After a few seconds, little Jimmy stood up. The teacher was surprised, but recognised that this was just the right time to help the boy. "Do you think you're stupid, Jimmy?" she asked.
"No, Miss," said Jimmy. "I didn't like to see you standing there all by yourself!"
Chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis tell us about the glory and the shame of the human race. Again this week we are not debating theories of human origins - though our view of human origins may well affect our view of human destiny.
In the Bethel Bible series, students spend additional time on "Harmony" (Gen. 2) and "Disharmony" (Gen. 3). The conviction is that, unless we grasp the significance of what is described in Genesis 3, we will forever be plagued with questions about the goodness and justice of God - questions such as "If there is a God of love, why all the cruelty in nature, all the sickness, all the violence in society...?"
I am not suggesting that we adopt trite simplistic answers to problems that are deep and complex. Nevertheless, the Biblical view of reality is that all was indeed created "good", but that something happened which has physical consequences, not only for humanity, but for the natural kingdom as well.
We note the expectation in the Old Testament, for example, of a time when "Wolves and sheep will live together in peace, and leopards will lie down with young goats. Calves and lion cubs will feed together, and little children will take care of them. Cows and bears will eat together, and their calves and cubs will lie down in peace. Lions will eat straw as cattle do. Even a baby will not be harmed if it plays near a poisonous snake" (Is. 11.6-8). We have a glimpse of this same theme in the New Testament as Paul writes, "All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God. For we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth…" (Rom. 8.19-22).
So what is Genesis 3 all about? It isn't about snakes and why most of us keep our distance from them. Rather it is a story about the human race and our response to the temptation to evil.
Everything in the garden was "good" - even the snakes and scorpions! We know from other Biblical references (NT as well as OT) that the snake is simply the vehicle for the evil one - the Tempter whom we know later as the Accuser (Satan). (Just as later in Matthew 16, we hear Jesus rebuke Peter as "Satan". Peter was at that point the vehicle by which the old temptation, wrestled out spirit-to-spirit in the wilderness, was being re-presented to Jesus.) Of all the creatures in the garden, it is the snake that moves in and out of view so silently.
Notice the form of the temptation. "Did God really tell you not to eat fruit from any tree in the garden?" (v. 1) It is designed to question the directness and truthfulness of God. Are you sure you have it right? Are sure God told you such a thing? And if he told you, did he mean it?
"We may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden," the woman answered, "except the tree in the middle of it. God told us not to eat the fruit of that tree or even touch it; if we do, we will die" (vv. 2-3). She goes beyond the original command, adding, "or even touch it." There is safety in the exaggeration - we often do the same with our protective rules for children. But, as parents may discover, there is danger too. When the exaggeration is seen to be unreasonable, the child may be drawn past the reasonable boundaries also.
The Tempter's reply, "That's not true; you will not die. God said that, because he knows that when you eat it you will be like God and know what is good and what is bad" (v. 4). God is preventing you from doing something that would really be for your greater good. If you eat this fruit, "you will be like God…"
But wait a minute! Weren't they made like God in the first place? This "tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad" offers them the possibility of being moral creatures. To choose obedience is to become a moral creature with life. To choose disobedience is to become a moral creature doomed to die.
One of our senior ministers describes an experience he had as an army chaplain. One day an officer asserted to a group of them, "A man is only a man when he has killed another man." There is something very twisted in that thinking.
The old hymn said,
The tree looked beautiful. The fruit was tasty. Being wise was an appealing - and surely a good - goal. So she ate. She gave some to her husband and he ate it too. And suddenly they felt a barrier they had never experienced before - and that they hadn't expected to experience now. They were guilty and ashamed and tried to hide from God - to avoid fellowship with the loving Creator who walked with them in the cool of the evening.
Something else has happened too. Why are you hiding? What have you done? They don't want to accept responsibility. They are now sinners. But there is still the possibility of grace reaching out to them. Yet they are quick to "pass the buck". Lord, it was the woman you put here with me… Lord, the snake tricked me…
Divine judgment is pronounced. The snake, crawling on the ground and eating the dust, would be a reminder of their temptation and downfall. For the woman there would be increased trouble and pain in pregnancy and childbirth. There would also be conflict in her relationship with her husband - on the one hand desiring him, but on the other being dominated by him. The man is charged with failure to heed the Lord's command. Of course he was right to listen to his wife, but it was not right to disobey the Lord's clear direction.
We reflect on the situation in Acts 5.1-11. Here the husband, Ananias, took the initiative in seeking honour by bringing part of the sale of some property and claiming it was the total proceeds, while the wife, Sapphira, concurred with her husband in this deception. They both received the severest judgment for their collusive sin.
But now for the man and woman in Gen. 2, it is no longer possible for them to live in the garden. The garden had another noteworthy tree - "the tree that gives life" (2.9; 3.22). It was in the middle of the garden alongside "the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad." They could as easily have partaken of the fruit of this tree. But now that they have chosen disobedience, the tree of life is forbidden them. We hear again about the tree of life in the book of Revelation (2.7; 22.2,14,19) - available to all who live in the New Jerusalem.
There was a fallout from their downfall. You cannot change the way things are meant to be without serious consequences.
We detect the note of grace in v. 15 - "I will make you and the woman hate each other; her offspring and yours will always be enemies. Her offspring will crush your head, and you will bite her offspring's heel." It is literally the woman's "seed" - a rather unusual expression. This verse has been called the protevangelion - the first glimmer of the gospel. From the earliest times, Christian writers have detected here a veiled reference to Christ, who was in a unique way the "seed" of the woman and who suffered the attack of the evil one in the cross, yet crushed his head by his victory over sin and death.
Then v. 21 - "And the Lord God made clothes out of animal skins for Adam and his wife, and he clothed them."
It seems like the meeting of an immediate need. Yet they had not needed clothes up to this point. Their need arose from their sense of shame. Their shame arose from their guilt before God for what they had done. For the Jews, the Day of Atonement was Yom Kippur - literally the day of covering - the covering of their sins with the blood of a sacrificial animal. Many Christians from the earliest times have seen here another hint of the redemptive grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Certainly, the Lord was calling them back into relationship with himself. But the reality of human sin could not be ignored. It placed a major barrier in the relationship - a barrier which required the gracious action of God and our response to his grace.
As I have said already, "There was a fallout from their downfall. You cannot change the way things are meant to be without serious consequences." The human race has struggled with - and continues to struggle with - those serious consequences. We live in a fallen world. But the ultimate penalty for sin has been taken by God himself in the death of Jesus Christ the Son of God. The gracious loving God calls us, Come back! Repent! I am waiting to forgive you! I am waiting to welcome you!
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