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R
here are my thoughts on genesis 3...
i think it is noteworthy that satan does not start by immediately contradicting what God says...he begins by introducing doubt... especially here satan questions God's generosity...saying something to the effect of 'has God really put such strict limits on you?'... so satan wanted the woman to question God's command and made God's command sound unreasonable and restrictive...
in this moment the woman -could- have avoided the conversation entirely...in fact as a human she had dominion over the living creatures and she would have been within her rights to command the serpent to leave her...
but the woman was lured into the conversation...and it is to her credit that she cited God's command as her answer to the serpent's question... however she was inexact in her quotation...she mentions touching the tree which was apparently not part of God's original prohibition...and she merely says 'or you will die' where God had attached more certainty by saying 'you will surely die'...so here you might say that we have the first example of a person both adding to and taking away from God's command...
the serpent then moves on to open contradiction of God's word...he says 'you will not surely die'... while the woman had stood her ground regarding God's prohibition...satan targets his contradiction at God's warning of punishment...
next satan attempts to attribute an ulterior motive to God...and claims that God is deliberately withholding a good thing from humanity in order to keep it to himself... by this point satan has basically argued that God's threat of punishment was empty and that his prohibition was unjust...how many times nowdays have we seen people argue that there is no punishment for sin and that the bible is unjust in condemning certain things?
so the woman falls for satan's narrative and gives in to the temptation...she changes to view the tree as good and valuable...just like many people today come to even value their sin...
so she eats the fruit and then gives some to adam to eat too...
some people have wondered why adam and the woman suddenly recognize their nakedness here...as it appears that there is no direct connection between consciousness of good and evil and awareness of nakedness... my thought is that this had to do with the sin of lust...maybe adam saw how the newly sinful woman was looking at him...and the woman saw how the newly sinful adam was looking at her...and they felt ashamed and embarrassed about being viewed as objects of sexual desire...
next we see adam and the woman using the common human strategy of a 'quick fix' or coverup...they very quickly attempt to hide the immediate consequence of their sin...namely their awareness of their nakedness... i want to point out that this was not a repentance from their sin but merely an attempt at mitigating its consequence...
their tendency to hide is even more obvious when they hide from God as he comes to join them in the garden...
a really neat thing to ponder is the question of -why- God chose to walk in the garden in the cool time of the day...certainly God is not vulnerable to heat and he would be perfectly capable of walking anywhere at any time... the answer is that this time was not chosen for God's convenience but actually for the sake of the humans...the cool time of day would be when adam and the woman would have been the most comfortable...
when God calls to adam...adam answers and he does tell the truth about hiding due to his nakedness...however adam omits the reason he is aware of his nakedness in the first place...it is a common tendency of the sinful nature to admit only as much sin as you think you can get away with...
it is also interesting to notice here that adam does not say 'we'...he makes no attempt to defend his wife who is hiding with him...this is an example of how sin produces an 'every man for himself' mentality...
God of course asks adam what has happened...we can be sure that God already knew what had happened...but this is another example of God taking the approach that is most beneficial to us...he wants adam to make a confession of sin...
adam then blames the woman...here we see how sin leads to irresponsibility and a tendency to blame others...and we see even more clearly how sin leads a person to selfishness...adam was content with letting his wife take all the blame if it helped him get out of trouble...even though adam certainly had control over his own actions and the woman certainly did not force him to eat the fruit...
i will also point out that this is a far cry from the 'bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh' sentiment adam had expressed when he was first introduced to the woman!
adam also slyly attempts to put some of the blame on God...it was God who put the woman there with him...and therefore adam sinfully reasons that part of the responsibility rests on God...so yet again we see the evidence that sin leads to an attitude that blames everyone but yourself...and in this case one sin has led to another...namely the sin of insinuating something blasphemous against God...
when the woman gets her turn she blames the serpent...an animal...a subordinate creature that was under her dominion...
at this point i step back and think...what a disaster! everything was so perfect in chapter two yet now within just a few minutes we go down what is practically a laundry list of sins and failures!
God then pronounces his judgment...he does it in the opposite order from his order of questioning...this is the first example in the bible of what is known as a 'chiastic structure'...where the second half of a text reverses the order of the first half... God first questioned adam...then he questioned the woman...then he judges the serpent...then he judges the woman...then he judges adam...
you can see that the centerpoint of this exchange is the judgment against the serpent...the thing at the center of a chiastic structure is the thing the author most wants to draw our attention to...and this is appropriate because it is the judgment against the serpent that contains the first messianic promise...
God first condemns the serpent to a life of crawling on the ground eating dust...then he declares that the serpent and the woman will be enemies...and more importantly that the woman's seed and the serpent's offspring will be enemies...God's people are naturally in opposition to the wickedness of the world...
then God mentions a specific seed of the woman who will crush the serpent's head while taking a fatal wound himself...this is a prophecy of the death of jesus which resulted in the breaking of satan's power... the fact that the messiah is identified as the woman's seed also alludes to how jesus was born of a virgin...with no human biological father...
next God declares his judgment against the woman...now we experience pain in giving birth...and a wife's submission to her husband which was such a natural thing at first is no longer the joy that it was...
finally God punishes adam by making his work difficult and often unproductive...prior to this the work he had been doing in the garden was not toilsome or tedious and it was always rewarding...but things have been different ever since then...
moreover God tells adam that someday he will return to the dust that he was formed from...because of sin everyone dies...
yet adam apparently picked up on the messianic promise in God's curse against the serpent...because he renames his wife 'eve'...which means 'life'... he does not conclude that she will be the mother of all the future dead...he focuses on the fact that because of eve's seed those that she is mother to have a chance at life...
many people assume that God making clothes for adam from skins means that this was the first shedding of an animal's blood to cover sin...however the text doesn't actually say this and we can't rule out the possibility that God just created skins for them from nothing in the same way he created everything in genesis 1...also the text only refers to the covering of their nakedness...it doesn't say anything about their sin being atoned for... so at best this would be an uncertain and possibly incomplete type...
lastly God drives adam and eve out of the garden...his stated reason is so that they could not eat from the tree of life and live forever...in the state humans are currently in...living forever would mean an eternity under the curse...so this was actually an act of mercy on God's part... still this does not keep some people from foolishly fantasizing about living forever on this earth through the advances of science...
to make sure nobody returns to the garden God posts his cherubs on the east entrance of the garden and provides a flaming sword to guard the tree of life...
i think it is noteworthy that satan does not start by immediately contradicting what God says...he begins by introducing doubt... especially here satan questions God's generosity...saying something to the effect of 'has God really put such strict limits on you?'... so satan wanted the woman to question God's command and made God's command sound unreasonable and restrictive...
in this moment the woman -could- have avoided the conversation entirely...in fact as a human she had dominion over the living creatures and she would have been within her rights to command the serpent to leave her...
but the woman was lured into the conversation...and it is to her credit that she cited God's command as her answer to the serpent's question... however she was inexact in her quotation...she mentions touching the tree which was apparently not part of God's original prohibition...and she merely says 'or you will die' where God had attached more certainty by saying 'you will surely die'...so here you might say that we have the first example of a person both adding to and taking away from God's command...
the serpent then moves on to open contradiction of God's word...he says 'you will not surely die'... while the woman had stood her ground regarding God's prohibition...satan targets his contradiction at God's warning of punishment...
next satan attempts to attribute an ulterior motive to God...and claims that God is deliberately withholding a good thing from humanity in order to keep it to himself... by this point satan has basically argued that God's threat of punishment was empty and that his prohibition was unjust...how many times nowdays have we seen people argue that there is no punishment for sin and that the bible is unjust in condemning certain things?
so the woman falls for satan's narrative and gives in to the temptation...she changes to view the tree as good and valuable...just like many people today come to even value their sin...
so she eats the fruit and then gives some to adam to eat too...
some people have wondered why adam and the woman suddenly recognize their nakedness here...as it appears that there is no direct connection between consciousness of good and evil and awareness of nakedness... my thought is that this had to do with the sin of lust...maybe adam saw how the newly sinful woman was looking at him...and the woman saw how the newly sinful adam was looking at her...and they felt ashamed and embarrassed about being viewed as objects of sexual desire...
next we see adam and the woman using the common human strategy of a 'quick fix' or coverup...they very quickly attempt to hide the immediate consequence of their sin...namely their awareness of their nakedness... i want to point out that this was not a repentance from their sin but merely an attempt at mitigating its consequence...
their tendency to hide is even more obvious when they hide from God as he comes to join them in the garden...
a really neat thing to ponder is the question of -why- God chose to walk in the garden in the cool time of the day...certainly God is not vulnerable to heat and he would be perfectly capable of walking anywhere at any time... the answer is that this time was not chosen for God's convenience but actually for the sake of the humans...the cool time of day would be when adam and the woman would have been the most comfortable...
when God calls to adam...adam answers and he does tell the truth about hiding due to his nakedness...however adam omits the reason he is aware of his nakedness in the first place...it is a common tendency of the sinful nature to admit only as much sin as you think you can get away with...
it is also interesting to notice here that adam does not say 'we'...he makes no attempt to defend his wife who is hiding with him...this is an example of how sin produces an 'every man for himself' mentality...
God of course asks adam what has happened...we can be sure that God already knew what had happened...but this is another example of God taking the approach that is most beneficial to us...he wants adam to make a confession of sin...
adam then blames the woman...here we see how sin leads to irresponsibility and a tendency to blame others...and we see even more clearly how sin leads a person to selfishness...adam was content with letting his wife take all the blame if it helped him get out of trouble...even though adam certainly had control over his own actions and the woman certainly did not force him to eat the fruit...
i will also point out that this is a far cry from the 'bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh' sentiment adam had expressed when he was first introduced to the woman!
adam also slyly attempts to put some of the blame on God...it was God who put the woman there with him...and therefore adam sinfully reasons that part of the responsibility rests on God...so yet again we see the evidence that sin leads to an attitude that blames everyone but yourself...and in this case one sin has led to another...namely the sin of insinuating something blasphemous against God...
when the woman gets her turn she blames the serpent...an animal...a subordinate creature that was under her dominion...
at this point i step back and think...what a disaster! everything was so perfect in chapter two yet now within just a few minutes we go down what is practically a laundry list of sins and failures!
God then pronounces his judgment...he does it in the opposite order from his order of questioning...this is the first example in the bible of what is known as a 'chiastic structure'...where the second half of a text reverses the order of the first half... God first questioned adam...then he questioned the woman...then he judges the serpent...then he judges the woman...then he judges adam...
you can see that the centerpoint of this exchange is the judgment against the serpent...the thing at the center of a chiastic structure is the thing the author most wants to draw our attention to...and this is appropriate because it is the judgment against the serpent that contains the first messianic promise...
God first condemns the serpent to a life of crawling on the ground eating dust...then he declares that the serpent and the woman will be enemies...and more importantly that the woman's seed and the serpent's offspring will be enemies...God's people are naturally in opposition to the wickedness of the world...
then God mentions a specific seed of the woman who will crush the serpent's head while taking a fatal wound himself...this is a prophecy of the death of jesus which resulted in the breaking of satan's power... the fact that the messiah is identified as the woman's seed also alludes to how jesus was born of a virgin...with no human biological father...
next God declares his judgment against the woman...now we experience pain in giving birth...and a wife's submission to her husband which was such a natural thing at first is no longer the joy that it was...
finally God punishes adam by making his work difficult and often unproductive...prior to this the work he had been doing in the garden was not toilsome or tedious and it was always rewarding...but things have been different ever since then...
moreover God tells adam that someday he will return to the dust that he was formed from...because of sin everyone dies...
yet adam apparently picked up on the messianic promise in God's curse against the serpent...because he renames his wife 'eve'...which means 'life'... he does not conclude that she will be the mother of all the future dead...he focuses on the fact that because of eve's seed those that she is mother to have a chance at life...
many people assume that God making clothes for adam from skins means that this was the first shedding of an animal's blood to cover sin...however the text doesn't actually say this and we can't rule out the possibility that God just created skins for them from nothing in the same way he created everything in genesis 1...also the text only refers to the covering of their nakedness...it doesn't say anything about their sin being atoned for... so at best this would be an uncertain and possibly incomplete type...
lastly God drives adam and eve out of the garden...his stated reason is so that they could not eat from the tree of life and live forever...in the state humans are currently in...living forever would mean an eternity under the curse...so this was actually an act of mercy on God's part... still this does not keep some people from foolishly fantasizing about living forever on this earth through the advances of science...
to make sure nobody returns to the garden God posts his cherubs on the east entrance of the garden and provides a flaming sword to guard the tree of life...
R
what is really amazing to me is that in this sad story there are so many examples of God's -love-!
God lovingly chooses to visit the humans at the time of day that was most comfortable for them...
God lovingly works to lead adam to a confession of his sin...so that he will seek reconciliation rather than live in denial...
God lovingly promises a savior to the human race...
God lovingly provides them with a better solution to their nakedness than the leafy coverings they had been using...
and God lovingly dismissed adam and eve from the garden of eden and the tree of life to save them from an eternal earthly life of suffering under the curse of sin...
God lovingly chooses to visit the humans at the time of day that was most comfortable for them...
God lovingly works to lead adam to a confession of his sin...so that he will seek reconciliation rather than live in denial...
God lovingly promises a savior to the human race...
God lovingly provides them with a better solution to their nakedness than the leafy coverings they had been using...
and God lovingly dismissed adam and eve from the garden of eden and the tree of life to save them from an eternal earthly life of suffering under the curse of sin...
B
Rachel I have to make a challenge here in the case of the skins for clothes. I was taught and studied that' in order for the skins to be acquired God had to shed innocent blood as with one of the beast of the field. Which would be in line with the sacrifice s he asked for latter as atonement. What thoughts have you on this?
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R
the main issue i have with this is that it is circular reasoning...you have to assume that their being clothed with skins was a sacrificial type in order to conclude that the death of an animal and shedding of blood was part of it...
someone could just as easily assume that it was never intended to be interpreted as a type...and therefore shedding of blood would not be necessary for them to receive clothes made of skins...
basically scripture doesn't say either way...my intention was to caution against being dogmatic about this as a possible type of blood sacrifice...
someone could just as easily assume that it was never intended to be interpreted as a type...and therefore shedding of blood would not be necessary for them to receive clothes made of skins...
basically scripture doesn't say either way...my intention was to caution against being dogmatic about this as a possible type of blood sacrifice...
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the vast majority of people agree that the curse on the ground continues today... I don't think so, here's why...
later on we read that Noah's dad says he will give rest from the work that comes about from the curse on the ground...
then later God says he won't curse the ground again, and says people can eat animals, instead of only stuff that comes from the ground.
later on we read that Noah's dad says he will give rest from the work that comes about from the curse on the ground...
then later God says he won't curse the ground again, and says people can eat animals, instead of only stuff that comes from the ground.
P
regarding the 'cool of the day' ?
do you suppose God waited a little while and came to confront them not immediately with the terrible judgment due them in His wrath.
He also didn't make them wait in fear overnight.
He showed patience and forbearance, as always, and came to them when He knew they were ready?
God's care for the guilty. ♥
just some (highly speculative) thoughts for your consideration.
do you suppose God waited a little while and came to confront them not immediately with the terrible judgment due them in His wrath.
He also didn't make them wait in fear overnight.
He showed patience and forbearance, as always, and came to them when He knew they were ready?
God's care for the guilty. ♥
just some (highly speculative) thoughts for your consideration.
R
R
regarding the 'cool of the day' ?
do you suppose God waited a little while and came to confront them not immediately with the terrible judgment due them in His wrath.
He also didn't make them wait in fear overnight.
He showed patience and forbearance, as always, and came to them when He knew they were ready?
God's care for the guilty. ♥
just some (highly speculative) thoughts for your consideration.
do you suppose God waited a little while and came to confront them not immediately with the terrible judgment due them in His wrath.
He also didn't make them wait in fear overnight.
He showed patience and forbearance, as always, and came to them when He knew they were ready?
God's care for the guilty. ♥
just some (highly speculative) thoughts for your consideration.
God did not want to 'let them sweat' and worry and increase their terror...his intent is to redeem and not to torture!
R
it might make more sense to discuss this in more detail when we come to genesis 8...
but for the moment i have always thought that when God said he would not curse the ground again he wasn't saying that the genesis 3 curse was revoked...i figured that to not curse -again- means that he would not add any additional curses...such as the pronouncing of the judgment of a flood that would wipe out all breathing things...
but for the moment i have always thought that when God said he would not curse the ground again he wasn't saying that the genesis 3 curse was revoked...i figured that to not curse -again- means that he would not add any additional curses...such as the pronouncing of the judgment of a flood that would wipe out all breathing things...
R
i am actually kind of surprised that everyone has not had very much to say about genesis 3...since it is such an important part of scripture...
on the other hand the whole story and its implications are maybe so clear that not a whole lot of further comment is really called for...
anyway since i see no other discussion i guess it is time for chapter four...
coming right up!
on the other hand the whole story and its implications are maybe so clear that not a whole lot of further comment is really called for...
anyway since i see no other discussion i guess it is time for chapter four...
coming right up!