The Fall

Story: The Fall

Passage: Genesis 3

Characters: Serpent(1), the woman(1), man(6), God(8), cherubim(24)

Interaction: The serpent twisted God’s words around and convinced the woman to disobey God’s command. She ate the fruit which was forbidden. Then she handed some to Adam who was right next to her. They realized they were naked and were ashamed of their nakedness when God addressed them. God first asked Adam what had happened and he blamed the woman, who then blamed the serpent. God proceeded to curse the serpent first, then the woman, then Adam. God drove them from the garden and banished them.

Notes: Satan subtly changed God’s word and used it out of context in order to deceive the woman. This is something we need to be aware of as I believe it is a tactic he still uses today. I also find it weird that the woman was not weirded out by a talking snake. Is it possible that animals talked then? The woman’s goal was the gain wisdom. She thought the fruit would make her wise. The bible does tell us to pursue wisdom and that wisdom is of far more worth than gold and jewels, but the difference here is that the woman pursued wisdom outside of God. She had perfect fellowship with the creator of the universe! She didn’t need more wisdom than that! But she tried to gain wisdom outside of God and outside of God, the pursuit of wisdom is the result of pride. Adam was there as well but the passage does not say he made an effort to stop her. In fact, he took the fruit when she gave it to him. The author mentions one single immediate effect of the first sin. They realized they were naked and they were ashamed. Now I suspect they were realizing more than just their physical nakedness. I believe that they now saw how inferior they were to the holy ruler of the universe and they felt spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically naked. Shame would be the only logical response to this realization. Their response to the question of God was blame shifting. Their world was now about them and their image. They were naked and were ashamed. They had sinned and were ashamed. They did not want to admit that they had messed up and so they shifted the blame to the next person (or snake) down the line. The serpent was cursed first. He was cursed above all animals, cursed to crawl on the ground and be at odds with humans. Ultimately, man would defeat the snake which we see through Christ. The woman was cursed with more pain in childbearing, with desire for her earthly husband, and she was put under the headship of her husband. It would appear that desire for your spouse is the result of the fall. The man was cursed with the task of hard work being necessary to earn a living. Adam already worked, that was his job was working for the Lord. And the woman already had childbirth and it sounds like it was already painful since verse 10 says He will multiply her pain in childbearing. So the curse for Adam and his wife seem to accentuate the earthly aspects of things they already experienced. There would more pain in childbearing, and now Adam would have to work to survive and not only to please the Lord. (Although the New Testament still says to work as if working for the Lord and not men) Although Adam and the woman, who Adam is now calling Eve, had made clothes out of leaves for themselves, God made them better clothes out of skins. This seems significant to me because up to this point, no one had killed animals. The first animals to be killed were killed by God. Adam and Eve gave in to pride and sinned, turning their back on the God who had created them and provided for them, and God responds by destroying some of His own creation in order to care for and provide for Adam and Eve. This is incredible to me! God showed His amazing love for us as sinners immediately after the fall! The first destructive act of creation was done by God on our behalf! God ends up banishing Adam and Eve from the garden because He wanted to keep them away from the Tree of Life. He didn’t do this because He wanted to keep us from life, but because it was best. Ultimately He wants us to eat from the Tree of Life. The final three chapters of Revelation correspond to the first three chapters of Genesis. In the final 3 chapters of Revelation, the serpent, Satan is referred to specifically as a serpent there, is defeated and destroyed, God recreates a perfect earth and re-establishes us with Him in His presence, and He gives us access to the Tree of Life. It is incredibly beautiful and even the Fall could not keep God from fulfilling His original purpose for us.

Questions: There are obviously a ton of questions about the fall. These are just a few of the ones I jotted down. Why did the serpent address Eve and not Adam? Why was their nakedness the immediate change which is mentioned by the author? Why did God let us sin against Him? Why did God make part of the curse against Eve a desire for Adam? Why did God kill animals to clothe Adam and Eve? Did humans forget the location of the garden quickly? Did people try to get back to it for a while?

Lessons: The first sin was pride. They put themselves before God and tried to act outside of His will. Every sin we commit connects to pride. We try to act outside of God’s will for us. From what I can tell biblically, one of the best ways to fight sin is to actively pursue an understanding of God’s holiness so that we remember with humility where we stand before Him. This focus on God is very much emphasized throughout the New Testament as is humility. When we focus on ourselves and not God, we open the door to sin.