YouTube video sermon
Genesis 3:8-13
Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me (again) to Genesis 3. We started a new sermon series last week called Seven Questions God Asks Us. We looked at the very first question that God asked in the Bible (v. 8). Today, we’re going to continue and look at the second question that He asked (v. 13). And I promise that we won’t spend the remaining five weeks in Genesis. Beginning next week, the last five questions will all come from the New Testament.
Even still, some of you might wonder why we’re staying in Genesis when there are so many other places where God asks us a question. And the reason is this: understanding the opening chapters of Genesis is the only foundation for an accurate worldview. It’s vital that we know how sin came into the world. It’s important to understand the universal problem of sin – something many churches don’t talk about anymore. Why? Why is that so important? Because we won’t understand redemptive history and its ending, unless we understand its beginning. We won’t appreciate our need for a Savior and why it’s important that Jesus died and rose again, why it’s important that He returns again and brings with Him a new heave and a new earth; we won’t understand all of the sweeping elements of redemptive history unless we understand the problem of sin and how it came about. And Genesis 3 explains this like no other religion, no other philosophy, and no other worldview. After all, God’s Word is truth. Remember Jesus’ words in the high priestly prayer, “Sanctify them by the truth; Your Word is truth” (John 17:17).
See, if we don’t take Genesis 3 on its own terms and deal with these verses, then we’ll have a faulty worldview and we’ll come to the greater questions of life with wrong answers and wrong conclusions. So, with that as a little primer, let’s read verses 8-13:
8 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. 9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
“Father, as we come now to the Bible, we earnestly pray for the help of the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to us, to reveal ourselves – to show us who and what we are outside of Christ and in Christ. Help us, Lord, to think, to believe, to obey. For we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
The Bible tells us that when God finished the work of creation, He was absolutely satisfied. He pronounced it good. And the Bible also tells us the pinnacle of His creative handiwork was making Adam and Eve. These two people were not morally neutral. They were not ambivalent, set somewhere in a kind of neutral territory between good and evil. Rather, the Bible says that they were actually created with a positive bias, with an inclination to do what is good. But – and that’s the event described here in Genesis 3 – we find that as they attempt to take a giant leap forward their strategy goes horribly wrong. And in lusting after a throne that they could never inhabit, they find themselves degraded, losing the place and the privileges that they were created to enjoy.
I was reading a commentary this week on Genesis and the author or commentator compared it to contemporary air travel. He said, “They reached for an upgrade that they couldn’t get and found that they weren’t even back in the original seat from which they’d tried to made a run. They were actually downgraded from first class on a private Gulfstream to the Wright Flyer.” That’s essentially what happened. And their act of rebellion towards God brings with it consequences which are immediately apparent: an alienation that makes them feel vulnerable and naked; an alienation not only from God who has made them but an alienation from one another as they begin to cast aspersions on one another; and as family arrive, an alienation which is represented between not only husband and wife but parents and children too.
It’s within this context that we encounter our second question – a straightforward question, one that’s addressed to Eve particularly, and the question is in verse 13, “What is this you have done?” I’ve outlined today’s message with these three points. First, what did Eve do? Second, our sinful nature (because their predicament is our predicament – we can’t examine this question without making it personal). Last, our choice today. So, what did Eve do?
What Did Eve Do?
Well, she’d been deceived into eating what was forbidden. She believed a lie. Actually, she believed a compounded lie. Essentially, she succumbed to the idea that God could not be trusted – that God is a cosmic killjoy, that what He’s actually committed to doing with the creatures He’s made is having them miss out on all the good things of life. The Evil One, the Deceiver, the Slanderer comes and says, “Look, if you can’t be like God, then all of this is irrelevant.” And she’s deceived by that notion. She’s deceived into believing that God’s way is not best. She believed a lie.
Secondly, she was blatantly disobedient. The reason it was wrong to eat from the tree was simply because God had told her not to. Part of mankind’s problem is that we don’t like being told what is and isn’t good and right. We want to be our own boss. Everybody else has to do what we say, but we’re not beholden to what anyone says to us. We need to pause and acknowledge that either we start from the position that God is a self-proving God who speaks to us by a word that is true simply because it’s His word, or we begin from the assumption that we, and not God, are the final judges of all truth. And when the latter is the case, then inevitably, we deny to God the right to command our obedience: “Nobody is going to tell me what to do!” Arrogance, pride, disobedience, rebellion – call it what you will, but once you remove God as our creator who speaks a word that is authoritative and true, then you remove any basis for legislating relationship and morality.
I ran across this quote from David Brooks. He’s a conservative Christian political and cultural columnist for the New York Times. He wrote a piece called Saturday Night Lite; it’s quite humorous, but in the course of it, and really unrelated to the rest of it, he writes this: “Sometime over the past generation we became less likely to object to something because it is immoral and more likely to object to something because it is unhealthy or unsafe. So, smoking is now a worse evil than six of the Ten Commandments, and the word ‘sinful’ is most commonly associated with chocolate.”
Isn’t that true? I mean, that’s the only place that you’re ever really allowed to mention sin: “Um, yes, what’s on your dessert menu tonight?” “We have the apple pie á la mode, we have the cheesecake, we have the carrot cake, and we have the sinful one – we have the sinful sin cake, the triple chocolate lava cake.” It’s always the chocolate sin cake that I’m immediately attracted to. But you see, once you’ve removed God, once you’ve removed that One who speaks a word that is authoritative and true, then you’ve removed any basis for legislating right and wrong.
Now, I have to address this before we move to our second point. It’s true that, chronologically speaking, Eve sinned before Adam. She was the one that was tempted, picked the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and ate. After that, she gave the fruit to her husband, and he ate. But the Bible unmistakably places the blame on Adam as the one responsible for the fall of mankind. Folks, here me clearly on this. Both Adam and Eve sinned, but in the grand scheme of things – at least according to the Bible – Adam was held culpable.
Listen to Romans 5, and I want to see if you hear Eve’s name or the female reference “woman.”
But the free gift [of God’s grace] is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous (Romans 5:15-20).
Did you hear Eve’s name mentioned, or the female reference “woman?” Nope. In fact, in Genesis 3, although Eve was the one that took the action, Adam was the one that God called out first. Why? Because God had given the command to Adam (not Eve). Adam was there when Satan was deceiving Eve (look at verse 6, “she also gave some to her husband who was with her.”) Adam failed in his responsibility as the leader. Adam’s sin was negligence. Adam’s sin was silence. Adam’s sin was not stepping in to correct Eve and protect Eve.
In 1 Timothy 2:14, Paul makes a subtle distinction between the sin of Adam and the sin of Eve. Listen, “Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” That sounds bad to our ears, but there’s a clever and subtle point that Paul is making there. Eve fell into sin (as it were) because of a deception; but, Adam was not deceived, which means he chose to sin. When Adam took the fruit from Eve, he knew full well what he was doing. He was not misinformed or misled; he simply decided to rebel against God’s command. So, while our question is directly posed to Eve, make no mistake that it’s also directed to Adam (if not more so). “What is this you have done?”
That’s why our next point is to consider OUR sinful nature.
Our Sinful Nature
I want us to open ourselves up to the possibility that the searchlight of the Bible would turn on us. So that, with these characters in view, we now say, “Well, is there any point of contact between this whole concept of evading responsibility, being involved in blatant disobedience, and at the same time being prepared to believe a lie?”
Contrary to the commonly held view that men and women (people in general) are basically good and only need time and a fair chance to prove it by improving their situation, the Bible says NO: man has inherited a nature that is in rebellion against God, that is deeply flawed, and that is ultimately self-centered. In fact, I was having a conversation with several guys this week and this very statement was expressed – that man is basically good and it’s his environment, his upbringing, his education, his experience, his whatever that causes him to become bad, but if left alone man is good. But that’s not the Bible’s view.
I love how pastor and author Alistair Begg illustrates this. He writes, “Those two views [man is either basically good or basically bad] work themselves out in the grocery line and in airline travel as you have the privilege of having a precious little bundle with legs long enough simply to reach the back of your seat as you fly. The question is, ‘Do I have behind me here an essentially good little person who is kicking the back of my chair as an expression of love? Or do I have behind me here a flawed little character, sitting next to a flawed mother, who is sitting next to a flawed father, who on account of their basically flawed perspective of life have assumed that this piece of pristine beauty is just waiting for the opportunity to prove how tremendously good a little character he or she is?’”
Obviously, that’s a very trivial way of putting it. I understand that. But work it out in history. At the turn of the 20th century, the thinking was that if we could eradicate the poverty that was part and parcel of the growing cities of the United States, if we could provide better education, if we could provide better health care, if we could provide better and more affordable housing, then we would prove that these detrimental factors, once addressed, would show that man is essentially good, and given time and a fair chance, he would improve his lot, and we would have “fixed” society’s issues.
Well, it didn’t go that way did it? We went to 1914 and WWI – “the war that would end all wars” – and then came WWII, and so on from there, and you can’t read articles or internet news without recognizing that despite some improvements in all of these areas none of these things nor all of them together were able to address the endemic condition in the hearts of men and women. And the reason for the predicament with teenagers even a generation ago (my generation) was, “They just have so little, and their impoverishment drives them to this activity.” Yet, today, the argument has shifted: “They just have so much; and the problem is, they have so much, and they don’t know what to do.” Now, any sensible student of history says, “Okay, well, let’s look at this, and let’s look at the Scriptures and see whether the Scriptures speak with any clarity.”
And what about a personal assessment? Forget history; what about your life and about mine? Are you a rebellious person? Do you find it easier to do wrong things than right things? See, even when we consider environment, genetics, upbringing, education, government, body chemistry, and so on, we still have to face the fact that what the Bible confronts us with in this question is our own willful choice to sin. G.K. Chesterton, in an earlier era, said, “Whatever else is in doubt, man is not what God intended him to be.” The Bible says that men and women have a sin issue, that we’re at odds with our Creator. But we’d rather not talk about that, so we deny that God exists as our Creator and look for other ways of explaining our sin problem.
Before we move to our last point, I want you to notice just a few more red flags about our sinful nature. First, notice, in verse 10, that Adam says he hid because he was “afraid” of God. Think about this for a moment. Prior to sin. Prior to Genesis 3, what is the picture that we get of Adam and God? Genesis 2 describes God creating Adam and putting him in the garden to work it. God brings all the animals to Adam and whatever he called them was their name. There’s an image that’s implied here. God and Adam are friends. We don’t know exactly how long Adam and Eve existed in the garden before sin entered the world. Perhaps it was a relatively short time or maybe it was many years. We don’t know, but it seems clear that there was a closeness between Adam and God (and presumably Eve, too). But now, in verse 10, they’re afraid of God. That’s what our sin problem does – it causes us to be afraid of God, afraid of the very One we should draw close to. God is now the bad guy. Fear replaces joy. Sin upsets our relationships.
Second, notice why he says he was afraid (v. 10). “…I was afraid, because I was naked…” Not, “I was afraid because I sinned,” but because I was naked. That, too, is interesting, isn’t it? Look at Genesis 2:25, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” Being naked was normal. Being naked was the way that God had made man and woman. No shame. No embarrassment. No hiding. No fear. But now . . . after sin . . . “I was naked.” And you gotta love God’s questioning, “Really, Adam? Who told you that you were naked? You’ve been naked ever since I made you. Who told you?” What’s the answer? Nobody. Nobody told them. They were alone. It certainly wasn’t Satan. He’s already done his work. Adam and Eve have no children yet. No neighbors. “Who told you, Adam?”
You see, Adam and Eve experienced that indictment, that consciousness of nakedness because they had violated their conscience. They had fallen into sin and corruption and the shame and awareness of being naked rose up from inside of them. The answer to the question, “Who told you that you were naked,” is nobody. A guilty conscience brought about by sin told me that my nakedness was shameful.
Third, notice because of sin, Adam can’t even bring himself to confess. In fact, God actually answers for Adam (v. 11), “Have you not eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” “Isn’t that what happened, Adam? Didn’t you disobey Me? Isn’t that why you feel shame? Isn’t that why you tried to cover yourself? Isn’t that why you’re hiding, Adam?” No confession. No owning it. No admission. No accepting responsibility. What does he do? He blames God. He doesn’t blame Eve. It’s important that we see this. Adam doesn’t blame Eve. Look at verse 12, “The man said, ‘The woman whom YOU [God] gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Our sin problem ultimately turns a lover of God into a hater of God. Adam doesn’t love God. Eve doesn’t love God. They resent God. They see God as a frightening figure who is going to bring about death. They see God as their judge not their friend. They see God as the author of their sin, because it’s God who creates the circumstance in which they fall. And so, they resent God. They hate God. They despise God. They want to keep their distance from God. Their hearts are now void of any love for God. And folks, listen to me, according to the Bible, that sin problem was passed along to every other person that was born – even before they did anything good or bad. I know it doesn’t sit well with many people. Like I said, some of the guys I was talking to this week didn’t like the idea. But as I read the Scriptures, that newborn bundle of joy inherited a sinful nature just like you and me.
“What is this you have done?” Let’ close with a choice.
A Choice of Pathways
I know it can be simply a rhetorical device to do what I’m about to do, but I think it’s true as well as rhetorically effective, and that is to set before us two stark choices. Jesus did it in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
Choice number one is what we might call atheistic humanism – a pathway that’s broad and crowded. On this pathway the assumption is that there is no God; the Bible is therefore not a revelation from God, but it’s rather simply a collection of religious ideas; and therefore, the study and interpretation of the Bible is governed by those assumptions.
Choice number two is what we might call Christian theism – a pathway that’s narrow and sparsely populated. On this pathway, the assumption is that God made every fact in the universe, and that He alone can interpret all things and all events; that because we are made in the image of God, we know that we are dependent upon God for any truth; and that because of our participation in the rebellion described in Genesis 3, as sinners, we suppress this knowledge, and we reinterpret the universe on the assumption that we (and not God) give meaning to everything. You follow the logic of that, don’t you?
That’s where the gospel comes in. Ephesians 2, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (vss. 1-7).
That’s the explanation for Newton’s hymn, which we sing so tritely:
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I’m found,
Was blind, but now I see.
Only God can effect that change. And He has gone to the extent of sending His Son in order that the hardness of our rebellion might be overwhelmed by His “lovingkindness [which] is better than life” (Psalm 63:3).
“What is this you have done?” Believed a lie, been blatantly disobedient, and decided to pass the buck to whoever I could – to my wife, to my parents, to my environment, to my genetics, to my school, to my impoverishment, whatever it might be. And God shines
his Word right into our hearts and says, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).