Geneses Chapter 3- Sin

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Geneses Chapter 3- Sin

The Text from https://www.bible.com/bible/111/GEN.3.NIV

The Fall

1 Now the serpent(1) was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Even the divine garden was not temptation free. There is temptation where temptable is. Mt. 4:10, 16:23, Mankind is temptable because of its privilege which bestowed by God. The tempter, who manifested as a serpent, began with distortion of God's command to bring doubt to the woman.)

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” (The woman was tricked so responded with distorted answer. She was brought out from the correctness/righteousness of God.)

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.

5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (The tempter lied, Jn. 8:44, that she will be like God not dying but knowing good and evil. Temptation is gradual.)

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (The woman saw the fruit and tempted by its charms of her lust, greed, and pride, and ate it with her husband. (2, Eating the Fruit))

7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (They didn't die after eating the fruit but came to know good and evil, so that realized the shame of being naked. They covered themselves with the woven fig leaves; the first invention of mankind.)

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (They hid from God when they heard God's presence. Disharmony begins between God and mankind.)

9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” (God asked them where they are, not because God didn't know where they hid but to make them realize where and why they were about.)

10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” (The man answered that they hid because of their nakedness. He and she covered their shame with the leaves but failed. Nothing can cover the difference between the Creator and creatures.)

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” (God made them naked from the beginning and never blamed them for nakedness. 2:25. But they came to the shamefulness by their disobedience.)

12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me- she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” (The man blamed the woman, which was given to him by God. Disharmony between man and woman begins.)

13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (The woman passed on her guilt to the tempter when she was questioned.)

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. (The serpent will or already be punished for its evilness.)

15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; (The enmity between the serpent and her for generations.) and he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (The serpent will bite the heel of her offspring- The death of Jesus on the cross- and the offspring of the woman crush the head of the offspring of the serpent- the Resurrection of Jesus. 1Jn. 3:8. (3, Proto-Evangelium)

16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (Childbearing was given to woman from the beginning. V. 28, but the pain of it added as a punishment.)

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (The duty of working had been given to mankind but the pain of labor was added as a punishment of disobedience. Disharmony between mankind and nature begins.)

20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. (Adam the first male called the woman Eve which means the mother of all the living.)

21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (The Lord God sacrificed a life of animal, shedding the blood, to cover the shame of mankind. Mankind cannot save him/herself but must rely on the grace of God. It symbolizes the redemptive death of Jesus. Heb. 9:22)

22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” (Mankind traded the eternal life with the mortal knowledge. He knows but can't. Tthe history of human culture and civilization is an human effort to be able up to the level of God. But the success of human history is destined to failure from the beginning.)

23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. (The Lord God kicked out Adam and Eve from the perfect paradise, the Garden of Eden to the land of harsh labor.)

24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. (Also blocked the entrance to the Garden until the reopen. Rev. 2:7) (4, After the Fruit)

(1, The Serpent) (AI)

In Genesis 3:1, the serpent is introduced as the most "crafty" or "subtle" (Hebrew: arum) of all wild animals created by God. It acts as a cunning, deceptive agent, questioning God's command to Adam and Eve. Often interpreted as Satan or a creature possessed by him, the serpent initiates the fall by tempting Eve.

Characteristics: The serpent is described as a beast of the field, part of the created order, yet uniquely intelligent and capable of speech.

The Deception: It initiates the temptation by questioning God's word ("Did God really say...?") and directly contradicting it ("You will not certainly die").

Symbolism: While appearing as an animal in the narrative, the serpent is widely understood in later theology (e.g., Revelation 12:9, 20:2) as a symbol for Satan, the deceiver.

Craftiness: The Hebrew term arum (crafty/shrewd) implies a negative, deceitful, or cunning nature in this context, rather than positive prudence.

The serpent’s strategy is to twist God’s word, sowing doubt about God's goodness and motives, leading to the temptation of becoming like God.

(2, Eating the Fruit)

Refer to the link for more.

Eating the Fruit from https://cafe.daum.net/k331/PeqF/10

Some say mankind is originally good.

Some other say the opposit; evil nature of mankind from the very beginning.

The viewpoints of man's nature might be the most crucial watershed for so many philosophies and teachings.

The Bible says mankind is evil, committed sin from the very beginning and, destined to wrath.

(Gen. 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Rom. 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Eph. 2:3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.)

Sin has two sides of it; pleasure and pain.

Knowing the painful consequences of sin you might want to avoid it.

But the temptation of the pleasure of sin is too great to ignore and keep away.

So, we live in conflict and even more so when the Bible condemns sin so much.

What is the sin then?

What's the nature of the sin?

Knowing what the sin is, understanding the sin, we might have some edge to deal with it, hopefully.

The beginning of the sin is eating the forbidden fruit, says the Bible.

"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." (Gen. 3:6)

We already thought of the significance of the forbidden fruit before.

It was a reminder that we are not "free" Creator but creature or creation.

It also shows that we can have relationship with God under the one condition of obedience.

As long as we obey God and staying within His grace we may be called the children of God.

But the forbidden fruit has its own fatal charms.

It is fatal not only because God said so but also it has its deadly poison in its charms; temptations.

The Bible says the fruit has tree temptations; "was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom."

Food satisfies physical pleasure.

Pleased eye tells you to own it.

Wisdom tempts you to reposition you up to the level of God.

So, in another words, the forbidden fruit is tempting you to enjoy more, to have more, and to be proud of yourself more up to God's level.

The forbidden fruit, therefore, is temptation for pleasure, possession, and position.

There might be thousands of individual sins but they all fall into one of these three categories of sin.

Do you know that Jesus was also tempted as well?

After forty days of fasting in wilderness, He was led into the test of temptations; turning stone to bread to feed himself, jumping down from the pick of the cliff for glorious and grand reactions of those angels, and bowing down to the Satan for all those goodies of the world. (refer Mt. 4:1-11)

He was tempted to satisfy His physical sensations and pleasure, to satisfy His ego or pride, and the greed of those matters of the world through His eyes.

Of course, unlike of us He did not sin by committing Himself to the temptations. (Heb. 4:15, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are- yet was without sin.)

Why we and Jesus are getting tempted by those three Ps?

Because we have "Three Self"; body, mind, and spirit.

Pleasure is for body, possession for mind, and position for spirit.

Perhaps body follows after sin, mind stands on sin, and spirit sits on sin. (Confer Ps. 1:1, Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.)

John the apostle also warns us not to love those three Ps; the lust of the flesh-pleasure, the lust of the eyes-possession, and the boastful pride of life-arrogance of position. (1Jn. 2:15-16 (NASB) Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh (the cravings of sinful man, NIV) and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.)

So, we call those three Ps hedonism(self-indulging the sensational satisfaction too much), materialism(valuing materials too much over any other values), and humanism(valuing human too much without the knowledge of God) if we want to identify three Ps with modern terminologies.

Why then sin is so bad?

The sin, escaping from God's provision and following after the temptation for your own satisfaction, is deadly because you are leaving the life-giving grace of God and also you will eventually hurt someone else's life while you try to satisfy yourself too much.

Hurting your life or others' is evil because life is the ultimate value, not only for us but also for the Author and the Master of the life; God Himself.

So, the pleasure, the possession, and the position are all bad?

Are we all not living for and by these three Ps?

If these are evil what we have to live for?

The three Ps, however, are not evil by themselves.

They are what we want and what we need.

Even God gave us those three Ps.

When He blessed Adam and Eve, the mankind, He was giving the three Ps for their life.

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground" (Gen. 1:28).

Without sex, without food, without having those looking-good things, and without being positioned above all other creatures we can not carry out His blessing which also is our duty for His Kingdom.

Why then having those three Ps is sin?

The answer should be very obvious at this point.

If we had them within His provision, which was plenty, plenty, plenty, here, there, and everywhere, three Ps are the blessings of God.

If we had them out of His provision, which was prohibited with death penalty, three Ps are the temptation to sin, and way to the death. (Jam. 1:15, Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.)

We have to desire God who has already provided all we need.

Anyway, we already sinned and condemned.

But the story does not end there.

The next will be coming soon, thankfully.

Until then, God bless you all.

P.S.

Seems like I did not talk too much about the being and the role of Satan as of tempter in here talking about the sin.

I did so intentionally, not because there is no Satan but because there is nothing beneficial to condemn or blame for Satan's role and what had happened because of him.

If Satan is bad, condemnation is belong to God (or Jesus).

Responsibilities to reflect ourselves, to obey God, and to fight against devil's temptations belong to us. (Jam. 4:7, Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.)

So, you should have no problems with that.

(3, Proto-Evangelium) (AI)

The Protoevangelium (from Greek for "first gospel") refers to Genesis 3:15, the earliest biblical prophecy of a Savior, occurring immediately after the Fall in Eden. It foretells a future descendant of Eve ("seed") who will crush the serpent's head, signifying ultimate victory over sin and evil, though suffering a wounded heel.

Key details regarding the Protoevangelium:

Definition: It is the first promise of salvation and the "first form in which the gospel appears".

Biblical Passage (Genesis 3:15, NASB): "And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel".

Significance: It is interpreted by Christians as the first proclamation of the Gospel (or "first gospel"). The "seed of the woman" is seen as a prophecy of Jesus Christ's victory over Satan.

Context: It is delivered by God as a curse upon the serpent after Adam and Eve disobeyed.

Symbolism: It introduces the ongoing battle between good and evil, with the "heel" representing the suffering of Christ during his triumph.

(4, After the Fruit)

Refer to the link for more.

After the Fruit from: https://cafe.daum.net/k331/PeqF/12

Mankind, Adam and Eve, ate the forbidden Fruit (Gen. 3:6).

Having what they wanted, they got punished and land being cursed (Gen. 3:16-19, Rom. 8:22).

So, they had to labor to get food and to bear children; toil to survive.

However, I think the consequences of disobedience are not the "paying-back actions" that we usually consider punishments of God, but rather, the ultimate result of leaving abundant love and grace of God. (Jn. 3:18, Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.)

(Some people make big deal about who ate first. However, this point is not important.

We have to think about, or be responsible for, "myself" other than any other person or people. but neither "yourself" nor "himself/herself."

If we become entangled with these thoughts, we will end up blaming others for what we have done. Blaming others is not right.)

God created for us all-balanced, all-prepared, and all-regulated perfect world, the Cosmos.

Escaping from His Cosmos (the orderly world) is to go back to the Chaos which was the condition of pre-Creation.

When people are pursuing after their own pleasure, possession, and position more than what they need, more than what they are supposed to have, they eventually get into the situation in which everybody fights and inflicts pain on each other.

That's what happened to Adam and Eve and to all of us.

Some parts of the world and nature still look good but we have to know that we now are living in a deteriorating world because of our total and communal sin. (Rom. 8:22, For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.)

As the result of eating the Fruit, one more thing happened to Adam and Eve.

Actually it was foretold by the tempter. (Gen. 3:5, "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.")

They were now able to know good and evil and found themselves to be naked.

And they made garments with the leaves of a fig tree. (Gen. 3:7)

It is so amazing for me to see what happened to them and what they had done for themselves.

They became to know good and evil, realized that they were naked, and made clothes for themselves with fig leaves.

THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION.

The Sin brings human out from the Nature of God and into the Culture of their own. (Ecc. 7:29, This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.)

Is it good or bad?

We call what God did or does Nature; His original creation.

Culture is, instead, what mankind make to make their lives better.

Isn't it amazing to see the sin, desire to have more pleasures, more possessions, and higher positions, is what drives the culture and civilization?

Adam and Eve were the ones who began to culturize and civilize themselves out of their action of sin.

Now we should be able to see the true picture of our cultures and civilizations.

Nature by God was good and perfect. (Gen. 1:31, God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.)

Culture, on the other hand, is a result of sinning of mankind.

Aren't you enjoying the cultures and civilizations we live in?

What's wrong with the man-made Culture then?

Yes. It is true that all kinds of brilliant and excellent modern cultures and civilizations began with very simple and humble assemblies of fig leaves to cover their shame.

Did they succeed to cover their shame then?

They covered themselves, still being ashamed, and hid from God (Gen. 3:7-8).

They knew they were naked but were not able to cover their shame with their culture.

In Nature, they were naked but not ashamed (Gen. 2:25).

To whom were they not ashamed; to each other who all were naked or to God who was with no shame?

Certainly they were in shame to God for not being the same with God.

We know that by seeing that they hid themselves from God, but not from each other.

God did not ask them to be the same with God for not being ashamed.

God just wanted them to remain, to stay within His "Shame-Covering" grace and love.

That's why they were not ashamed toward God before the sin, because they were clothed with His grace (Gen. 2:25).

We make culture to make our lives better.

But we do not have ability to attain what we want to have.

That's the root of our problems; want but not being ABLE to have.

Does all our unhappiness, conflicts, sufferings, and pains not come from this; unfulfilled desire?

While we could satisfy everything we need in His love and grace, we tried to provide ourselves more than we need, fighting each other, and caused conflicts, casualties, pains, sufferings, and eventually death.

God is still good and faithful in spite of our own disobediences and mistakes.

We deserve the consequences of our own stupid actions of disobeying His loving instructions.

But God foretold that the Child of woman will crush the head of the tempter, Satan later. (Gen. 3:15, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.")

This is the first promise of the Savior for sinned mankind.

Not only promised but also God covered them with leather coats.

What a luxury they were enjoying in spite of their sin!

Providing skin clothes involves killing animals, and shedding atoning blood.

(Atoning is making amends or giving satisfaction for wrong done)

This is the picture of Jesus on the Cross which will happen later.

So we may call this "the Original Gospel."

What are we going to do then?

We disobeyed God by pursuing after our own pleasure, possession, and position.

Now we found that we are naked and ashamed.

Now what?

Continue to cover yourself with your own culture and civilization?

Or, return back to His grace and love?

We've been creating our own cultures and civilizations, stayed there, and tried to satisfy ourselves there.

But we have to know and acknowledge that our efforts can not solve the problems we caused.

Only He is, His Son Jesus is the only solution because God only is the Author of everything.

He creates, saves, maintains, and will judge all at His own time.

We still make our own culture.

That's a part of our normal life.

But if we knew what happened to us, we'd better be careful as if what kind of culture we are making and living in, worldly or godly.

(1Jn. 2:15-16, 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man (or flesh), the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world.)

(Eph. 4:22-24, 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.)

We have to remember God's life-giving grace and love, Jesus Himself, and stay there.

(Jn. 15:4, Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.)

(2Co. 12:9, But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.)

Later on His time, the land will be restored, and we will also be perfectly freed from the bondage of what we have done; the sin (Isa. 11:1-10, Jn. 8:31-32, Rom. 8:21).