He Clothed Them

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

Remember back when the couple sinned and they were ashamed and covered themselves?  They used fig leaves.  What?  What a feeble attempt at covering.  With wind and rain, the leaves would surely deteriorate and blow off, leaving them exposed and ashamed over and over. 

That’s how it is when we try to cover our sin ourselves.

However, God loved Adam and Eve and he gave them garments of skin – lasting – although simple – and durable. 

God’s way of covering us and healing us is always best, always lasts, and is always made with tender loving care.

If you’ve sinned, which we all have, don’t try to work up or sew up some sort of covering so that you can tiptoe in His presence trembling and afraid.

Confess what you’ve done, receive his forgiveness which we now have through Jesus, and accept his garment of righteousness – that holiness and purity he freely gives – and wear with thankfulness and praise.

God is good.  His mercy endures forever.

The Name

Genesis 3:20

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

I don’t know why, but when I read this verse, I cried.

Adam received his punishment, knowing he had sinned, and he accepted God’s discipline.  But somehow, I think he caught a glimpse of the love of his Creator.  God, even in the curse of the pain of childbirth and the toil of the land, was offering them the gift of life that goes on and on, from generation to generation…because there would soon be a Savior born to a woman who would eradicate the effects of sin on every generation…

Therefore, Adam named his wife Eve.  The name Eve means “life.”

They were sentenced to death, banished from God’s garden and his holy presence, condemned to work hard and feel pain, and yet Adam gave his wife the name that means life.

Do you think Adam realized and recognized and finally repented at the fact that he had disobeyed the God who gave life?  He knew that he had taken that life, that God breath that made him come alive, and had destroyed it by disobedience?

I do.

I think he did, and he responded by name his wife Eve – the mother of all the living.

God knew there would come a day when men/women would seek him and find him and serve him and love him, because of Jesus.  So he set in motion the birthing of children from generation to generation…

The Sentence

Genesis 3 cont’d: 

Now Adam is handed his punishment.  Not one party in the awful act of sin was left out of God’s discipline.  We can rest in that fact when we are abused, mistreated and sinned against, even if it appears that the abuser gets off free…

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Adam will be reminded his entire life, as he works and plows the fields, of what he has done.  But in that remembrance, he will be sustained with the food that the ground produces.  Wow….even in discipline God provides life.

And the sentence of death to our human bodies is handed to us right here.  Our earthly bodies will die.  They were made from dust and to dust they will return.

I don’t like that sentence.  It’s the most painful one that we experience today – death of loved ones and friends.  It comes unexpected, through great pain sometimes, and leaves a wake of sorrow that never subsides…

But remember earlier?  God promised redemption and the hope of a Savior who would “crush” Satan under his feet – rendering death defeated once and for all.

That’s the hope of the believer.  That’s the hope of those who repent, even when they have been tempted and fall.  That’s the love of our God.

He Said It

Genesis 3 cont’d:

Now we hear the woman’s punishment, severe and decisive:

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

God is not mean.  He never is, when he disciplines.  A parent is not mean when a child disobeys a directive and the child is disciplined.  In fact, without discipline children will perish.

Women will experience pain in childbirth and because of the sin, the men in her life won’t rule with wisdom and love but rather it will be tainted with power and abuse.

Ugh.

Doesn’t that explain the world today?

But thanks be to Jesus who makes all things new and gives us marriages that mimic his relationship with the Body, that of laying down and serving.  And thanks be to God for the beauty of the child that appears after the pain.

God is always about redemption.  He disciplines those he loves, but it’s always a discipline that leads to life…if we heed it and accept it and repent.

The Sentence and the Hope

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

God didn’t tempt Adam and Eve to sin – the serpent did – and God first addresses the tempter.  He condemns him and sentences him forever.

And then…we see the first hope of redemption in the split second after the sin.  Matthew Henry says, “no sooner was the wound given, than the remedy was provided and revealed.”

Isn’t that awesome?  God had a plan of salvation already in place. 

But until then, there is this conflict between good and evil.

Isn’t it interesting that in the Lord’s Prayer we are given in the New Testament, Jesus said to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil?”

When we pray, we are to be reminded that the tempter who persuaded Eve to bite was not her Creator; in fact, our God has no evil in him.  He is actually the deliverer from the evil one!

We must remember that truth when we pray, because that truth will enable us to stand when temptation is strong…

Questions & Answers

Genesis 3 cont’d:

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done? The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

God finds Adam and Eve in their shameful state of nakedness (which before sin was a peaceful state of contentment) and he quizzes him.  They had not known before that they were naked.  They were unclothed yet unashamed, because there was nothing hidden from God, their Creator.  But now God wants to know how Adam knows he is naked.  And then he asks that which he already knows, the question about the sin.

Here we see the first instance of blame and not taking responsibility for sin.

Adam blames the woman, and the woman blames the serpent.

When God visits us in our disobedience, it’s wise if we just admit and own up to what we’ve done without excuse.

God already knew what they had done, but he asked to see what their answer would be.  And instead of feeling sorrow that they had gone against God’s commands, they were only sorry that someone else made them do it.

True repentance comes when we acknowledge what we’ve done and we feel great sorrow for grieving the heart of God.

The Answer

Genesis 3:10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

God called and asked where the man was, and the man answered back with a somewhat honest answer, but mostly not…

He first acknowledges that he heard God nearby, but then he admits that he was afraid because he was naked and he hid.

Adam still recognized God’s voice.  Adam still knew that he must answer to him.  And yet Adam knew something was terribly wrong, and he admitted it.

He told God that the state in which he was made (naked) now brought him fear and shame in His presence.

Isn’t that so sad? 

God made man in his image and yet now that image was tainted by sin, and caused man to hide from God.

It’s the same today.  We believe a lie that cuts to the core of who we are and why we are here, and that which should bring us comfort and peace then instead brings us shame and fear – the realization that we are naked and unclothed in his presence.

Living in a state of sin (disobedience to God) sends us behind a tree, into hiding, and keeps us from those nice walks in the cool of the day, hand in hand with Him.

What are we then afraid of?  Adam was afraid of God’s punishment.  And he should have been.

Let’s see why…