God went to the Garden of Eden ad confronted the couple after they had sinned. This devotional reading looks at how they did — or didn’t — answer for their sins.
Nuggets
- Once we sin, we are very good at trying to explain away what why we did it and what went wrong.
- God was more concerned that the man had found out that he was naked than that he was naked.
- God forgives our sins when we confess them to Him and ask for forgiveness.
God had come to the Garden, as He had done many times before. But this time was different. The couple had sinned for the very first time.
Still, God came to them as He had always done. When He found them hiding, He asked them where they were. Let’s see their answers.
Let's Put It into Context
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Devotions in the Celebrating Creation’s Story series
Explanation of The Man’s Actions
“He replied, ‘I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked’” (Gen. 3: 10 NLT)
Once we sin, we are very good at trying to explain away what why we did it and what went wrong.
What was the man’s response to God’s question of where are you? I heard, I was afraid, I was naked, and I hid.
That is a lot of I statements. This is especially true when we said in the last devotion that the couple should have been running to God saying, “You …”
But since their focus was off God and on themselves, what they had done, and what transpired, their human nature kicked in.
The problem was hiding in the trees wasn’t going to cut it. Making clothes out of fig leaves really wasn’t going to give them the coverage they would need.
Concealment is a characteristic of sin. It piggy backs on the hiding theme.
Mursell thought our penchant to conceal our sin is preposterous. He is right.
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How can we think our measly little efforts are going to pull the wool over the Omnipotent, Omniscient Sovereign God? Mursell was right again thinking that was full of hypocrisy and delusion.
True, part of the reason for this subterfuge is because we are trying to vindicate ourselves. We want to either clear ourselves of blame or prove ourselves to be right.
True, part of the reason for this is because we are trying to vindicate ourselves. We want to either clear ourselves of blame or prove ourselves to be right.
Exell told us what is wrong with that. He said that makes us ungrateful, selfish, and ineffective. On top of that, we try to lay the fault on the circumstances.
As much as we use those tactics, aren’t we found out in the end? Doesn’t the truth present itself regardless of what we do to hide or deflect it?
The bottom line is we have sinned.
True, Satan had lied when he offered the woman promises. But Exell showed us what really happened with those.
Ooo, baby. They sure didn’t get what they were promised. In fact, they got the opposite: alienation and terror.
We know now what the couple had no way of knowing at the time. Satan and God are polar opposites.
But the couple’s response was a sinful response. They allowed Satan to seduce them into sin and steal their innocence.
Did you hear the man’s statement and God’s response?
- I was afraid.
- Who told you that you were naked?
Look what Liddon said. He wrote, “The greatness of God was the measure of Adam’s fear; his own lost greatness was the measure of his shame.”
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Morris argued that the man’s admission of fear showed his guilt. He knew he had disobeyed God.
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God didn’t address the man’s fear. It should have been a given that the God of Love doesn’t cause us abject terror.
However, we do need to fear God — both kinds. We should always fear God as in reverence Him.
But there are times when we need the shake-in-our-boots fear. When we disobey, we need to be concerned about what our punishment will be. We should expect God to punish us for our sins.
How do we know the difference? Motivation. Was the man afraid because he know he had disobeyed God, or was the man afraid of the punishment he would deserve because of being disobedient?
The answer to that question should always be Door #1, we know we have sinned.
Mursell told us part of Door #2’s punishment. He informed us that sin identified the absence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. It also brings with the certain punishment that strikes terror into humankind’s being.
Jones noted that we do have to watch one thing, though. He wrote, “There is no cure for the terrors of conscience but from God.”
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If we stay stuck in the terror fear and never get to the reverence fear, we will never confess Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer.
Temptation can be seen as the fun part. Sin brings a sad consciousness, which is fertile ground for the fear.
Exell said that, sometimes, that sad consciousness pushes farther away from God. We stop praying to Him, stop reading His Word, and increased irreverent behavior.
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We grow further away from God when our moral character is shattered by sin. Our moral righteousness, spoken of as a garment, is no longer white and is no longer on us. “I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. I am like a bridegroom dressed for his wedding or a bride with her jewels” (Isa. 61: 10 NLT).
Welldon made an interesting observation. He thought maybe the couple was running from sin, instead of running from God. He cited the flight from prison, not from their Maker.
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Well, the couple may have wanted things to go back as they were. They may have gotten an instantaneous, overwhelming sense of their slavery to sin. “Jesus replied, ‘I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin’” (Jn. 8: 34 NLT).
Let’s look at the I statements again. I heard, I was afraid, I was naked, and I hid.
Hmmm. They don’t really tell us what the man was afraid of. We’ve always just assumed he was running from God.
Maybe the man was immediately remorseful. We’ll talk a little laterl that he had a funny way of showing it.
Who Told You?
“‘Who told you that you were naked?’ the LORD God asked. ‘Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?’” (Gen. 3: 11 NLT)
God was more concerned that the man had found out that he was naked than that he was naked.
We shouldn’t look at God’s question as one searching for knowledge. God already knew what had happened, and He knew why they found out they were naked.
This question was just emphasizing the loss of communication. No longer was the connection between God and His creation there because sin had severed it.
“It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore” (Isa. 59: 2 NLT).
Let’s dig into this a little. How many times have we heard that God can’t be in the proximity of sin? We sort of talked about this in a past devotion.
- “But you are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil. Will you wink at their treachery? Should you be silent while the wicked swallow up people more righteous than they?” (Hab. 1: 13 NLT).
- “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things” (Isa. 45: 7 KJV).
Then we said that, even if God did not create sin, He create the opportunity for us to choose not to obey Him — which is a sin.
Doesn’t that kind of bear out? God was standing next to the couple, talking with them. He hadn’t banished them from the Garden yet.
If God can’t be in the proximity of sin, why is He in it here? Was this the first and last time?
Take that a step further. If God can’t be in the presence of sin, how then does He send the Holy Spirit to convict us? The Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity – meaning God and the Holy Spirit are One – just as God and Jesus are one (Jn. 10: 30).
So, it isn’t that God can’t be in the proximity of sin. It is He doesn’t want to be.
But back to the questions God asked.
The man didn’t answer the first question. He didn’t address how he knew he was naked.
Maybe it was because he was speechless. It is hard to read God’s reaction into the questions, but maybe He was angry – an emotion the couple hadn’t seen before from God. That would have been scary.
Probably, this was a result of their fear. They surely were terrified of facing God once they had broken the one law He had established.
It is easy to assume that when their eyes were opened (Gen. 3: 7), the couple just focused on their physical nakedness. They may or may not have looked at their spiritual nakedness.
But then, wouldn’t God have made it so that their disobedience would immediately showcase the loss of their righteousness? Our spiritual condition has always been more important to Him than our physical condition.
The man may have been too ashamed to answer that question. Maybe he thought how he determined his nakedness wasn’t as important as his act of disobedience.
I love how Bonnet described it. In Elaine-speak, he wrote, Who needed fig leaves when you were clothed in innocence, light, and glory. You were made in God’s image. Didn’t you glory in that? Didn’t you value your gifts from God?
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The man did answer the second question. “Have you eaten that which I forbid you to eat?”
Well, the second question is the question of greatest importance.
The couple was no longer innocent. Even though they were still made in the image of God, they also had a sinful nature.
They had to get to the point where they would ask for forgiveness.
The root of asking forgiveness is confession of the sin. We will not confess what we do not acknowledge our wrongdoing.
White said gave the reason that disobedience hurts so much. He wrote, “Disobedience is not only an injury to God, but an injury to Him in the highest degree, wherein His authority is rejected, His wisdom slighted, His holiness despised, and His providence, and power, and justice, both in rewarding and punishing not regarded.
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So, the confession also gives honor to God. It acknowledges His justice.
Excuses
“The man replied, ‘It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’ Then the LORD God asked the woman, ‘What have you done?’ ‘The serpent deceived me,’ she replied. ‘That’s why I ate it’” (Gen. 3: 12-13 NLT)
God forgives our sins when we confess them to Him and ask for forgiveness.
I get it. The couple just wanted to be independent. They didn’t think they needed to obey God. They thought that they could be just as important as He is.
Oh, how far the mighty have fallen! The couple were promised by Satan that they would become gods.
Well, they had been given reign over the animals of God’s creation. “Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground’” (Gen. 2: 28 NLT).
Instead, they are called before God by God Himself, trying to justify their actions.
The man must have been feeling really guilty. He immediately tries to deflect, showing his guilt.
There are times that we may be lucky and be successful at deflecting and denying. Otherwise, we probably wouldn’t continue to do that.
But it doesn’t always work. It especially doesn’t work with God. He knows our actions as well as our thoughts and motivations.
Excuses won’t work with God any more than our dog ate our homework does with teachers.
It is interesting that Adam really didn’t say anything about his decision. It was all couched in wording that put the blame on the woman.
That isn’t the way confessions work. He may be admitting, but he definitely isn’t confessing.
We have to say, “I disobeyed You, God. I’m sorry, and I repent.” God doesn’t accept, “I was duped.”
Instead, Adam must not have gotten the memo. He started the blame game. He blamed it all on the woman.
It was more than that, though. He blamed God. “… ‘It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit …’” (Gen. 3: 12 NLT).
If God would have looked at the woman the way the man wanted Him, too, all guilt for the sin would have fallen on her. He wanted God to look at him as, basically, an innocent bystander who went along with crowd.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.
Next, God started questioning the woman. She also deflected. Her excuse was the serpent.
Now, that was true. He set up and carried through the temptation.
If we read this another way, we can read it as the woman taking responsibility for her sin. He deceived me, and I ate. She didn’t say so I ate.
What was God’s response? Kingsley said that God was patient with the couple – as He is with us.
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Oh, yeah. Those of us who know how the story ends know that the couple were punished. God having patience – His mercy – doesn’t mean He doesn’t punish us.
God’s mercy was He didn’t kill us. Mercy is when God’s response is something we don’t expect.
Making the Connections #1
We know that every single person since the couple committed the original sin has also sinned. “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Rom. 3: 23 NLT).
If we have all sinned, that means we all must appear before God on Judgment Day. “For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body” (II Cor. 5: 10 NLT).
God will either reward us or repay us for what we have done in accepting Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer. “But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness” (Rom. 2: 8 NLT).
Making the Connections #2
Don’t we still try to hide our sins and justify and excuse them? Don’t we love to deflect whenever possible?
Part of that stems from the fact that we are, by nature, liars. “For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn. 8: 44 NLT).
Making the Connections #3
Ooo, baby. Raleigh called the couple hiding themselves among the trees a flight. All I could think of was fight or flight.
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I am so glad they weren’t stupid enough to lash out at God. They didn’t turn to Him in anger.
Don’t get me wrong. The denying and deflecting are bad enough.
Anger directed toward God when it stems from our sin is not good.
Making the Connections #4
Parker told us about one of sin’s consistencies. He wrote, “Sin is the only separating power.
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Well, yes.
God is in the business of separating and dividing. He separated Abram from his family. He separated Ishmeal from Isaac. He separated Jacob from Esau.
On the Day of the Lord, Jesus will separate the goats from the sheep. “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left” (Mt. 25: 31-33 NLT).
Making the Connections #5
I have to process what Armstrong said. He wrote,
“If it be sin to tempt, it is also sin to yield; if it be sin to give of forbidden fruit, it is also sin to take; if it be sin to Suggest evil counsel, it is also sin to follow it.”
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Okay, I agree with all of that except that it is a sin to tempt. If it is Satan tempting us, it is not a sin until we act on the sin.
It is a sin for us to tempt someone else. If I know someone has a weakness to sin in a certain area, it is a sin if I put that person in circumstances that create that certain area.
But I also see what Armstrong was saying. The man was trying to say the woman sinned because she tempted him, but he did not sin because he yielded. Wrong.
God’s Word tells us so many times and in so many ways that we need to resist sin.
- “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (Jas. 4: 7 NLT).
- “Take note of those who refuse to obey what we say in this letter. Stay away from them so they will be ashamed. Don’t think of them as enemies, but warn them as you would a brother or sister” (II Thess. 3: 14-15 NLT).
- “God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him” (Jas. 1: 12 NLT).
How Do We Apply This?
- Realize willfully sinning leads to unbelief.
- Understand that sin eliminates God from our hearts.
- Accept that sin and righteousness cannot exist together.
- Be humbled by the fact that God comes to us to convict us of our sins.
- Don’t let our fears damage our relationships with God.
- Strictly follow God’s law and Will.
- Decide to literally conform to God’s laws.
- Hide in God (Ps. 143: 9).
- Be at peace with God.
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Father God. Your willingness to forgive us of our sin shows how much You love us. All You ask is for us to ask forgiveness and repent. Instead, we give you excuses. We even blame You. Forgive us, Lord. Amen
What do you think?
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