WHERE ARE YOU ADAM
Introduction
When God put Adam and Eve in charge of the garden of Eden, he gave them one simple commandment:
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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 command was easy enough to obey because there were so many other fruit trees from which to eat.
Disobedience
The man and the woman lived in the garden together peacefully, in complete harmony with each other, with the created world around them and with their Creator. But an enemy of God was present, one of his angels who had rebelled against him. This enemy, Satan, wanted to destroy the beauty, but most of all the relationship between God and man.
Satan took the form of a snake and one day, when the woman was walking around, he struck up a conversation with her:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 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.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
When Satan asked his first question, he twisted the easy commandment that God had given and made it sound harsh and difficult. Then he lied to the woman and said that she would not die but become knowledgeable! This is the character of Satan: twisting the words of God, lying and deceiving people.
How would the woman react? Surely she smelled the danger and would turn away. But no:
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. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Both the woman and the man were lured into disobeying God. The immediate result was that their relationship was changed: they were ashamed of each other, because they were naked. Something else was changed, too.
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. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.
They were afraid of God! The relationship of love and trust between them and their Creator was disturbed. They wanted to hide from God. Things had changed forever and would never be the same.
Blaming someone else
Then God asked them what happened. Of course God already knew what had happened, but he wanted to hear it directly from them. They were created with a will, and responsible for their own deeds.
He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." 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."
Notice how both Adam and his wife try to blame someone else. Adam even says: ‘The woman you put here with me’ – he blames God for having given him his wife! And he blames his wife, too. The woman blames the snake. It is always easy to put the blame on someone else when we stumble and do wrong things. But we should all take responsibility for the wrong deeds we do.
Punishment and Promise
God punishes them. The man and his wife cannot live in the beautiful garden anymore. God tells Adam that from now on, ‘the ground is cursed’. Adam will need to work hard and endure trouble to make a living. His wife will suffer much pain when she bears children, and her husband will have dominion over her. The harmony between the man and woman is gone and the harmony between man and nature also. And one day, they would die.
But it does not stop there. The serpent is punished too. Listen to what God says to him:
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."’
This verse contains a promise for the man and the woman. The offspring of the woman will one day destroy Satan – this is the meaning of ‘he shall bruise your head’! God will send a man to make an end to the power of Satan. This man will have to suffer at the hands of Satan (‘and you will bruise his heel’), but ultimately, Satan will be conquered!
God punished Adam and Eve, but he also provided for them: Genesis 3:21. God sacrificed an animal and took its skin to cover their nakedness. He saw their shame and provided a solution. This shows God’s love for Adam and Eve. God took the initiative to restore the relationship between himself and the first human couple he created, even though they had not deserved this.
After all this, Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become mother of all the living. God punished Adam and Eve, but he did not abandon them. He still cared for them and in the midst of misery; he gave them a promise of hope. One day a Savior would come to destroy the enemy, take away the fear and shame and restore the relationship between God and man.
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