Bible Basics: Genesis 3

The Temptation

Verses 1–3: In the first few verses of Genesis 3, we see a serpent created by God, which became inhabited and influenced by Satan (Revelation 12:9, 20:2).* Although God’s instruction to Adam and Eve was clear, Satan enticed Eve to doubt it. In verse 3, Eve confirms that they could not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, she adds this: “and [we] must not touch it” (v. 3). In doing this, she demonstrates the presence of free will, and our tendency to rely on our own understanding and practice of righteousness. Eve’s self-reliance primed her heart for disobedience. Adding to God’s direction and following our own inevitably leads to a loss of freedom.

4–5: In verse four, Satan again calls God’s instruction and character into question. He tells Eve that she won’t die, but only gain knowledge that will make her like God. He implies that God is keeping her from something good, that he feels threatened by the prospect of her personal growth. Here, Satan reveals his own nature as a manipulator and a liar. God knew that opening Adam’s and Eve’s eyes to evil would lead to their participation in it, and consequent death. After all, straying from God’s perfect, loving ways means separation from his perfect, loving self, our only source of life. In love, he warned them away from this devastating outcome.

The Fall

6–7: Thinking she knew better, Eve ate the fruit. She then gave some to her husband, who also willingly ate it. Ironically, this new understanding of good and evil immediately awakened them to their sin. They did the one thing God asked them not to do, and now they were guilty, afraid, ashamed, and separated from fellowship with him. Instead of looking to him for a solution to their mess, they continued to rely on themselves. No longer comfortable allowing God to completely see them physically or spiritually, they resorted to covering their most intimate parts with fig leaves, and hid in the bushes.

8–10: Loving them still, God sought them out.

Time for Truth

11–13: God confronted Adam and Eve, and neither of them took full responsibility for their choice. Adam admitted to eating the fruit, but blamed Eve for giving it to him, and God for giving him Eve. Eve blamed her sin on the serpent’s deception. Nonetheless, God justly disciplined each party involved.

Justice, with Mercy

14–15: God cursed the serpent, causing him and his descendants to crawl in the dust. He also described the hatred that would ensue between humanity and Satan, but with a twist: Satan’s head would be crushed (signifying his ultimate destruction), and Eve’s offspring or seed would suffer harm (a bruised heel, foreshadowing the crucifixion of Christ).** Even in the midst of punishment, God’s ultimate goal was to restore his loving relationship with humanity, broken by sin.

16–19: Eve, and all women after her, would suffer great pain in childbirth. Their longing would be for their husbands, who would “rule over them” (v. 16). Adam, and men in general, would have to painfully work to provide for their needs, and the needs of their families. While we weren’t present for the first sin, we’ve each made the same choice to divert from God’s ways, in preference to our own. This ALWAYS and only leads to the same ultimate consequence: death.

God’s Solution

20–21: Adam named Eve (which likely means “living”),*** displaying hope for the continuation of humanity and their opportunity for restoration with God. Instead of fig leaves, God killed an animal and provided his own covering for them. Since sin leads to death, a death penalty must be paid to cover the guilt of it. Again, this foreshadows the death of Christ, whose blood would be shed to provide full covering for and forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22, NIV). Only God’s solution would pave the way from death to life.

22–24: In a further act of mercy, God removed Adam and Eve from the garden, so they no longer had access to the tree of life. Without the ability to live eternally in a state of self-destruction, resurrection was made possible: all who trust God’s remedy for sin in Christ are made new again, raised to both physical and spiritual eternal life after death.

Despite the modern popularity of assigning evil intentions to God, Genesis 3 reveals the opposite: he loves us despite our waywardness. All the pain and suffering in our world is not the result of an angry or apathetic God, but of living apart from him and his ways. As we yield ourselves to him, we find salvation, we find life!

*https://answersingenesis.org/angels-and-demons/satan/was-satan-the-actual-serpent-in-the-garden/

**https://www.ligonier.org/blog/significance-genesis-315/

***See the footnote for Genesis 3:20, NIV 1984.