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

The Shock of Sin

So there stood Adam and woman, realizing that they had done evil and that they were in opposition to God. In that realization came the understanding that they were naked and they were ashamed of being naked. So they made clothing out of their surroundings.

And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
As we just saw, they were standing there when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden. How can you hear a voice walking? You and I have a voice, have you ever heard it walking? No. Our voices are a part of us. they are contained and produced by our body. This fact means that the voice of Lord God would be a part of the Lord God. Why then would it be treated in Scripture as a seperate entity than the Lord God? The fact that it was walking and could be heard walking means that this voice had a body. So I ask, who was the voice of the Lord God?

So this voice was walking in the garden and it was the cool of the evening and when they heard the sound of the voice walking, they hid themeselves. This means they were familiar enough with the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden that they knew the sound of his tread. Hearing this familiar step, they hid themselves. It is important to note that they hid themselves "from the presence of the Lord God." The voice here becomes the presence of the Lord God. I have a presence. My spouse has a presence. My friends have presences. Yet when we are together, our presences are not interchangeable. Therefore, only God has the presence of God. If the voice has the presence of God, that makes him God. Who then is the Voice of God?

They hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees. Our children, when they have done something they shouldn't have done and think they might get into trouble for it, will also hide though they realize that we shall find out.

And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? Well, the Lord God called out to Adam saying "Where are you, Adam?"

And he (Adam) said, I heard thy voice in the garden (again showing that Adam was familiar with the Voice of God enough to know the sound of Him walking in the garden), and I was afraid (Adam was scared because he knew he had been disobedient), because I was naked (herein was his shame: he was naked and because of his new-found understanding of good and evil, he knew it was wrong); and I hid myself (because of his shame at being disobedient and being naked).

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?
God goes right to the heart of the issue. In asking who it was that told Adam that he was naked, God directs Adam's understanding to the fact that no one could have told Adam that he was naked. This knowledge had to have come as a result of eating the fruit. Had the serpent, for example, simply told woman she was naked, Woman would have no understanding of the concept of nakedness. It had to come as a result of the understanding.

In asking if Adam had eaten of the tree that he was commanded not to eat, God allows man the opportunity to confess and be repentant. More to come next time.

Dear readers, I asked you who was the voice of the Lord God. We see from the text, that this voice was a part of God (voice of the Lord God), it had a body (heard the voice of the Lord God walking), it was a being (presence of the Lord God), and it was God (presence of the Lord God). Therefore, it could only be the second entity of the Godhead. We are told in John 1 verses 1-3, that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. The Greek word used here is logos. It means "something said (including the thought); by implication a topic (subject of discourse). . ." So we gather that the Word (who was in the begining with God and was in fact God, is the same as the Voice of the Lord God. As we read further in John 1 specifically in verse 14, we see that the Word/Voice became flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Christian

This Looks G-O-O-O-D!!!

Boy! That serpent sure is devious. He started out by asking woman to verify a lie, which drew her into conversation. Then he insinuated that God lied to her. ending by promising her the desire of her innocent heart to wit: being like God, the one she looked up to and wanted to be like. Lets continue.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Notice here that the woman looked at the tree. Was this the first time? Well we notice that she looked upon it in a unique way, realizing that it had fruit and fruit was food. She saw it was a pretty. And that it served the purpose of making the eater like God. Suddenly, to her lusting mind, the pros of the tree outweighed the one con - disobeying God. So she had to have one and indeed found it good enough that she passed it on to her husband to eat. It was her being a dutiful wife. He ate.

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
After they ate, they understood that what they had done was evil. They understood that they were naked and that being naked was not a good thing anymore. The first thing they did upon realizing this sin, was to sew fig leaves together into aprons. The word for apron here literally means belt or girdle. It means that they covered the waist down. So the very first fashion design was a simple yet functional article that wrapped at the waist and extended the length of a fig leaf (roughly 5-10") downwards.

Well, the serpent sure played woman like a fiddle as the saying goes. He used her emotions to his advantage. Which just goes to show, that one should always watch the desires of one's heart.

Christian

God Lied!?!

We saw the account of creation in fact form in the first chapter of Genesis. Then got "the rest of the story", as a popular radio personality would say, in the second chapter. Now we turn our attention to another account of equal and sobering importance - the fall of man.

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? God created the serpant. This serpant was more subtle or cunning than any other beast of the field (as we know he still wasn't a suitable help for the man). This particular serpant can reason and talk. He says to the woman, which by the way still hasn't been named, "Has God truely said 'Don't eat of every tree of the garden'? What an opening for a conversation! He begins with a lie to draw her into talking with him. Some wonder why she didn't wonder or run from a talking serpant. Thoughts or comments?

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: The woman is indeed engaged in chat. "We can eat of the fruit of the garden's trees." I can see her standing there shaking her head "No! Thats not right! God said we can eat the fruit of these trees."

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. "All except of the tree in the middle of this garden. God said we can't eat nor even touch it or else we shall die."

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: The serpant responds to the woman reassuringly: "You won't die at all."

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. "Even God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will open and you will exist like God knowing good and evil." How much do we as children desire to be like our parents? How many times have we heard the refrain "I want to be just like daddy (or mommy) when I grow up!"? The serpant used the right argument upon an innocent woman. Even deeper is the fact that the serpant villifies God by saying He lied to Adam and woman. There is no turning back for the serpant.

Christian

WHERE did SHE come from!?!

As we left off last post, God had brought all living things namely of the field and the birds of the sky, all of which He had formed from the soil, to Adam to name (which Adam did) but there wasn't a helpmeet found for him. Thought question for you, dear readers, "Is there a difference between helper and helpmeet? If so, what is it?" Also, did you notice that neither the reptiles nor the fish were brought for naming? Hmmmmm.


And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; Again, an implied emphasis is placed upon the "Self-Existent" nature of God. Here we have the very first anesthesia administered for the very first surgery. I remember, as I was growing up, there was a childish rumor that men in general had one less rib than women. I have since found out that this is incorrect and that they each have the same number of ribs.

And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. Why do you suppose that God made woman from man? Why didn't He just mould her from the ground the same way He had done man? One word that comes to mind is helpmeet.
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Notice here that Adam again uses that authority as given by God back in verse 19. The right of naming. I would also like to point out that Adam displays another attribute that God gave him . . . reasoning (sometimes known as logic). Adam knew instantly where this creature had come from. She was flesh and bone from Adam's flesh and bone which (to me) signifies that she was the same as him like those animals were not. He reasons here that she was a suitable helpmeet. He called her woman because she came from out of man. Whew! That's a lot to get from those few words.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. Why shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife? Because woman was taken from out of man. I will also point out here that man shall cleave or adhere or be joined together with, his wife not with another man.
Also notice via the terminology used here, that the same action is required of the woman. She also is to relinquish her father and mother in the same manner as man and cleave, or adhere, or be joined together with man and not another woman.
The idea portrayed by the use of cleave, is that of holding on with the entirety of one's strength. Just like you depended upon your parents for ; so now you are to relinquish those parents for your spouse; depending on him or her for support, encouragement, love, solace, guidance, sustenance, your needs and your wants.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Here is another fact presented, although a second can be also gleaned. First, there is no shame in innocence. Neither Adam nor Woman (she hadn't been named Eve yet) knew right from wrong and in that state of innocence (or absence of the knowledge of good and evil) there were no sinful desires with nakedness. Second, there is no shame associated with nakedness when it is in the confines of the marriage.

Here ends chapter two of Genesis. We have been taken from God ceasing creating, through the formation of the garden in Eden, through the formation of man, followed his search for a suitable helpmeet, listened briefly as he named the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. We viewed the first surgery, saw the joy of finding the perfect helpmeet, discovered the meaning of marriage and ending with realizing that in innocence there is no sin.

Now, dear reader, do not forget that I asked if there were a difference between helper and helpmeet. See you in the comments with answers.

I'm Sooo Lonely!!!

"Lord, I need help to carry out your will. It is too big a task."

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. God, again shows His providential nature for His creation and gives us some more information about ourselves. Man was not meant to be alone nor was He meant to shoulder the workload of the tasks God had given him all by himself. So God decides to provide a helper for man.

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. God brought all living things namely of the field and the birds of the sky which He formed out of the ground to Adam to see what he would name them and what he called out became its name.

And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
"Son, that is a cat."
"Why daddy?"
"Because that is what Adam named it, son."
Notice here that even though there were dogs and parrots, cats and canaries, and horses etc. not one was a suitable companion for Adam nor indeed a suitable helper.