Genesis Series: From Dust To Life: Meeting God In The Garden

We are continuing our Dust to Life Series today and are now in Genesis 3. Some theologians consider Genesis 3 to be one of the most important chapters in the Bible because without it, we can’t even begin to understand the darkness that pervades the earth. In other words, after the account of the Fall in this chapter, we can better understand why the world is the way it is today. Not only does it explain human nature and why we aren’t inclined to seek God but it also explains the moral and natural evil that exists in the world. No one can deny the existence of hate crimes, corruption, and wars but why do these exist in so-called civilized societies today? The fall also accounts for pandemics, diseases, cancer, and for earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters that take the lives of innocent people.

Last week we saw how Eve, after engaging with the serpent, began to diminish God’s goodness, to distort His words, and downplay the consequences of disobedience. She opened herself up to the serpent’s viewpoint about who God is and began to doubt, distort, and eventually she and Adam defied God’s Word.

Satan did not fill Eve with a hatred for God but with a longing for something she thought would better meet her needs. She listened to the serpent, they succumbed to the temptation to obtain knowledge apart from God - apart from their relationship with Him. But they found out, to their horror, what God meant by death. This was the life they never expected. St. Basil the Great said, “For God is life, and the deprivation of life is death. Therefore, Adam prepared death for himself through his withdrawal from God.” Realizing the depth of their destructive decision and the wrath it incurred, they felt shame, fear, and guilt.

Gen 3:8-24

8 Now 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. 9 Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” 11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me some of the fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all the livestock, and more than any animal of the field; On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat All the days of your life;15 And I will make enemies Of you and the woman, and of your offspring and her Descendant; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise Him on the heel.”

16 To the woman He said,

“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall deliver children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

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; with hard labor you shall eat from it all the days of your life. 18 Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; Yet you shall eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

20 Now the man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 21 And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out with his hand, and take fruit also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 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.