned.
First of all, God cursed the serpent (14,15). Because of man’s sin, all the animals were cursed (Ro 8:20). The serpent was cursed above all animals, cursed to crawl on its belly and eat dust all the days of its life (14). To crawl on its belly and eat dust means to become an object of extreme scorn and mockery. It became a low animal, although it aspired to be great. Furthermore, it became an enemy of the woman, and its head would be crushed by the woman’s offspring (15). Satan thought that, since the woman had the potential to produce many offspring, he could produce many offspring by enslaving the woman. But God put enmity between the serpent and the woman and made her the enemy of the serpent. Because of this, hatred was born between serpent and man.
Secondly, God cursed woman (16). Woman would have pain in childbearing. To bear a child was a great blessing. But now woman would experience great pain in childbearing (16a). In addition, she would bear the burden of raising children. To bear a child and raise him became a woman’s cross. Another curse given to woman was to desire her husband instead of God and be ruled by him (16b). Because she made a mistake and did not fulfill her mission to become a suitable helper, she was degraded from a position equal to her husband to a subordinate position. She would beg for her husband’s love and live under his authority. Women would live under male dominance and suffer from unfair treatment and pressure. But in Christ Jesus their position is fully restored.
Then God cursed the man (17-19). Because of Adam’s disobedience, the ground produces thorns and thistles (17,18). They grow well even without man’s help. But products useful for man can only appear through painful toil. When man disobeyed God the ground began to disobey man. It did not produce fruits properly. Together with man, all other creatures were cursed with this suffering (Ro 8:22). For his whole life, man has to work hard to survive, working cursed ground. In the past, to work had been a great blessing for man, because he had a mission. Once he lost his mission, to work was unrelenting pain and toil.
In addition, as we see in verse 19, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” This is God’s death sentence passed down on man. “To return to the dust” means to return to nothing. Even if we had to toil, we could be happy, if only the fruit of our labors lasted. But we despair when we see all of our toil and labor in life come to nothing. Suppose we work hard for ten years and become a doctor or a lawyer or successful businessman. When we die, all of our labor and toil become nothing. That is why the author of Ecclesiastes says, “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless" (Ecc 1:2). Psalm 90:10 also says, “The length of our days is seventy years -- or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” As long as man lives on earth, he suffers from despair, meaninglessness, frustration, pain, lack of concern, lack of love and compassion, and lack of all good things; these are aspects of death and the fear of death. Such death and suffering from aspects of death are not natural phenomena but the punishment that comes from man’s sin (Ro 6:23a). In addition, there is the sting of death, which is great pain (1Co 15:55). Man began to die because he sinned. He not only dies physically but also spiritually. Man’s physical death is the separation of his body and soul. Spiritual death is the separation between his soul and God. It is a second death, and man’s soul suffers from this fiery lake of burning sulfur (Rev 21:8). But when we believe in Jesus, we are connected with God, who is the source of life. Thus there is no spiritual death, although we have physical death (Jn 5:24). Adam lost everything due to his disobedience. He lost the authority to rule the world and he lost his dignity and sincerity before God. He lost his authority before his wife and he lost his purity. But all of these are completely restored in Jesus Christ.
Adam accepted the promise of hope through the offspring of the woman, although he was in great despair. His hope is revealed when we see that he named his wife Eve, the mother of all the living (20). When man showed a sign of repentance, God made a garment of skin (21). God took off the clothes of sin that Adam and Eve were wearing and clothed them with the garment of skin, clothes that were made by shedding the blood of animals, the garment of his own making, the garment of righteousness, the garment of faith, and the garment of love. The shedding of the blood of animals to clothe men in garments of skin foreshadows Christ, who bleeds and dies to take away man’s sin. Jesus clothes men with the garment of God’s righteousness. In order for us to come to God, we need to shed our clothes of sin and don God’s holy and righteous clothes made of the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God (Ro 13:14).
Verses 22-24 describe the loss of paradise. God thought that man might take the tree of life as well in his sinful status, “So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life” (23-24). Man had lost his paradise. Man, having lost his paradise, cannot be truly happy, no matter how well he eats. Furthermore, he can never again enter his paradise, no matter how hard he tries. But God left hope for mankind by not destroying the tree of life. God prepared a better paradise and eternal life for those who will believe in Jesus Christ. The tree of life is related to man’s future life. Revelation 2:7 and 22:1,2 show that we will be able to eat of the tree of life in paradise. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Rev 2:7). “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:1-2). In the new paradise man can swim in the river of life and drink its water if he is thirsty. If he is hungry he can eat twelve different kinds of fruits each month.
God guarded the tree of life with cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth. “Cherubim” is closely related to the throne of God (Ps 18:10; 80:1; 99:1). It shows that as long as the tree of life is there, God’s special presence is as well. Later, God’s presence is revealed in the atonement cover in the Most Holy Place. Exodus 25:20-22 says: “The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover. Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the Testimony, which I will give you. There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.” Later, God opened a new and living way for man to come to God through Jesus Christ (Heb 10:19-23). Jesus is the way to God (Jn 14:6).
God’s Redemptive Love (15)
Genesis chapter 3 not only talks about man’s sin and God’s punishment but also about God’s redemptive love. If there is only sin and punishment there will be only despair. But there is great hope for mankind because there is the way of salvation and redemption. Although Adam and Eve rebelled against God, he still loved them and opened a way of salvation. Genesis chapter 3 is the chapter of God’s righteous judgment but also of God’s great love and redemption for man.
Let us look at verse 15: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." This verse shows the redemption of man. “The offspring of Satan” refers to false Christs and “the offspring of the woman” refers to Jesus Christ, who would be born through a virgin birth. A woman is biologically incapable of producing a child without a man. But the Messiah would be born from a virgin without man’s help (Gal 4:4; Isa 7:14). Sin came through woman, but the Messiah also came through woman. The curse came through a woman but the Christ who would bear the curse also came through a woman. Man lost paradise because of the woman but Christ came through the woman and he would restore the paradise. God transformed the woman’s failure into good. God never fails.
God said, “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” It means Christ will win over Satan. Therefore, we are fighting a battle where victory is already guaranteed through Christ. “You will strike his heel” refers to Jesus’ suffering and death. Jesus was wounded for our sins and transgression. He suffered greatly on the cross to bear our sins. Because of my sin he was pierced and crucified. Because of my sins he suffered and died on the cross. But Jesus was raised from the dead and crushed the head of Satan through his resurrection. In this way he freed man from the power of sin and death. Jesus came to us so that he could free us from the devil, who holds power over man through death (Heb 2:14,15; 1Jn 3:8).
In Genesis chapter 2 God made a covenant with Adam. The covenant promised Adam eternal life if he obeyed God and death if he disobeyed God. The covenant is called “the covenant of deeds” because Adam could keep his part of it through his actions. But, through his disobedience, Adam destroyed the covenant. Man became totally corrupt, and can no longer keep the covenant by his deeds. That is why God devised a new way to save men, through the sacrifice of his own Son, and thereby solved man’s problems of sin and death. In this way he offered eternal life to everyone who believes in Jesus. This covenant is called “the covenant of grace” because it does not require any of man’s deeds. As soon as man failed, God instituted the covenant of grace and in this way he revealed his redemptive love for man.
God’s promise in Genesis 3:15 was fulfilled in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Man was doomed to perish but God gave men Jesus Christ, through whom they can be saved and receive eternal life. Genesis chapter 3 shows that God’s punishment was condemnation and separation. But God restored all things through Jesus Christ and made us righteous in his eyes. We praise God who, in order to save sinful men, did not spare his Son.