Genesis 1-2-3-4

[Resource Manager]

There was, of course, wisdom in this added warning, for assuredly the best way to defeat temptation is to keep as far away from it as possible. If needful for Adam, who had no fallen nature to incline him to disobedience, how much more needful for his descendants who have?

 

Also, by this commandment Adam was being taught to mistrust his own intelligence, for he might well have reasoned: This garden has been prepared for me. It is all very good. Then why should I not eat of that tree also?’ And the only reason was that, whether Adam understood or he didn’t, God forbad it.

 

LXX turns the singular pronouns in this passage into plurals - with reference to the man and the woman. Was the change made in order to emphasize that the woman also was a sinner and not her husband only?

 

The command was quite explicit: “Thou shalt not;” and so also was the enunciation of the penalty: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

 

The words mean just what they say in the AV text. And the word “die” would be clearly understood, for from the very first, the cycle of life and death in the lower creatures (Ps. 49:20) would be part of Adam’s experience and comprehension (and angelic education).
 

But when the sin was committed, Adam and his wife did not die in the very day in which they ate. Quite a variety of explanations who have been advanced to cope with this problem:

 

a. They died spiritually. If by this is meant that their essential nature was changed, this is true. From the time of the Fall human nature has been sullied with a humanly incurable bent towards evil. Every innocent little baby grows up to be a naughty child, a self-willed teenager, a chronic moribund sinner.

 

But is this what the words meant? They seem to be intended in a strictly literal sense.

 

b. In ‘Elpis Israel,’ p.69, 4th ed., Dr. Thomas translates the Hebrew words literally: “dying thou shalt die” (see AV mg.), and reads this as meaning that a gradual process of dying began from the moment of disobedience. However, this misses the force of the Hebrew idiom, for this form of expression, very common in Old Testament Hebrew, is simply an emphatic way of saying, as AV: “thou shalt surely die;” e.g. in v.16: “eating thou shalt eat;” and in 3:16: “multiplying I will multiply.” Accordingly C.C.W. has added a footnote of correction on that p.69.

 

c. The rabbis have gone in for some characteristic juggling.

 

One school of thought speculates: ‘In mercy God submitted one of his own days (1000 years; Ps. 90:4) for one man’s. But when it was revealed to Adam that in years to come David would die in the day of his birth, he gladly gave up 70 of his 1000 years. So Adam died at 930, and David 70!

 

Alternatively: “‘In the day” has reference to the day of the week. Adam was created on Friday, and sinned on Friday (the same?), and died, 930 years later, on Friday.’ Judaism was capable of even such childishness.

 

d. The penalty was conditional. Adam repented, and therefore the punishment was modified.

 

This is the correct explanation as will be shown later in this commentary (see on 3:20,21).

 

Jonah’s message was: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (3:4). But because of repentance this apparently unconditional threat was not fulfilled. Nineveh lasted for more than a century after Jonah.

 

There are many examples of this principle at work (see Appendix in “Revelation: a Biblical approach,” by H.A.W.)

[Resource Manager]

2:18 “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him”.

 

In the midst of a wonderful creation Adam was palpably alone and lonely, a state that is not good for any man. So, as in 1:26, there was a carefully thought-out plan to provide him with the society he needed. “Let us make” here becomes “I will make.” But three of the ancient versions repeat the plural form of 1:26. And since this is the only place in these early chapters where the divine pronoun is singular, it looks very much as though the versions are to be followed.

 

There seems to be a studied vagueness about the AV: “help meet for him” (there is no reason to hyphenate into “help-meet” or “help-mate”). But there is ambiguity about the Hebrew also: before him, in the front of him, close to him, corresponding to him; all of these are possible. But if there is here any hint of sex, it is fairly well hidden.

 

It has been argued from these words, and a careful ignoring of 1 Cor. 7:32,33, that all men ought to marry (and presumably, all women). But can it be truly said of a man in Christ that he is ever alone, even when without a wife (or the woman without a husband)?

 

God carefully provided that the second Adam should not be alone: “He that hath sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone” (Jn. 8:29). Just as the prime function of Eve was to be a help to her husband, so also during the Lord’s ministry there were women who gladly “ministered unto him of their substance” (Lk. 8:3), and also in the end of his ministry Martha provided practical help in the hospitality of her home, and Mary gave the understanding and encouragement which Jesus valued even more (Lk. 10:38-42; Jn. 12:2,3).

 

A none-too-easy problem arises as to how the record here (v. 18-23) is to be reconciled with 1:26-28. If indeed the “days” of chapter 1 are meant to be longer periods, there is of course no difficulty. But how to include the whole of 2:7-23 in the space of 24 hours is not easy, but neither is it outrageously impossible.

[Resource Manager]

2:19-20 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field: but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

 

The natural way to read this text is as signifying that the animals were made after Adam, and LXX supports this. But it is agreed that the meaning could be: “the Lord God had already made ....” Is it possible that there was a further creation of animals, as of trees, special for the garden?

 

Naturally there is no mention of fishes or creeping things, for the point of this exercise was, in the main, to demonstrate to Adam that there was as yet nothing in all God’s wonderful creation with which he could share fellowship. A man can find pleasure in making a pet of an animal or a bird but not of a fish or a creepy-crawly. With hindsight, and fuller knowledge of God’s purpose in Christ it is possible to recognize that the main intention behind creation was fellowship. Barriers to fellowship are therefore to be erected only when God demands such action, as in the expulsion from Eden, and from the Holy Land.

 

Is it necessary to assume that the angels led (LXX) to Adam all the enormous variety of creatures already made? A wide and diverse selection, those living in the garden, would surely suffice to demonstrate to Adam’s high intelligence (no Neanderthal low-brow!) that amidst them all he was really alone (apart from his occasional fellowship with the angels). The animals learned that Adam was their master, made to have dominion (Ps. 8:6), and in turn he was impressed with their essential inferiority. Thus, one of Adam’s first school subjects (though not the first) was zoology.

 

The names were given (in Hebrew? v.20) according to the character of each. It makes an interesting exercise to trace correspondences between the Hebrew names for various animals and the meaning of their Hebrew roots.

 

God Himself had named Day and Night, Heaven and Earth and the stars (Is. 40:26), and Man. But those specifically under man’s dominion were to be named by him (including v.23). In the New Creation the Second Adam is content to concentrate his attention on sheep - “he calleth his own sheep by name” (Jn. 10:3).

 

The angels led the creatures to Adam “to see what he would call them.” Always in the early chapters of Genesis, and indeed in nearly every occurrence (out of hundreds) of this Hebrew word, the meaning is ‘to see with the naked eye’ not ‘to perceive, with the understanding.’ So it seems scarcely outrageous to read this passage as implying that Adam not only invented names for the animals but also wrote them down.

 

In harmony with this is the literal reading of the Hebrew text: “But for Adam he (i.e. God) did not find a help meet for him.” The exercise was fully successful. Not only did Adam recognize that he was without a true partner, but his Maker also took knowledge of his human consciousness of a great loneliness. 

[Resource Manager]

2:21,22 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, he made a woman, and brought her unto the man.

 

Jeremiah had a vision of paradise restored, and as part of it “the Lord created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man. Upon this I awakened, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me” (31:22,24-26). This, assuredly, was Adam’s experience in and after his “deep sleep.”

 

And why was Eve made from a rib? Because a rib is the only bone (strictly, cartilage) which when removed will grow again. So Adam was not thereafter a man with an uneven number of ribs. Christ also lost nothing by his sacrifice and saving work.

 

And she was made from a rib taken from Adam’s side, not from his head that she might be his superior, nor from his feet that she might be trampled on at will, but that she might be his equal - and taken from near his heart that she might be cherished.

 

An interesting rabbinic comment is the following: “Woman is strong by nature, because she was created of bone; but man is weak by nature, because he was created of earth, and earth is weak.” But how correct?

 

The word “rib” means also “side,” and that is where a man’s wife is always to be. Out of forty occurrences (approx.) of the Hebrew word well over thirty of them refer to the side of the sanctuary of the Lord.

 

This was appropriate, for Jesus was “the Sanctuary which the Lord pitched, and not man”; and in death his side (Jn. 19:34, s.w. LXX) was pierced, to become the symbol of life (“blood and water”) for those whom the Lord God brings to him.

 

Also, it is implied that with the rib the Creator also took flesh adhering to it, for Adam said: “This is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.” This too is appropriate, for in the New Testament there is much emphasis on our Lord truly sharing human nature - “flesh” - with all its weakness and propensities to self-will.

 

The New Testament also makes much of this fact that Adam was created first, and Eve from him: “For the man is not out of the woman, but the woman out of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.” The relative status of man and woman in the ecclesia is made to depend on this argument (but not on this only).

 

Again, “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over her husband ... For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (1 Tim. 2:12,13) - and again this is reinforced by the ensuing verses.

 

This essential difference notwithstanding, marriage is for fellowship, and specially fellowship in godliness. There is no word said here about the woman’s sex or her bearing of children. She is valued for her own self. “Whoso findeth a wife, such a wife, findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord” (Pr. 18:22).

 

It is only such a wife who can fulfil the type woven so sensitively into this narrative.

 

Yet, with all these designed resemblances, there is one marked contrast: “The Lord hath created (bará) a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man (gibbōr Is. 9:6)” (Jer. 31:22). God’s New Creation begins with a Redeemer brought forth out of a woman (Gen. 3:15), and not conversely, as before.

[Resource Manager]

Adam’s rib was not made but “built” (Heb.) into a woman, as though she were to be not only a human being but also a temple: “In him all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:21,22). “Then had the churches rest ... and were edified, built up (s.w. LXX)” (Acts 9:31).

 

Paul surely thought of the early church in just this way: “Ye are God’s husbandry (Adam), ye are God’s building (Eve)” (1 Cor. 3:9).

 

The fashioning of Eve was not done there in Adam’s presence, but in his absence whilst he communed with angels, for “the Lord God (this is God’s Covenant Name, the Name which enshrines His Purpose) brought her unto the man.” Here was the Father giving away the Bride. “She (the Bride of Christ) shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework” (Ps. 45:14) - not in the nakedness of innocence, because this Bride has not been accepted by her Lord in paradise but as one at first alien to it, so she must needs be clothed with garments of righteousness. The holy city, the new Jerusalem, comes down from God, brought by Him, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:2). “Behold, the Bridegroom! Come ye forth to meet him” (Mt. 25:6). “And them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring (to him to be) with him” (1 Th. 4:14).

 

And now (a sharp contrast of a different sort) consider the supposed resemblances of this Genesis story to the Assyrian-Babylonian creation epic:

 

There is a watery chaos. The sun, moon, and stars are made after light, but before plants and animals. There is a paradise naturally irrigated.

 

So far the details are right. But then:

 

Man is made of clay and blood (soul?). His wife is called Nin-ti (which is said to mean ‘lady of the rib’ or else ‘lady who makes alive; cp. Eve). A curse follows the eating of a plant, but thereafter child birth is without pain or travail.

 

Which account, one wonders, is the original, and which the distortion?

[Resource Manager]

2:23 “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

 

There is almost a gasp of relief between “there was formed a help meet for him” and this use of “now.” After increasing conviction that there was no creature yet made to match himself, Adam is able to say: “At last! (RSV) this (fem.) is now bone of my bones.” The Hebrew phrase might even imply: “a step forward!”

 

Since the fashioning of the rib was done whilst Adam was in a deep sleep, and away from him, he would only know that she was made out of himself when angels of the Lord told him. It is another hint that he did not need a tree of knowledge.

 

From this earliest time “my bone and my flesh” became a well-established idiom for the closest possible relationship - used, for example, by the as yet unaffiliated tribes of Israel when they asked David to be king over them all (2 Sam. 5:1).

 

It is another hint of the type so vividly presented in Genesis where the Bride of the Second Adam comes into existence only through his experience of the sleep of death and a fashioning out of the same “flesh and bones as ye see me have” (Lk. 24:39). No passage emphasizes this essential, vitally essential, truth more than does Hebrews 2:14.

 

Some pernickety grammarians try to insist that there is no connection between the Hebrew words for Man and Woman, but this verse positively insists on the link between the two words being recognized. But the blithe assumption that Ishah means ‘out of Ish’ simply cannot be sustained, for it has in it no hint of “out of.”

 

There are two possibilities:

 

a. that the - ah is just an ordinary feminine suffix, just as “this” also is feminine;

 

b. that this is an example of what is known as He locale; e.g. Hebrew for Egypt is Mitzraim, and Mitzaimah means “into or towards Egypt;” thus, Ishah means the very opposite of “out of Man”? and was it not intended that her whole life should be devoted to his well-being? The type of Christ and his Bride fills out the idea.

 

But why did Adam call himself Ish and not Adam (the one who was made from adamah and was destined to return to it)? It is difficult to be sure. But one possibility is through connection with the word yesh, a kind of emphatic positive, as though meaning, when applied to Adam “I very definitely am.” If this is correct, it is an expression of a newly-dawned conviction (after his systematic inspection of the animals) that he and he only possessed personality and self-consciousness; by contrast they were entirely creatures of instinct.

[Resource Manager]

2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

 

Clearly these are not Adam’s words. Jesus says explicitly that they are God’s words (Mt. 19:4,5). There could be no better vindication of the inspiration of the creation record. This verse must be part of a divine revelation made after the birth of children, for until then the mention of father and mother would be meaningless.

 

In all generations this truth about marriage must stand. In modern times it is not at all unknown for parents to be so possessive (usually a mother for her son) as to create strains in a marriage which needs no added problems.

 

The spiritual meaning of this forsaking of parents is both simple and eloquent. All who become affianced to Christ must be ever ready to give first loyalty to this divine Husband. Yet just as the commandment to honour father and mother still stands for the married as for the unmarried, the one joined to Christ is not called upon to live a hermit life without any kind of physical contact with the world. The dissociation from the old life is essentially an attitude of mind. It is thus that a man can be “in the world,” but not “of the world.”

 

The Bride of Christ is commanded: “Forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty; for he is thy Lord” (Ps. 45:10,11).

 

The man is bidden “cleave” to his wife, and of course she to him. In Eden it would be unnatural not to do so. And so always, argued Jesus when asked by the Pharisees about divorce: “Have ye not read (here is a brusque ‘Go home and read your Bible!’), that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female” (Mt. 19:4, i.e. one man and one woman - then was divorce and re-marriage part of the divine intention when God first made our race?

 

And the word “cleave” (Mt. 19:5) means, very literally, to be glued together. So when the psalmist declares fervently: “I have stuck (s.w.) unto thy testimonies” (Ps. 119:31), he means: “Lord, I am wedded to thy Word.” And when Solomon “clave in love” to his many women he was debasing the true idea of marriage and also himself (1 Kgs. 11:2). It is not easy to reconcile with this stark fact about him the many contemptuous references in Proverbs to “the strange woman.” Every woman who is not a true wife is to be reckoned a stranger. Adam had other ribs, but there was no move in Eden to provide him with other women, not even after Eve had failed him.

 

In this passage the Hebrew text seems to be definitely defective, for LXX reads: “they twain shall be one flesh.” Other versions also have this reading. But what is utterly decisive is that both Jesus and Paul quote the passage thus (Mt. 19:5; 1 Cor. 6:16) the former using the words as a final authority against divorce, and the latter in an equally strong passage against fornication. And to this day that word “twain” forbids multiple marriages, even though spiritual giants like Abraham and Jacob and David took more than one wife. Such saints must all have known the divine principle in Genesis: one man, one woman. The unprotesting grace of God regarding this is something to marvel at.

 

The emphasis on “one flesh” stresses that marriage without a physical union is not a marriage. But also, by implication it disallows any kind of promiscuity. Can a man or a woman be “one flesh” with more than one other? The logic of the situation requires that an act of fornication automatically puts marriage with any other out of question, except by the grace of God - “for the hardness of your hearts”, He suffers it. This is the main point of the Lord’s “permissive clause” regarding divorce: “except it be for fornication” (Mt. 19:9). There the careful distinction between “fornication” and “adultery” (as in Mt. 15:19; Gal. 5:19 also) requires that Jesus be understood as legislating for the case of a newly-married man finding that his wife has earlier had a promiscuous relation with another man, so that (ideally) she has been thenceforward qualified to marry only the one she had earlier illicitly accepted. (Yet even in such an instance, the marriage of Hosea shows God’s mind on this problem).

 

It remains to consider the force of the “therefore” with which this highly important passage is introduced.

 

In effect it declares that since Adam and Eve had no parents, the union with wife or husband is to come first before that of duty to parents. As it was first in time - marriage before generation - so it is first in importance. Also, as marriage came in the time of Edenic innocence it is superior to generation (and therefore sonship) which belongs to the Fall. This is Paul’s argument in Eph. 5:30,31, that “for this cause” one who is joined to Christ is to forego as fully as he knows how his natural relationship to the old Adam from whom he has sprung.

 

It is surely not without significance that in a passage about the family rejoicing before the Lord (Dt. 16:11) there is no mention of the wife - not that her participation is unimportant but that her being “glued” to her husband, in this as in all family matters, is taken for granted.

[Resource Manager]

2:25 “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

 

This word “naked” is remarkable, for in Hebrew it is identical with the word “subtle” in the next verse. The two usages are both very common. Is it possible that the connection between them is via the fact that the crafty man usually appears to be bland, frank, and honest, with nothing to hide?

 

This stress on Adam’s and Eve’s childlike innocence prepares the way for the success of the serpent’s beguiling. What a dramatic change in tone between this chapter and the next. The chapter division, is superbly chosen.

 

As might be expected, this passage has become the focus of a number of incisive New Testament comments:

 

a. Hebrews 4:10-13:

 

“For he that is entered into his (God’s) rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his (Gen. 2:2). Let us labour therefore ... lest any man fall (as Adam did) after the same example of disobedience. For the Word of God (the voice of the Lord God in the midst of the garden) is ... sharper than any two-edged sword (the flaming sword which turned every way), piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit (outside and inside the garden), and of the joints and marrow (the sacrifice offered), and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Adam, hast thou eaten ...?). Neither is there any creation that is not manifest in his sight (even though hiding amidst the trees): but all things are naked and opened (and ashamed) before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

 

b. Revelation 3:18:

 

“I counsel thee to buy of me ... white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.”

 

c. Romans 5:5:

 

In a chapter packed with allusions to the Fall: “hope maketh not ashamed.” What hope? “Hope of the glory of God” - the cherubim of Gen 3:24. Hence “he that believeth shall not be ashamed” (10:11), with the last word deliberately altered from Isaiah 28:16.

[Resource Manager]

Commentary on Genesis, Chapter Three

 

3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

 

The narrative now to be examined is by far the most important in the book of Genesis. Just how important may be judged from the fact that the impressive and fascinating details of chapters 1 and 2 are a mere curtain-raiser to what is coming.

 

With his great drama “Paradise Lost,” John Milton is probably more responsible than any one individual for the common, almost universal, assumption that the serpent in Eden was the Devil in disguise. Which is somewhat remarkable, for a careful reader of “Paradise Lost” can hardly escape the conclusion that John Milton (whose theology was almost 100% Christadelphian) certainly did not intend the readers of his fine poetic drama to take his purple plot literally.

 

However, there it is. Most readers of Genesis 3 (and most non-readers of it!) blithely assume that a malign Satan, disguised as a snake, set himself to bring about the downfall of Eve.

 

Yet this first verse should be sufficient to set the record straight: “more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” What point in comparing a rebellious immortal archangel with a created beast?

 

And later the penalty pronounced on the serpent requires reference to a serpent: “Thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go” (v.14). How palpably unfair, and indeed absurd, to lay such a curse on the inferior animal, a mere tool, and to let the rebel-spirit, the real culprit, go scot-free! Compare also the phrase “all the days of thy life” (v.14). Addressed to a serpent these words hold no difficulty, but spoken to a superhuman Devil what do they mean?

 

And if it be argued that in Revelation 12:9 the serpent-dragon is called the Devil and Satan, the simple answer is that, even apart from all the complex symbolism of that chapter, this name merely sums up the adversary character of the serpent in Eden, just as Peter was called Satan (Mt. 16:23) when he unwittingly became his Lord’s adversary. The allusions in Revelation 12 to Genesis 3, however they be interpreted, are quite unmistakable - the woman and her seed, and the enmity between the woman and the serpent.

 

It has been very plausibly argued that since Adam was appointed “to dress and to keep (guard)” the garden, then he was at fault in allowing the serpent into the garden at all. In the apocalyptic picture of paradise restored there is only blunt exclusion for “whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Rev. 21:27; 22:14,15). And in a passage which (as will be shown later) is full of allusions to the serpent in Genesis 3, Paul exhorts that “them which cause divisions and offences” be excluded from the ecclesia.

 

But these arguments overlook two very simple considerations - that the serpent was part of the creation which was pronounced “very good” (1:31); also, until Eve had been seduced into disobedience, how was Adam to know that there was an evil influence?

 

Another problem - a great favourite with the unbeliever - is the question why God allowed the temptation at all, since the serpent’s success meant such disaster for the human pair and for all their progency.

[Resource Manager]

To this a three-fold answer may be offered:

 

a. Men have no right to challenge the wisdom of God in this way. Since God’s thoughts are so much higher than man’s thoughts, even a puzzling uncomprehended act of God is to be accepted in faith, and not argued against.

 

b. Temptation may be a good thing, a test demonstrating inner worth, as in the experience of Abraham (Gen. 22:1); and so it would have been in Eve’s experience, had she come through it successfully. Temptation in the sense of an intention to bring to ruin is an evil thing (Jas. 1:13,14). God attempts that with no man. “He will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able” (1 Cor. 10:13).

 

c. The ultimate outcome - salvation and glory in Christ - is the final vindication of God’s counsel in creating a tempting serpent and a temptable man, and thus allowing Adam to fall and suffer. Christ may be a stumbling block and foolishness to some, but to those who know his salvation he is “the Wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23,24).

 

Why should the serpent be “more subtle than any beast of the field”? Why a talking serpent, so unique among the creatures God had made? Was it endowed with this remarkable power so as to make it an efficient tempter? The parallel of Balaam’s ass (a favourite illustration) is no parallel at all, and if it were, it would not answer, but only intensify, the problem.

 

Explanation is available on different lines. There is evidence that the serpent itself ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and thus acquired powers above its normal endowment. The possibility was certainly there. “Had the serpent, or any other animal, eaten of it (the tree of knowledge) he would not have transgressed, because the eating, or touching, of the tree was only prohibited to man” (Eureka 3.51).

 

This eating of knowledge-fruit by the serpent seems to be implied in an impressive sequence of details:

 

a. Its power of speech is thus readily explained as having been imparted by the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

 

b. Its subtlety is likewise explained. No other serpent has had this cleverness.

 

c. “Ye shall not surely die” seems to read as just a bald statement, a flat denial of the word of God. What subtlety was there in this? But if the serpent was able to say: “See, I’m eating it, and no harm comes to me,” there would be real cogency and persuasiveness.

 

d. “Ye shall be as Elohim” is now seen to be an argument of considerable power, as who should say: ‘I am only a beast of the field over whom you were given power, but eating of this fruit enables me to talk and puts me on level terms with yourself. So if you eat of it, will not you likewise be upgraded to be equal to the angels of God?’

 

e. “the woman saw that the tree was good for food.” How did she see this? The attractive appearance of the fruit would hardly prove this. There are plenty of berries and fruits which are a delight to the eye but which are definitely harmful as food. But seeing the serpent eat of the fruit would be demonstration enough.

 

f. The curse on the serpent now takes on a special fitness: “Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat” - an eloquent contrast with climbing the tree of knowledge and eating its fruit.

 

g. Paul evidently read his Genesis 3 in this way, for in the middle of a series of comparisons between false teachers and the serpent comes this censure: “They that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly” (Rom. 16:18). This can hardly be an allusion to the curse on the serpent, but it is very appropriate to its self-indulgence.

[Resource Manager]

The serpent’s gambit: “Yea, hath God said ...?” was not really a gambit, for its very first word (a word always charged with emotion) implies that this is the summary of an earlier discussion. Nor does the Hebrew sentence carry the usual mark of interrogation. It seems likely, then, that it should read as a sardonic sceptical affirmative: ‘So, God has said, has he, Ye shall not eat ...’.

 

The spirit of the argument was bad from the start. It began, as all false Christianity does, by casting doubt on the veracity of the Word of God (cp. 2 Pet. 2:1; Acts 20:30,32) and by assuming the right of the creature to question what God has said or done. LXX pointedly suggests this: “Wherefore hath God said ...?”

 

And the sudden switch from “Lord God” to “God” may well have implied: ‘It is only an angel who has said this to you, and not the Almighty himself!’

 

There is some ambiguity about the serpent’s quotation of the divine prohibition: “Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.” This might hint at some unfairness or over-strictness on God’s part. But the alternative (as RV, or RSV): “ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden” accuses the Almighty of downright injustice: ‘The garden’s yours, isn’t it? Why can’t you enjoy what is your own?’ The serpent was proclaiming what men have believed ever since, that the earth is not the Lord’s, nor the fulness thereof.

 

Allusions in the rest of Scripture back to the serpent in Eden are amazingly numerous - no, not amazingly, they are to be expected. But what is specially impressive is that in so many places the purpose of the reference is to expose the evil intentions of the nefarious Judaistic schemers who came into the early ecclesia with the specific intention of wrecking the entire new movement from within (on this, see “The Jewish Plot”, in “Acts of the Apostles” by H.A.W.).

 

1. “but I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3; see also v.4,13-15,22). And the same sort of language was evidently being used by these evil men against Paul himself (12:16).

 

2. “But we have spoken out against the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully (as did the serpent)” (2 Cor. 4:2).

 

3. “For when they speak great swelling words of vanity they allure through the lusts of the flesh ... While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption” (2 Pet. 2:18,19).

 

4. “And then shall that Wicked One be revealed ... whose coming is after the working of Satan ... with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that are perishing; because they received not the love of the truth (the promise about the Seed of the woman), that they might be saved ... strong delusion that they should believe a lie ...” (2 Th. 2:8-11), a passage which makes much more sense when given a Judaistic rather than a papal reference).

 

5. It is about these Judaists that Paul quotes Psalm 140:3: “adders’ poison is under their lips” (Rom. 3:13; see v.8).

 

6. “... for the edifying (Gen. 2:22 mg) of the body of Christ: till we all come ... unto a perfect man ... that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men. and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie wait to deceive: but speaking the truth in love ...” (Eph. 4:12-15, and v.16?).

 

7. “Put off... the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts ... put on the new man which after God (Gen. 1:26) is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another ... neither give place to the devil (Eph. 4:22-27).

 

8. Paul’s indignant apostrophe to Elymas the sorcerer: “O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil (seed of the serpent), wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?” (Acts 13:10).

 

Passages such as these (and the longer catalogue listed below against verse 15), trenchant in themselves, acquire yet added force when the allusions back to Genesis are perceived.

[Resource Manager]

3:2,3 “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

 

It is noteworthy that in these six verses the woman was alone. Away from her husband she was the more susceptible to temptation (cp. the spirit of Mt. 5:32: “causeth her to commit adultery”).

 

Clearly, by “the tree which is in the midst of the garden” Eve meant the tree of knowledge. But why no mention, either in the way of permission or prohibition, of the tree of life? Was this because at this time it had as yet borne no fruit? (see on 2:17).

 

It has often been said, with but little justification, that in her words: “neither shall ye touch it,” Eve was unwarrantably adding to the word of God. This is surely an unfair judgement, for the emphasis of many a scripture is on the wisdom of keeping as far away from temptation as possible (Pr. 4:15; Ps. 1:1; Mt. 6:13; Mk. 9:43). It is much more likely that the original prohibition (2:17) included this additional warning. Certainly it is to Eve’s credit that she answered the serpent with plural pronouns, thus expressing her sense of unity with her husband. At this moment she was unwilling to act without his collaboration.

[Resource Manager]

3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

 

Now was the moment when the serpent should have been excluded from the garden, and - had Adam been present - it very probably would have been.

 

In “Paradise Lost” Milton neatly suggests that the serpent was insinuating the doctrine of the immortality of the soul:

 

“So shall ye die perhaps, by putting off.

Human to put on Gods - death to be wished.”

 

Kidner makes the curt observation: “The first doctrine to be denied is judgement.”

[Resource Manager]

3:5 “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

 

At Taanach in Israel there has been found an ancient altar which shows in relief a serpent and what is probably the tree of knowledge.

 

From the plural pronouns it is possible to infer that part of the temptation was that Eve could count on being joined in the transgression by her husband: “Ye shall be as Elohim ...”

 

The serpent’s lie made God into the deceiver - just as the false prophets represented Jeremiah as being a false prophet (20:7,8), and Jesus was called Baal-zebub (Mt. 12:24), and Paul was said to catch his converts by craft and guile (2 Cor. 12:16).

 

There might also be the implication that ‘God knows you can be His equal, but He wants to exclude you from this which is yours by right! Compare growing children asserting themselves against their parents and turning a blind eye to the permanent validity of the Fifth Commandment.

 

“Eyes opened”! This indeed happened, in one sense; but in another sense there came a blindness which turned out to be a family characteristic only to be cured by personal contact with Christ (Is. 61:1, where RV is certainly correct; Lk. 4:18), which blindness will be finally taken away in Messiah’s Kingdom (Is. 35:5).

 

Another part of the deceit may have been: ‘Angels eat of the fruit of that tree (v.22), then why should not you’ - “ye shall be as Elohim knowing good and evil” (reference to angels, and not to the Almighty, is required by the plural form of “knowing”; the rabbis also interpret in this way).

 

In 1 Timothy, following an explicit reference to the Fall in Eden (2:12-15), Paul continues to write with his eye on the temptation of Eve: among the qualifications of an elder, he requires that he be ‘not a novice (cp. the innocence of Eve), lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil (the censure incurred by the serpent: Gen. 3:14). Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil (the serpent’s trap)” (1 Tim. 3:6,7 - and note “double-tongued” in v.8).

 

In Philippians 2 there is a sustained contrast between the temptation and fall in Eden and the complete conquest of temptation by Jesus: “... who, being originally in the form of God (‘let us make man in our image’), thought it not a thing to be grasped after (as Eve and Adam took the forbidden fruit) to be equal with God (‘ye shall be as gods’). But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men (this is Gen. 5:3) ... and became obedient (not disobedient, as Adam) unto death (Gen. 2:17), even the death of the cross (contrast the tree of life)” (Phil. 2:6-8; there are several other allusions in the context).

[Resource Manager]

3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

 

In every man the power of the eyes (and through the eyes the imagination) to excite evil desires surpasses their owner’s sense of awareness and (usually) powers of self-discipline. “When I saw ... then I coveted ...,” confessed Achan at Jericho; “and they raised over him a great heap of stones” (Josh. 7:21,26). By contrast, Moses looked away from the allurement of treasure and power in Egypt, “for he had respect (LXX s.w. 3:6) unto the recompense of the reward” (Heb. 11:26).

 

The serpent doubtless commended craftily the woman’s “lust of the flesh, and lust of the eyes, and pride of life” (1 Jn. 2:16). But it was only when personal inclination chimed in with the external incitement from the serpent that Eve’s downfall began. Temptation is no temptation until there resonates an answering chord in the mind of the individual. And when that happens, as with Eve, the battle usually becomes a rout.

 

It is noteworthy that there was many another tree that was “pleasant to the eyes” (2:9), but this was the only one that was pleasant to the eyes and forbidden, which made it all the more alluring.

 

“She saw ... she took ... she ate” - these are verbs of ruin. The separate stages are well-marked in the narrative. Even when the fruit was in her hand Eve need not have eaten; but already it was much harder to say “No.”

 

These words are also verbs of salvation, for Jesus says: “Take ... eat.” Jn. 6:50-54 points a mighty contrast. There may be a Biblical link between eating and sin (e.g. Mt. 4:3), but there is a much more emphatic link between eating and resurrection life: Lk. 24:41-43; Mk. 5:43; Jn. 12:1,2; Acts 1:4; 10:41; Mt. 26:29; Lk. 22:15; Rev. 3:20; 19:9; 2:7.

 

It cannot be assumed that Adam was present at the time of the temptation, for in that case his failure to exclude the serpent from the garden, as soon as that beast said: “Yea, hath God said ...,” would have constituted an earlier sin than the eating of the fruit - for was he not put in the garden to “keep” it?

 

But as soon as he was “with her” his temptation began and was far stronger than hers. “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife” (v.17) certainly suggests that Adam needed some persuading.

 

The apostolic comments on this disobedience in Eden are in a different vein and of a different quality from those of the rabbis who say that Eve reasoned: “If I am to die, let my husband die also, that he take not another wife.” They also infer, quite foolishly, that Eve also gave the forbidden fruit to all the living creatures in the garden so that death came on them also! (see note on 2:17).

 

Now contrast Paul:

 

“I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man (or, possibly, over her husband; Gk, anēr) ... For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Tim. 2:12-14).

 

It is implied here that there was some excuse for Eve because she faced a barrage of deceit from the serpent, but Adam sinned with his eyes wide open - ‘he was not deceived’, but knew precisely what he was doing and what the consequences would be. It follows, then, that in sharing the forbidden fruit with Eve he was making a deliberate choice, preferring to be with his wife, even in condemnation, rather than with his Maker in purity.

 

This explains why New Testament emphasis makes Adam, and not Eve, the first sinner: “As by one man sin entered into the world ... by one man’s offence death reigned ... by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Rom. 5:12,17,18) “by man came death ... as in Adam all die (1 Cor. 15:21,22).

 

Even so, it is a legacy and lesson of Eden that a man must be prepared to “hate his wife” (Lk. 14:26) as well as others close to him. “If the wife of thy bosom ... entice thee” (Dt. 13:6) is a very pointed warning in the Law of Moses.

[Resource Manager]

3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

 

The serpent had promised enlightenment (v.5), and in this he spoke truth - and yet was a deceiver, for their eyes were opened not to a wonderful new world of knowledge such as angels shared, but to a shattering self-knowledge of their own degradation.

 

How different in Christ! His cross was a tree of death which has yet become a gracious means of opening the eyes, not only to guilt and subjection to a curse, but also to divine truth about an undeserved salvation. At Emmaus another man and wife ate, and their eyes were opened (Lk. 24:31,35), but for them it was an incomparable blessing. And so also for all in Christ who have “the eyes of their understanding enlightened ... in the knowledge of him” (Eph. 1:17,18).

 

Adam and Eve “knew that they were naked.” But of course this was already familiar knowledge, Nor can it be assumed that the eating of the forbidden fruit brought sexual instincts to life, for already it had been said to them in blessing: “Be fruitful and multiply.”

 

But the fact that their immediate reaction was to cover their nakedness does suggest an intensification of sexual inclinations (as v.10,16 seem to imply). Is there justification, though, for putting together three verses in this order?: “And Eve gave unto her husband, and he did eat with her (3:6; sic!). And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived (4:1). And the eyes of them were both opened, and they knew that they were naked (3:7)” (Elpis Israel, p.93).

 

It would seem that the ecclesia at Laodicea was in even worse plight than Adam and Eve: “Thou knowest not that thou art ... blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17). Yet, such is the grace of Christ, there is here no expulsion, but only a grim warning and exhortation to repentance.

 

It has been well observed that the fig-leaf garments were an eloquent figure of the sinners who wore them - fine and glossy, but nevertheless death had set in because they were severed from the source of their life; soon they would be withered and dead. Contrast the character and power of the leaves of the tree of life: Rev. 22:2.

 

From another angle there is further point in this symbolism. In not a few places in the Bible the fig tree is a clearly recognizable figure of Jewry, especially in its attitude to justification by works (hence the peremptory instruction to Zaccheus to come down out of his fig tree; Lk. 19:5). Thus, from the first, men have sought to make themselves presentable in the sight of Almighty God, either through claiming merit by descent from Abraham (Jn. 8:33), or through their own acts of righteousness. And to this day they are unwilling to learn that they can be adequately clothed before God by accepting the garment He provides (3:21).

 

It is not easy to see why (from a practical angle) fig leaves should have been selected for the fashioning of garments. Would not banana leaves or some such have been of more practical value? It has been speculated that the choice was dictated by the fact (?) that the tree of knowledge was a fig tree, but there is no hint of evidence for this.

 

It stands as a permanent acknowledgement of human sin that all the priests of Israel were girt with girdles (Lev. 8:13; s.w. Gen. 3:7 aprons). But the high priest had also a heavenly girdle (Lev. 8:7), and Messiah is described as equipped with two girdles, thus being identified as Priest as well as King (Is. 11:5).

 

So also those in Christ, in their warfare against “the spiritual ones of wickedness”, are enabled to stand, having “loins girt about with truth (and not the lie of the serpent) and also having on the breastplate of righteousness (and with it the curious girdle of the ephod)” (Eph. 6:12-14).

 

But those who would follow a man-made religion of self-contrived works find that “their iniquities have separated between them and their God, and their sins have hid his face from them ... their hands are defiled with blood (which does not atone) ... their lips have spoken lies ... they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice eggs (begetting a serpent seed) ... Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works” (Is. 59:2ff).

 

Was it perhaps a sense of shame which made Peter gird his fisher’s coat about him before going to Jesus, not just because he was naked but because of a feeling of guilt in having gone back to his fishing (a futile fishing) when his Master had called him to be a shepherd (Jn. 21:3,7,15)?

[Resource Manager]

3:8 “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

 

Here most commentators read “the sound of the Lord God,” but this is not the normal meaning of the Hebrew word. It is probably better to read “Voice” as meaning the angelic spokesman of the Almighty. And, in view of the concatenation in Revelation 12 of Woman, Seed, Angel and Serpent, it is tempting to identify the Voice as the archangel Michael.

 

The word for “the cool of the day” is really “wind” or “Spirit.” There is no lack of examples of God manifesting Himself in the roar of a whirlwind (Job 38:1; Ps. 29; Is. 30:30,31), and who shall say that such manifestation was inappropriate to present circumstances?

 

Adam and Eve may have been given tenancy of the garden; but it was God’s garden, and if that tenancy had been abused was it not right that by some means the Owner should give a first indirect intimation of impending notice to quit?

 

In later days Israel was reminded that “the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp ... therefore shall thy camp be holy: that He see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee” (Dt. 23:14). So also in Eden. “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid, that shall not be known” (Lk. 12:2).

 

The text reads literally: “And Adam hid himself and his wife from the face of the Lord God in the tree of the garden.” Here, “tree” may be used in the collective sense (a usage common enough in the Old Testament), or it may be that one specific tree - the tree of life? a fig tree? the tree of knowledge? - is intended.

 

In any case, here was recognition that fig leaves could not hide a bad conscience from the scrutiny of God, could not even hide the shame of nakedness from Him who can “bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (1 Cor. 4:5). The only way in which these sinners could save their souls from death and hide a multitude of sins was by being converted from the error of their way (Jas. 5:20). By and by that conversion would come. But at present there was only the horror of heaven’s disapprobation.

 

What a contrast between these sinners hiding from the Lord God, amidst the trees of the garden, and Jesus sought by his enemies in another garden. He stood forth, asking: “Whom seek ye?” and it was they who went backward and fell to the ground (Jn. 18:1,4,6). Thus began the reversal of the Fall, the restoring of paradise. And when that purpose in Christ comes to its climax, sinners who have arrogantly assumed that God’s world belongs to them will “hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains” in a day when “the fig tree is shaken of a mighty wind” (Rev. 6:13,15).

[Resource Manager]

3:9 “And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?”

 

With this first question in the Old Testament contrast the first in the New Testament: “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?” (Mt. 2:2).

 

It is Adam who is addressed. He is the real sinner (see again 1 Tim. 2:14). And suppose he had given a more direct answer, what would it have been?: “I am skulking amongst the trees, for - being a naked sinner - I fear Thy Glory.”

 

Of course the angel knew where Adam was. Then why trouble to ask? First, to bring home to Adam where he was, and why. And, more importantly, to lead him on to honest and open confession of his sin, so that the way to forgiveness might be opened, for until a man is honest about himself, the remission of sins is a plain impossibility.

 

Consider David after his sin regarding Bathsheba and Uriah: “When I kept silence (concerning my sin; v.1,2), my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer” (Ps. 32:3,4).

 

But now note the dramatic change: “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord: and (the immediate consequence!) thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (v.5; cp. 2 Sam. 12:9,13).

 

So also with the Prodigal. When he “came to himself” and made resolve to go home and confess his folly and his sin, all was immediately right. The wonderful welcome given him choked in his throat the intended petition: “Make me as one of thy hired servants.” There is only one status for a confessed repentant sinner - that of being a son, brought home with a gladness too intense for words.

 

This was why the sinner was asked: “Where art thou? ... Hast thou eaten ...?... What is this that thou hast done?”

 

And Jesus learned it also from his Father: “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” (Mt. 26:50) is only one example out of many. When the Son of God wished to rebuke and to lead to repentance, he asked a question. It makes an impressive and humiliating exercise in the study of the gospels to search out the many instances in which Jesus probed a man’s conscience (or his blind ignorance) by asking a question.

[Resource Manager]

3:10 “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked: and I hid myself.

 

This is the first mention of fear, and the explanation given was an evasion, Adam’s euphemism for “because I know myself to be a sinner.” Only a little while before, they were both naked and were not ashamed (2:25). The fact that shame was now their natural condition shows that their nature had been vitiated (this was one of Peter Watkins’ insights). From now on “nakedness” (except in the sense of destitution) is a close associate of “shame” (Ex. 32:25; Jn. 19:23; Heb. 12:2).

 

Adam’s past tense: “I hid myself,” when a present continuous: “I am hiding,” might well be expected, indicates that he had already come out into the full light of day, the full light of God. It was his first step towards redemption: “If we walk in the light ... the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1:7).

 

But why no mention of Eve: If indeed Adam was looking for an opportunity to unload the blame (as v.12 is so often explained), why did he wait until then, instead of grasping at the opportunity immediately? It rather looks as though he meant to cover up Eve’s guilt if he could (and v.12 strongly supports this).

[Resource Manager]

3:11 “And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?”

 

The divine interrogation explores the only two possibilities. Either Adam is now over-conscious of his nakedness because this and its meaning has been emphasized to him by an angel, or he has flouted the commandment and eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The important issue here is: Is there enough honesty in the man to make confession? or will he try to hide behind a lie?

 

The question saved up its crucially important word to the end: “From the tree which I commanded thee not to eat of, hast thou eaten?” Adam’s answer, betraying consciousness of his nakedness, had already given him away.

[Resource Manager]

3:12 “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”

 

Adam’s words here are almost universally read as an attempt to unload the blame on to his wife, “a retreat into verbal hiding,” implying either:

 

‘It’s her fault, she took the fruit first, and then egged me on;’ or:

 

‘The fault is really yours. You made me, and it is You who gave me such a wife as this.’ (This latter is a philosophy wondrous popular in our discerning 20th century: Why should we be held accountable, since we are only what we are?)

 

Both ways of reading Adam’s apologia are hopelessly wrong, for two reasons:

 

a. If either excuse had been intended, is it conceivable that Adam would have been forgiven (as he certainly was; see comment on v.21)?

 

b. Paul’s comment in 1 Tim. 2:14 is irrefutable: “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”

 

Thus the reader is shut up to the only alternative reading, which is much more logical and satisfying anyway: Did You not appoint (the Hebrew for “gave” often has this idiomatic meaning: e.g. 1:29; 9:13; 41:41; 48:22) that we two should be one (Adam was as good as quoting God’s words back at Him: “cleave to his wife, they shall be one flesh”); then since my wife is involved in this transgression, must I not join her in it?

 

Seen in this light Adam’s sin, done quite deliberately (“not deceived”), expressed his preference for being involved in sin along with his wife rather than continuing in innocent and rewarding fellowship with his Maker. What is this but the very mistake, the identical bad choice, which many another man has made since then and which to the present day continues to provoke heartache and to besmirch many an ecclesial Eden.

 

Paul is most insistent that his readers discern a close parallel between the first Adam and his counterpart, Christ, in the New Creation:

 

“As by the offence of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift (forgiveness) came upon all men (in the New Creation) unto justification of life.”

 

“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom. 5:18,19).

 

“The first Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45).

 

“For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:30-32).

 

In phrase after phrase the parallel between Adam and Christ is underlined in Phil. 2:5ff. Whoever reads this passage without allowing his mind to dart backwards and forwards between Adam and Christ misses much of the force of the words:

 

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being originally in the form of God, thought it not a thing to be grasped (as Adam did the forbidden fruit) to be equal with God: but ... he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (the tree of death). Wherefore God also hath ... given him the Name which is above every name (‘ye shall be as Elohim’)... Jesus Christ is LORD”.

 

Fuller details at the end of this chapter.

[Resource Manager]

3:13 “And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”

 

The divine interrogation could refer to the eating of the forbidden fruit or to her persuading of Adam to join her in the transgression. Eve evidently understood the first of these.

 

There was no camouflage about her answer. What she stated was simple fact. The serpent had acted evilly; and, deceived, she ate. There was no attempt at excuse.

 

This beguiling (did Eve coin the word?) by the serpent is referred to very pungently in a number of places in the New Testament. These will be brought together in the notes on v.14,15.

[Resource Manager]

3:14 “And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:”

 

The serpent went unquestioned. Apparently it was not regarded as a responsible creature, as Adam and Eve certainly were. And yet (v.14) it is cursed, primarily - it would seem - as an object lesson to the entire human family. Doth God take thought for serpents? When men come under the judgement of God, the lower creatures share in that judgement, as at the Flood (Gen. 6:5-7) and the destruction of the Gadarene swine (Mt. 8:31,32); cp. also Lev. 20:15.

 

There is ambiguity here in the Hebrew text. AV seems to be right in taking it as a commonplace comparative: “more than all cattle,” but RVm (nearly always dependable) follows LXX in reading “from among.”

 

This could imply that until the curse the serpent was one of the animals most useful to man - “cattle” suggests this - and the added punishment: “upon thy belly shalt thou go,” would then indicate that originally the serpent was a creature with legs.

 

However the New Testament does not concern itself with these physical details but uses the same word “cursed” with reference to “every one that hangeth on a tree” (Gal. 3:13), a scripture which inevitably links with the Son of man crucified, “as Moses lifted up (on a tree) the serpent in the wilderness” (Jn. 3:14).

 

“Dust shalt thou eat” is a puzzling phrase. Some commentators rather pathetically cite “ancient belief” that snakes actually eat dust. Was homo sapiens ever as silly and unobservant as that? And, anyway, these were God’s words. The expression, like the next verse about the serpent, is surely figurative, as meaning that all the pleasures of sin were to be like eating fruit which turns to dust in the mouth (cp. Dt. 32:32), or that sin would feed on men made dust of the ground.

 

This latter sense opens up possibilities regarding the familiar words in Is. 65:25 - in the Messianic kingdom “dust shall be the serpent’s meat.” This, usually taken (rather vaguely) to mean that then there will be a great abhorring of all sin, may on the other hand mean that the fruits of sin in human life will be more manifest than they have ever been: “The sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed (like the serpent);” v.20.

 

Another prophecy of Messiah’s coming has this: “They (the godless nations) shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the Lord our God.” (Mic. 7:17). It is the final repudiation of human sin.

 

In the trial of the bitter waters there is made a close association between the unfaithful woman and the dust of the floor of the tabernacle (Num. 5:17). A connection with Genesis 3 may be intended, but is not very clear.

 

Much more definite and luminous is Paul’s phraseology in Ephesians 6:

 

“Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them (Is this another hint that the serpent ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge?) ... for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame ...” (v.6-12).

 

“We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully: but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are perishing: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:2-4).

[Resource Manager]

3:15 “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

 

For centuries this verse has been called the Protevangelium, the first announcement of the gospel. It isn’t the first, really, for - as has been indicated, in a number of places - various parts of chapters 1,2 are interpreted in the New Testament with reference to the New Creation in Christ. But as a pithy symbolic summary of the Atonement, Genesis 3:15 is in a class to itself.

 

Even the Jewish Targums interpet this passage as a prophecy of the Messiah; and LXX seems to imply the same idea also. But how remarkable that the first promise of a Redeemer should be made to the serpent, and not to the sinners! Does Ezekiel 36:22 explain?: “I do this not for your sakes ... but for mine holy name’s sake.”

 

How appropriate it is that as the serpent used the woman against the man, so God purposed to use the woman against the serpent. In the same way, so Wordsworth observes, the sea which, Pharaoh thought, had trapped escaping Israel destroyed his army instead. And Goliath, the invincible adversary, was beheaded with his own sword.

 

Roman Catholic versions of this verse read: “she shall bruise thy head,” and reference to the Virgin Mary is claimed. This is hopelessly wrong, for in the Hebrew text both verb and pronoun are masculine.

 

Somewhat remarkably, Dr. Thomas interprets the crushing of the head of the serpent as meaning the destruction of the great Gogian invasion in the Last Days (Exp. Dan. p.83; and cp. Eureka 3.59).

 

Doubts have been raised as to whether the reading “bruise” is correct, for neither of the other occurrences of this Hebrew word (Job 9:17, Ps. 139:11 only) very pointedly support AV here. However, as will be shown by and by, Paul (in Rom. 16:20) quite definitely understood the passage to mean “bruise.”

 

The distinction between a blow in the head and a blow in the heel is readily perceived. The latter means at worst partial or temporary disablement, whereas the former is a death wound. The Redeemer, the Seed of the woman, was to suffer to a limited extent in his conflict with the power of Sin, but in the process he was to win an outright victory. It is, of course, a picture of a man stamping on the serpent’s head to crush its life, and in the very act of so doing he is stung by the Enemy in the heel.

 

In the middle of this century there was found at Jerusalem a first-century grave of a man who had been crucified, and from his remains it was possible to infer that he had been fastened to his cross by a large nail through the Achilles tendon of both feet. So it seems likely that the death of Christ also involved a literal bruising of the heel.

 

Commentators have strangely neglected to note the dislocation of the balance of phrases in this important verse. After “enmity between thee (the serpent) and the woman, and between thy seed (the serpent’s seed) and her Seed,” one would naturally expect: “It (the Seed of the woman) shall bruise thy seed’s head;” but instead the text has: “He shall bruise thy head,” that is, the promised Saviour was to destroy not merely the seed of the serpent but the Edenic serpent itself. Thus there is foreshadowed here a profound and utterly necessary element of redemption - that the merits of Christ’s sacrifice are retrospective as well as prospective - right back through the old dispensation to Eden itself men of faith had forgiveness of their sins through the blood of Christ. Faith in the Redeemer shown by Daniel and David and Moses and Abraham and Noah and Adam and Eve was the means of their salvation. There is salvation no other way: “No man cometh unto the Father but by me” (Jn. 14:6).

[Resource Manager]

Three highly important New Testament passages emphasize this retrospective power of Christ’s sacrifice:

 

1. “... the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiatory sacrifice (through faith in his blood), to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God ...” (Rom. 3:24,25).

 

2. “For this cause he (Christ) is the mediator of the New Covenant, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they which have been already called (Greek perfect tense) might receive the promise, i.e. eternal inheritance (genitive of apposition here)” (Heb. 9:15).

 

3. When Christ died on the cross, “the graves were opened (then!), and after his resurrection many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves, and went into the holy city ...” (Mt. 27:52,53). These recognized saints were probably disciples of the Lord who had died during his ministry believing in him. But, whoever they were, their resurrection then was an earnest of what the death and resurrection of Christ could achieve for faithful men who died before him and believing in him.

 

The same idea is implicit in the white robes given to the “souls under the altar” in the Fifth Seal (Rev. 6:9-11). This is expounded in full detail in “Revelation: a Biblical approach,” chapter 13.