Or, The Opposite of What Man Should Have Done in Almost Every Way
Scripture: Genesis 3:8-13
Date: June 14, 2015
Speaker: Sean Higgins
The only thing more human than to err is to make excuses about erring. In the garden of Eden, after the original sin, Adam and Eve did not confess their sin. They attempted to conceal their sin and themselves from God. Theologians do not refer to the narrative arc in Genesis as Creation-Fall-Repentance. That’s because the man and the woman ran from God, not to Him. God pursued them. And even though He didn’t remove the consequences of their sin, He does move to restore them to fellowship with Himself and promises them redemption.
It’s embarrassing to watch our first parents hide and blame-shift. It would be less embarrassing, I suppose, if we didn’t do the same things. Sin separates us from God and our senses. Sin makes us stupid. Did Adam really think he could successfully hide from God? Did he really think he could bury his sin from God by switching the subject? Did he really think he could get himself off the hook by making excuses? He must have, because he tried each one of those strategies.
We saw in Scene One (verses 1-7) that the serpent lured Eve by promising her something better than what God offered. She bit. Soon after that she persuaded Adam to eat and immediately they knew that they were naked and found fig leaves to cover themselves.
Verse 8 brings us to Scene Two (verses 8-13). Later that same day, the LORD God came to the garden to spend time with His creatures, but they aren’t around. They quickly realize, however, that there was nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide.
Not only did Adam and Eve cover themselves once they recognized their nakedness (verse 7), they also attempted to conceal themselves once they perceived their Maker’s presence.
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. (verse 8)
They were in the garden in the cool of the day . Every major English translation expresses it this way except for the NRSV: “the time of the evening breeze.” It could be put, “in the wind of the day,” referring to the time when things were cooling down, probably in the late afternoon or early evening. Because of this specific time, because of the tense of the verb walking (“mithallek is a type of Hithpael that suggests iterative and habitual aspects,” Hamilton, 192), and because of Yahweh’s question in verse 9, it seems that this was a regular, if not daily meeting between God and the couple.
But instead of looking forward to seeing God and enjoying fellowship with Him, when they heard the sound of the LORD God … the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden . We don’t know how exactly the LORD was “walking.” What form did He take? Did He have the appearance of a man, so walking on two legs? That they hid from the presence of the LORD could actually mean “from the face of the LORD.” So was this a theophany/Christophany, that is, a pre-incarnate appearance of the Word of God? Certainly His form was distinguished from the breeze. They recognized it was Him and ran into the wood hoping to escape notice.
A full forrest could conceal the first fugitives from God. We cannot lay low enough to avoid Him. He knows when we sit down and when we rise up. He knows our thoughts from afar, our words before they are formed on our tongue. Where will we go from His Spirit? Where shall we flee from His presence? The darkness is as light with Him (Psalm 139). So branches aren’t going to deter Him. No creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account (Hebrews 4:13).
Sin not only caused shame, it also caused fear. It not only separated man from woman (as shown by fig leaves between them), it also separated man from God (as shown by their hiding). This is spiritual death. God’s presence previously was man’s greatest delight. Now it was cause for alarm. Men were, and remain, alienated from their Maker. On the one hand they are estranged from God, on the other hand, they cannot escape from God. There is nowhere to hide.
Interrogation is too strong a word for what happens in verses 9-13, or at least that particular word carries too much torture baggage with it in our minds. Inquiry is not a strong enough word, nor does the interchange come about because God is merely curious, let alone ignorant. He knows. But God graciously initiates, allowing man to see sin for what it really is. God moves to restore relationship even though everything has changed.
The rest of the paragraph goes back and forth in the conversation.
The man took his wife and hid. But the LORD doesn’t leave them alone.
But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” (verse 9)
The question implies that Yahweh Elohim expected to meet man in the garden, that the man’s absence was unusual, not the Lord’s presence. The question does not imply that the LORD needed information or that He did not actually know. God does, in fact, speak to him ; He didn’t speak to empty space. The question was a gracious way to let Adam out of the corner. The LORD asks Cain a similar question in Genesis 4:9, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain, of course, acts as if he didn’t know. But the LORD said, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” The LORD knew exactly where Abel was; He asked a question He already knew the answer to in order to expose sin and elicit confession.
Observe that the LORD called to the man . The man hid and took his wife with him (the verb “hid” in verse 8 is 3rd person singular). The man was responsible. God charged Adam to tend the garden and prohibited Adam from eating from the tree. Adam was liable. He was the head. Now he will have to give an answer.
The LORD’s question drew man out from hiding and he answers, sort of.
And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” (verse 10)
Adam doesn’t answer the question. He replies, sure; he says something, but he answers Why are you hiding? not Where are you? The long explanation is Adam’s attempt to deflect attention away from the real problem. But in trying to switch the subject of conversation, he actually exposes his disobedience and admits his guilt. He’s already said too much. “His very excuse provides evidence of his misdeed” (Cassuto, quoted in Wenham, 77).
Adam explains that when he heard God coming, I was afraid . Man’s relationship with God had been intimate. No doubt it included man’s healthy respect for God, but there had been no fear. Now Adam exposes the reason for his fear: because I was naked, and I hid myself . He still hasn’t admitted anything, though he was revealing his heart.
Sin causes man to run from God, not run to Him. Adam should have immediately fallen on his face before God, confessed his disobedience, pleaded for God’s mercy, and humbly pleaded with God for forgiveness. Instead, he panicked. He didn’t want to be seen. He wanted to beat around the bush and lick his wounded soul. He hedges, concealing the truth and avoiding confession. But if we blame him, we blame ourselves who do the same thing.
Adam left himself wide-open with the answer he gave in verse 10. God asks two more questions in verse 11 that pin him down.
He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (verse 11)
God knew that Adam was naked; He made him that way. And at the end of chapter 2 nakedness was no cause for shame. Something clearly changed, and God wanted Adam to understand that it was a direct result of his own disobedience.
God asked, Who told you that you were naked? . Of course, there wasn’t anyone who could have given Adam the information. Eve didn’t know, and she was the only other person around.
If the answer to the first question was “No one,” naturally, the next question was, Did—from the tree which I charged you not to eat from—you eat? (SKHV, with emphasis on the tree’s description) This was the crux of the matter. The LORD reminds Adam of the standard. Man’s problem was not ignorance of God’s command.
What else could man possibly say now?
This is one of the saddest, most telling responses in all the Bible.
The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” (verse 12)
What kind of question had God just asked? It was Yes or No question. It was not a good question for starting discussion (in small group, etc.). It was a simple question. There are always only two possible answers to Yes/No questions. More than that, we’ve already established that Adam was naked, that there wasn’t anyone else who could have told him that, so there was only one other possibility. But Adam, caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, basically said, “If you wouldn’t have made cookies, I wouldn’t have tried to take any. If you wouldn’t have given me hands, I couldn’t have used them for wrong.” In order to protect himself, Adam distances himself from his wife and makes excuses. The criminal claims that he’s the casualty, making his crime worse.
Adam defends himself. The woman…, she gave to me fruit from the tree. “It was her fault, not mine.” Now, was that true? Yes. Eve did give fruit to Adam. Was it her fault he ate it? No. Yet Adam shifts the blame onto the one he was supposed to protect. He had only days ago exclaimed, “This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” Now it’s as if he backed away from her and sells her out.
Even worse, Adam ultimately blames God: the woman You gave me . I don’t know what attitude Adam had when he said this. He may have been whiny; an effeminate slacker. He may have been mad; the first Hyper-Calvinist rebel. Either way, he did not man up and take responsibility for his actions. Again, was it true that God had given Eve to Adam? Yes. Was it God’s fault that Adam ate? Absolutely not! May it never be! Let no one say when he sins, it is God’s fault. “God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one” (James 1:13).
After blame-shifting he reluctantly confesses at last, and I ate . This part is the only part that matters, but he waited until the very end of the sentence to say it, minimizing his disobedience in the process. There doesn’t seem to be any brokenness, any repentance, or any desire for forgiveness. Nor does the LORD bother with a reply to him, at least not yet. Answer not a fool according to his folly.
If we accept responsibility, it is often only after we’ve explained the circumstances, as if to evoke the authority’s sympathy. “Oh! That’s what happened. No wonder you did what you did. What else could you have done?” Our excuse-making and blame-shifting does not lessen our guilt, it aggravates it.
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” (verse 13a)
God asks Eve, What is this that you have done? We might say, “What did you do?” Though Adam was primarily responsible, she was not exempt from giving answer directly to God for her own actions.
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (verse 13b)
Eve follows her husbands’ example. She does not ask for forgiveness, but dumps, at least part of, the blame on the serpent. Like Adam, she is a victim of someone else’s doing. Eve is the first person to ever claim, “The devil made me do it.”
Man did the opposite of what he should have done in almost every way. He hides, and when that doesn’t work, he answers something other than what was asked. When he answers, he admits disobedience without admitting guilt.
What does this passage teach us? Genesis 3 reveals something about man, but thankfully, the story is more about the revelation of God.
Because of our pride, you have to drag the truth out of us. “So fruitful is the depraved heart in excuses…for its sins! So prone to extenuate (make an offense seem less serious) what it cannot deny!” (Bush, 81)
We may blame our environment, we may blame our parents, we may blame whatever we like. But we stand naked and exposed before God. It is no use to run. There is nowhere to hide.
It is significant that God questions instead of killing immediately. He knew that the serpent deceived Eve and that both the woman and man disobeyed. God already warned man about death upon disobedience. He would have been just to take their lives and start over. But without changing His position on what was right—He punishes them in the next paragraph, and they do die—God shows patience with the first couple.
It is also significant that God pursues rather than pushes away. What if the LORD left Adam and Eve alone? If God did not initiate, then they would have died hiding. So would we. If He waited for us to cry out to Him, if it weren’t for Him letting us hear His voice calling, we would still be lost. That’s why we sing about His amazing love, how can it be, that He would die for Adam’s helpless race?
I’ve mentioned before related to John 8:21-30 that the nature of sacrifice comes from the nature of God. He loves and sacrifices for others because of His love. If Adam had represented this truly in Genesis 3, what would have happened?
Adam would not have been the well-behaved Mormon teenager, abstaining from the fruit. He would have looked at Eve, seen her curse, seen her enemy, and gone after that serpent with pure and righteous wrath. He would have then turned to face the pure and righteous wrath of God Himself (that Adam had just imaged), and he would have said something quite simple, something that would be said by another, thousands of years later. “Take me instead.” (N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, 80)
This is exactly what the second Adam did, revealing the nature of God, in loving, sacrificing, giving relationship. The reason it was not good for man to be alone is that he had no one else to lovingly sacrifice for. But God made us to bear His image, and Christ showed us how to do so with one another.