(last edited 2/23/06)Jan's Bible Notes
GENESIS 3
1 What new character is introduced here? Who is the serpent? Or maybe the question is, who is inhabiting and speaking through the body of this serpent? Rev. 12:9, 20:2. So now we have the 3 basic players in the Bible: God, Satan, man. And like any good book, a basic conflict is introduced here in the very beginning, which will not be completely resolved until the end of the book. What is it? Sin, man’s separation from God. This chapter introduces free will and original sin.
As we saw with God, Satan is not explained, he just comes on the scene. But we are told a little about him in this verse. So did sin originate in the Garden of Eden? No. When and where? With Satan, we don’t know how long before this, but when he sinned and fell. The origin of evil is not explained here, but hinted at elsewhere. Apparently there was a revolt in heaven. Satan, a high angel, took 1/3 of the angels with him (we now call those demons). Angels are not portrayed as having free will, so it must have been a one-time test.
Some think Rev. 12:7-9 describes this event, but I don’t think so. If you read the context, the chapter and the book, things appear to be happening in chronological order, during the seven years of tribulation preceding the second coming of Christ. 12:1-5 seem to be summarizing the events of history leading up to the events of 6-17, which are about the second half of the tribulation. 6, 1260 days; 14, “a time, times and half a time,” or 3 1/2 years. Time = a year, times = 2 years, half a time = half a year. This terminology is also found in Dan. 7:25 and Dan. 12:7. Rev. 13 goes on to describe more events of this last 3 1/2 years, referring to it as 42 months, 13:5. Rev. 11:2 refers to 42 months. Rev. 11:3 refers to 1260 days. Revelation gives us many details about the events of the second half of the tribulation, defining those 3 1/2 years in several ways so that there would be no doubt about what period of time is being talked about, and that a literal 3 1/2 years is in view here. 12:4 is a reference to the original rebellion of Satan and his angels/demons. 7-9 refer to their final expulsion from heaven, which precipitates great satanic activity on earth during the second half of the tribulation, when the world ruler reveals his satanic power, Rev. 13. (See notes on Matthew 24.)
Compare Is. 14:12-15; in 12, “star of the morning” or “son of the morning” may also be translated Lucifer. According to this passage, what was Satan’s sin? Ez. 28:11-20; 12 addresses the “king of Tyre,” but could this be a man? 13 says he was where? We know from Genesis 3 who was in the garden. Ez. 28:1-2 begins by addressing a man, the prince of Tyre, who pictures or is a “type” of Satan because of his pride; then in 12 the reference is to the “king” of Tyre, and we see that no man fits this picture. Who is the “I” in 14? (compare 11) What does 14 tell about Satan in the beginning? What does 15 tell? Who is the “I” in 16 and 17?
So are God and Satan two equal, eternally existent powers of good and evil? No, but many people mistakenly think so. Is Satan as powerful as God? I John 4:4. However, God has temporarily, for His own purposes, allowed Satan a degree of power. John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11, II Cor, 4:4, Eph. 2:2, 6:12, I John 5:19.
Why do you think Satan tempted the woman, not Adam? Is it possible that women are more easily deceived than men in spiritual matters? Perhaps there is a warning here for women. Or could it be because her knowledge was second-hand, given through Adam, and that made her more vulnerable?
What word describes Satan here? What is his first act? What are his first four words? He questioned what God had already said. Does he still use this tactic to deceive people? Right from the first, the Bible characterizes Satan for us, and we should pay attention, because his tactics haven’t changed. One favorite tactic is to confuse us about God’s Word. How can we keep this from happening, or deal with it when it does happen?
2-3 Does the woman answer correctly? Compare her answer to 2:16-17; she leaves out some, adds some. Do people still make this mistake today? This is what cults do. How does she describe the tree? Apparently Adam failed in his duty to her, not repeating God’s exact words to her. Sometimes we reword what God has said, and inevitably, the meaning is changed. The lesson for us: whenever God’s truth is watered down, trouble follows.
4-5 Today there are cults and religions that promise godhood to their followers. New Age religious thought says we are all gods, or can be, or that there is a spark of the divine in everyone, “the christ in all of us.” We just have to learn to act on it or bring it out. So where did this lie originate? In the garden. Instead of becoming more like God, they became sinful.
Satan focused on a desirable end; a common tactic--the end justifies the means. “How can anything that feels so right be wrong?” But it doesn’t matter if we understand or even agree with what God has said; we are to obey. Are feelings an accurate guide to truth? What should we do if our feelings clash with truth, the facts? Satan denies God’s words and offers instead his own attractive lie. In so doing, he says that God was misleading them, tricking them, lying. Surely He could not be a good God then? Does he still do this? What did Satan appeal to? Pride, the desire for god-like knowledge, self-inflation. And what was Satan’s original sin?
6 The woman rationalizes her actions. Don't we often want the same thing Eve wanted, to find out for ourselves instead of just believing what we have been told? It almost sounds like Adam could have been right there when this all took place, observing and listening and not speaking up. Or perhaps she took him the fruit later. We can’t know for sure. At any rate, now Adam sins. The woman was deceived by the serpent, but Adam has no excuse. Perhaps he saw that she had eaten the fruit and had NOT died, as God said, 2:17, so he questioned what God had said. Can their sin be blamed on heredity—inherited character weakness? Can it be blamed on environment—bad influences in their lives? They have no excuse except their own nature, their own choices. What are the three main temptations found in the world, according to I John 2:16? Aren't all these found in Gen. 3:6?
7 Did they get the knowledge they wanted? But it backfired on them. So did they really know better than God? Do we? Are God’s rules designed to deny us true happiness, or are they for our best? Do feelings ever lie? They cover their nakedness; man tried to cover his sin but man’s efforts are not enough, we will see. (Again we see highly sophisticated skills, sewing leaves to make clothing. Where did they get this idea? What did they use for sewing? These are not cavemen.) We have no idea how long after their creation that this happened, but it seems likely that it wasn’t long at all, since no child had yet been conceived.
8 Sin results in what? (shame, separation from God) It sounds like walking with God in the garden might have been a regular occurrence. Doesn’t the Bible say no man has seen God? When God came to earth in human form, He came as Jesus Christ. The Bible says God is Spirit, not flesh. Jesus Christ is God Incarnate. Col. 1:15, 19. Before Jesus was born as a human, the pre-incarnate Christ often appeared in the Old Testament (Gen. 18, for example), often identified as “the angel of the Lord” (Judges 6:11-27, for example). See John 1:18. Moses spoke with the Lord, Ex. 33:7-23, but it doesn’t say he saw the Lord in a physical form; God’s presence appeared in the pillar of cloud. He didn’t see His face, 20, but 11 says they spoke face to face. This was a figure of speech indicating friendliness, openness.
9 Does God not know where Adam is? Doesn’t the Bible say God is all-knowing, all-seeing? Then why did He ask? Why do we sometimes ask our children what they have done when we already know? God is giving Adam the opportunity to confess and ask forgiveness.
10-12 Does Adam admit his sin, humble himself, say he’s sorry, accept personal responsibility for his actions? Feeling bad is not the same as repentance. We can feel bad that we got caught but still not repent. What was the right answer to God’s question? (“yes”) But what are Adam’s first two words? (probably with finger pointing!) What do we call this? Passing the buck. “It’s not my fault! I couldn’t help it!” Is that excuse still used today? So has human nature changed since the beginning? What doesn’t Adam just say “the woman” in 12? What is he implying by adding “whom Thou gavest to be with me”? He is blaming God; do we ever do that? If God is just, holy, loving, perfect, all-knowing, and all-powerful, is He ever to blame? Who has God been addressing in 9-12? Who does God hold responsible for this sin? Read Rom. 5:12, 19. Throughout the Bible, it is Adam. Why? God’s Word was given to Adam; God held him accountable. He was responsible to pass God’s word on to his wife and later to his children and grandchildren.
People often wonder why God called David “a man after My own heart” (Acts 13:22) even though David committed some very sinful acts. All Bible characters are sinful, because all men are sinners. Many responded to their sin in a similar way to Adam. But David didn’t. Compare just two incidents; read II Sam. 12:1-13, noting David’s response in 13, and II Sam. 24:1-10, noting David’s response in 10. When confronted with his sin, what is David’s first reaction? Repentance, humility. What is ours?
13 So does the woman accept the blame? Who does she point at? It wasn’t her fault either.
14 The serpent is cursed for his role in this event. Who else is cursed along with him? What must the serpent have been like before? Isn’t it interesting that humans, particularly women (and even animals), have a strong natural aversion to snakes?
Some take the heretical view that God is responsible for bringing sin and evil into the world. The Bible says God is perfect, so that is impossible. Deut. 32:4, Ps. 18:30, Mt. 5:48, Rom. 12:2. God knew everything that would happen, and everything is under His sovereign control, but that does not mean He caused sin. We can’t fully understand God because we are merely human, with limited intellects tainted by the Fall. A parent does not explain all his ways to a child, because the child is not capable of understanding even if he did explain.
God’s ideal will is that we do not sin, but He gave us a free will and has permitted us to choose sin. That is not His ideal will, but it is His permissive will. God holds man (and Satan) responsible for sinful choices; if God had forced us, then He would be wrong to hold us responsible. Some people refuse to believe because they can’t fully understand with their intellect, but it is rather audacious to think we could fully understand God. Is. 55:8-9. God has given us enough information about Him to believe; He even provides the faith so we can believe, Eph. 2:8. Some think that you must turn off your mind to become a Christian; this is far from the truth. God wants us to use our minds to think about Him. God’s truth appeals to the intellectual mind, and the Bible has a lot to say about God’s mind and our minds and our thinking. Mt. 22:37, 42, Rom. 11:34, 12:2-3, 14:5, I Cor. 2:16, 8:2, II Cor. 3:14, 10:5, Eph. 3:20, Phil. 4:7-8, Heb. 4:12, I Pet. 1:13.
15 Now God speaks directly to Satan. What is significant about this verse? It is the first prophecy of Christ. “Her” seed—someone who will descend from the woman. Usually seed refers to the man's seed; here is a hint of the virgin birth. It is also the first prophecy, or perhaps just a hint, of the anti-christ to come--the serpent's seed. Is a heel bruise fatal? What about a head wound? Can a mere man crush Satan? So we know that this One to come must be God in the flesh. When was this prophecy fulfilled? The crucifixion and resurrection. Satan thought he won when he got men to kill Jesus Christ, but it turned out to be only a heel wound, so to speak. When Christ rose from the dead, Satan’s defeat was sealed—the head wound. Read Heb. 2:14.
16 Is the woman cursed? But there will be consequences. What changes for her? Troubles and pain in childbirth, the raising of children, and marriage—in other words, in her main responsibilities. Apparently this was not the way things were originally planned. Actually “pain” (King James Version, sorrow) is the same Hebrew word as “toil” (KJV, “sorrow”) in 17. Strongs Concordance: labor, pain, sorrow, toil. The second use in 16 is a different word: toil, painful toil, grievous, labor, sorrow. “Yet”: because of woman’s built-in desire for marriage and children, we seldom manage to escape this trouble. The husband will rule, have dominion, over the wife, but there will be a power struggle; she will desire to rule over him, to usurp his authority. Things that should have come easy and been pleasant are now going to bring trouble. If sin had not entered the world, the marriage relationship would not have been characterized by this power struggle. Before, in 2:18, she was to be his helper, which implied differing positions of responsibility, but now that will be complicated and tainted by clashing wills.
We often think lack of harmony, clashing of wills in marriage is an evil to overcome, a sign of our lack of faith or spiritual maturity. Remembering WHY things are that way should keep us humble, recognizing our human sinfulness. Keeping the right perspective on it will help us to deal with it and accept its inevitability. Is a harmonious marriage the mark of a good Christian life? Not necessarily. Is the lack of harmony a mark of failure? Not necessarily. Nowhere does the Bible promise us that we can expect harmonious marriages, but it does give directions for the Christian husband and wife. According to Eph. 5:22, wives are to behave how? Because the wife constantly has the desire to usurp her husband's authority, she is to curb that natural desire. What does I Tim. 2:12 say about how this tendency of women should be controlled in the church setting? The woman's desire to usurp authority over men is so great that restrictions must be placed on her activities even in the church. And the husband, who often dominates his wife, is to curb that nature by acting how, Eph. 5:25? How does I Tim. 2:15 hold out hope for the trouble and heartache that having and raising children brings? What does "saved" mean? Strongs: save, deliver, protect, heal, preserve, do well, make whole. Bearing children: childbirth, maternity, the performance of maternal duties. As the Christian mother seeks the Lord in her struggles, she will find that leaning on the Lord is her strength, and will learn from the parent/child relationship so much about the Father's care and discipline of His children.
17-19 Who had Adam listened to? Who was he supposed to listen to? Who had the woman listened to? Who was she supposed to have listened to? Is the man cursed? God has NOT cursed mankind. People often mistakenly say, “Christ redeemed us from the curse;” read the entire verse, Gal. 3:13. Again, there will be consequences. What is cursed? So all creation bears the curse--the earth (ground) as well as all living creatures (14). In Romans 8:19-22, Paul speaks of creation as if it were capable of feelings and desires; what does he say happened to the creation, and what does the creation long for? When and how will that happen?
Adam’s penalty is the same as the woman’s. His main responsibility, making a living, would now be difficult. Has modern man escaped the curse of sin by no longer living off the land or sweating? How does this apply? Whatever you do for a living, it will have many built-in frustrations and difficulties.
What about women who work, and do not marry or have children? Have they escaped the curse of sin? We can never do away completely with painful childbirth, difficulty in making a living, male domination of women, and physical death. No matter what we do with our lives, God has built in a reminder. Instead of constantly grumbling about how things never seem to go right, we should be constantly reminded and humbled about our basic condition before God, and how man’s sin nature caused things to be this way.
Before, there were no weeds. The curse brought the possibility of disease, and that would include mutations of genes. It is very possible that animals, originally created to be vegetarians, began changing. With sin entered death, and probably animals killing each other, and then eating each other. But man is still a vegetarian, which changes later as we will see in a few chapters.
19 Physical death is promised; God said in 2:17 that in the day they ate of it, they would die. Did it happen the moment or day they sinned? Physical death began to work in their bodies but wouldn’t take place immediately. When did spiritual death take place? The moment they sinned. Apparently sin brought about a new condition, what scientists describe as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the law of increasing entropy. All things decay, become less organized, become more random. All branches of science recognize this fact, and there are no known exceptions in the entire universe. Yet to believe in evolution is to believe in increasing order, that randomness can organize itself (without outside help) into information and complexity. Evolution contradicts the basic facts of science.
Here we see that God held Adam responsible, because God had commanded Adam, and because the woman, his responsibility, had disobeyed. Compare Rom. 5:12-21. We call this the doctrine of original sin, although that phrase is found nowhere in the Bible. This means that because of Adam's sin, all his descendants are born in that same sinful condition (Gen. 5:3, Ps. 51:5). We aren't sinners because at some point we commit a sin; the Bible says we commit sin because we are born as sinners. Many believe man is basically good but the Bible does not teach that. Rom. 5:12-21 also shows how Adam is a type of Christ (5:14). Just as his one transgression brought sin into the world, Christ's one act of righteousness brought the gift of life. Paul goes on to explain that the two are not just alike, though; Adam's act brought death to all, but Christ's act brings life only to those who receive God's gift of grace, even though it is available to all.
20 Could Adam and Eve be the result of some sort of evolution? The woman is now given a name. “All” the living;” none before. Was Eve a mother yet? Adam had faith that God would fulfill His promise of “her seed,” 15, and children, 16.
21 The first death; apparently God killed an animal or animals to cover their nakedness, the effects of their sin. Can you imagine how shocking and upsetting this must have been to Adam and Eve, who knew nothing of death? Now physical death had entered their world, and they saw how ugly it was. They knew they had caused it. Nothing would ever be the same.
What is the spiritual significance to this act? Sinners must have their sins covered to be acceptable to God. We can’t provide it by anything we do; man’s effort to cover sin (fig leaves) is ineffective. God must do it, and it involves the shedding of blood. Here we have the teaching of substitutionary atonement; the penalty for sin is death, but instead of requiring OUR blood, God allows someone else's blood to be shed to pay for our sin. Animal sacrifice did not remove or forgive sin but pictured the future sacrifice of the promised Lamb of God whose blood would cover the sins of all who believe and receive God's gift of forgiveness. Man would like to take care of sin by trying to do enough good works, without the shedding of blood; many find the idea of Christ’s shed blood on the cross a repulsive idea. Read Lev. 17:11, John 1:29, Rom. 5:9, Eph. 1:7, 2:13, Col. 1:20, Heb. 9:11-14, 22, 10:10-14, I Pet. 1:18-19, I John 1:7, Rev. 1:5, 5:9.
The Fall is the basis of the message of the Bible. If it didn’t happen (which it couldn’t have if Adam and Eve weren’t literally the first man and woman, or the first creatures to experience death), the Bible is pointless and unnecessary. Jesus’s death would be pointless, salvation would be unnecessary. Yet many so-called Christians believe just that. For them, Christianity isn’t about the need for salvation. It is just emulating a good man named Jesus.
Today, many do not believe in original sin, in man’s fallen nature. Modern psychology says man is basically good. Your view on this subject has major implications for the family, schools, politics and government. If man is evil, we need controls and punishments. We must protect ourselves from the evil that will inevitably be done to us by other men. Even government must be controlled, because it is run by sinful men. But if man is good, children will grow up best if left to their own natural good tendencies, with minimal interference from adults. Attempts to stifle their behavior or mold them to adult standards will warp them or cause poor self-esteem. No one is sinful, evil or just plain bad; they are only dysfunctional, and surely that is not their own fault. Man does not want to be held responsible for sinful choices.
These concepts have so infiltrated modern psychology and become accepted by so many Christians that Christian families are experiencing many discipline problems. This basic concept needs to be thought through by every Christian parent. It will become the basis for how and why you raise your children the way you do, and will give you the confidence to be a good disciplinarian in spite of what you read and hear.
It’s the same in the schools. We are reaping the results of letting kids rule, refusing to discipline, train and have definite expectations. In government, the push for ever greater bureaucratic control over our lives implies that leaders, being good, will do what is good for the people and will not take advantage of their power. Other indications of this thinking are the letting down of military defenses, and the belief that our interests would best be served by a benign and trustworthy one-world government, in which all will be treated equally and all will play by the rules.
We may be tempted to think God over-reacted to man’s sin. As humans, with our limited and fallen nature, we lack a real understanding of how serious sin is. We tend to think that sin is not REALLY that big a deal. We hope God will grade on the curve. That’s because we don’t understand how holy and perfect God is, how far He is above us. Here we see God’s reaction to one sin—how serious He thinks it is. It doesn’t matter what WE think about it; what matters is what HE thinks about it. We only learn that by reading His Word.
22-24 “Us” again. The trinity, one God in three distinct persons. Now man has knowledge of what? Here we read a little more about that other tree; it was not forbidden before, but it is now. We WLL eat from it some day; read Rev. 22:1-3, a description of heaven--rather, the new heaven, which is the heavenly city called the New Jerusalem (21:1-2). Man is expelled from the garden, which is now guarded by angels.
Copyright 2003 Jan Young