Genesis 3

Here, we are introduced to the enemy of all goodness in the form of a serpent. The word Satan in Hebrew means “accuser/adversary.” God has just spent the last two pages telling us who He is and who we are. Now, this adversary pulls out his best trick against humanity. He does not lie to them, but he makes them question who God is and who they are. His first question is to ask them if God is really good or if God is less than who He says He is. The serpent’s next question attacks the source of their self-worth, causing them to question if they are less than who God says they are. The serpent tempts them with promises that they will be more like God, even though they are already created in the image of God.

Satan also attacked Adam and Eve’s relationship. Who did God tell not to eat the fruit? He told Adam before Eve was created, so Eve got her information from Adam. When Satan asked Eve, “Did God really say …” he was not just making Eve question God; Satan was making Eve question Adam. God’s image was not complete in man until man was living in a harmonious, giving relationship with another equal being. Satan throws a vicious wedge into their relationship with this simple question. Satan was trying to break man’s relationship with God and man’s relationship with man. He did this because he knew that anytime we break God’s law, we also hurt our relationships with others.

Just as the enemy had promised, after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they did see and know more. Suddenly, they knew fear; they could feel shame; they were able to experience pain. All of a sudden, their minds and hearts were opened to selfish, inward-focused desires. In that instant, they became the kind of beings who would give birth to sons who would kill one another and nations who would crave blood. Rather than responding with repentance, Adam and Eve each blamed someone else for their choices and the consequences. We, their children, also want to play the victim and blame others for our pain and poor choices. The moment Adam and Eve ate the fruit, we all became pain inflictors instead of life-givers.

What was perfect became broken. In His mercy, God took away the tree of life because He saw the evil they were capable of inflicting on one another. He couldn’t allow them to inflict that pain for eternity. God knew that Adam and Eve needed restrictions to protect them from themselves. God knew that the new humans wouldn’t value what didn’t cost them. For them to value and protect life, there had to be pain when giving birth. They had become selfish, so there had to be a hierarchy to keep peace in the family and society. To keep man from multiplying evils, he needed to struggle to develop his character and occupy his time.

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit and rebelled against God, they rejected His definition of good and evil. Life can’t be separated from goodness because both of those come from the essence of God. The moral code is connected with the genetic code. In the same way, death and evil can’t be separated. Adam broke the moral code, and instantly, his cells began to die because he separated himself from the good. Because God’s life-giving spirit had been rejected, Adam’s imperishable body would fall apart until it became dirt again. Every newborn would be born with cells that were dying and a body that was slowly running out of life.

God’s presence had brought peace, order, and all goodness. When man chose himself over the Life-Giver and Sustainer, the entire creation began to die and decay. Satan chose to hurt God by destroying His creation. How ironic that humans—created to represent the God of life, joy, and giving—would become creatures who built the Roman Colosseum and the Holocaust gas chambers and would create a child sex-trafficking empire. In doing these things, humankind was reflecting the deceiver rather than the life-giving God who created them.

We can’t look at this story and blame Adam or Eve for their choices. This choice has become the story of every human. Adam and Eve decided they wanted to be the ones to determine what was good and evil, and we have been repeating their choices ever since. The next eight chapters tell us about human after human repeating this choice.

On this day, we walked away from God, but God didn’t walk away from us. He killed an animal to cover Adam and Eve, showing that He was willing to sacrifice His creation to protect them. The skins that covered their nakedness were the couple’s first experience of seeing death. Even at this point, they didn’t comprehend everything they had lost, but Satan knew exactly what he had done to us. So God turned to the serpent and let him know that this wasn’t over. God was not giving up on His creation. Here, we see our first glimpse of Jesus when God told Satan about one of Eve’s descendants, “You will bruise His heel, but He will crush your head” (Genesis 3:15). The reckless love of God is on full display here as He tells Satan His intentions. God is saying even though the humans are walking away from him, he is not leaving them. He will do whatever it takes to bring them life again.