Crime and Punishment or THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!

My, My how time doth fly. I suddenly realized that it has been a couple of weeks since I posted here. My sincerest regrets to you dear readers.

Last post, the buck was passed and it stopped at the serpent. God asked why they hid, how they knew they were naked, and who told them. Adam blamed Woman for giving him the fruit and God for giving him the woman. Woman blamed the serpent for deceiving her into eating. And now, God turns His attention to the subtil serpent as we pick up where we left off.

And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: The serpent, because he decieved Woman and brought about the entrance of sin, death, and seperation from God into this world, receives his punishment. This curse has not ended, serpents everywhere still crawl upon their bellies in the dust.

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. This part of the punishment was a prophecy intended to bring hope to mankind and was addressed to THAT serpent we know as the Devil a murderer and the father of lies (Revelation 20:2; John 8:44). Some have suggested that the enmity was only between Woman and the serpent, yet I would to ask them, "Are not men a part of that seed?" Regardless, we know that the seed referred to here is Jesus as is referenced by the third person singular pronoun in the latter part of the last phrase, and He had no earthly father to sire Him (Matthew 1:18-25; Galatians 4:4; I John 3:8).

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Now He turns to the second part of the equation that brought sin, death, and seperation from God into this once pleasing earth - Woman. The curse of Woman is in three parts. 1.) greater sorrow and children; 2.) greater sorrow in children; and 3.) desire towards and subjection to her husband. Notice in our discussion of Genesis 2:20-24 that Woman was created from man for the purpose of being a suitible helper. As such she was equal in standing with man (bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh). Because she listened to and followed her desire instead of ruling it, God put that desire under the rule of man. Because she tempted man to sin by offering the fruit, she was and is subjected to man. Paul reiterates this point in I Timothy 2:11-15, I Corinthians 11:7-12 and Ephesians 5. Notice too, that it is God, not man, that places Woman in that position.

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; God now turns to the third party in this deed - Adam. Adam stands accused of two sins: 1.) Obeying his wife instead of God, and 2.) Breaking the commandment of God. Because of man's sin, man must face the consequences. One consequence is that of death (Romans 5:12) which is a direct result of disobedience to God's commands. As for the other, God pronounces a curse upon the ground. Man would not be allowed to enjoy the fruits of God's labour (the garden) but must earn them through labor/worry/toil/sorrow (itstsabone - translated here as sorrow) throughout the whole of his life.

Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; The ground would yield thorns and thistles as Adam toiled and instead of the garden with its fruits, Adam would have to eat of the fruit of the field.

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. God wanted Adam to realize the extent of the damage that his sin caused and therefore explained it to him. Adam now would be required to work and not just any work - TOIL (i.e. work hard). "Adam, you will eat the product of your sweat (meaning hard work) until the day you die and return to dust for you were made from dust. Because you are from dust, you will return to dust."

God, it seems, always starts at the begining. :) He began the Bible at the begining of this universe to answer where we came from. He began at the begining of sin with the one that instigated it. Satan had begun the incident with a lie, Woman had perpetuated it with desire, Adam had finalized it with disobedience. Satan's tool was cursed, Satan was punished, Woman was punished, Adam's livelihood was cursed, Adam was punished. Woman-kind suffers sorrow and subjection as a result of Woman's sin. Man-kind suffers death and toil as a result of Adam's sin. And the earth was forever marred.

Christian

"The Devil Made Me Do It

Mankind has just eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and, in so doing, become aware of the difference between what is good and what is evil. Upon hearing the Voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the evening, they felt new emotions: shame and fear. We ended the last post with God asking them if they had eaten of the tree that He had commanded them not to eat. And so we continue.




And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? As we pointed out last time, God gives them an opportunity to realize they had disobeyed His commandment and to repent of that wrong. Being God, He knew they had eaten of the tree, and He let them know he knew by equating their knowledge of their nakedness with the eating from the tree.
And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Here Adam makes his second blunder by introducing world to the "passing the buck" attitude (also known as playing the blame game), trying to pin the blame on God. He says "God, its your fault because YOU gave me this woman as a companion and she brought me this fruit from the tree for me to eat. Since you gave her too me as a helper, how was I to know this was wrong?" Obviously I am paraphrasing, giving voice to the attitude that Adam exemplifies here.
And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. God turns to the woman and asks her what her part was in the matter. She also has the opportunity to repent of the wrong but chooses instead to follow her husband's lead (reminds me of another couple in the book of Acts wherein the wife followed the husband's lead and it also led to severe consequences, but I digress). Woman responds to God by also passing the blame. She says, "The serpent made me do it!"



Readers, an important fact that one must learn from this account is this: the blame resides with the one committing the action/wrongdoing/sin and not with any one or thing else.



Adam said it was God's fault for giving him a defective companion who would give him (Adam) the fruit that God commanded them not to eat. And he said it was Woman's fault for giving him the fruit. But Adam missed the fact that he ate! He did not have to eat of that fruit. Woman did not have him tied up and force him to eat. She simply gave the fruit to him. He chose to obey Woman who said "Here, eat this."



Woman also missed that same fact. She ate! It simply was not the serpent forcing Woman to eat fruit by stuffing it down her throat. The serpent was guilty only of deceiving Woman. Woman was guilty of believing the serpent and eating the fruit and giving it to her husband. She could have turned a deaf ear to the serpent. She could have chosen to obey God and not eat the fruit. Having eaten the fruit, she could have chosen not to give it to her husband. But instead, she chose to obey the desire of her heart rather than God, she chose to cause another to stumble.



Christian