Genesis 3 Part 1 v1-13 - The Fall of Man
This is a lynchpin chapter of the Bible and thus will take two parts to cover adequately. To be continued in part 2.
Immediately after the man "leaves his father" to create his own household and take dominion over the Earth, we read about his failure, his deception by the devil. This chapter serves as the sort-of "inciting incident" of the drama that unfolds through the pages of Scripture, ultimately culminating in the cross. For that reason, many theologians start their investigation of humanity here, rather than in the chapters preceding.
But, as I hope I've shown, the creation of man, his basic essence and purpose as well as the intention that he should grow into what he was intended to be is demonstrated in the first two chapters. This becomes important later in the Biblical story because when mankind is redeemed, it is important for us to have a Biblical picture of what he is redeemed to. This information may not be enough to give a fully fleshed out picture, but it should act as our baseline.
When we explore Scripture's view of what mankind should become, we must keep in mind that we are working from the basis of a dominion-having being, one that was commanded to be fruitful and multiply, one with room to grow and to develop.
But the fall, explored in this chapter of Genesis is the ultimate wrench in the fulfillment of mankind's destiny and purpose. All of the initial goodness with which mankind was created is corrupted in this act, and the effects of that corruption affect everything that comes after it.
We will need to look specifically at the dynamics of sin and try to understand what happened when the serpent convinced Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the tree. We will also spend a bit more time understanding the purpose of the tree and asking why it was forbidden to be eaten. We will also note some questions about clothing and the symbolism of clothing, as it is the first recorded technological gift to mankind from God.
3:1 - The Serpent
3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
The identity of the serpent is not obvious in this story, but we know from later Scripture (Rev 2:20) that the serpent was in some sense to be identified with Satan. However, it is also worthy of note that this verse implies that this is a literal "snake" of some kind (Revelation implies it might have been a "dragon" or a dinosaur-like creature, but that could be stretching the verse too far). The use of serpent elsewhere in Scripture identifies them as agents of God's judgment (Num 21:6), as well as a model for wisdom (Mt 10:16).
There is the question of whether Satan had fallen at this point in the story. There is no doubt by the end of history that Satan is a villain, through and through as he is cast into the lake of fire and leads a rebellion against God's people. The language in Revelation implies that he has been a long-standing enemy of mankind (Rev 20:3). Further evidence for the lengthy evil of Satan is found in Daniel (Dan 10:20-21). Job would appear also to be an example of Satan being an evil being, as he appears to be actively trying to get God's people to fall away from serving him (Job 1:9-11).
But at the end of day 6, Genesis states: "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen 1:31). Then, it would seem, if Satan is fallen at the beginning of Genesis 3, then whatever caused that fall happened between the end of Day 6 and the beginning of Genesis 3.
Jesus' implication in John 8:44 when he says that the devil was "a murderer from the beginning" is that the devil causing the deaths of Adam and Eve was motivated by hatred. We can also note that chapter 3 ends with God cursing Adam, Eve, and the devil.
This would imply that Adam and Eve and the devil all "fell" at the same time through the event recorded here. 1
1b He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
The serpent speaks to the woman, not to the man. We know later in verse 6 that Adam was with her as this was happening. Why does the serpent attack the woman?
There are two levels of conflict going on here. The first level is that the serpent is trying to accomplish something, the death of Adam and Eve. The second is that God is trying to accomplish something. We know from later scriptures (Lk 22:31, Job 1:12) that Satan cannot do anything without God's permission. Therefore we may ask for what purpose did God send the serpent?
For the second question we must view this as a "test" of sorts. Just like Christ is tempted in the wilderness, Adam is tempted in the Garden. Note that these are the only two times in Scripture where the devil speaks directly to a human being in temptation. We will attempt to bring in some thoughts about the nature and purpose of the test as we continue in the chapter. Suffice it to say at this stage that man has been given dominion, and now acts as the protector of the garden. This encroachment is his opportunity to exercise that dominion by protecting what God has made.
With regard to the question of why the woman is approached, the serpent is an underminer of authority. The man has the appropriate authority in the marriage and has therefore the responsibility to protect his wife. The serpent seems to be aware that by approaching the person under authority rather than the person in charge, he is reversing God's purposes in marriage. It is apparent that the woman is the weaker vessel (1 Pet 3:7) and this has ramifications beyond the physical. Eve is deceived, unlike Adam. (1 Tim 2:14) This does not mean that the woman is in any way more responsible for sin, in fact, the opposite is true. The sin of Adam is greater because he was not deceived.
In terms of practical application, many feminist impulses might arise to the mind of a modern reader, attempting to defy the use of the term weaker. In our society we do not value weakness, but strength. In reality this is a masculine impulse, and most appropriate between men, not between the sexes. Weakness has its purpose alongside strength, and the fact that creationally male and female are ordered this way is how God intended it. We cannot succumb to the temptation to associate weakness with "worseness". To be weaker is merely a statement of comparison, not a statement of value or usefulness.
In the divinely ordered creation, the man is intended to be the leader of the woman, the leader of his family. There are things about men that we can see in psychological research that assist in this process. Men tend to be more disagreeable. This is not a sin in and of itself, but it allows men to have a capacity to detach themselves from the social consequences of their actions when necessary. While obviously there are some men which are more agreeable than some women, relationships tend to be easier when a man who is less agreeable than his particular spouse. We could probably also make the observation that a relationship where a man is far more disagreeable than his spouse will also have significant challenges.
The purpose of this discussion is to point out that the woman's built-in characteristics and differences left her more open to the serpent's gambits. This compounds the sin of Adam who was responsible to protect her.
3:2-3 The Woman's Response
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
The woman responds to the serpent, who has questioned God's word. At this stage of the conversation it would have been reasonable for the woman to think the serpent was merely asking for information. Nothing about the serpents question by itself is wrong. We should always seek to know what God has said and to test it against the scriptures.
The woman's response is interesting, in that she first acknowledges that God has blessed her greatly by his prodigious providence in the garden, with all sorts of fruit to enjoy. Then she paraphrases God's command about the fruit of the tree. There is some disagreement among scholars as to the rightness of her response here. Some point out that she is, in essence, adding to the word of God here, putting out a further restriction than was really commanded. The thinking goes that her failure to keep the word of God exactly as spoken is the wellspring of her deception. She opens herself up to being tricked because she is not handling the word accurately.
However, it is not at all obvious that this is a mistake. In many areas of scripture, the same words are repeated with minor variations, for example in the gospels (Mt 16:4; Mk 8:12). Even in Genesis 1 and 2, you have a variation:
Genesis 1:28-29 - And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.
Here, he is promising every tree for food, but he is speaking to both the man and the woman. Contrast this with Genesis 2:
Genesis 2:16-17 - And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
This time he is speaking to just the man, it includes the prohibition against the tree of knowledge of good and evil and repeats the promise about every other tree.
Does this mean the Bible is contradictory? Not at all. It simply means that God spoke more than once to the man and to the woman. We can also make the point that word for word transcription of a quote is more of a modern phenomenon than an ancient one. Which exact words are used is not as important as what was said.
Then, we can possibly understand what the woman says to be an accurate paraphrase of the various conversations that she and Adam and God had had regarding the trees. One further point of evidence in favor of this view is that misrepresenting what God says is actually a pretty serious sin in and of itself. If the serpent's purpose was to get Adam and the woman to sin, that work would have been done already at this point.
There is a good lesson here that avoidance of sin sometimes includes wise prohibitions to avoid even coming close to the sin. For example, when my daughter is told not to eat something, she often will want to "just hold it next to her mouth". I usually add an additional prohibition to just put it down and not touch it. The handling of it is temptation and avoiding temptation is a wise thing to do, even if the act that we are doing to avoid it would not have been a problem in itself.
Thus we can reason with ourselves that if we are frequently tempted to sin in a particular way, wisdom would call upon us to set that thing out of reach.
3:4-5 The Temptation
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Now the serpent tightens the noose. The question may have been innocent enough, simply asking for information, but now he tempts the woman to defy what God has said. He denies the sentence that will be passed, that she will die, and gives her reason to wish for the fruit to have its effect.
What is worth noting in this is that there is a sense in which what the serpent says is true. In verse 22 of this chapter, God himself says that it is true that Adam and the woman have "become like [him], knowing good and evil". And it is also true that the sentence of death, while certainly true and real, is deferred in a way that may not have been obvious to the woman at the time.
The important thing to note though is that the serpent did this by approaching the woman on the basis of her reason. He explained to her why it was a reasonable thing that she should eat the fruit. A biblically trained person will know that human reason is fallible. True logic ultimately has its roots in the revelation of God. Therefore, we know that without God as the ultimate authority, human reason is detached from its source and becomes corrupt. As Romans 1 puts it, "claiming to be wise, they became fools", and "their foolish hearts were darkened".
Any reasoning that considers whether the authority of God's word can be trusted is illogical by definition. It is simply not possible to reason apart from God, nor to reason correctly to a conclusion that God's word is not trustworthy. The temptation is always to remove our actual authority, God, and replace him with human authority, usually ourselves.
3:6-7 The Fall
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Is her reasoning fallacious? Well, verse 2:9 says "And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." The tree was pleasing to the sight and good for food. Would the tree make her wise? Well certainly she desired it, and the serpent had told her that this would give her knowledge.
But of course, knowledge is not wisdom. It is right that she will get the knowledge and "become [more] like God", but this is not wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps 111:10). By taking it upon herself to consider whether she would override what God had said she is already in the throes of sin. She has made herself the autonomous authority over what is true and what is untrue. This is fallacious reasoning by definition. No reasoning that has its starting point that God might not be true can possibly be valid. We have said before, but it bears repeating, that God's very nature is the essence of logic itself. No logical reasoning is possible apart from God's activity, thus to use logic to question God's word is a fundamentally flawed practice. The proper response to an argument that God's word is not the authority is to say that we started from a false premise, that God's word could be false. Since it is not the case that God's word could be false, we know that God's word is true. That is the one and only starting point for genuine logical deduction and therefore for both wisdom and knowledge (Ps 111:10; Prov 1:7, 9:10).
Of course, in a sense she did gain knowledge in that act. She became aware of what it is to sin. And, although it was not taken in the manner in which it was intended, there is a sense in which she did gain wisdom. This will be discussed more fully in the commentary on verse 22. Suffice it to say that believing one can gain wisdom apart from the will and fear of God is an act of magical thinking. It is an attempt to wrest sovereignty over reality from God and it does not work in the way it is intended because such sovereignty can not, in any real sense, be taken by a creature. We are created in God's image in some senses, but there is no way for a creature to become sovereign over creation or to in any way become independent of God's sovereignty.
A bit of consideration on the nature of reality will make this abundantly clear. The universe and everything in it is upheld, actively, by the Word of God's power (Heb 1:3). The literal movement of atoms and the various forces and fields that hold together reality itself are the direct result of the active action of God in his creation. When the very fact that I exist is a direct result of the ongoing exercise of God's authority, how could I ever imagine to take even the smallest sliver of that power for myself?
The true fight here was not over a fruit but over authority. God was Adam's authority and Adam was the woman's authority. When the woman decided to break free of those authoritative structures, she was arrogating to herself the authority to stand in judgment over God's word. In the biblical model, she should have at least asked her husband whether this was a thing she should do. But rather than submitting to his authority, she took it upon herself.
As James Jordan put it:
It boils down to an authority question, and an authority question is not something that you can reason to... what's the ultimate authority? [Their] reason.
However, there remains a second puzzle: why is Adam seen as the progenitor of sin in the human race if the woman is the one who first took the fruit? Fundamentally, the husband has authority over his wife's decisions. Compare this with the book of Numbers:
Numbers 30:6 “If she marries a husband, while under her vows or any thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she has bound herself, 7 and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand. 8 But if, on the day that her husband comes to hear of it, he opposes her, then he makes void her vow that was on her, and the thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she bound herself. And the Lord will forgive her.
According to God's own law, the thoughtless choice that the woman had made could still have been overturned by the authority in the marriage, Adam. The verse even drops the usual descriptor "Adam" and instead uses the description "her husband". This is not an accident or a meaningless variation in address. By highlighting him in his role as husband, we understand that there is a ratification of her choice going on here when Adam also eats of the fruit. As a side note, it also points out that they were married, not just two people who happened to be together.
The marriage is the covenant between a man and a woman, and includes all of the associations and authority structures that God designated for the marriage covenant. We will take up discussion as to whether this authority structure is a result of the fall in the commentary on verse 16, but, for now, let it be enough to say that the authority structure is ordained as a good thing by God and not a result of the fall.
Therefore, we can understand that Adam's ratification of her decision was why the fundamental responsibility for the sin of mankind is given to Adam (Rom 5:12). If we follow the logic of the discussion in Numbers, it appears to be the case that the sin of the woman, if it were overturned by the husband's authority would have been forgiven. This helps explain why the fall is fundamentally on Adam's shoulders and not on the woman's.
We also may note that this is the source of the devil's authority over the world (Luk 4:6; Jn 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). By choosing to go with the serpent's argument over God's, Adam, who was the current ruler of the world at this time, put himself into subjection to the devil and therefore delivered his authority (Luk 4:6 again) over the world to the devil.
What's more, because of the covenantal nature of reality, God has sovereignly decreed that a father may make decisions that impact his entire generational line. Most obviously this is seen in the Book of Samuel and the Book of Kings, where God decrees many times that because of the sins of a father, his entire line is wiped out, that he snuffs out all future generations of that man's family.
In a sense, this is what is happening in the Garden. Death comes to Adam and therefore to all future generations of the man's family. Of course the mechanism of simply ending the bodily existence of all generations in Samuel or in Kings is much more obvious and in that sense it varies from the consequence of Adam's decision, as his death was not the end of his bodily existence. Nevertheless, scripture is clear that when Adam died, we all died (Rom 5:12-14). We should note also that from the stories in the Books of Samuel and Kings that even though the ultimate reason for God's judgment on the line of a particular man is that man's sin, we usually have it clearly demonstrated that the children deserved that judgment in equal or even greater measure to the father.
We also can recognize by the argument from Melchizedek that when a man submits to someone, all of his children, even those not yet born, are also put into subjection to the authority to which the father subjected himself (Heb 7:4-10). This is the ultimate reason for the virgin birth. Since Christ has no human father, he is not in the line of authority that Adam created. Rather, he is, in a non-technical sense, a new creation. Here is a second Adam, a man who has no father. His authority is truly independent from that of Adam and he is not born into the sin and subjection to the devil that all other men are.
Relevant in terms of our immediate application is that we must subject ourselves to the Word of God as our ultimate authority, even above our own reason. To stand in judgment over God's word is to ultimately be placing yourself at the mercy of sin. We believe it all, whether it makes sense to us or not. This is not to say that we don't attempt to reason about the Bible, but that we recognize immediately that any line of reasoning that questions the Bible is fundamentally attempting to saw off the branch it sits on. It's like reasoning that the practice of reasoning is itself faulty.
7 Then the eyes of both were opened,
We find that once they consumed the fruit, something indeed happened. It is emphatically not the case that the fruit was merely symbolic. Nor does the text support the idea that they "knew" good and evil solely in the sense that "well now that you have sinned you understand what sin is".
The question then, is what exactly does this represent? Obviously it's not literal eyes being opened because they were seeing before this. Rather, the best explanation appears to be that they became possessors of the ability to judge good and evil. This is in fact, how God's sight is described in much of the Bible.
Genesis 1: "And God saw that it was good." Note that this use of God's sight and eyes as rendering judgment is used in many places in the bible:
Jeremiah 32:18 You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts, 19 great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.
Psalm 11:4 The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord's throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
It is also used of human judgment in Genesis in many places:
Genesis 20:16 To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.”
Genesis 34:11 Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say to me I will give.
Genesis 50:4 And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh...
Given that we know the tree is the knowledge of good and evil and that the result was "opening the eyes", it stands to reason that this is speaking of a newfound judicial power of man. They now have the capacity to declare something good or evil. As mentioned briefly in chapter 2, this power in and of itself is a necessary good thing. It is essentially the concept of wisdom.
In 1 Kings 3:9, Solomon asks for this same power to discern between good and evil, and this is called wisdom. This is reinforced in Hebrews 5:14, where believers are encouraged to have their senses trained to discern good from evil.
Earlier in the commentary on Genesis 2
Then why does God refuse them the tree to begin with? This has to do with the fact that God intended mankind to develop. He did not create the man and the woman together, but the man, then only after his encounter with the animals does he realize that he is missing a helpmeet. Then God creates the woman and he now has the capacity to extend dominion over the whole land, though children, since he himself is too small and finite to accomplish that goal alone.
When encountering evil for the first time in the being of the serpent, he has no capacity to deal with this situation. He is incapable of pronouncing judgment on the serpent. What he, in fact, needed was the very fruit of the tree to give him the power to declare that the serpent was evil and cast him out.
This capacity for judgment is intended to be held by humanity. We know this from two major pieces of evidence.
John 5:26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
1 Corinthians 6:3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!
First we have Jesus commenting on how the authority to judge was given to him specifically in his role as the Son of Man, and also Paul commenting that there will come a time when we will judge angels. While the exact meaning of this is obscure, there is no doubt that judgment is entrusted to humanity, most particularly to Christ, the God-man.
We must understand that while Adam failed, he is typologically related to Christ in many ways. As Christ ultimately holds judgment in his role as the perfect second Adam, so Adam could have held judgment in his role as the first Adam.
Genesis 3:7 (cont) and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
The meaning of this is also obscure. We know that nakedness is not a sign of innocence and clothing is not a sign of sinfulness because glorified man and glorified Christ are always depicted as having glorious robes befitting their station (Rev 19:13; Rev 22:14). Rather the clothing seems to be a representation of glory.
Fitting with the understanding that the tree's knowledge itself was not problematic, we would expect glory to accompany the gaining of wisdom. However, since wisdom was not gained truly, as it was grabbed for apart from God, the glory is not real glory, but stitched together from whatever scraps Adam and the woman could find. This is an image of an attempt to stand according to one's own righteousness. The covering is simply not adequate.
3:8-10 Hiding From God
8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Some critics of the literal interpretation of Genesis have a problem with the idea that God is walking. Given that the Jewish understanding of God was that he had no physical manifestation (which I find to be... uncertain conjecture at best) this is supposedly a signal to the reader that this story is not a "real" historical event, but just a mythical retelling of some phantasm event that lies indecipherably behind the story.
Of course, the obvious truth is that regardless of what the Jews thought, we know for certain that God manifested himself in physical form in multiple places in Scripture. Several times the "Angel of the Lord" is called "God" (Gen 16:13, Exo 3:6) or accepts worship from man (Jos 5:14; Num 22:31). We know also that angels in general will NOT accept worship from man (Rev 22:9).
Therefore I find no basis for the argument that this "walking in the garden" is intended to mean anything other than specifically what it said. His physical manifestation, whether we identify that as a pre-incarnate Christ or some other sense, is literally walking through the garden.
Why do "the man" and "the woman" hide themselves from God? It is apparent that an immediate result of their sin was a desire to conceal the sin. This process of sin leading to greater sin in order to cover it up is manifest elsewhere in scripture (Prov 28:13).
We ought to take the advice of that proverb and not attempt to conceal our sin. The promise is that we will receive mercy as our sins are confessed, and this promise is repeated in (1 Jn 1:9). It is therefore good practice to have confession and reminder of mercy as a normal part of every day prayer. Many wonderful resources exist to give us a guide to how to do this, but I particularly enjoy the 1662 Book of Common Prayer call to repentance.
Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, and that we should not dissemble nor cloak them before the face of almighty God our heavenly Father, but confess them with a humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart, to the end that we may obtain forgiveness of the same, by his infinite goodness and mercy. And although we ought at all times humbly to acknowledge our sins before God, yet ought we most chiefly so to do, when we assemble and meet together to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul. Wherefore I pray and beseech you, as many as are here present, to accompany me with a pure heart and humble voice, unto the throne of the heavenly grace, saying after me,
Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent, According to thy promises declared unto mankind In Christ Jesu our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy name. Amen.
Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live, and hath given power and commandment to his ministers to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins: He pardoneth and absolveth all those who truly repent and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel; wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true repentance and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do at this present, and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy, so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Samuel L. Bray and Drew Nathaniel Keane, eds., The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, International Edition. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2021), 2–4.
This practice reminds us of the grace and mercy of God and keeps our "account" with him short. The reality is that even though there is a sense in which we are already forgiven past/present/future, there is another sense in which that forgiveness is not truly appropriated until we have some confession. By this I do not mean "forgiveness" in the final "damnation/salvation" sense, but in the sense of restored fellowship and assurance of salvation through God's Spirit.
In practice, it does not seem that every sin must be specifically articulated, nor would it be possible to do so as Martin Luther discovered. However, a general reminder and confession of our sinful hearts and our awareness of our need for mercy pays great dividends both in the feeling of relief and in the process of our experience of freedom from that sin. One finds that God is indeed faithful to cleanse us of unrighteousness, not judicially (as that has been true since we had saving faith) but experientially. This is the reason that the reformation era churches often started service with a collective confession of sin once a week. It also allowed people to hear and receive the gospel each week. Since many modern churches do not practice this, if you do not have a regular practice of confession and assurance of mercy, it is wise to include it at least weekly in your private devotions or family worship.
9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
It's as clear as can be that God is in no way uncertain about where "the man" is (Heb 4:13, if you need a verse). Instead this is a call for the man to come before God. There are a lot of whys and hypotheticals going on in this chapter, as it appears that God is asking for Adam to bring himself before him and to approach the throne of mercy.
But rather than approaching the throne of mercy and receiving forgiveness, Adam attempts foolishly to hide. His explanation is a bit strange though, why should he be concerned for his nakedness? Particularly since he had made himself a loincloth? There appears to be more going on here than if we are naked and someone knocks on our door. He's not concerned about rudely displaying himself to God. Rather, according to Peter Leithart:
Because of their sin, [they were] defiled, and they knew that they were unfit for God’s presence. Throughout the Bible, nakedness and shame are virtually synonymous; both point to God’s judgment against sin. To be ashamed is to stand condemned before the Judge.
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/biblical-horizons/no-35-skinned-and-cut/
The shame associated with nakedness is in contrast to Genesis 2:25 (which rightly should likely be part of chapter 3, as the entire theme of nakedness and clothing is explored in Chapter 3) where they are "naked and not ashamed". In Isaiah 47:3 the connection is made explicit:
Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one.
Thus, we can consider that nakedness in this sense is related to being "exposed" before God in judgment. Nothing is hidden from God, after all. The connection between nakedness and the robes of glory is not as simple as "exposed" and "not exposed", however. Clothing and robes are not necessary to "cover" sin in all cases, as Christ is robed with glory (Ps 93:1). Then, while the image of "putting on Christ" (Rom 13:14) has a sense in which it is related to "covering sin", there is a greater sense in which it is related to the deeds of righteousness and the glory of God. Robes become an important thing when we start considering the law and the ministry of the priesthood, as robes are indicative of their office (Exo 29:5). The theme of robes and authority being related is also explored throughout Genesis. Kings also wear robes in many contexts (1 Kings 22:10, Est 6:8; Isa 6:1).
Isaiah 61:10 is a good verse to solidify the association and theme in our minds as it is used in Scripture:
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
To draw together these threads, nakedness for a sinner is shameful, though nakedness is not inherently bad, it merely means that you are not yet mature. Clothing is associated for a sinner with forgiveness, but more generally with glory and authority and righteousness. This association of clothing being indicative of an office is still with us today. Judges, businessmen, doctors, scientists, pastors in traditional churches are good examples, but even uniforms for a sports team are indicative of what role a person plays. These associations are not accidental, but built in to the way God made reality.
We should therefore NOT take away from this passage that nakedness is a good to which we aspire, like some fringe Christian nudists have claimed. The need for clothing is not as simple as "because they are sinful".
3:11-13 God's Interrogation
11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
The question is then put to them that they ought not to realize that they were naked. As we have seen, there is nothing moral about nudity intrinsically. Thus, it is not as though the knowledge of good and evil included an awareness of nudity intrinsically. Rather they became aware of their own sin, and therefore that they were exposed before God. God knew that without the sin, there would be no concern about nudity and therefore no reason to even make the distinction. They also would have no awareness of the suitability of clothing for a glorified individual. As we have mentioned before, God is pictured as having robes, and there is no reason to believe that he was not clothed in the garden as well.
However, they did not necessarily understand that clothing was appropriate for them as well. The animals don't wear clothing, and they were aware that while they were made in the image of God, there are obvious differences between humans and God. Perhaps clothing was just one of those differences.
But with the awareness of good and evil, they would become aware of their own sin, as well as the fact that clothing is appropriate with glory and righteousness. Their awareness of the difference between them and God is the sign that they are now have the capacity to acknowledge good and evil. Of course, God knows this, but he is giving them a chance at confession.
Of course, then Adam immediately does not take responsibility for his sin but rather blames the woman, and not just the woman, but God himself, for giving the woman to him.
This is a fundamental human response to sin as well. Either they blame others for forcing the situation on them, or they blame God. True, in modern contexts people do not directly blame God for their sin very often, but we do see a blaming of their circumstances. This is tantamount to blaming God, as he sovereignly administers our circumstances. It is a great heresy and great evil doctrine when someone says that a person's circumstances are what led them to theft or to abortion or to drug abuse or any other sin. Their sin remains their own, no matter what the circumstance of it.
As for the woman, to whom God next turns, she also blames another. The devil made me do it. There is no doubt that she was deceived, nor that the serpent had a hostile intent in his deception, but this does not excuse anything either. Her deception came from the sin in her heart, the desire to question God's word and take on her own authority over that word. Jer 17:9 explains that the heart is deceitful, and it is that deceptive organ that leads us to our sin, not our circumstances or anyone who might be influencing or tempting us. As Christ demonstrated in his temptation, an absolute reliance on the authority of God's word over all else is proof against temptation.
However, there is more going on here in that the fact that the woman was deceived and the man was not, means that he is the one who takes the lion's share of the blame. He was responsible to guard and protect his wife, which he failed to do, and, as the covenant head of his household, his sin reflects on to all of his children.
However, we should remember that, although it is true that Adam's curse applied to every person, it is by no means the case that people are judged because of the sin of another (Deut 24:16). It is tempting to view original sin as though it undoes our agency, but this is not the case. It is a fundamental error in Biblical thinking to view God's sovereignty and human responsibility in conflict. The reality is that although God sovereignly decided that we would be born dead in our sins and transgressions, this is no less because of our own sin and transgressions that we are dead. Original sin is a theological construct to explain certain aspects of the curse on mankind, but understood in an incorrect fashion it can be made to reduce our culpability for our own sin. Our sinful "nature" is as freely chosen as our rejection of God apart from the Spirit, though it also exists in us from birth (Ps 58:3).
It is a principle of sound doctrine that we do not allow our philosophical difficulties in understanding override what the text actually teaches. It is challenging to understand how God can both allow all men to be born "dead" and yet they have a free will and choose death. While Adam's sin covenantally doomed all of mankind to sin and slavery to the devil, we nevertheless ratify that curse with our very first breath (or possibly even before) and all the sin that issues forth afterward.
Smith, Ralph Allan The Fall of Satan (https://theopolisinstitute.com/the-fall-of-satan/)