-7-
The First Family
Genesis 3:20 – 4:1
Living under the Curse
Previously:
God called to Adam … called him (them) into account for their actions and then explained to them the far reaching consequences of their disobedience.
Their sin did not only bring immediate results, but God actually pronounced a curse upon the earth. The curse was a punishment.
The first death was that of an animal (or two) from which God removed the hides to make clothes to cover Adam's and Eve's nakedness.
This death was in place of God's killing them instantly for their sin. Repentance on their part, together with their accepting the fact that an innocent life had been taken as a substitute for their immediate death, brought them reconciliation with God.
But it did not reverse the curse. However, personal salvation was provided for them and their descendants. Consider these references;
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
1Pe 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
20 He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world,
The earth was cursed by God … will it ever be delivered from this fallen state? Yes, according to Romans 8:20 – 23. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
The earth will one day be delivered. We, ourselves, will be delivered from these sinful and dying bodies.
When? It might be nice to know when. But all we are given are statements like: When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."Luke 21:28
In the meanwhile we live in these earthly tabernacles (tents) waiting for our permanent 'buildings', our new bodies.
Genesis 3:20 ¶ And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
21 ¶ Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.
22 ¶ Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” —
23 therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground.
- In verse 20 we have an interesting action on Adam's part. He called his wife's name, Eve. Up to this point I am not sure how he addressed her. He had called her woman 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." (Genesis 2:23) But now he names her Eve. This comes after the encounter with God, after God discovered them hiding, after the devastating curses that God had to pronounce upon him and mankind. After all of that, Adam names his wife Eve.
This is a statement of faith. She will be called the mother of all living. Adam (and Eve) had just heard God say something about the pain of childbirth. Had they seen any live births at all up to this point? With the exception, perhaps, of rabbits … not likely.
The statement of faith is simply this: Adam believed God. God said children would be born … as yet they had no idea exactly what this meant … but they believed God. That is what biblical faith is – taking God at His word.
Before the 'fall' they believed God about the garden and concerning the warning … Do not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The day you eat of it, you will die. They believed God.
Then the serpent showed up … he said some things contrary to what God had said. He accused God of having an ulterior motive. He said … man would become like God … knowing both good and evil. And he accused God of lying … You will NOT surely die.
Eve (and perhaps Adam) believed the serpent. This means, at that point, they no longer believed God.
That was the sin that led to their death. You might say, Wait a minute, it was the sin of disobedience! Yes, but before the sin of disobedience was the sin of not believing God … not believing God's words.
So now that we read that Adam names his wife Eve …. the mother of all future descendants … he again is believing God. This is the first mention of a sinful human being, believing God. This is salvation.
Again you may want to say, Wait a minute! We had to believe a whole lot more than that to be saved … how could they be saved knowing so little about the details of salvation?
The answer to that is quite straightforward. The truth of God, His plan of salvation, His requirements of man … have been an unfolding revelation of information over time. We live in a time with the complete revealed word of God in scripture. Regarding past times God has said, In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. Acts 17:30
Even the era during which the Jews were instructed regarding bringing sacrifices to the tabernacle and having the priests offer them on the altar, their understanding of salvation the way we know it was very fuzzy.
But here is what we can say: In every age, the faith that pleases God, is believing God, it is believing in the word of God that they had available to them at the time.
Always remember this simple yet profound verse: Heb 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
So Adam believed God. When Abraham believed God it was counted to him for righteousness. I believe this was the case for Adam and Eve as well.
Verse 22 states– “They will be like us, knowing good and evil”, with this difference – God knows evil by his 'omniscience'. Adam and Eve know sin by experience. God has never experienced sin. Well, that is not entirely true … God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2Corinthians 5:21. For Jesus to take our sins onto Himself must have been a horrendous feeling for Him. At the cross it was the very first time that almighty God had sin in Himself.
Before we move on to the next verse I want to address a question that some of us may have had … Why did Adam partake of that fruit … knowing full well what Eve had done?
I take the position that he did it out of love. We experience love in various degrees. Love can grow so strong that we risk our lives for a person. And the love we experience is that which is common to humans who have a fallen, sinful nature. Adam did not have that nature yet. He loved her with all of his heart. He made a decision to die with her.
Someone pointed out to me that Adam could not really have loved her all that much …after all, look how quickly he shifted blame onto her and onto God … “The woman that You gave me, she made me do it”. But remember he did that 'blame shifting' after he had a fallen and sinful nature.
I wonder how shocked he was over the words coming out of his own mouth.
God said, the result of the sin nature would now be this: Eve, you will desire to 'get the best' of your husband, and his nature will now be to rule over you. Both of these are the result of a fallen, sinful nature.
The sequence goes something like this: Adam had no sin nature at all. Next Adam had only a sin nature. And finally Adam had both a sin nature and a spiritual, God – given nature, together at the same time.
What is the nature of our 'spiritual' inner person after salvation?
1John 5:18 ¶ We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.
1 John 3:9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
John says that a born again person CANNOT sin. How is this true? John is referring to that part of a person that is born again. That is not our body. And that is not our 'old nature'.
The new birth has to do with a part of us that died … and needs to come back to life. That part of us is called the spirit.
The death that occurred when Adam sinned affected the entire person. His body began to experience death, one cell at a time. His soul or mind (his nature) experienced a change and began to think in terms of carnal tendencies, such as selfishness, self protection, with all kinds of other sinful potential nearby. His spirit experienced a separation from God, which is the definition of a spiritual death.
A reversal of the sequence looks like this: The spirit comes to life instantly (is connected to God) when the soul turns to God in faith. No longer is it a separated spirit, but it is now connected to God. The soul then begins the progressive work of separation from the things of this world. Paul calls them the basic principles of this world. The body will be saved eventually, … instantly at the coming of Christ … or at the resurrection from the dead. It is the spirit that cannot sin.
It is the spirit that, once connected to God, has the 'God nature' that cannot sin and does not want our soul to sin.
Verse 22 b The tree of Life. It is interesting to see God's action regarding the tree of Life. “lest he (Adam and/or Eve) put out his hand and take also of the tree of life; and eat, and live forever ---”
Some questions: Had Adam, prior to the creation of Eve, eaten from this tree? Had the two of them eaten of this tree? Is it implied that eating of this tree is a 'one-time thing'? Why is this tree going to be in heaven?
We cannot speak where the Bible is silent. Genesis does not say that Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of life. It does not imply that some kind of a latent death was within their perfect bodies that would have killed them, had they not eaten from the Tree of Life.
The Bible does not imply that their long lives indicate that they had been eating from the tree and that is why it took so long for them to die.
The bible does not imply that animals did not eat from the tree of life and therefore animal death was evident before the 'fall' and was not part of the 'fall'.
The Bible states that God created mankind with the capacity to eat and digest food but does not say they would have died if they stopped eating normal food.
Genesis 3:22 does not say, Lest they continue to eat of the tree of life … so I must take the position that they had not yet eaten of that tree. Or that they had eaten of the tree, in a perfect state of already having eternal life, and the eating of the fruit of the tree of life was not … in order to have eternal life (they already had it) but was for some other pleasure or purpose, as the tree of Life in heaven is for the health of the nations.
They, when they sinned … lost eternal life, regardless of having eaten of the tree of life (if they had). But I still tend to think that they had never eaten from the tree to begin with.
Regardless, we cannot be dogmatic about this.
God removed the guilty pair from the garden and stopped them from re-entering. Why? For one, because the tree of life was there. But for another reason, God said that part of the punishment for their crime was to earn their living by the sweat of their face. The garden was a beautiful place where living was easy. Outside it was not a garden. And outside it was also a place that now tended to produce thorns and thistles. They were banished to a place that would require work just to stay alive.
God placed cherubim there, with a flaming sword, to make sure they would not re-enter. For how long did these guards stay in place? Again, we are not told.
The options are … until nature, now cursed, took over and destroyed the garden … or until the flood in Noah's day came and destroyed the garden.
Was the Tree of Life removed and transplanted in heaven? I don't think so. I think it was allowed to either die a natural death or it was destroyed in the flood. But that is just my opinion.
Chapter 4:1. Adam 'knew' his wife.
1 ¶ Now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the LORD.”
I want to offer a few more thoughts about the changes in mankind's nature after the fall. In their perfect estate they did not see each other as naked. Would they have had relations with each other? Does it take 'seeing each other naked' in order to even want to have relations?
After the fall, Adam's fallen nature was selfish. He blamed his wife for the sin. This is self preservation. All aspects of the fallen nature would now be natural for him. Lust is part of the fallen nature.
Someone has written in a book promoting a loving healthy relationship for Christian couples, that it is normal for a husband to 'lust' after his wife. I don't agree. It may be ‘normal’ but it is not ‘spiritual’ or godly.
In the perfect state of creation Adam and Eve were told to multiply and populate the earth. They were to come together … unselfishly (Selfishness is a sin).
Does this mean that marital relations would be some kind of a 'duty'? Not at all. Just like they could eat for their enjoyment … but eating was not essential before the fall … they would come together for marital relations … as they were advised by God, and the experience would be joyful.
Adam loved his wife. Love involves giving. Jesus said that it is 'more blessed to give than to receive.' We have a hard time understanding this.
In our 'fallen nature' we are used to getting, wanting, lusting. In a healthy Christian marriage a husband's joy is to see his wife happy and fulfilled. A wife's joy is to see her husband happy and fulfilled. Their sexual advances toward each other is for the purpose of bringing a joyful experience to their mate. In the process they may, and usually do, end up enjoying what they receive from the other.
We have inherited that 'Adamic' nature. As believers we also have God's nature. In our present time we have the indwelling of the Spirit of God … His law implanted in our hearts, to permit our Godly natures to gain control over us.
We are in a continuous struggle. At times we will be deceived and think that our attitudes are right. But with prayerful thought we may discover otherwise.
In Romans 7 Paul mentions that he does not do the things that he knows full well he should do and that he does things that he knows he should not do. Then he says, We have the victory in Christ.
Romans 7:25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
When all he had was the fallen nature, Adam's attitude toward his wife was not good. The attitude we have toward our spouses when we follow our new nature is mentioned by Paul in First Corinthians;
1Co 7:33-34 But he who is married cares … how he may please his wife. … she who is married cares … how she may please her husband.
Please realize when you follow the 'new' nature that you received when you trusted Christ as your Savior, you will be going against the grain of the world. All of the advice that the world can offer is based on the fact that you are not supposed to 'die to yourselves'.
This new family has been through a lot in a short time. Their marriage started out perfect. Then the next thing you know they are shocked by how ugly they can be toward one another. A mediator steps in. Things are better but they will never be the way they were at the beginning. And now they are expecting a child. We will pick up there in the next session.
Previously:
God called to Adam … called him (them) into account for their actions and then explained to them the far reaching consequences of their disobedience.
Their sin did not only bring immediate results, but God actually pronounced a curse upon the earth. The curse was a punishment.
The first death was that of an animal (or two) from which God removed the hides to make clothes to cover Adam's and Eve's nakedness.
This death was in place of God's killing them instantly for their sin. Repentance on their part, together with their accepting the fact that an innocent life had been taken as a substitute for their immediate death, brought them reconciliation with God.
But it did not reverse the curse. However, personal salvation was provided for them and their descendants. Consider these references;
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
1Pe 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
20 He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world,
The earth was cursed by God … will it ever be delivered from this fallen state? Yes, according to Romans 8:20 – 23. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
The earth will one day be delivered. We, ourselves, will be delivered from these sinful and dying bodies.
When? It might be nice to know when. But all we are given are statements like: When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."Luke 21:28
In the meanwhile we live in these earthly tabernacles (tents) waiting for our permanent 'buildings', our new bodies.
Genesis 3:20 ¶ And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
21 ¶ Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.
22 ¶ Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” —
23 therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground.
- In verse 20 we have an interesting action on Adam's part. He called his wife's name, Eve. Up to this point I am not sure how he addressed her. He had called her woman 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." (Genesis 2:23) But now he names her Eve. This comes after the encounter with God, after God discovered them hiding, after the devastating curses that God had to pronounce upon him and mankind. After all of that, Adam names his wife Eve.
This is a statement of faith. She will be called the mother of all living. Adam (and Eve) had just heard God say something about the pain of childbirth. Had they seen any live births at all up to this point? With the exception, perhaps, of rabbits … not likely.
The statement of faith is simply this: Adam believed God. God said children would be born … as yet they had no idea exactly what this meant … but they believed God. That is what biblical faith is – taking God at His word.
Before the 'fall' they believed God about the garden and concerning the warning … Do not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The day you eat of it, you will die. They believed God.
Then the serpent showed up … he said some things contrary to what God had said. He accused God of having an ulterior motive. He said … man would become like God … knowing both good and evil. And he accused God of lying … You will NOT surely die.
Eve (and perhaps Adam) believed the serpent. This means, at that point, they no longer believed God.
That was the sin that led to their death. You might say, Wait a minute, it was the sin of disobedience! Yes, but before the sin of disobedience was the sin of not believing God … not believing God's words.
So now that we read that Adam names his wife Eve …. the mother of all future descendants … he again is believing God. This is the first mention of a sinful human being, believing God. This is salvation.
Again you may want to say, Wait a minute! We had to believe a whole lot more than that to be saved … how could they be saved knowing so little about the details of salvation?
The answer to that is quite straightforward. The truth of God, His plan of salvation, His requirements of man … have been an unfolding revelation of information over time. We live in a time with the complete revealed word of God in scripture. Regarding past times God has said, In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. Acts 17:30
Even the era during which the Jews were instructed regarding bringing sacrifices to the tabernacle and having the priests offer them on the altar, their understanding of salvation the way we know it was very fuzzy.
But here is what we can say: In every age, the faith that pleases God, is believing God, it is believing in the word of God that they had available to them at the time.
Always remember this simple yet profound verse: Heb 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
So Adam believed God. When Abraham believed God it was counted to him for righteousness. I believe this was the case for Adam and Eve as well.
Verse 22 states– “They will be like us, knowing good and evil”, with this difference – God knows evil by his 'omniscience'. Adam and Eve know sin by experience. God has never experienced sin. Well, that is not entirely true … God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2Corinthians 5:21. For Jesus to take our sins onto Himself must have been a horrendous feeling for Him. At the cross it was the very first time that almighty God had sin in Himself.
Before we move on to the next verse I want to address a question that some of us may have had … Why did Adam partake of that fruit … knowing full well what Eve had done?
I take the position that he did it out of love. We experience love in various degrees. Love can grow so strong that we risk our lives for a person. And the love we experience is that which is common to humans who have a fallen, sinful nature. Adam did not have that nature yet. He loved her with all of his heart. He made a decision to die with her.
Someone pointed out to me that Adam could not really have loved her all that much …after all, look how quickly he shifted blame onto her and onto God … “The woman that You gave me, she made me do it”. But remember he did that 'blame shifting' after he had a fallen and sinful nature.
I wonder how shocked he was over the words coming out of his own mouth.
God said, the result of the sin nature would now be this: Eve, you will desire to 'get the best' of your husband, and his nature will now be to rule over you. Both of these are the result of a fallen, sinful nature.
The sequence goes something like this: Adam had no sin nature at all. Next Adam had only a sin nature. And finally Adam had both a sin nature and a spiritual, God – given nature, together at the same time.
What is the nature of our 'spiritual' inner person after salvation?
1John 5:18 ¶ We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.
1 John 3:9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
John says that a born again person CANNOT sin. How is this true? John is referring to that part of a person that is born again. That is not our body. And that is not our 'old nature'.
The new birth has to do with a part of us that died … and needs to come back to life. That part of us is called the spirit.
The death that occurred when Adam sinned affected the entire person. His body began to experience death, one cell at a time. His soul or mind (his nature) experienced a change and began to think in terms of carnal tendencies, such as selfishness, self protection, with all kinds of other sinful potential nearby. His spirit experienced a separation from God, which is the definition of a spiritual death.
A reversal of the sequence looks like this: The spirit comes to life instantly (is connected to God) when the soul turns to God in faith. No longer is it a separated spirit, but it is now connected to God. The soul then begins the progressive work of separation from the things of this world. Paul calls them the basic principles of this world. The body will be saved eventually, … instantly at the coming of Christ … or at the resurrection from the dead. It is the spirit that cannot sin.
It is the spirit that, once connected to God, has the 'God nature' that cannot sin and does not want our soul to sin.
Verse 22 b The tree of Life. It is interesting to see God's action regarding the tree of Life. “lest he (Adam and/or Eve) put out his hand and take also of the tree of life; and eat, and live forever ---”
Some questions: Had Adam, prior to the creation of Eve, eaten from this tree? Had the two of them eaten of this tree? Is it implied that eating of this tree is a 'one-time thing'? Why is this tree going to be in heaven?
We cannot speak where the Bible is silent. Genesis does not say that Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of life. It does not imply that some kind of a latent death was within their perfect bodies that would have killed them, had they not eaten from the Tree of Life.
The Bible does not imply that their long lives indicate that they had been eating from the tree and that is why it took so long for them to die.
The bible does not imply that animals did not eat from the tree of life and therefore animal death was evident before the 'fall' and was not part of the 'fall'.
The Bible states that God created mankind with the capacity to eat and digest food but does not say they would have died if they stopped eating normal food.
Genesis 3:22 does not say, Lest they continue to eat of the tree of life … so I must take the position that they had not yet eaten of that tree. Or that they had eaten of the tree, in a perfect state of already having eternal life, and the eating of the fruit of the tree of life was not … in order to have eternal life (they already had it) but was for some other pleasure or purpose, as the tree of Life in heaven is for the health of the nations.
They, when they sinned … lost eternal life, regardless of having eaten of the tree of life (if they had). But I still tend to think that they had never eaten from the tree to begin with.
Regardless, we cannot be dogmatic about this.
God removed the guilty pair from the garden and stopped them from re-entering. Why? For one, because the tree of life was there. But for another reason, God said that part of the punishment for their crime was to earn their living by the sweat of their face. The garden was a beautiful place where living was easy. Outside it was not a garden. And outside it was also a place that now tended to produce thorns and thistles. They were banished to a place that would require work just to stay alive.
God placed cherubim there, with a flaming sword, to make sure they would not re-enter. For how long did these guards stay in place? Again, we are not told.
The options are … until nature, now cursed, took over and destroyed the garden … or until the flood in Noah's day came and destroyed the garden.
Was the Tree of Life removed and transplanted in heaven? I don't think so. I think it was allowed to either die a natural death or it was destroyed in the flood. But that is just my opinion.
Chapter 4:1. Adam 'knew' his wife.
1 ¶ Now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the LORD.”
I want to offer a few more thoughts about the changes in mankind's nature after the fall. In their perfect estate they did not see each other as naked. Would they have had relations with each other? Does it take 'seeing each other naked' in order to even want to have relations?
After the fall, Adam's fallen nature was selfish. He blamed his wife for the sin. This is self preservation. All aspects of the fallen nature would now be natural for him. Lust is part of the fallen nature.
Someone has written in a book promoting a loving healthy relationship for Christian couples, that it is normal for a husband to 'lust' after his wife. I don't agree. It may be ‘normal’ but it is not ‘spiritual’ or godly.
In the perfect state of creation Adam and Eve were told to multiply and populate the earth. They were to come together … unselfishly (Selfishness is a sin).
Does this mean that marital relations would be some kind of a 'duty'? Not at all. Just like they could eat for their enjoyment … but eating was not essential before the fall … they would come together for marital relations … as they were advised by God, and the experience would be joyful.
Adam loved his wife. Love involves giving. Jesus said that it is 'more blessed to give than to receive.' We have a hard time understanding this.
In our 'fallen nature' we are used to getting, wanting, lusting. In a healthy Christian marriage a husband's joy is to see his wife happy and fulfilled. A wife's joy is to see her husband happy and fulfilled. Their sexual advances toward each other is for the purpose of bringing a joyful experience to their mate. In the process they may, and usually do, end up enjoying what they receive from the other.
We have inherited that 'Adamic' nature. As believers we also have God's nature. In our present time we have the indwelling of the Spirit of God … His law implanted in our hearts, to permit our Godly natures to gain control over us.
We are in a continuous struggle. At times we will be deceived and think that our attitudes are right. But with prayerful thought we may discover otherwise.
In Romans 7 Paul mentions that he does not do the things that he knows full well he should do and that he does things that he knows he should not do. Then he says, We have the victory in Christ.
Romans 7:25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
When all he had was the fallen nature, Adam's attitude toward his wife was not good. The attitude we have toward our spouses when we follow our new nature is mentioned by Paul in First Corinthians;
1Co 7:33-34 But he who is married cares … how he may please his wife. … she who is married cares … how she may please her husband.
Please realize when you follow the 'new' nature that you received when you trusted Christ as your Savior, you will be going against the grain of the world. All of the advice that the world can offer is based on the fact that you are not supposed to 'die to yourselves'.
This new family has been through a lot in a short time. Their marriage started out perfect. Then the next thing you know they are shocked by how ugly they can be toward one another. A mediator steps in. Things are better but they will never be the way they were at the beginning. And now they are expecting a child. We will pick up there in the next session.