Page 15 - Pentateuch

Chapter 3: Pentateuch Part II:
Sin and Salvation: Genesis 3:1-11:26

Connect…

Over and over in Genesis chapter one, we read of God’s good creation. After the creation of humans, God
even viewed his work as “very good” (1:31). At the end of chapter two, we read of Adam and his wife. They
were “both naked, and they felt no shame” (2:25). Our own experience is quite different. We wonder how
life got so bad if it started so good. We wonder how male/female relationships became so tangled after
such a clean, miraculous beginning.

As we turn to chapter three, we are reminded of a tree in the Garden of Eden, the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil (2:17). Not much is said of that tree. Knowing good and evil quite well from the standpoint of
evil, we wonder what life might have been like without such dark thoughts and motives as we regularly
possess. We cannot know this might have been. The Bible does not say. Yet we can know how we got from
“good” to death.

The Lesson ...

The nature of life with sin and grace.

A serpent appears (3:1-7). He is a creature. He is “crafty,” a characteristic that can be used for either good
or bad (Prov. 12:16, “prudent,” and Exod. 21:14, “schemes”). We are unsure of his “serpent” status. In our
experience, serpents do not talk. We wonder if “serpent” is a metaphor borrowed from our experience to
communicate about a different sort of creature. Later in the Bible, we learn his real identity. He is Satan,
God’s opponent who has already fallen into sin and rebellion and likes nothing more than to accuse, lie, and
condemn (Job 1,2; Rev. 12:9; 20:2).

We do not know why the serpent chose to talk to Eve. Both Adam and Eve are present (3:6). We can
speculate about the differences between male and female. She was the weaker of the two, making her an
easier target. Or, she was the stronger of the two, making success inevitable if she could be confused. Or,
she received from Adam the instructions God gave to him, while Adam received God’s instructions from
God Himself. All of this is speculation. We do not know.

God had given three simple instructions. “You are free to eat from any
tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, for when you eat it, you will certainly die” (2:16-17).
Satan attacks each in turn. 1.) Freedom to eat from any tree, but one
becomes restricted from eating that one tree (3:1). All of God’s good
creation is spoiled by one prohibition. Satan turns true freedom into
bondage. 2.) The result will not be death (3:4), a direct contradiction of
God’s words. 3.) In fact, good will result as Adam and Eve could have a
god-like experience of this world (3:4). Satan’s goal is to make God seem unreliable. He is not their friend.
He has not really given anything good. He is unreasonable. Their own minds are capable of deciding what is
good and what is evil without God’s help.

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