Taught by
Stephen ArmstrongGenesis
Genesis 2011 - Lesson 3D
Chapter 3:17-24
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God has responded to the sin of the Garden by punishing Satan and then dealing to the Woman
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We saw last week that God never curses woman
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And the three decrees given to Woman is actually grace
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She goes largely unpunished, except that she will share in the punishments handed out to Adam
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And those punishments are severe
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But yet there is a measure of grace for him as well
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Gen. 3:17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
Gen. 3:18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
Gen. 3:19 By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”
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God reserves the longest statement for Adam
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He listened to his wife’s voice…was this wrong?
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No, except by comparison
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Who’s voice should he have listen to? God’s
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And notice, Adam didn’t listen to the serpent’s voice – only the Woman’s voice
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This suggests to us that man wasn’t eaves dropping on the conversation between the woman and Satan
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Man was culpable for his decisions and is therefore the one who brought sin into the world
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So God issues His second curse
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Notice, He curses not Adam but the ground
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God has deemed the earth to be irreparable
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A curse means that the object of the curse will cease to be
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By this curse, God declared that the earth must be replaced
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Earth no longer considered suitable for eternity
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Adam’s sin has become a contaminant
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Remember that Adam was made from the earth, so when Adam fell, the “earth” itself became contaminated by sin as well
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God has now declared that the earth will deteriorate and eventually be replaced
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We can see in play the second law of thermodynamics – all matter and energy go from a higher state to a lower state, never the reverse
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Is. 34:4 And all the host of heaven will wear away,
And the sky will be rolled up like a scroll;
All their hosts will also wither away
As a leaf withers from the vine,
Or as one withers from the fig tree.
2Pet. 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.
2Pet. 3:11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,
2Pet. 3:12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!
2Pet. 3:13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
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Before this curse, Adam was instructed to work the ground in the garden to serve God
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And that work would have been enjoyable and rewarding
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In fact, it wasn’t work at all, in the way we think of work today
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Now, his efforts to work the ground will be a chore and a fight against the decree God has instituted
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Work will be a “two steps forward, one step backward” kind of experience
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God’s curse guarantees that our work will result in the world seeming to work against our best efforts
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Yard work isn’t fun, gardens have weeds, things will wear out and need repair
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Before the fall, Adam’s work didn’t include these kind of set backs
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After the restoration of the earth, we will find a wonderful kind of work serving God, in the way Adam first experienced in the Garden
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Why does God curse the ground?
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First, like Woman’s pain, it is a chastisement that also forms a memorial of the mistake
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Today we can remember how sin led to this situation
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Second, this change becomes an object lesson to teach us the futility of man’s work in the face of sin
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Our flesh wants to solve its own problem
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We are tempted to work our own solution
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But now man’s fruitless efforts at work will serve as a contrast to God’s perfect work in Christ
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We simply can’t rely on our own work, because that work is never finished
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When we pull a weed, a new one emerges
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When we paint the house, it needs new paint in a few years
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If our own work can’t ensure permanent solutions in the garden or the shingles, how can our work save us from our sin?
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Finally, the curse will ensure that God eventually puts an end to everything contaminated by sin
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This is the origin of physical death for everything that comes from the ground
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Adam’s body, animal’s bodies, trees, plants
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It is the wisdom of God to create a plan where He can curse the contaminated world without cursing Adam’s spirit
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Only the physical body is cursed by this pronouncement
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Which is why we must receive a new body upon our resurrection
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This curse is ultimately a blessing for God’s children
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Man’s corrupt body must be replaced
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And because Woman was made from Adam, she shares in these same pronouncements
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If not, man would live forever eternally sinful
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Psa. 102:24 I say, “O my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days,
Your years are throughout all generations.
Psa. 102:25 “Of old You founded the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
Psa. 102:26 “Even they will perish, but You endure;
And all of them will wear out like a garment;
Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed.
Psa. 102:27 “But You are the same,
And Your years will not come to an end.
Psa. 102:28 “The children of Your servants will continue,
And their descendants will be established before You.”
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Also, the ground will be replaced too
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And when the earth is made new, the curse will be gone
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Is. 65:21 “They will build houses and inhabit them;
They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
Is. 65:22 “They will not build and another inhabit,
They will not plant and another eat;
For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people,
And My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands.
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So then the chapter wraps up with a number of significant details
Gen. 3:20 Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.
Gen. 3:21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
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It seems the story has abruptly changed course
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Adam decides to give his wife a new name
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Remember, Adam had already given her a name
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Gen. 2:23 The man 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.”
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But now Adam decides to rename Woman to Eve
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Why is this renaming happening, and why did Adam decide to do it here in the midst of such a haunting moment?
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First, the name Eve means mother of all the living
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The word Eve is chavvay in Hebrew – which means life or living
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Her name tells us why Adam has renamed her and why he did so here
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Adam has just heard God declare that He would bring a solution to this problem through the Woman
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The solution would result in the destruction of the serpent
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And it would come through a seed that Woman would provide
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This solution, later to be called the Messiah, would be the source of all the living
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So Adam hears God make this promise, and he takes action in response
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The word God spoke said Woman would bring new life, and Adam renamed her Eve, meaning life or living
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Adam is showing proof that he received this word from God and believed it
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We know God had spoken to Adam before concerning the tree
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Adam didn’t believe that word
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So sin came into the world
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But the Fall of Adam brings us a troubling question
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If Adam didn’t believe God’s word, was Adam saved?
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Did he receive grace and was he saved from the sin he produced?
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Here we have our answer
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Having heard God’s promise concerning Adam’s wife, Adam believe God’s word this time
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In fact, he renames his wife to make clear that he believed
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This is also a direct reversal of the last time
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Last time Adam heard a word of God and didn’t believe and acted contrary
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But now he acts in keeping with belief
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And he takes an action consistent with his belief
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In this moment we can say that Adam becomes a believer by faith in God’s word
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In response to that faith, God then demonstrates that forgiveness is available
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God makes Adam and Eve animal skins for clothes
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Remember that Adam and Woman had tried to cover themselves with plants
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But that covering hadn’t been enough
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They still felt vulnerable
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Now by faith, God grants them a covering made of animal skins
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This means that animals had to die to provide their skins
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An animal was sacrificed to provide a covering for man – both spiritual and physical
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The atonement was a picture of the atoning work of Christ on the cross
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Where before man tried to cover himself by his own work in making leaves, that work was insufficient to provide true covering for sin
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But now in faith, Adam has found a true covering
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And God provides animals skins by His own hands
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God’s work can do what man’s work cannot
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This is the first death recorded in the history of creation
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An animal sacrificed to cover the first sin (limited atonement)
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Gen. 3:22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” —
Gen. 3:23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.
Gen. 3:24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
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First, we immediately notice that God uses a plural when referring to Himself
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What a simple way to see that even in the first pages of the Bible God is referring to Himself as the Godhead
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He says that man became like one of Us (plural reference to God – Elohim)
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Trinity clearly on display
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The term “one of us” combines a singular and a plural reference
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This statement is a comment by God for the benefit of mankind
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It explains why we (man) were excluded from the Garden God made available
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The Garden included a tree that provided eternal physical life
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This is grace in two ways:
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It is grace to provide for the replacement of the corrupted body
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It is grace to ensure that men aren’t left alive to be used by Satan indefinitely
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To live forever in a sinful body is a curse
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By forcing them out of the Garden, the man and woman will know physical death, but this is a good thing for believers
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Secondly, God must prevent Adam and Eve from entering God’s presence in the Garden again
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Though they are saved by faith, nevertheless they still carry around sin in their bodies
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This sin cannot be in the presence of God and live
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So God “drives them out” and they are expelled from the Garden
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The sense in Hebrew is that they weren’t necessarily willing to leave the Garden
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But God used His angels to force the ejection
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To be sure they don’t try to re-enter, God stations angels at the entrance
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This must have been a dramatic scene for many years
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In fact, this guard was in place for 1,630 years (until the flood)
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Adam and the next generation would have discussed how they were excluded from the Garden
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This was grace in that it preserved the human race to ensure that God’s plan of redemption would have time to play out as God intended
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Instead of coming to an untimely end by meeting God in judgment in the Garden
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The reference to the flaming sword is actually a reference to the Shechinah glory of God Himself
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So God used angels and His glory to keep men out of the Garden
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Before, Adam enjoyed the direct fellowship with God
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But now sin had produced a barrier that prevented him from having that intimate, personal relationship with God in the Garden
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The barrier was obvious and foreboding in the form of this angels and God’s glory
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As long as sin existed in Adam and the world, access to God was impossible
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Only if something removes that barrier can true fellowship return
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We know that Jesus by His blood cleansed us and the world of that sin
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And in a future day, we will enter in His presence without fear because the atoning work of Christ will have removed that barrier
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Today we have access in Spirit because of Jesus' work
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In a future day, we will also receive new bodies, and we will walk into Christ’s presence
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