Chuck Larsen

In Genesis 3:7, we are introduced to the consequences of sin. It says, “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” Anyone with any spiritual awareness is made very uneasy by the thought of God’s searching gaze. Remember the scene in the garden after Adam and Eve had first sinned. In their original state, before they fell into sin, they were “naked and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). With no sin to condemn them, they delighted in the gaze of their loving Creator. But after the fall, they hid their shame even from one another, pathetically sewing on fig leaves for garments. Even more, they dreaded the presence of God, fleeing and hiding from him as he approached. This is how many Christians feel in their relationship with God. The thought of his gaze chills their bones. They are willing to do anything but deal with God himself, skulking around the edges of his light rather than drawing near to him. They struggle to pray and seldom do unless forced by circumstances. It is this paralyzing fear that the writer of Hebrews now addresses. As Philip Hughes explains: “Sinners are no longer commanded to keep their distance in fear and trembling, but on the contrary are now invited to draw near, and to do so with confidence.”^[1]

Of course, it is merely a popular misunderstanding to imagine that ‘because their eyes were opened,’ they had been created blind. Actually, Adam saw the animals he named and Eve ‘saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold.’  Augustine continues, “Their eyes, then, could see, but they were not open enough in the sense that they themselves were not observant enough to realize in what a raiment of grace they must have been robed to have been unaware so long of any war between their members and their will. But, once the raiment of grace was removed, they were taught the lesson that disobedience to God is punishable by disobedience to oneself. A strange and irrepressible commotion sprang up in their bodies that made nakedness indecent. They realized the rebellion and it made them ashamed.”^[2]

Matthew Henry has some well-written words on this subject. He notes that their eyes were opened. “Now, when it was too late, they saw the folly of eating forbidden fruit. They saw the happiness they had fallen from, and the misery they had fallen into. They saw a loving God provoked, his grace and favor forfeited, his likeness and image lost, dominion over the creatures gone. They saw their natures corrupted and depraved and felt a disorder in their own spirits of which they had never before been conscious. They saw a law in their members warring against the law of their minds and captivating them both to sin and wrath. They saw, as Balaam, when his eyes were opened (Num. 22:31), the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand.… They saw themselves disrobed of all their ornaments and ensigns of honor, degraded from their dignity and disgraced in the highest degree, laid open to the contempt and reproach of heaven and earth, and their own consciences.”^[3]

^[1] Phillips, Richard D. 2006. Hebrews. Edited by Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani. Reformed Expository Commentary. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.

^[2] Augustine of Hippo. 1952. The City of God, Books VIII–XVI. Edited by Hermigild Dressler. Translated by Gerald G. Walsh and Grace Monahan. Vol. 14. The Fathers of the Church. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.

^[3] Boice, James Montgomery. 1998. Genesis: An Expositional Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

The Serpent drew Eve into a discussion about the rightness of God’s instructions regarding the eating rights of humans in the garden of Eden. Her fist mistake was allowing the discussion to happen, because the next thing is that Satan, having an open ear, presented his great temptation and demeaned God’s good intentions for them and suggested that God was keeping something good from them. Eating of that forbidden fruit would make them like the rest of the heavenly beings including God himself, who knew good from evil. But it’s the lie “you will not surely die” that was the clincher. There will be no consequences and all your curiosity will be satisfied and you’ll no longer be naïve little children. By eating of the fruit, you will leave the estate to which you were intended with all the good things God wanted for you and step out into a new realm, a realm that will make you like all the other heavenly beings. The offer was to become like Angels! The reality is that they would become like demons, the fallen angels.

So, the woman began to look things over to decide for herself. The first thing that she noticed was recorded in Genesis 3:6a. It tells us that “…the woman saw that the tree was good for food…” Most children’s books on the Bible suggest that the fruit was an apple. A picture of an apple with a bite taken out of it is the illustration of Eve’s sin in the Garden. But we don’t know that it really was an apple. A blogger did a good job describing this. He said that the confusion of this fruit with the apple may be due to the similarity of the two words in the Latin translation of the Bible, known as the Vulgate. The word evil in Latin is Mali. The word for apple is Mala. But in the original Hebrew the words are not even close.

I’m not sure you can tell something is good for food by just looking at it. It seems like Eve saw something that convinced her it was edible. Several commentators observed this and suggested that the Serpent, Satan, took a bite of the apple to show her how good it was. Or maybe she saw animals eating it. One internet blogger said, “Keep in mind that mankind was not permitted to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but God did not give any warning to animals. It is possible that an animal, perhaps even the serpent, took some of the fruit and ate before Eve so that she could see that this fruit was good for food.” I can imagine Satan taking a big crisp bite from the fruit and smacking his lips and saying, “This is delicious!” Then not seeing any ill effects Eve was again moved to think about eating the fruit herself.

After having questioned Eve about the instructions that God gave them regarding eating of the trees, Satan now turns to an out-right lie. He tells Eve according to Genesis 3:4, “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die.’” According to George Whitefield, what Satan is telling Eve is, “It is all a delusion, a mere bugbear, to keep you in a servile subjection.”^[1] Yea, I know. I had to look up the word “bugbear” as well. Here’s what Webster says about it:  it is “…an imaginary goblin or specter used to excite fear.”^[2] Don’t you find it interesting that although Eve left out the word “surely” in her reply “lest you die,” Satan put that “surely” back into the equation. Satan reverses the certainty. God said “be certain” that you will die and Satan says “be certain” that you will not die! Pink suggests that Satan might have even shown her that there was nothing to be afraid of. He says, “Then he (Satan) denied that there was any danger in eating the fruit. First, he had by implication slandered God’s character; and now he told a downright lie. If, as we believe was the case, he had himself eaten of the forbidden tree in the woman’s presence, then his action would lend color to his falsehood. It was as though he said, ‘You need not hesitate. God is only trying to frighten you. You can see for yourself the fruit is quite harmless, for I have eaten it without suffering any ill effects.’”^[3]

For the first time a lie, an untruth, a falsehood, is introduced into the experience of man. Exell elaborates on this: “Now crookedness, illusion and deceit began their career. The false in all its forms and shades is traceable to this first lie. All ignorance—all error—all superstition—all base fear—all inward treason of heart, took their rise here. It poisoned the moral blood, degenerated the race, and introduced every hideous deformity and foul impurity into the human family and species.”^[4]

Could it be that Satan was telling Eve, and Adam, that they were way too precious for God to let them die? They were the epitome of God’s creation and His most precious possession. He would never “kill” them because of a simple disobedience? It’s interesting that Jesus knew his destiny was to “die” on the cross for all the sins of the world from Adam and Eve to our day and beyond. In Jesus’ wilderness temptation, Satan tells Jesus something similar. “Your are the Son of God. Go ahead and throw yourself off of the high mountain. Nothing will happen to you. You are too special.” Boteler says, “He (Satan while tempting Jesus) suggests this brilliant and daring way of winning the people en masse instead of the slow and painful way that had been set before him. Perhaps he (Satan) used the same old sneer that he used in the garden of Eden—“You shall not surely die.”^[5]

^[1] Whitefield, George. 1999. Selected Sermons of George Whitefield. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

^[2] Merriam-Webster, Inc. 2003. In Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary., Eleventh ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc.

^[3] Pink, Arthur W. 2005. Gleanings in the Scriptures: Man’s Total Depravity. Logos Bible Software.

^[4] Exell, Joseph S., and Thomas H. Leale. 1892. Genesis. The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary. New York; London; Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Company.

^[5] Boteler, Mattie M. 1915. Sermon Notes from the Ministry of Jesus. Cincinnati, OH: Standard.