Once the couple had received their punishment, God was ready to forgive them of their sin – if they would commit to obey Him. This devotional reading looks at how God accomplished covering their sins – and foreshadowed how He would do it on a more permanent basis later.
Nuggets
- The man and the woman were finally named.Only
- God can deal with our sin.
God knew before we were created that humankind would disobey Him. He had the Plan of Salvation ready before the couple ever showed up.
God had to provide the opportunity for repentance. The couple had to feel repentant and want restoration.
How was God going to pull that off?
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
The Couple Named
“Then the man — Adam — named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live” (Gen. 3: 20 NLT)
The man and the woman were finally named.
Moses introduced us to humans in Genesis 1: 26-27. “Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Gen. 1: 26-27 NLT).
We get a more in-depth look at man’s creation in Genesis 2: 7. “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).
The woman’s creation is detailed in Genesis 2: 21-22. “So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man” (Gen. 2: 21-22 NLT).
We aren’t told their names until here in Genesis 3: 20. A lot has happened to them in those 38 verses, hasn’t it?
Did they not have names before this? Did they think they didn’t need them because there was only the two of them?
Well, Adam probably did. Mah in Hebrew is man or human — earth man.
Bevan showed us the importance of the man being the one to name the woman after the fall. Put it into context.
- “And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3: 16 NLT emphasis added).
- “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 emphasis added).
- “Then the man — Adam — named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live” (Gen. 3: 20 NLT emphasis added).
Look what Bevan said. He wrote,
“It is not because the man refused to accept the judgment of God, not because he refused to submit to the doom. He did not refuse, he did not set himself up against God. He caught the tenderness of the Divine voice even as it pronounced the judgment. He saw the gleam of grace in the darkness of the doom. It is then that he turned to his wife and said, ‘Eve, the living one?’”
Resource
We talked about in a past devotion whether Adam had asked God to forgive him. By so naming Eve, I see this as a strong proclamation of his faith.
We could suppose that Adam and Eve, when they took the bite, did not lose their basic faith that God is Sovereign Lord and Creator. Yes, it was bad that they wanted to be gods themselves.
But it looks like Adam and Eve’s disobedience didn’t shake their overall faith in God.
Eve really gets a bum rap for biting first. Yet, she is “… the mother of all who live” (Gen. 3: 20 NLT).
Bevan stressed the dignity of motherhood. We don’t hear of Adam and Eve’s kids until Genesis 4, but here, she is considered a mother. To me, that means the mother of all humans who are children of God.
If we look at the blessing given in Genesis 1: 28, one of the most important purposes women have is to produce children. “Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply …’” (Gen. 1: 28 NLT)
No, it doesn’t say Adam is the father of all who live. That is logical. The Father of all who live is God.
Don’t worry, guys. Adam’s immediate acceptance of God’s promise is important. What was God’s promise? The salvation of the race through the one of Adam and Eve’s descendant.
Yeah, Adam has an important part to play in the continuance of the race.
Adam acknowledged the promise and promised to do his part. In other words, he would complete his end of the covenant.
Bonar had an interesting take. God named Adam when he called him Mah. God did not name Eve; Adam did.
Resource
Bonar came up with good explanations for this. Along with Adam’s acceptance of God’s promise, he felt this showed several things.
- To show God’s grace.
- To show Adam as the head of the family unit.
- To show the couple’s solidarity even after Adam had tried to place the blame on Eve.
All that is true. But then God created the animals, but Adam named them. Is this any different? He named the animals as he was looking for a helper. That helper ended up being Eve. Why shouldn’t he name her, too?
Let’s go back to the first bullet. God’s grace has always been free. We cannot earn it or produce it ourselves.
“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” (Eph. 2: 8-9 NLT). Grace is always a God thing.
Forgiving the Sin
“And the LORD God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife” (Gen. 3: 21 NLT)
Only God can deal with our sin.
Verse 21 is a simple statement that is packed. Let’s try to unpack it.
God made the covering for Adam and Eve’s nakedness. Nothing we can do is enough to cover our sins. Only God can do that.
Dods talked about it being a covering because God could no longer look at us in our sinful state. In reality, this covering was only temporary.
Jesus had to come and shed His blood for an eternal covering of our sins. God’s goal at this point was to restore blessedness.
Jukes’ noted that God ended His resting period to work to make the covering for sin. This was important to Him.
Resource
He is not going to sit idly by and just let sin take over. He has always been in the business of forgiving us when we ask for forgiveness.
Song
Tauren Wells/We the Kingdom/Davies
The garments were made of animal skins. This is said to be the first sacrifice.
But then I had never really thought of it the way Dods did. He wrote, “Adam took leaves from an inanimate, unfeeling tree; God deprived an animal of life, that the shame of His creature might be relieved.”
Resource
I am not sure I would have said it the way he did. I do see what he was saying, though.
While Adam tells me I am a bad plant lady because my plants seem to die on me, they are living and growing. Dods made the comment that sin couldn’t be covered by taking something that would be easily replaced – the leaves would grow back on the plant the next year.
Yet, they are not living, breathing beings. They don’t have the organs we do, certainly not the ability to think, speak, and reason. The plant’s death is not the same as our death.
Animals had to be sacrificed so that blood could be shed. Sin is only covered by blood. “In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (Heb 9: 22 NLT).
Yes, it is animals plural. An animal had to die for each of them.
This is what the sacrifices are all about in Leviticus. The sacrifices provide a substitute for the loss of Life as payment of sins, foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus. The sins of the one doing the sacrifice is transferred onto the animal.
But look at it this way, too. Adam – and Eve when she was created – had no concept of what death was when God made the covenant with Adam. “But the Lord God warned him, ‘You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden — except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die’” (Gen. 2: 16-17 NLT).
They bit (Gen. 3: 6), but they didn’t die a physical death. They now knew what disobedience was, but they may or may not have equated that to spiritual death – and certainly not physical death.
The animals had to die to show then what physical death was – what was in store for them. It had to suffer for them. Suffering plays a big role in punishment for sin.
Every time a sacrifice was made – all the way from Abel’s sacrifice to those offered until the temple was destroyed – it reminded them that death was a result of sin.
Making the Connections #1
If Satan thought God was going to strike Adam and Eve down right then, he was wrong.
Oh, make no mistake. God can and will kill disobedient people, sometimes on the spot. Sometimes not.
• “The ten men Moses had sent to explore the land — the ones who incited rebellion against the Lord with their bad report — were struck dead with a plague before the Lord. Of the twelve who had explored the land, only Joshua and Caleb remained alive.” (Num. 14: 36-38 NLT).
• “And Moses said, ‘This is how you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these things that I have done — for I have not done them on my own. If these men die a natural death, or if nothing unusual happens, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord does something entirely new and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them and all their belongings, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these men have shown contempt for the Lord.’ He had hardly finished speaking the words when the ground suddenly split open beneath them. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed the men, along with their households and all their followers who were standing with them, and everything they owned. So they went down alive into the grave, along with all their belongings. The earth closed over them, and they all vanished from among the people of Israel” (Num. 16: 28-33 NLT).
• “So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died. Then the people came to Moses and cried out, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take away the snakes.’ So Moses prayed for the people” (Num. 21: 6-7 NLT).
But God is a God of mercy. That means He doesn’t give us the punishment we deserve.
Satan tries to use the fact that God will correct us through love to get us to fear and disobey Him. He knows we like to do things our own way without any consequences.
Doesn’t the delay of our punishment of death show how much He does love us? He is postponing it to allow us to repent of our sins.
Making the Connections #2
What does all that has transpired in Genesis 3 have to do with justification? Justification is the act through the merits of Christ that makes us free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws. Jesus justifies us when we put our lives in His hand.
Adam and Eve tried to atone for their sins their own way. They failed miserably.
Part of the reason is because we can’t restore God’s righteousness. Our righteousness is but a poor knockoff of God’s righteousness.
Trench put it this way. He wrote, “There is no robe of our own righteousness which can cover us and conceal our shame.”
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Our sins must be covered by blood of a pure sacrifice. That sacrifice was Jesus.
We cannot be the sacrifice as our blood is not pure. Face it, not many people would calmly go to their death to atone for their sin.
It would be useless if we did. We would be dead and not reap the benefits of the forgiveness of our sins.
Enter Jesus. He died spilling His blood and rose again so that we may have a perfected life in Him. He is the only way.
- “Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” (Eph. 2: 9 NLT).
- “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” (Ac. 4: 12 NLT).
- “You must not have any other god but me. You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea” (Ex. 20: 3-4 NLT).
- “Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me’” (Jn. 14: 6 NLT).
Yes, the Plan of Salvation was finished upon the cross, but the results of sin were not addressed until Jesus rose from the grave.
How Do We Apply This?
Remember that, even in our worse condition, God will provide for us.
Remember that God always calls us to faith.
Fully embrace God’s promises.
Document God’s mercies to and provisions for us.
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Father God. Your love for us is so everlasting. We disobey You so many times. Thank You that You don’t accept our disobedience. Thank You for holding us accountable when we break Your laws and commandments. And thank You for taking us back with open arms. Amen.
What do you think?
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