Genesis 3:9-24 -- While in the state of innocence, being nude was simply a fact of life. Every other creature was nude, as well. Once Adam and Eve had taken the Forbidden Fruit, they were suddenly aware of good and evil. What Satan had promised was a half truth: while not like God, they did indeed know good and evil. They also knew they had done evil, and that they couldn't hide it from God.
While we know on the surface that it is human nature to be a little modest about our own nudity, the principles here go much deeper. For so long as they were obedient, they had nothing to hide. When man sins, he must hide from the wrath of God. To survive that wrath requires a covering. The concept of covering is completely missing in our Western culture, and is quite large in Eastern thinking. It is a picture of our desperate need of protection from God's judgment against sin.
While both cultures recognize that all behavior has consequences, and that sin behavior often has bad consequences, there is much more to it than that. The primary truth of human existence is that we are designed to fellowship with God, and by extension, each other. To sin is to break that fellowship, it is to transgress the proper boundaries implied by covenant and fellowship. Sinners violate others, or by extension the property of others. To the Hebrew mind, one's property is part of oneself. In this case, the knowledge of good and evil was God's private reserve. It was an injury to God Himself, in a sense.
To make amends for such transgression requires healing the damage, of giving a part of oneself to restore what was lost. In this case, the damage was irrevocable. The knowledge, once gained, could not be removed. The fruit could not be reattached to the tree. Innocence could not be restored. Adam and Eve knew this instinctively. They knew that they were wholly exposed before God, and sought to avoid the pain of that exposure as transgressors, as those who had wounded God. There was, of course, no place to hide. Their attempt to cover themselves with fig leaves was pointless, but typical of human behavior. It is our nature to attempt building layers between ourselves and our just suffering. The result is today called "neurosis."
Hiding from the pain of their sin before the presence of God only emphasized the inadequacy of their abilities to deal with it. If there was to be a restoration of fellowship, it would have to come from God, the injured party. That is the nature of justice. Between equals, to clean up the mess by meeting the demands of the injuried party may still fail to make him forget. Things can never be the same. So it was in this case. Both man and Satan had stepped into the curses of sin.
The author used myth as an image of God's judgment. The term "The Serpent" should not be taken as literal; it should be taken as literary. Theologically we know that snakes as crawling whips with fangs and scales were created that way from the start, and could not be held morally accountable for anything. The ancient myth that they were once upright is used by the author to declare that Satan would not be taken in trust so easily by mankind again, that sane people would avoid him at all costs. The only people who would embrace him voluntarily would be those who also embrace evil, for he would be known as evil personified. This was a change in status, as Eve had treated him respectfully before. Further, the seed of the woman would be his greatest enemy, and would eventually strike a killing blow.
Scholars refer to this line as "the Proto-Evangelium" -- the first promise from God to deal decisively with sin, once and for all. As is well known, it was Jesus Christ -- having an earthly mother, but no earthly sire, thus the seed of a woman -- who struck that fatal blow on the Cross. The best Satan could hope for was to hobble Christ's reign at times, not to stop it by any means.
Much has been made of the curse on woman, and from all sides. Most of it misses the point. First the obvious: one would look hard and long to identify any creature that risks so much in childbirth, nor suffers as much pain. But more than that, a woman's greatest strength -- nurturing -- is also her greatest misery. How many normal women are eager for their progeny to leave home? The inevitable conflicts that arise from this add to her misery. It is the source of great conflict in childrearing between husband and wife, yet she would have a built in desire for a man, and he would take authority over her in the home.
Whatever it is that changed for man, it is certain that getting food by the sweat of the brow -- implying manual labor -- was not the original plan. Work would become the primary feature of a man's life, and it would end with his death. Afterward, he would be forgotten, just another pile of dust. All his labor would blow away with the next strong gust of wind. In ancient times, the greatest blessing was to be able to leave a legacy that kept your name alive in human memory.
Because of sin, life became ugly. Intended for intimate fellowship, husband and wife would find it hard to hold. Futility would take over as the dominant factor of human existence. But all was not lost, in that a measure of fellowship could be restored by God's provision. In the provision of animal hides -- a covering -- we know that blood was shed. Thus established is the principle of shed blood to answer for sin.
Yet all could not be fully restored. The immortality of innocence was gone forever; mankind was forbidden access to the Tree of Life. The path back was the Flaming Sword, a terrible symbol of the Word of God, of God's revelation of Himself to all. Eternal life required death of self, and this is clearly prefigured in the story. Mortality was also a new and permanent feature of human life.
Eden is not some place hidden in the sands of time, anyplace on earth. It is hidden much as a parallel universe -- it's right there, everywhere, but not accessable. That is, unless we pass the Flaming Sword. It must cut off from us death and sin. Without the change inherent in a revelation of God, there is no going back to Paradise, from whence we came, for which we were designed.
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Ed Hurst
revised 04 December 2003
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