Beloved, I am pleased to share with you today the above theme from Gen 3:1 onwards. Indeed, the happiness of man in Eden was short-lived. In the form of the serpent, the devil enters the garden and captures the woman’s trust at the same time as he insinuates in her heart distrust of God. This one does not like you – he whispers – since he deprives you of such a great advantage. Not only will you not die, but “you will be like God” (v. 5). The Liar thus excites pride and envy in the poor human heart (Phil. 2:5-11).
“Covetousness, having conceived, gives birth to sin… (James 1:13-15). Man has been deceived: the knowledge of good and evil has given him no strength to do good and neither to avoid evil. His first effect was to make him aware of his nakedness: which he is by nature, a state of which he is ashamed. And the belt of fig leaves he made for himself only illustrates humanity’s vain efforts to hide its moral misery. But “all things are naked and uncovered in the eyes of Him to whom we are accountable” (Heb 4:12-13). “Where are you?” (v.9). “Have you eaten of the tree?” (v.11). “What have you done?” (v.13) – so many terrible questions that exclude obfuscations and excuses. This portion of the book of Genesis presents us with the complete ruin of the state of affairs that has occupied us so far.
“What, God said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree in the garden?'” (v.1). This is the clever question of the devil. If God’s word had “dwelt richly” in Eve’s heart (Col. 3:16-17), His answer would have been simple, direct, and decisive. There is only one way to answer the devil’s questions and suggestions; it is to treat them as coming from him, and to repel them by the word of God. The heart, which listens to them for only a moment, exposes itself to losing the only strength by which they can be fought. The devil does not openly introduce himself to Eve, saying, “I am Satan, the enemy of God, and I come to slander him and to lose you.” This language would not have been according to the character of the serpent: and yet he did all this work well by raising doubts in the mind of the creature.
But it’s important to notice the means Satan uses to shake Eve’s trust in God’s truth, and place her under the power of unholy “reason.” Satan achieves this by shaking Eve’s trust in God’s love and in what God has said; and then insinuating to Eve that God’s testimony is not based on love. If this fruit were good for me, he would certainly give it to me, and the fact that God forbids it proves that if I ate it, instead of finding myself better, I would be much worse. I am convinced of God’s love and truth, and I hold you to be a wicked guy, who came here to turn my heart away from the source of all goodness and truth Behind me, Satan! This answer would have been right, but Eve did not: her trust in love and truth gave way, and all was lost. The heart of fallen man no longer has room for God’s love or truth; it is alien to both, until it is renewed by the Holy Spirit.
It will be interesting now to move from Satan’s lie about God’s love and truth, to the mission of the Lord Jesus, who came from the Father’s womb in order to reveal what God truly is. “Grace and truth,” the two things man lost through the fall, “came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17), Jesus was a faithful witness of who God is (Rev. 1:4-6). The truth reveals God as He is; but this truth in Jesus is united with the revelation of perfect grace. So that the revelation of what God is, instead of being for the loss of the sinner, becomes the foundation of his eternal salvation. “This is eternal life, that they alone know thee true God, and whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ” (John 17:3).
Verse 6 brings us into contact with three things, of which the apostle John speaks: “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16), three things which, as the apostle himself says, contain “all that is in the world.” As soon as God had been excluded, these things necessarily dominated. If we do not persevere in the blissful assurance of God’s love and truth, grace, and faithfulness, we will surrender to one of the principles mentioned above, or to all at once, perhaps; in other words, we will surrender to Satan’s government.
Jehovah God had ordained everything so that, in the fall and by the fall, man should acquire something that he had not previously possessed, namely: a conscience; the knowledge of good and evil. It is obvious that before the fall, man could not have been endowed with this knowledge. He could have no idea of evil as long as evil was not there to be known by him; He was in a state of innocence, that is, ignorance of evil. In the fall and by the fall, man acquired a consciousness; And we see that the first effect of this consciousness is to disturb and frighten it. Satan had completely deceived the woman; he had said, “Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil,” but he had omitted an important part of the truth, knowing that they would know good without having the strength to do it, and that they would know evil without being able to avoid it.
It’s good to understand this; It’s also good to know what the action of consciousness is on the soul and to learn that it can only make us fearful beings, in that it gives us the feeling of what we are. Many people are mistaken in this regard and believe that conscience leads to God. Do we see that she did so in the case of Adam and Eve? Certainly not; and it will not do it for any sinner. And how could she? How could the feeling of who I am ever lead me to God, if that feeling is not accompanied by faith in what God is? The feeling of who I am will produce shame, remorse, anguish; he may also determine certain efforts on my part, to remedy the condition that he disclose to me; but these very efforts, far from bringing me to God, act rather as a curtain that will hide him from my sight.
Let us now turn our attention for a moment to the teaching contained in the fact recorded in verse 21: “And the Lord God made Adam and his wife garments of skin and put them on.” The great doctrine of God’s righteousness is highlighted here in a figure. The robe with which God had put on Adam was an effective cover, because God had prepared it; Just as the belt of fig leaves was an ineffective and useless cover, because it was the work of man. Moreover, the garment with which God covered man’s nakedness originated in death; blood had flowed: the same was not true of Adam’s belt.
The following verses have been compiled for your edification and grouped for your better understanding.
Driven from the Garden of Eden, the Breaking of the Covenant
- Temptation, Satan the chief agent of the
Gen. 3:1 The serpent was the most cunning of all the animals of the field, which Jehovah God had made. He said to the woman: Did God really say, You shall not eat of all the trees in the garden? 1 Ch 21:1 Satan rose up against Israel, and he excited David to count Israel. Mt 4:3 The tempter, having come near, said to him, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves. 1 Thess 3:5 So, in my impatience, I sent to inquire of your faith, lest the tempter have tempted you, and that we should have worked in vain.
- Contact with impurity, is prohibited
Gen. 3:3 But as for the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said, You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Isa 52.11 Go, go, get out of there! Do not touch anything unclean! Get out of the midst of her! Purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord! 2 Cor 6:17 Wherefore, come out of the midst of them, and separate yourselves, saith the Lord; Do not touch what is unclean, And I will welcome you. Col 2.21 Don’t take! don’t taste! don’t touch!
- Yielding to temptation, the seductions that lead to
-The seduction of the forbidden fruit Gen. 3:6 The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was precious to open the mind; she took of its fruit, and ate it; she also gave it to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
-The seduction of the fertile plain Gen. 13:10, 11, 13 Lot looked up, and saw the whole plain of the Jordan, which was entirely watered. Before Jehovah had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, it was, until Tsoar, like a garden of Jehovah, like the land of Egypt. 11 Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan, and he advanced eastward. This is how they separated from each other. 13 The people of Sodom were wicked, and great sinners against the Lord.
-The seduction of the appetite Gen. 25:29, 30, 33 As Jacob was cooking a soup, Esau returned from the fields, overwhelmed with fatigue. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, Let me, I pray you, eat of this redhead, that redhead, for I am tired. That is why Esau was given the name Edom. 33 And Esau said to Jacob, Let me, I pray you, eat of this redhead, of that redhead, for I am tired. That is why Esau was given the name Edom.
-The Seduction of Silver and Gold Jos 7:21 I saw in the booty a fine cloak of Schinear, two hundred shekels of silver, and a gold bar weighing fifty shekels; I coveted them, and I took them; they are hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver is underneath.
-The seduction of women 1 Kings 11:1, 4 King Solomon loved many foreign women, besides Pharaoh’s daughter: Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, Hethians, 4 In the time of Solomon’s old age, his wives inclined his heart to other gods; and his heart was not entirely to the Lord, his God, as had been the heart of David, his father.
-The seduction of ambition Mark 10:35-37 Zebedee’s sons, James and John, approached Jesus and said to him, Master, we would you do for us what we ask of you. 36 He said to them, What do you want me to do for you? 37 Grant us, they said to him, to sit one on your right hand and the other on your left, when you will be in your glory.
- Sword of the Lord
Deut 32:41 If I sharpen the flash of my sword And if my hand seizes righteousness, I will take revenge on my adversaries And I will punish those who hate me; Josh 5:13 As Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and looked. Behold, a man stood before him, his bare sword in his hand. He went to him, and said to him, Are you one of us or of our enemies? Jg 7:20 The three bodies sounded the trumpet, and broke the jugs; they seized with their left hand the torches and with their right hand the trumpets to sound, and they cried out, Sword for the Lord and for Gideon! Rev. 19:15 Out of his mouth came a sharp sword, to smite the nations; he will feed them with a rod of iron; and he will tread the vat of wine with the fiery wrath of God Almighty.
From all of the above, we note that the last verses of our chapter are very instructive: Fallen man must not eat of the fruit of the tree of life, lest his misery become eternal in this world. To eat of the fruit of the tree of life, and to live eternally in our present condition, would be consummate and unmixed misfortune. One can taste the tree of life only in the resurrection. To live always in a frail tent, in a body of sin and death, would be intolerable. Therefore Jehovah God “cast out man from Eden”; He chased him into a world that everywhere presented to him the sad results of his fall. “The cherubim” and “the blade of the sword” forbade man to gather the fruit of the tree of life, while God’s revelation directed his gaze to the death and resurrection of the seed of woman, as to the source of life, of a life that is outside the power of death. In this way, Adam was happier and safer outside heaven than he had been in heaven itself; Whereas if he had remained in Eden, his life would have depended on himself, while, outside the garden, his life depended on another, namely the promised Christ; and when Adam looked up and met “the cherubim and the blade of the sword,” he could bless the hand that had placed them there, to guard the way to the tree of life; Because that same hand had opened a better and safer and happier path to that tree. If the cherubim and the blade of the sword closed the way to paradise, the Lord Jesus opened “a new and living way” that leads to the Father in the holy of holies. “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:1-7; Hb 10.19-22). It is in the knowledge of these things that the Christian now advances through a cursed world, where the traces of sin are visible everywhere; he has found, by faith, the way that leads him to the bosom of the Father; and while he may rest there in secret, he is rejoiced by the blessed certainty that He who brought him there has gone to prepare for him a place in the “mansions” of the house of the Father and that he will return to take him and introduce him with him into the glory of the Father’s kingdom. The believer thus finds from now on in the bosom, in the house and kingdom of the Father, and his share, and his future home, and his glorious reward. Our prayers are with you all.
PRAYER OF ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS PERSONAL LORD AND SAVIOR
I now invite anyone who wants to become a new creation by walking in truth to pray with me:
Lord Jesus, I have long walked in the lusts of the world ignoring your love for humans. I acknowledge that I have sinned against you and ask your forgiveness for all my sins, because today I have decided to give you my life by taking you as my personal Lord and Savior. I acknowledge that you died at the cross of Calvary and rose from the dead for me.
I am now saved and born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lead me every day to the eternal life you give to all who obey your Word. Reveal yourself to me and strengthen my heart and my faith, so that your light may shine in my life right now.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for accepting me into your divine family, so that I too can contemplate the wonders of your kingdom by walking according to your ways.
I will now choose a nearby waterpoint to be baptized by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
To you all worship, power and glory, now and for ever and ever. Amen!
I would be happy to respond to any questions and comments you may have, before sharing with you tomorrow “Cain and Abel.” (Gen 4)
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.
David Feze, Servant of the Almighty God.