Genesis 3

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. ¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” ¹⁶ To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” ¹⁷ And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹ By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” ²⁰ The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.²¹ And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. ²² Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

A few days ago my brother sent me a picture of a large snake slithering across the dirt rode down which he had been traveling. It appears to be a Kingsnake. My brother observed that he had stopped his car to watch the snake cross the road in front of him. I observed in reply that, if I were him, I would continue to watch the snake from inside the car!

It was a poignant reminder for me as I prepared to preach on our text. Adam and Eve have sinned against God. Eve gave ear to the devil, who, in the garden, came to her in the form of a serpent. And Adam had listened to Eve. Thus, they fall.The Fall is one of the most crucially important truths of all scripture. The Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck put it in these terms:

…the Fall is the silent hypothesis of the whole Bib[lical] Doctrine of sin and redemption; it does not rest only on a few vague passages, but forms an indispensable element In the revelation of salvation. The whole contemplation of man and humanity, of Nature and history, of ethical and physical evil, of redemption and the way in which to obtain it, is connected in Scripture with a Fall, such as Gen. 3 relates to us.[1]

I could not agree more. The Fall is indeed “the silent hypothesis” of scripture. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the Fall is one of the most attacked and dismissed doctrines in the church today. This is a tragedy, for if we lose the doctrine of the Fall we lose a key component of the overall message of scripture. For this reason we should pay special attention to what scripture says about the result of Adam and Eve’s sin.

The sin of Adam and Eve ushered in chaos, disorder, and death and has corrupted every aspect of human existence to the present day.

Genesis 3:14-24 offers a harrowing account of the devastation wrought by the sin of our first parents. Here we read of the effects of the Fall. Consider:

The Corruption of the Spiritual Dimension of Life

The first and most devastating effect of the Fall is the corruption it ushered into the spiritual dimension of life. Before our text says anything about the now-corrupted relationship between human beings and animals, it says something about the now-corrupted relationship between human beings and God. We begin with God pronouncing curses on Satan.

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. ¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring”

The statement “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring” is a statement recognizing the reality of spiritual conflict resulting from the Fall. Here God observes that human beings will now be locked in a spiritual conflict, that we are, in fact, in a spiritual war. Mankind is now torn between the deceitful wooings of the devil and God’s rightful claim upon our lives.

God had told Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:17 that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would “surely die.” And they ate. And they died, spiritually. Thus, Adam ushered spiritual death into the world (Romans 5:12-14). As a result, man is born alienated from God and harassed by the devil. The devil is cursed and enmity between him and humanity is pronounced. We are not born spiritually at peace, spiritually whole. We are born into a warzone of the soul. This is a state of affairs that did not exist before the Fall.

The Corruption of Harmony Between Humanity and Animals

There is a more immediate implication of this curse as well. It involves the conflict that Adam and Eve’s sin now brought into humanity’s relationship with the animal kingdom.

¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring

Robert Alter observes that these words are “the first moment in which a split between man and the rest of the animal kingdom is recorded.”[2]Before the Fall Adam and Eve never had to worry about an animal attacking them. They did not know the fear of being bitten or attacked or strangled by some wild beast or snake. There was peace between mankind and animals. In the Fall, that peace was shattered. In Romans 8 Paul writes that all of creation has fallen.

²² For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Certainly this fall of creation includes animal life. It is telling, then, to see how, in Isaiah 11, the restoration of animal life is itself a sign of the consummation of the ages under the rule of God.

⁶ The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. ⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. ⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. ⁹ They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

One day, in other words, mankind’s relationship with the animals will be set right as well.

The Corruption of Humanity’s Greatest Creative Act: Childbirth

To the woman God announces that she will now experience great pain in childbirth.

^16a-b To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.”

The bearing of children is humanity’s greatest participation in the creative act. The implication of this pronouncement is that, without the Fall, childbirth would not have been painful. Now, however, the singular honor of bearing children will be profoundly uncomfortable and difficult for women. In violating God’s intention for creation, we ushered in the corruption of our greatest participation in the creative act: childbirth.

The Corruption of the Relationship between the Sexes

So, too, the relationship between the sexes has now been corrupted and distorted.

^16c “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

This is a tricky passage for Old Testament scholars to translate, yet the general thrust seems clear enough: men and women are drawn to each other yet conflict with each other. The woman desires her husband, even with the fact that childbirth is painful, but her husband seeks to dominate her. The old saying, “Can’t live with him/her. Can’t live without him/her.”, captures nicely the meaning of this phrase.

The Corruption of the Earth

In God’s pronouncement of woe over Adam we find a further statement about the corruption of the natural order.

¹⁷ And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.”

The ground is now cursed! The earth is fallen. The most substantial treatment of this is found in Romans 8:

¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. ²³ And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

This is a most amazing passage! Creation, Paul tells us, “waits with eager longing,” “was subjected to futility,” “will be set free from its bondage to corruption,” will “obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God,” and “has been groaning.”

God did not intend for tsunamis to rise up and kill thousands of people, for tornados to be a menace and a threat, and for floods to devastate whole regions. There was originally a beautiful balance in creation. The Fall brought ruination in its place. Yes, we can still see amazing glimpses of Eden, but were we to see Eden as it truly was we realize that these glimpses pale in comparison.

The Corruption of Vocation and Labor

Along with the ground being cursed, the realities of vocation and labor were cursed. Adam, of course, worked the ground.

¹⁷ And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.”¹⁹ “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Alter notes that the phrase “in pain you shall eat of it” in verse 17 uses the Hebrew word ‘itsavonwhich is “the same [word] used for the woman’s birth pangs.”[3]This is most telling indeed. Eve’s great pain would be the labor of childbirth. Adam’s great pain would be labor itself! The earth would no longer peacefully yield its bounty. Now the earth will fight against Adam’s efforts.

The Corruption of Innocence

We have already seen that Adam and Eve lost their innocence. This was most powerfully seen in  awareness of their own nakedness in the immediate aftermath of their sin. But here too is another example.

²⁰ The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.²¹ And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

God takes an animal or animals, kills them, and makes skin garments for Adam and Eve. They would never have seen bloodshed before this moment. Imagine the horror they must have experienced. Then God strips the animal of its skins and dresses them in the flesh.

Yes, Adam and Eve lost their innocence and brought ruin into the world. This divine act of dressing demonstrates that fact in a most jarring way!

The Corruption of Humanity’s Relationship with God

Above all other consequences was the corruption of humanity’s relationship with God. As a result of their sin, Adam and Eve, and us along with them, were cast out of the garden.

²² Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

We are born, brothers and sisters, east of Eden. The gate has been shut. The angel guards the way with flaming sword. In other words, there is now a separation between us and God. There is a distance where earlier there was hope and life and union and harmony and peace!

See here the horrific result of sin! See here the ruination of the soul! See here the Fall of humanity and the entire created order into chaos and death!

Yet even in the immediate aftermath of the ruin and death that sin brings, God hints that a Hero will come to set all things right.

Yet…yet…

We have yet to consider verse 15 of our text. It is a fascinating verse and an enigmatic one. It is something that the Lord says to the serpent as He pronounces woe upon him. Here it is:

¹⁵ “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

What is this? What can this mean? Yes, in one sense it is simply a statement of the ongoing hostility that will exist between Satan and the human race. However, there is a hopeful tone in this proclamation. The Lord is saying that one will come from Eve who will eventually destroy Satan and his works.

Kenneth Mathews has noted that while the antagonistic verbs of verse 15 are indeed the same (“bruise” in the ESV), “the location of the blow distinguishes the severity and success of the attack.” Mathews writes that “the conclusion of the matter is made explicit: the serpent has a limited life expectancy that will come to a violent end.”[4]Thus, while the serpent will wound this offspring of Eve, the offspring of Eve will crush the head of the serpent.

There are commentators who see no such hope in this text, who see it as simply as a reference to humanity’s aversion to snakes. Yet the New Testament employed the image to refer to Jesus’ reign and rule. Paul, in Romans 16, writes:

²⁰ The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

It is hard to see this imagery as merely coincidental! God in Christ will, in time, crush the devil! Amazingly, the gospel-proclaiming church will play a part in this, but even then only because of the strong name of Jesus. And in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul draws on the image again:

²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.[5]

Yes, Christ will indeed “put all his enemies under his feet”! The serpent will indeed be crushed. The beauty of the gospel, however, is that while this ultimate defeat of Satan will come with the return of Christ in glory, even now the power of the devil has been broken. Even now Christ moves in the lives of His children to reverse the effects of the Fall. What this means is that, through Christ:

We can have life!

We can have a restored relationship with the God from whom we have been estranged!

We can have meaningful relationships!

We can have marriages that are not filled with strife!

We can have joy in the midst of our work!

Yes, Jesus is already beginning to reverse the effects of the Fall and His foot is on the serpent’s head. Satan has been defeated…and Satan will be defeated! The Fall is being undone…and the Fall will be undone! Jesus is the victor, the King!

We have been cast out of Eden, but Christ, the Lamb of God, has, through the cross and empty tomb, opened the gate for us once again.

 

[1]Quoted in James Leo Garrett Jr., Systematic Theology. 4^thed.Vol. 1 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2014), p.546.

[2]Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses. The Hebrew Bible. vol. 1 (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2019), p.17, n.15.

[3]Robert Alter, p.17, n.17.

[4]Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1:11-26. The New American Commentary. Old Testament, vol. 1A (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, Publishers, 1996), p.245.

[5]Also, Mathews: “There may also be an allusion to our passage in Gal 4:4, which speaks of God’s Son as “born of a woman.” This is perhaps a tenuous point, but one worthy of noting. Mathews, p.247.