You can turn in your Bibles to the book of Genesis, Genesis 3. I figured we'd finish Genesis 3. Last Sunday night, we looked at the temptation to sin in verses 1-5, and then the fall into sin, verses 6-7, and then the reckoning with God in verses 8-13. Tonight, we'll consider the consequences of the fall for the serpent, the devil, the woman, and the man.

And I want to read beginning in verse 1. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.

And the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

And the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden of the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you?

So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.

And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain you shall bring forth children.

Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Then to Adam he said, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you saying, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken.

For dust you are, and to dust you shall return. And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us, to know good and evil.

And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, Therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden and a flaming sword, which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Amen. Let us pray.

Opening Prayer

Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the book of Genesis, the origin of man. Thank you for the record of your creation and your creative work. And thank you for that distinction between creator and creature.

Give us grace now as we approach this passage. We know that we have fallen in Adam, that in Adam all die, but in Christ all shall be made alive. And we rejoice, Lord God, that there is a last Adam. There was a man, a public man, who did all that the Father commanded him, and he did it victoriously.

He did it as a substitute. He did it as the mediator. And how we praise you for that finished, redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we would ask now that you would guide us by the Holy Spirit, illumine our minds and our hearts, and may you cause us to see and cause us to appreciate the great grace of God Almighty that is displayed even after the fall of man into sin.

And we ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Introduction

Well, as I said, we saw last week the fall into sin, and now there are consequences. There are repercussions because God had given Adam a specific prohibition. Notice back in chapter 2 at verse 15, then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, 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.

There are consequences of sin with reference to God. In other words, when we violate what he says vis-a-vis his law, there are judgments, there are liabilities, there are punishments, there are consequences. And so much of what we find here in Genesis chapter 3 serves or functions to basically tell us what the rest of the Bible is going to detail.

Consequences of the Fall

So I want to look first at the consequences of the fall in verses 14 to 19, and then secondly, the hope beyond the fall in verses 20 to 24. But note in the first place, we pick up in verse 14,

The Serpent's Curse and the Proto-Evangelion

so the Lord God said to the serpent. Notice there's no interrogation here. God had asked Adam what he had done. Now, God didn't ask Adam what he had done because God needed information.

God knew specifically what was going on, but He asks for the benefit of the creature. In other words, that question should have caused Adam and Eve to repent, to own their sin, to forsake it, and to cast themselves upon the mercy of God. But He interrogates them. He questions them.

He does not do that with the serpent. Calvin says he does not interrogate the serpent as he had done the man and the woman Because in the animal itself there was no sense of sin and because to the devil he would hold out no hope of pardon and when he goes on or it goes on he says because you have done this you are cursed more than all cattle and And more than every beast of the field, on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life." Now, some suppose that prior to this, the serpent had legs. I don't think that's necessary to infer from this, but rather it demonstrates the lowliness and the defeated state of this animal. Michael Reitelnick explains, when God proclaimed that the serpent would crawl on its belly, it does not mean that serpents previously had legs.

Rather, crawling would now forever be understood as a sign of defeat. And that convention arises in several places in the rest of the Bible. Specifically, we just saw it in Micah chapter seven, this whole idea of crawling, this whole idea of eating dust. It shows the victorious hand of God subjugating and destroying his enemies.

And that is precisely what is in view here with reference to the serpent. Now, attention shifts to the devil. In other words, the Lord's curse moves from the serpent to the evil power that animated it. We know that the serpent, as serpent, isn't the malicious and nefarious being, but rather it's the devil who utilizes him.

We know from later revelations, specifically in John 8, Revelation chapter 12, and Revelation chapter 20, it's the devil who is behind the scenes. It's the devil who animates this serpent. It's the devil who engages in this onslaught against the creature in order to bring or produce or provoke rebellion against the creator. Now note in verse 15, this is a very important passage in scripture.

Some have referred to it as the Proto-Evangelion. It is the Proto-Evangel, the first announcement of gospel. It is the first declaration concerning God's plan to save His people from their sins. And notice, he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So the God wrought enmity here. Notice, I will put enmity. That is divine initiative.

All that happens subsequent to this is as a result of God. The world is not a chaos, but it rather reflects the plan of God. The sort of antithesis that exists, or the antithesis that is present, is from God's design. There is this enmity put between the woman and between the serpent.

The ongoing nature of the warfare until the decisive victory is the rationale or the way that we understand or the way that we can explain the great disparity between, say, Cain and Abel, between those persons given to us in Genesis chapter 6. There is both a collective reference to this seed, and there is an individual reference to this seed. The collective nature means all of her seed, all the people of God, all of the faithful throughout all the ages. Some say, or some ask, were Adam and Eve saved?

I hope that by the end of our study tonight, you will conclude that Adam and Eve were in fact saved. And that this was an announcement that there would be these two lines, the seed of the woman, the godly, the righteous, the holy, and the seed of the devil, the ungodly, the unrighteous, and the unholy. But then when we look at this word seed, notice the New King James capitalizes it, and I think that's accurate. That's a good interpretation.

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." So there's both a collective reference, all of the people of God throughout all ages as the godly seed, but there is this individual reference. Now, this idea or concept of seed will get even more narrowly defined when we get to, say, the call of Abraham. Remember, the blessing to Abraham is that Abraham would have a seed.

Abraham would have descendants. Abraham would have offspring. When we get to the book of Galatians, Galatians 3, verse 16, it gives us the identification of the singular seed. It's the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's why this is the proto-gospel. The Proto-Evangel, this is the first announcement of salvation by Jesus Christ. He is the seed of the woman, the skull-crushing seed of the woman that in the fullness of the times God will send forth. He will be born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law.

And then as we survey or as we consider the various things that are stated here, notice, there will be this enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. Now note, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. I think there's several implications that we ought to draw from this. The Redeemer would be a man born of a woman.

In other words, it's not an angelic being that Adam and Eve are told to look for. The Messiah, the Christ, the Redeemer, the Deliverer, whatever we want to call Him, would be a man born of a woman. Now, it's not a fully developed doctrine of the virgin birth here, but the fact that only woman is highlighted certainly jives with what we find later in redemptive history, that he is born of a woman. There is that, at least now, looking back upon it, at least latent within the promise itself, this virgin birth.

The Redeemer would accomplish victory through suffering. Notice, He, Christ, shall bruise your devil head, and you shall bruise his heel. So this bruising of the heel intimates or indicates that when the Deliverer comes, when this Redeemer arrives on scene, his life will indeed know something of suffering. In fact, his redemptive work is going to be carried out or executed through suffering.

But I would also suggest we ought to appreciate that it's not just suffering that is highlighted here, but the death of the Deliverer, the death of the Redeemer, the death of the Messiah Himself. Notice, He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. Many read it as a comparative. comparative. Well, what Christ does is he smashes the devil's head, and what the devil does, he only comparatively makes this dent upon the Redeemer's heel.

I don't think that's an accurate way to read the text. I think that Reitlnick makes this very excellent observation. If you think about it for just a moment before I read this quote, where do serpents typically bite? Remember, they don't have legs, so they don't bite you on the head, unless you're that guy in Kentucky that was swinging the snake and it bit him on the head.

I don't know if you all saw that recently. Somebody took Mark 16 seriously. Well, people have done that for a long time. Snake handlers.

And this man was snake handling, and the snake bit him right on the side of the head, and he started to bleed. Well, the only way that a snake could obtain a head shot is if you pick him up. But a snake typically is going to bite the feet, he's going to bite the heel, he's going to bite where he can reach. Now, the particular word that is used here for this serpent is a deadly, a venomous serpent that can inflict a lethal blow.

And so when we read, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel, the bruising of the heel is probably a reference to the death of Jesus Christ at the place of the skull, even Golgotha. Reitlnick says, since in the context the tempter has taken the form of a serpent, it is likely that the tempter's blow would be equated with a serpent's bite. And in the case of this animal, the Hebrew generally uses it to speak of a venomous and lethal snake. Most likely, therefore, the text is speaking of two comparable death blows.

The future Redeemer will strike the head of the tempter and thereby kill it. And at the same time, the tempter will strike the heel of the Redeemer and kill him. So this first gospel promise goes along with what Peter said this morning. God, by the mouth of his prophet, said that the Christ would suffer.

He would suffer and he would die. And that is the means by which the Redeemer will bring total victory. When we get to the New Testament commentary on this particular situation, we find that is exactly what happened. Colossians 2, 14 and 15, Hebrews chapter 2.

First, John tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ destroyed the works of the devil. Where does he do that? He does it at the cross. That's the place where the Deliverer renders this skull-crushing blow to the devil himself.

So the New Testament passages, Colossians 1.13, Colossians 2.15, Hebrews 2.14, 1 John 3.8, and then Revelation 12 is a detailed explanation of this particular passage of Scripture. Also, we ought to be helped in our understanding of the rest of the Bible in terms of God's sort of penchant, I think that's the word, or God's sort of authorization or legitimization of head blows to the enemies of God throughout redemptive history. It's no accident that in the book of Judges, many of the enemies of God meet their demise by losing their heads. It's not an accident that David defeats Goliath in the Valley of Elah by delivering a lethal blow in terms of chopping off his head.

All of that furthers this promise. It furthers this understanding that the seed collective of the serpent is going to buckle under the seed collective of the people of God because of the individual seed, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Head blows or head wounds or death by heads being chopped off are quite common in the Old Testament. So when your little child comes to you and says, I was reading in Judges 4, and JL took that tent peg and drove it right through Sisera's head.

That's pretty interesting. Usually if they're boys, they say, wow, that's just great. Look at how God is dispatching the enemies of the Lord. I mean, they're not saying that it's great because they're sick and twisted and they're going to go out and kill animals and do likewise.

But there's something about it. I met these two young fellows in Vernon. And after the sermon, I preached on Elijah on Mount Carmel. And afterwards, these two young dudes came up.

And we're talking about all the heroes of the faith. And I may have mentioned this, one of the boys said, I think that people today in the church should name their girls JL, because JL was a great hero. She absolutely positively was. Never ever, by the lie, that she was a murderer or somehow that she was wrong in what she did.

No, she's acting on behalf of God's kingdom to dispatch the enemies of Yahweh. But jail renders a head wound against Sisera. As well, the heads of Oreb and Zeb from the Midianites. The woman and Abimelech.

Remember, she throws down that millstone from atop the tower and crushes Abimelech's head. We see it with David and Goliath. You see it in the Psalter as well. And intriguingly, the place where Jesus is crucified is the place of a skull.

And so all of this shows us the interconnectedness of biblical revelation. We see that everything that appears here in Genesis chapter 3 ultimately comes up again later in redemptive history. So that's the consequences for the serpent.

Consequences for the Woman

Note the consequences for the woman in verse 16. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.

Up to this point, the two primary blessings for a woman as woman was procreation and marriage. In other words, these are the two things that define her, the two things that bring her blessing and fulfillment. You see, the Bible world is not anti-womanhood. The Bible world doesn't look at children as some sort of a curse.

Rather, children are a gift. They're a blessing. They're a provision from Yahweh. They're a heritage from the Lord.

Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of that. You see, today, we don't like children as much because they get in the way of us spending our money on whatever it is we want. But in this context, womanhood is seen primarily, the blessings of womanhood are seen in procreation and in marriage. You see that in Genesis 1, 26 to 28.

Be fruitful and multiply. You see it in Genesis chapter 2, 18 to 25. This marriage arrangement is good. And so the curse finds its mark in those things that are most blessed to the woman, such that now when she has babies or such that now when she enjoys times with her husband, there will nevertheless be this reminder of her sin, this reminder of the fact that she succumbed to the tempter, that she was deceived and that she fell into transgression and rebelled against God most high.

So I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception and pain you shall bring forth children Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. That last clause has been debated over the last little while. I think it's best to understand your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you simply means that she will try to usurp his authority. You see, the idea of headship and authority and submission in marriage is not a consequence of the fall.

A distortion of headship and submission is a consequence of the fall. In other words, God made Adam and then he made Eve to be a helpmeet. He made Eve to come alongside of him and to assist him in his vocation. And his vocation, as we've seen in our studies in Genesis, was not primarily a farmhand.

Genesis tells us that the temple, or rather, that the garden was a sanctuary. It was a temple where God would meet with his creatures. Adam's task primarily was priestly. Adam's task primarily was to be a man that functioned in the service of God Almighty, and Eve was made to assist him.

So never let it be told you that headship and authority and submission and those things that Paul deals with in Ephesians 5, that's all as a result of the curse. No! It's been twisted, it's been distorted, and that's what we see in this passage. Your desire shall be for your husband.

You'll want to usurp, you'll want to arrogate to yourself headship in the home. This is why Paul tells you on a few occasions in the New Testament, wives, be submissive to your own husbands. because one of the marks or one of the proofs or one of the evidences that we know that we're in Adam is when women don't want to do that. And then it goes on to say, and he shall rule over you. Again, headship was present prior to the fall, but post-fall, that headship will not always be exercised in a godly way.

That's why Paul speaks to husbands and says, love your own wives as Christ loved the church. The husband is the head of the wife. It's not something that's a consequence of the fall, but rather a consequence is the distortion of something that was intended by God to be good. So the next time husbands, wives, you abdicate, or you don't do what you're supposed to do, and you say, well, you know, it's only this way because Adam and Eve fell into sin, I would encourage you to be quiet. is not that way because Adam and Eve fell into sin.

Adam and Eve falling into sin certainly affected and certainly made difficult and certainly brought turmoil to the situation, but headship and submission were intended by God in a prelapsarian state. That means a pre-fall state. This is a good thing, but rather, when it comes to the introduction of sin, it's going to affect things, it's going to make things difficult. One man says, what the woman once was to do as a blessing, be a marriage partner and have children, had become tainted by the curse.

In those moments of life's greatest blessing, marriage and children, the woman would sense most clearly the painful consequences of her rebellion from God. And then

Consequences for the Man

note, thirdly, the consequences for the man, verses 17 and 19. Again, we see the same sort of pattern. Labor is not a consequence of the fall. You know, don't say, well, I got to go to work on Monday morning because Adam and Eve fell into sin.

No, Adam and Eve messed up, and certainly it affected the blessed ordinance of labor, but labor predates the fall into sin. Labor is good. Hard work is good. The foundational text is the fourth commandment.

We remember it as making sure that we keep a day holy unto the Lord. But we oftentimes neglect, six days you shall labor and do all your work. That's absolutely positively commanded by Yahweh as well. So it's not work as work, that's the curse.

But it's going to be difficult now in this post-fall situation. It's going to be far more difficult than it was in a pre-fall situation. So we cannot infer from the passage that headship and submission are post-fall consequences. They're not.

Neither can we infer from the passage that labor is a post-fall consequence. It is not. There is problems now to be endured as a result of our fall into sin, but the things in and of themselves are good and blessed. But now they will be tainted by the reality that Adam and Eve have transgressed against God.

Now note verse 17. Then to Adam he said, Because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it." The word of judgment to the woman is not the imposition of male headship, but a distortion of it. And with reference to Adam, this will indeed be further illustrated later in redemptive history. Even if the wife of your bosom entices you or solicits you to commit apostasy, don't listen to them.

Deuteronomy chapter 13. Adam listened to the voice of his wife rather than to the voice of God. Men, we love our wives, but when it comes to our wives or God, we always must choose God. We don't do what they say if it is in contradiction to what God Most High says.

That's not loving leadership. That is rejection of God's Word. It is rebellion and treason, and we need to guard against that. So the Lord God comes to Adam and says, because you've listened to her and not to me, this now is your lot.

Verses 18 and 19. I think that Wenham sort of reflecting on the consequences here. He says, the sentences on the man and woman take the form of a disruption of their appointed roles. It's a disruption.

It's now distorted. It's always the case that a man was to exercise headship. It was always the case that a woman was to submit. But with the introduction of sin, that's going to be challenging now because the wife is going to want to usurp the husband's role.

It's going to be challenging now because the husband's either going to be a tyrant or he's going to be milquetoast. That's probably one of the problems that we have in our day and age. Husbands, love your wives, or the husband is the head of the wife. We always say, oh, that means every man's going to be a tyrant or a despot.

Well, that's certainly possible. But my observation is that a lot of men just abdicate their authority. The husband is the head of the wife. He's not to be voted into office.

He's not to be agreed upon. He's supposed to function as a godly head in his home. He's supposed to do it in a Christ-like way. self-sacrificially loving his bride. That's what biblical headship looks like.

The people of God, unfortunately, have given the very pattern of God a bad rap because we don't do what God says in the way that God says. So people in the world say, oh, that headship and submission, it's just a terrible thing. Yeah, it's because we're terrible people not obeying God the way we're supposed to. But according to plan, if we did what we were supposed to, it would be a beautiful model, it would be a beautiful display, a beautiful expression of what Paul tells us in Ephesians 5 is Christ's relationship to his church.

But notice, with reference to the consequences, the ongoing difficulty of labor. Again, prior to the fall, labor was present, but not with the challenges of a post-fall world. The ground is cursed because of man. One man says, the vista of thorn and thistle is diametrically opposed to the luscious vegetation of the garden and already intimates the verdict of banishment that will be carried out in verses 23 and 24.

Romans 8 comments on this section as well. What does creation do? It yearns, it groans, it is waiting for redemption. The creation around us is yearning for that day when Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and usher in a new heavens and a new earth.

But there is, post fall, a curse. Now there is going to be great struggle to get the ground to yield its fruit. There's going to be great difficulty. It will be by the sweat of your face.

It will be by hard labor and toil. You're not going to just wander out and do a few things and then eat wonderfully. No, you're going to have to work for it. And then notice this return to the ground.

It's intriguing because the narrative continually highlights man's origin. It tells us he's from the dirt. And if you think about it, what we have in Genesis chapters 2 and 3 is a man who tries to achieve godlike status, but will ultimately return to the dirt from which he was pulled. The narrative is showing us that we are creature, 2.7, 3.19, 3.23.

The man of clay attempted to rise to God-like status, but will instead return to the dust from whence he came. The obvious allusion there is to death. Boyce thought about this particular passage in light of Philippians chapter 3. You know, the Bible is about two men.

It's about Adam the first and Adam the second, or Adam the last. Israel functions as an Adam as well. And I think we'll see that as we continue in our Wednesday night studies and our Bible studies. But there's Adam the first and Adam the last.

And what Adam the first gets us is to return to the dust. What Adam the second brings us, or Adam the last, is the transformation of our lowly body. Philippians chapter 3. He transforms that which is distorted and messed up because of the fall and descent.

Brethren, as you study or read the first chapters of Genesis, don't do so divorced from a knowledge of who Jesus Christ is. Paul sets up that parallel. We call it covenant theology, federal theology. There's an Adam-Christ parallel.

In Adam, all die. In Christ, all shall be made alive. We're going to end this particular chapter with Adam and Eve being exiled, being banished from this garden. Well, that's what happens to Israel.

They have tenure in the land and they continue in rebellion against God. So what happens? Exile. They are banished from the land.

Jesus, in a sense, as he is like Adam, as he is like Israel, as he is the anti-type of both of them, He comes and he is banished. He goes into exile, vis-a-vis his death. But then there's this resurrection, and Christ secures for us permanent tenure in the land. A Canaan that is above, a Canaan that is heaven, a Canaan that is most blessed and most excellent.

Never read Genesis 1 to 3 without thinking of Jesus. That's why we read Revelation 21 and 22 tonight. When we looked at the garden as a temple in Genesis chapter 2, we saw all of the things in Revelation 21 and 22 that sound just like what we find here in the book of Genesis. The Bible is whole.

The Bible isn't random. It's not just bits and pieces sort of thrown together and bound up in a nice goatskin leather. That's not what the Bible is. Our confession speaks of the Bible as having a consent of all the parts.

They all feed into one another. This morning in our confession study, we considered this very theme or this very idea, the book of Ruth. Is it in there because we all love a love story? I mean, it's such a nice story.

Boaz takes mercy and pity upon Ruth and he brings her into his home and he confers upon her great blessings. It is nice. I mean, especially in a world like this, it's nice to see decent people doing decent things, isn't it? There's something about that that just brings a bit of an encouragement to, you know, the weary pilgrims in this world that see non-decent people more often than not doing non-decent things.

But the point of Ruth is the last few verses. It's from Ruth that David comes. It's from David that Jesus comes. The contribution of Ruth to redemptive history is not the love story.

It's the gene pool. It's the line of David. It's Messiah. It's the seed of the woman that will crush the head of the serpent.

Brethren, the Bible holds together tight Whenever those people outside of the church say, oh, the Bible this or the Bible that, obviously they haven't read the Bible. We should know better. We should understand not only the particular trees in the forest, but we ought to fly over the forest and see how it all holds together. It is wonderful.

It is beautiful. It is glorious. And Genesis 3.15, I don't think it's a stretch to say, is programmatic. It is foundational for all of the rest of the Bible.

In fact, G.K. Beal says all of the rest of the Bible is commentary on Genesis 1 to 3. That's how important this section of scripture is.

Hope Beyond the Fall

But notice, let's move finally and quickly to the hope beyond the fall. Verses 20 to 24. We see this first in the naming of Eve.

The Naming of Eve: Adam's Faith

Notice in verse 20, Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. This is the second time that Eve is named. She was named woman initially. Why?

Because she was taken out of man. Woman means out of man. Now she's called Eve. Why?

Because she's the mother of all living. What do you think Adam is reflecting upon here? He's reflecting upon verse 15, that from this woman, her seed will be the one that renders the death blow to the devil himself. And so Adam, in faith, names his wife the mother of living.

He names his wife based on the reality communicated by God in Genesis 3.15. Klein says, this reflects Adam's faith as he gave this name to the woman. His reference probably to her spiritual seed who should trample underfoot the prince of death and so rest life from the curse. So we see Adam's faith in naming his wife the mother of all living.

But then

Tunics of Skin: Blood Atonement Foreshadowed

notice as well the coverings of skin in verse 21. Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them. Remember what they did when they sinned, they tried to hide from God. They make these girdles and they cover themselves, these fig leaves.

They sew them together and they try to cover their nakedness. And then they run and hide amongst the trees that the Lord God had made. As if somehow God isn't going to see them in the trees that he had made. Of course he's going to see them.

But what does God do here? He doesn't make girdles for them, he makes tunics. It's not plant life that sacrifice to deal with their sin, but it's blood atonement. You see, this text indicates how extensive sin is.

It ain't no little girdle of fig leaves that is going to help you out of this mess. You need blood atonement. And God communicates blood atonement as He kills these animals and He makes tunics of skin, and then He clothes them. This is foreshadowing the Levitical system, which foreshadows the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

See how the Bible holds together. It is not disparate pieces thrown together, put in one cover. It is a consistent whole, the consent of the parts, the scope of the whole, which is to give glory to God. All of this is demonstrated here.

The Lord highlights the necessity of atonement as the basis for fellowship between God and men. Now Israel is going to learn this. Israel is going to learn this when the Shekinah glory of God comes down and rests upon the tabernacle in Exodus 40. They're going to learn it when Moses himself, who's the godliest man that they have to offer, can't go in there because of the glory of Yahweh.

They're going to learn it in Leviticus chapters 1 to 9. They're going to learn that the way to approach Yahweh is through a bloody knife and a smoking altar. The way of access to God, a holy God, by sinful man is through blood atonement. And that Levitical system points forward to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

So that's what God does here. He makes for Adam and Eve these tunics of skin and He clothes them. Gil says, but of creatures slain, not merely for this purpose, God brought a skin over them, nor for food, but for sacrifice as a type of the woman's seed, whose heel was to be bruised or who was to suffer death for the sins of men. And therefore, to keep up and direct the faith of our first parents to the slain Lamb of God from the foundation of the world and of all believers in all ages until the Messiah should come and die and become a sacrifice for sin, the sacrifices of slain beasts were appointed." You see, God killed animals right before their eyes, so that when we get to Cain and Abel, where did Abel get the idea to kill animals and bring an offering to the Lord?

He watched Daddy. He watched what the custom was. How did they know to do so at the end of days? That's what the text says in terms of Cain and Abel.

He watched Daddy, and Daddy had watched God. The Sabbath was not instituted at Sinai, it was instituted in Genesis. Genesis chapter 2, given to Adam, who then subsequently gave it to Cain and Abel. So at the end of days, not the end of all days, but the end of the days of the week, they came and they offered up their sacrifices and Abel brought blood.

Abel brought blood in faith. That was not some pagan notion, but it was instituted by Yahweh by pattern, exemplified here in verse 21. And then

Expulsion from the Garden

notice, finally, the expulsion from the garden. This is actually an act of mercy for Adam and Eve. Now, we may not approach it that way. We may say, well, it's judgment.

It is judgment, but it's judgment with a very remedial end for Adam and Eve. If Adam and Eve reach out and take from the tree of life in this sinful state, that's a terrible thing. You see, eternal life isn't always just associated with blessedness. The damned live eternally as well.

And so that's how we need to approach this passage. Notice in verse 22, the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us. Us, there is Trinity. Just like us in Genesis 1.26 is Trinity.

The Trinity is God. God is Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You see that in Genesis 1 itself.

God spoke. by the Word of the Lord He created the heavens and the earth. Jesus is the Word of the Lord. The Spirit of God is brooding over the waters. All three persons are present in Genesis chapter 1.

So this plural form, us, refers not to some heavenly counsel or divine counsel. It certainly does not extend to man, but rather it is the triune God. That's what's in view in 126 and 322. Behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil.

And now lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. Notice how it just cuts off. God is saying something and then he drives the man out. It shows the need to get him out of there right away.

Now, as we seek to understand this, what is this knowledge? Behold, he has become like one of us to know good and evil. Now, some of the commentators say it's an ironic statement. As if God is saying, oh, now he's like one of us.

It's not ironic, it's true. Remember, this is what the devil promised him. But the devil said, or made it seem like, this would be a good thing. But it's a bad thing.

It's not good to be like God in this sense. So what is this sense that God is speaking of? It's not experiential because God doesn't possess such knowledge of evil. The knowledge was not a higher knowledge, but it was a knowledge forbidden to man.

The knowledge was a knowledge that sought to operate autonomously. In other words, it sought to operate independently. It sought to remove itself from under God and to think after one's self. You say, well, that's not so good.

It's terrible. Look what happened. When Adam and Eve stop thinking God's thoughts after him, misery ensues. Independent thought is good in some areas.

If you're an artist, be independent. If you're an artist, be innovative. If you're a, you know, whatever it is you do, you can be independent, great. But when it comes to metaphysics, or the doctrine of being, or it comes to, you know, how we know, or it comes to who God is, we need to listen to God, each and every step of the way.

And they didn't listen to God. Hermann Bavink explains what's happening here. He says, in Genesis 3, the issue is not primarily the content of the knowledge that humans would appropriate by disobedience, but the manner in which they would obtain it. The nature of the knowledge of good and evil in view here is characterized by the fact that humans would be like God as a result of it.

By violating the command of God and eating of the tree, they would make themselves like God in the sense that they would position themselves outside and above the law, and like God, determine and judge for themselves what good and evil was. We saw that last week in The Temptation. Remember when the devil presents this temptation to Eve? There's three reasons why Eve wants to eat from this.

First of all, it's good for food. Second of all, it's pleasant to the eyes. And third, it's desirable to make one wise. It was pleasant to the eyes.

Throughout the creation week, God saw that it was good. God saw that it was good. God saw that it was good. And now the creature is seeing what is good and making decisions based on that.

The problem isn't the knowledge of good and evil per se. As Boving says, it's not the content, it's the manner. It's the ye shall be as gods. It's this challenge to adopt this godlike status.

He goes on to say, the knowledge of good and evil is not the knowledge of the useful and the harmful of the world and how to control it, but the right and capacity to distinguish good and evil on one's own. That is the problem. And then note, But they are excluded from the tree of life. Notice in verse 23, Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was placed.

So he drove out the man. He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. The expulsion from paradise, this is Kyle and Dalich, therefore was a punishment inflicted for man's good, intended while exposing him to temporal death to preserve him from eternal death. If he reached out and takes from the tree of life when he's in this state, it's going to be bad.

We need the Redeemer to come. We need the mediator to come. We need a righteousness that avails with God. We need blood atonement that is efficacious before we ever go out and reach out for the tree of life.

It's Christ who brings us the tree of life. That's why the tree of life is in Revelation 21 and 22. That's why it's there in the New Jerusalem. You see, John the seer is finishing what Moses starts in Genesis.

We have paradise lost and paradise restored. and it hinges upon not the faithfulness and the obedience of Adam the first, not on the faithfulness and the obedience of Israel, but on the faithfulness and the obedience of Jesus Christ, Adam the last. Well, brethren,

Application

we will conclude there, just a couple of thoughts, and then we'll close. First, the programmatic nature of Genesis 3.15. Again, Bavink, he says, in principle, Genesis 3 contains the entire history of humankind. I don't think that's hyperbolic at all.

I think some people might hear that and say, oh, come on, that's overdoing it. You want to know why the world looks like the world does? Look at Genesis 3. You want to know why the New Testament reads the way it does and why there's these allusions to this section of scripture?

It's all here. It's programmatic. That means it's a program for the future. It is a description of what's going to happen subsequent.

So back to Bavink, all the ways of God for the salvation of the lost and the victory over sin. In substance, the whole gospel, the entire covenant of grace is present here. All that follows is the development of what has been germinally planted here. I think that's accurate.

As well, and I want to highlight this once again by way of application. The fact that we are called to work, the fact that men are called to lead in the home, and the fact that women are called to submit to their own husband, not every husband, not every man. Don't misunderstand Paul. Paul is not a Muslim.

Paul is not telling women they need to submit to men. Paul says wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. Now, again, that word has been freighted or weighted down with a whole bunch of bad stuff. Submission is bad.

Jesus submitted to the Father. Submission is not bad. Submission, as it's often practiced, is bad. Headship, as it is often practiced, is bad.

But 1 Corinthians 11 shows us the Father is the head of Christ, not in terms of deity, but in terms of mediatorship. Christ willingly submits himself to the Father according to his humanity. That's a blessed and a good thing. But the thing to notice from the Genesis account is that this is not a penalty of sin.

It was always God's intention for husbands to love their wives like Christ, love the church, and give themselves for her and lead her. It was always God's intention for a wife to submit to her own husband. Sin distorts it, sin twists it, sin makes it challenging, but it doesn't militate against it. And we need to make sure that we understand that.

Your role as a husband, your role as a wife, is not because of the fall into sin. The fall into sin affects it, But you, as new men and women in Christ Jesus, have the ability and the power and the resources to do what you're supposed to do. And then as well, labor. Labor.

Society shouldn't be a society full of deadbeats. It shouldn't be the case that everybody's sitting around or laying around watching TV all day. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. What part of that do we miss?

What part of that are we absent on? We live for the weekends. We live for retirement. We live for off time.

Brethren, find blessing in labor. I really am committed to the thought that if you work hard, you don't have time to do a bunch of other foolish stuff. A lot of people that get into trouble, it's because they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. Wasn't this one of David's downfalls when David fell into sin with Bathsheba?

I don't want to moralize the text. I don't think that's the point, ultimately. But having given that qualification, you ever notice that people say, I'm not of this, but, and then they are that. I'm not a racist, but, and then they say something very racist.

So I'm going to say, I don't want to moralize, but I'm going to moralize. At the time when kings went out to battle, David didn't go. David, if you would have went, if you'd have been with your troops, if you'd have been leading them into battle, destroying Philistines for the glory of Yahweh, you wouldn't have been on your roof, you wouldn't have looked at Bathsheba, and you wouldn't have went into her. And having gone into her and having impregnated her, you certainly wouldn't have then had to murder her husband Uriah.

All because you didn't go to work. Brethren, work is good. Work is a blessing. If God's given you work, praise him for it.

Now, there's a need for rest. Don't overwork to be rich, Solomon says in the Proverbs. Don't work your fingers to the bone. Don't be the guy with nubs because he never takes time off.

That's not righteous either. Jesus said to the disciples, come apart and rest a while. The fourth commandment, six days you shall labor. The seventh is a day of rest.

God's not anti-rest. God gives his beloved sleep, according to the Psalms. Jesus, according to his humanity or in his humanity, went into that boat, picked up a pillow, laid his head down and slept. He dignified the nap.

Praise God Almighty for the goodness of our Savior. Labor is good, rest is good, but make sure that the ratio is six to one. The commandment stipulates that. Now, there's always some sensitive soul out there that's going to say, oh, but my employer, they make me take Saturday and Sunday off.

Should I go to my employer, tell him I must work on Saturday? Work around your house. Do your honey do's. Make your wife happy.

That's labor, too. Take the trash out. Mow the lawn. Pressure wash.

Rip the wood off. Whatever it is, do those things. But be busy, brethren. The more time we have on our hands, the more likely we are to sin.

Now, the subtle devices of Satan, we ought to appreciate that in the passage, or at least understand that. 2 Corinthians 2.11, the apostle says, "...lest Satan should take advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices." Seems to me, within the Christian church, there are two extremes with reference to the devil. One is to deify him, and one is to completely defang him. The deifiers see the devil as omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. They see the devil as having all authority and power.

He can make us do things. The devil made me do this. No, you did this willingly, freely, and happily. It's not the devil.

He doesn't have that power. He can entice, he can incite, he can tempt, but it's you who sins. So the devil is deified in some corners of the Christian church, but then he's defanged in others. Brethren, he is a real foe.

He roams about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. This is what 1 Peter 5 tells us. And so we with Paul ought not to be ignorant of his devices. We ought to be conscious of his devices.

And I think that some of those are seen here in the tempter's work with reference to Adam and Eve. The devil works with cunning. I mean, does that surprise us? He doesn't just come and say, look, I want you to sin against God and reap for yourself hell, damnation, pain, and suffering.

He doesn't do it that way, any more than when we go fishing, we just put a big fat hook right in the water and say, OK, fish, I want you to put that hook in your mouth. No, we bait it. We deceive. We use subterfuge.

We make it look good and tasty and lovely so that the fish will eat it. Well, that's what the devil does. He doesn't say, I want you to look at this porn because you're going to end up in hell. No, I want you to have joy.

I want you to have happiness. I want you to have delight. I want you to rob this bank because you're going to get caught, you're going to go to prison, or better yet, in a state that has the death penalty, you're going to be executed. He doesn't do that.

Think of what you'll get. Think of the benefits. Think of the reward. He does this cost-reward analysis.

And it's going to tip in your favor every time when the devil is selling his wares. It's just the way he does it. He doesn't say, put this big nasty hook in your mouth so that you can be dragged off into hell. No, he works through cunning.

As well, he works through deception. Part of his art is to distort the truth in subtle ways. It is intriguing that what he says would happen happened, but it was the implications that he attached to it that was absolutely positively wrong. God knows that in the day you eat of it, you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Well, that's precisely what God says in 322. But the devil made it seem like this would be a good thing. You will be like God, knowing good and evil. This was the reason why God expels him from the garden, why God exiles him and banishes him from the garden, because he has sought to be like God, thinking man's thoughts after man, instead of with an orientation to God.

The devil works through a knowledge of man's susceptibility. Man's susceptibility. The woman being deceived, Paul tells us. I don't think Paul means that every woman is always susceptible to being deceived.

I don't think that's what Paul means in 1 Timothy 2. But it was there. There was a susceptibility there. And he comes to her and he plies her with these particular things that are appropriate to her situation.

It was a tree that was good for food. which she didn't need because there was a whole tree filled with good food, or a whole garden filled with good food. It was a tree that was pleasant to the eyes, which again, there was a whole garden filled with trees that were pleasant to the eyes. But it was that desirable to make one wise. She's susceptible at that point.

And so he gets her. It's like Jesus in the wilderness. When the devil comes to tempt him, he goes for food. Brethren, 40 days and 40 nights without food makes a man very hungry.

And when the devil comes, he doesn't say, OK, I want you to do this. No, he says, I want you to change these stones into bread. Now, the Bible tells us that Jesus was tempted in all points like us and yet without sin. Jesus' temptations were real.

We oftentimes do not contemplate it that way because, after all, Jesus is God. Remember, Jesus is God and man. The hypostatic union, the one person of God, two natures, humanity and divinity. According to his humanity, he is tempted by the devil to do something that any human would want, to eat bread.

So the devil comes to us knowing our, not knowing, I think, in an omniscient way, but guessing, and typically guessing pretty well what our susceptibilities are. And then the devil works through a character assassination upon God. Anything that comes from without that makes God look bad is to be resisted. Notice in verse five, God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." What's the implication?

God's petty. God's small. God doesn't want any competitors in the God realm. God wants to keep you down.

God wants to hinder you from being all that you can be. God's good with you being at this point, but He doesn't want you to rise to that other point. This is a direct assault upon the character of who God is. And then, of course, the final application is Genesis 3.15.

We ought to rejoice that it's in our Bibles. We ought to rejoice that it's there concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. And we ought to rejoice in those passages that I mentioned previously. Colossians 1.13, Colossians 2.15, Hebrews 2, 1 John 3.

The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. It's the skull-crushing seed of the woman that brought decisive victory at the cross. for his people. If you don't know this skull-crushing seed of the woman, the way is by grace through faith in him. It is to believe the gospel, to believe all that the Bible says, generally, but to believe all that the Bible says specifically concerning the Lord Christ.

The principal acts of saving faith has to do with who Jesus is, his life of obedience, his death at Calvary, and his resurrection the third day. All those who believe in him will have everlasting life. Well, let's close in a word of prayer.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank you for Genesis 3. Thank you for the entirety of your Word. And Lord God, help us to see the connection. Help us to see that what is promised in the old is fulfilled in the new.

Help us to see that anticipation of the old is realized in the new. And help us to see that Jesus Christ is that seed of the woman, that one who did crush the skull of the devil, that one who renders that decisive victory at the cross and that one who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. May it be the case, Almighty God, that we would all be clothed in His righteousness, that we would all be covered and clothed in His righteousness by the same God who killed the animals and made tunics for Adam and Eve. Thank you for your graciousness.

Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for all of your kindness. And we pray now that you would go with us into this coming week, help us to glorify you, help us to honor you, and please protect us, and please watch over us, and please grant us your peace and your mercy. And we pray these things through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

Scripture References

• Genesis 1:26-28; 2:7; 2:15; 2:18-25; 3:1-24; 6:1-8
• Exodus 20:8-11; 40
• Leviticus 1-9
• Deuteronomy 13
• Judges 4
• Micah 7
• Matthew 4:1-11
• John 8
• Romans 8:19-22
• 1 Corinthians 11:3
• 2 Corinthians 2:11
• Galatians 3:16
• Ephesians 5:22-33
• Philippians 3:21
• Colossians 1:13; 2:14-15
• 1 Timothy 2:14
• Hebrews 2:14
• 1 Peter 5:8
• 1 John 3:8
• Revelation 12; 20; 21-22