God punished all three participants in the original sin. This devotional reading looks at the punishment He gave to the man — in fact, all humankind.
Nuggets
- Even though the man just went with the flow, he encountered punishment, too.
- Maintaining life became a struggle.
- Because of the original sin, every human will suffer physical death.
God saved the punishment for the man for last. But if we think about it, the punishment wasn’t just for the male version of our species.
It was for humankind.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Creating Everything theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the Celebrating Creation’s Story series
.Since The Man Listened to His Wife
“And to the man he said, ‘Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return’” (Gen. 3: 17-19 NLT)
Even though the man just went with the flow, he encountered punishment, too.
The man didn’t get a pass when God was handing out punishment because someone else led him to sin. While he was offered the fruit, it was his decision alone to go ahead and bite.
We each have to seek to do God’s Will. His Will for us is that we gain salvation and are obedient.
God alone determines what is a punishable offense – what is a sin. Subsequently, He is the One to establish the punishment.
The Ground Is Cursed Because of You
Maintaining life became a struggle.
We’re not God. We don’t get to say, “Let there be green beans,” and they show up. It takes work to till the soil, plant, weed, water, and harvest. That is all before we either store the harvest or prepare it for consumption.
That is part of what it means when the ground was cursed. It takes work to till the land. It takes more work now than it did before the original sin.
This may be where weeds came into being (thorns and thistles). Those may have been around before the original sin. At a minimum, this means the weeds took on a more invasive existence.
Yes, this is mainly talking about farming and tending plants. No, most of us don’t do that anymore – but someone, somewhere is doing just that.
I think we can apply this to our 21st century jobs. They are harder and more complex than they were. We have to work at them, too.
I think we also need to look at this as the Earth as a whole. This is where tornados, hurricanes, famine, drought, flooding, climate change, and more challenges came into being. God’s perfect paradise was thrown off kilter because two people got selfish.
Some of us don’t see work as a blessing. For some, working for a living is a curse in itself.
That goes against some thinking that there should be more leisure time and less work time. At the same pay, of course.
Jessopp said something interesting about leisure time. He wrote, “The sweetness of leisure consists in the change from our ordinary employments, not in a cessation of all employment.”
Resource
We don’t appreciate the leisure time enough if we don’t have the work time.
Instead, we should see secular work a being done for the Lord. When we work in His name and for His glory – regardless of the hob we are doing — we will be fruitful.
Parker equated it to our spiritual condition. He said the sanctification process – spiritual cultivation – is hard and a slow process
Resource
In other words, we have to toil in order to restore our relationships with God. We have to want to.
We can only be sanctified by God’s power. We can’t do it on our own.
To Dust You Will Return
“By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return’” (Gen. 3: 19 NLT)
Because of the original sin, every human will suffer physical death.
Before the man and woman bit the fruit, they would have lived eternally as they were. That was a reward of obedience.
That ended when they disobeyed God. Physical death – brought about disease, natural causes, murder, accidents, etc. – became the new normal.
God’s Word backs that up.
- When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned” (Rom. 5: 12 NLT).
- “So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life” (I Cor. 15: 21-22 NLT).
Verse 19 talks about returning to dust. That does back to a verse we read in Chapter 2. “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person” (Gen. 2: 7 NLT).
That shows how fragile the human body really is. “And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9: 27 NLT).
Since Death had entered the picture (Gen, 3: 19), we had to have a cause of death. This is where disease reared its ugly head. Everything from wars to I-want-the-money-in-your-wallet-or-I’ll-kill-you also showed up. This is where the body started to just wear out (with the help of accidents).
Maclaren argued this curse was talking only of physical death. He hooked it back to Genesis 2: 7, also.
Resource
The fact that the soul isn’t addressed here, according to Maclaren, also supports this not being spiritual death. I disagree.
The man and the woman experienced spiritual death, too, when they lost their salvation. Their holiness was gone.
Let’s just sum it up in a really simple sentence. The consequences and results of the original sin are still being felt today in a significant way.
Exell believed that this is where anxiety entered in the world. He wrote, “The anxious and painful toil of man consequent upon the Fall.”
Resource
Ooo, baby. I get it. Dad had many nail-biting times when he was farming. If weather didn’t sabotage the harvest, machinery breakdowns did. That isn’t talking about the nasty little things and bigger things that used the fields as restaurants.
Anxiety itself isn’t a sin. God’s Word doesn’t tell us to never be anxious.
Instead, the most important thing is what we do when the anxiety begins.
- “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done” (Phil. 4: 6 NLT).
- “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life — whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?” (Mt. 6: 25 NLT).
- “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you” (I Pet. 5: 7 NLT).
- “Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up” (Prov. 12: 25 NLT).
Making the Connections #1
Sin is universal.
Every man, woman, and child from every nation, culture, socioeconomic status – everyone – has a sinful nature. That means every person who ever was born or ever will be born comes into this world spiritually dead and separated from God.
Isn’t it amazing that God gave the solution two verses before He gave the curse?
Boyd talked about how God changes evil into blessings. He wrote, “Out of man’s evil and man’s transgression God contrives blessing. Sorrow in itself is an apparent evil; as God manages it, it is the harbinger of joy. It was the curse, but it also brings the blessing.”
Resource
Isn’t this really what Romans 8: 28 is about? “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Rom. 8: 28 NLT).
As we look toward the Easter weekend, we can use this as a reminder of why Jesus did what He did. He sacrificed His life for our spiritual condition. He and God both wanted us to have a way to restore our relationships with then.
Making the Connections #2
“And to the man he said, ‘Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return’” (Gen. 3: 17-19 NLT)
I hope you read those verses again. Do you sense any anger? I don’t. I don’t know if I even read severity in them.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. The punishment is severe.
I think God’s attitude is more of discouragement here. It is rimmed with sadness.
The sadness doesn’t come, I think, from all that God has lost. He lost the couples’ companionship, as well as their worship and obedience.
I think, more, the sadness comes from what they have lost. He knows what a huge price they have paid for disobedience. What a huge price humankind has paid for their disobedience.
If God was this sad, why did He put us through all of this? Why have us disobey just be be reinstated?
There is a couple of reasons I can think of off the top of my head. Doing it any other way wouldn’t have given us free will.
Think about it. How we would have kicked back if we would have been forced into it! Even something as good as what the couple had!!!
God isn’t a dictator. He doesn’t force us.
People still to this day have the option to choose to not obey God. Yes, they will have to pay the consequences for that choice in the end, but it is their choice.
God isn’t going to send them to hell. They chose to go there themselves.
The other reason is Romans 8: 28. “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Rom. 8: 28 NLT).
By allowing us to stumble and fall, stumble and fall, God is showing us how much He loves us. By sending His Son to die and be the sacrifice for us, He is showing us there is nothing He wouldn’t do in His power to show us that love.
No, God saying to Jesus, “I am just going to let everyone in, even those who don’t acknowledge You as Lord” isn’t going to happen. That isn’t in God’s power. He can’t operate in opposition to His character.
So, since the original sin, the fall from grace, every choice we’ve made has been in God’s plan, set into motion before the foundation of the world.
God did it for us.
How Do We Apply This?
- Seek to do God’s Will – gain salvation and be obedient.
- Be disciplined in order to restore our righteousness.
- Approach God in humility.
- /Don’t fall to Satan’s temptations to get us to sin.
Resources
Father God. We disobeyed You. You had every right to punish us. But your punishment was tinged with Your grace and mercy. Thank You.
What do you think?
Leave me a comment below (about this or anything else) or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
If you don’t understand something and would like further clarification, please contact me.
If you have not signed up for the email providing the link to the devotions and the newsletter, do so below.
If God has used this devotion to speak with you, consider sharing it on social media.