GENESIS 3
I think all believers realise that this is one of the most important chapters in Scripture. It shows how evil came into this world, the source from which it came,
[p. 31] and its effect and consequences. It is a blessed chapter, too, as showing God’s resource in mercy and grace, and that ultimately all the designs of the serpent will be brought to nothing; his head will be crushed. In a certain sense Satan’s head is bruised already, it was at the cross. But Romans 16: 20 tells us, “God shall bruise Satan shortly under your feet”. The saints will be brought to participate in the complete triumph of Christ, and all that Satan has brought in will have to go out.
We cannot ponder this chapter too much; it shows what the poison of the serpent really is, and that helps us to judge that poison in ourselves. The poison is distrust of God; this lies behind all lust and disobedience. The first seed to be sown in the heart of man by the serpent was distrust of God. If this were admitted all was lost. For God to have lost the confidence of His most highly favoured creature was the most terrible thing possible. To admit the suggestion that God was withholding good was to be inwardly fallen already. We find this same distrust in ourselves, and we have to judge it, and we can do so now in the light of the fact that God has come out and has revealed His love, so that we might have unreserved confidence in unreserved love. There is no reserve in God’s love; He has given the best in heaven for the worst on earth, and in this way has rebuked distrust and established confidence, so that “the works of the devil” might be undone in our hearts. If we only want what God gives we shall be perfectly happy. Nothing is of real value to us that we cannot take from God’s hand and thank Him for.
The first doubt the serpent instilled into the human [p. 32] heart was as to the goodness of God; and then he said to Eve, in effect, “God is trying to frighten you; what He says will not come to pass; ye will not certainly die”. Then, further, “God knows that in the day ye eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil”. Man before the fall knew that it was right to obey God and wrong to disobey Him, but he did not know good and evil. That was a knowledge which the serpent could rightly attribute to God. God knows good and evil in a holy nature; man could only come into that knowledge by disobedience and therefore in a sinful nature. He could only know good and evil by becoming evil himself.
It was a question purely of obedience to God — of His authority. To eat of the tree would not have been wrong if it had not been forbidden. To disobey God was evil, and the moment they had done it they knew good and evil in their own consciousness. Their eyes were opened, indeed, but opened on their own wretched state as having become evil.
If we once accept a suggestion from the enemy, and begin to reason about it, it is all over. In Eve we see how disobedience presented itself, and, we may say, justified itself to her. She exercised her judgment upon the tree. She saw that it was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. She judged of it entirely in the light of what the serpent had said, and not at all in the light of what God had said. How solemn is all this! How often we reason ourselves into believing that wrong is right! God and His goodness left out: then the sight of the eyes and the judgment of the mind are sure to be wrong. Nothing is good for me that I cannot receive as God’s gift, and give Him thanks for.
We get the three forms of lust here; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are all here in embryo. It is God excluded from the confidence of His creature, His solemn warning disregarded, and the lust and will of the creature made the deciding factor. That is the fall. It was the utmost outrage that could be offered under the circumstances to the goodness, truth, and authority of God.
Then in Adam’s case it was not the direct temptation of the serpent, but the seduction of the woman. “Adam was not deceived; but the woman having been deceived was in transgression”. Adam sinned, we might say, knowing what he was doing. He allowed himself to be led by his affections. The whole character and relative positions of the man and the woman were thus reversed. Eve should have been led by her affections, and if so she would have called Adam at once when the serpent spoke to her. Instead of that she parleyed with the serpent and used her judgment. Adam should have been led by his judgment exercised in the fear of God, but instead of that he allowed himself to be led by his affections without giving God any place at all. Satan’s object is always to get divine order reversed. Adam was the responsible head; so when things are taken up formally in Romans 5 sin is regarded as coming in by him. The full responsibility rested on him.
“The eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked”. Eve had no doubt thought, We shall know wonderful things that we know nothing about now; but all they got was the [p. 34] consciousness of being naked! Conscience applies the knowledge of good and evil to responsibility. Satan had held out as a great prize that they should be as gods knowing good and evil; but they only gained that knowledge by becoming evil themselves, by disobedience. Hence the moment they took the fruit they became conscious that they were naked. They realised and became ashamed of the miserable state they had got into, before God said a word or came near them. Man became the judge, as it were, of his own state: a very solemn thing. Before God came on the scene they judged themselves; they knew they were naked. What a terrible discovery to make! That is the condition man has come into. That is what the knowledge of good and evil does for man. He is in a state of which he is ashamed. “I feared, because I am naked; and I hid myself”. The presence of God only caused alarm, and the fig leaves provided no covering the moment God drew near. Man was conscious that he was in a state utterly unsuited to God; conscious that he had no covering; he was naked before God. At the end of the chapter God meets this terrible consciousness by the coats of skins. That is after faith came in. Adam’s legacy to us is that one word, ‘Life’. You would have expected it to be the reverse. Eve means life; she was the mother of all living. It has often been said that the name indicates that Adam had faith.
God said to the serpent, “Because thou hast done this”, etc. It was really a controversy between God and Satan. Man was the arena of conflict, but the conflict was really between God and the serpent. So the serpent comes at once under the curse of God.
[p. 35] No curse is pronounced on the man or the woman, but the mischief is traced to its source, and comes under God’s definite judgment.
It is blessed to see God’s intention to have a seed on earth of such a character that it would be hated by the serpent and his seed. The first word of grace is, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed”. That leads me to conclude that the woman represents humanity as the subject of divine mercy and grace. There are those who are the seed of the serpent, and there is enmity between them and the seed of the woman. It suggests the thought of a divine seed. Of course pre-eminently Christ is the woman’s Seed, but in a subordinate sense all God’s elect are the woman’s seed. It is the first intimation in Scripture of two seeds — two generations; and they come right down the stream of time to the present day. There are those in this world who are the seed of the serpent, though of course we could not point them out: the New Testament calls them the children of the devil, but there are also children of God on the line of righteousness and love, and there is enmity between the two seeds, but the enmity is on the side of the serpent and his seed.
Cain was the first of the seed of the serpent — the first of that generation — and Abel was the first on the line of the seed of the woman. Abel was not only a type of Christ, but he was a vessel of the Spirit of Christ. Christ was in Abel morally, and He is in all saints, so they can all be regarded as on the line of the seed of the woman.
Eve misnamed Cain; she thought that Cain was Christ. Cain means ‘Acquisition’; she said, “I have got the man”. But Cain was not very old before she found out that he was not Christ, so when Abel was born she called him ‘Vanity’. She had learned the vanity of thinking that the promised Seed would come in on the line of nature.
Think what a long line of suffering witnesses there have been whose heels have been bruised by Satan! Abel was the first; and the martyrs witnessed all down the line; but they have all been in measure overcomers — Christ pre-eminently and gloriously so. They have been persecuted and martyred, but the Spirit of Christ was in them and so they overcame. It looked as though Cain overcame Abel, but Abel was the overcomer, and he has had the longest service of any man as a preacher — “He being dead yet speaketh”. I think the bruising of the heel indicates the martyr sufferings of the saints, and of Christ pre-eminently; all that the power of evil could do was done against Him.
When God turns to Eve it is most interesting, for there seems to be indicated the way in which all divine blessing would come in for man. What is said to the woman seems to point to those subjective exercises which would mark mankind viewed as the subject of mercy. Blessing comes through deep inward exercise. Indeed there are three great principles indicated here on which blessing comes.
First, travail of soul. Nothing is brought forth for God in a scene where sin has come in except through suffering and travail — deep exercise of soul. God’s people have ever been a suffering and exercised people, and not one bit of Christ has ever been brought forth apart from soul travail.
Then, “To thy husband shall be thy desire”.
[p. 37] This is another great principle of blessing. God directs the desire of every exercised soul to Christ. This very chapter is the beginning of God directing desire to Christ. Every exercise which God gives is to lead the heart in desire to Christ; He is the divine answer to every exercise. All God’s work in man is to lead desire to Christ. We see it all through Scripture, and we have known it individually, that God turned desire to Christ and all true blessing came in on that line. We have had to feel our inward state, and the disappointment and breakdown of everything here, but under the good hand of God all this has led desire to Christ.
Nothing could be more interesting than to see the way in which God works that Christ may be the Object of desire. He will yet be the “Desire of all nations”, Haggai 2: 7. Before He comes God will so work that all nations will turn in desire to Him, and then millennial blessing will come in. In the meantime God is making Him the desire of our hearts in view of the moment when the Spirit and bride will say, ‘Come’. One may be very self-centred even as to spiritual blessing; perhaps that is often why we do not get on more rapidly. It is an immense thing when desire goes out to Christ. You get then into the true vein of God’s work in your soul.
It is most interesting to see in the Gospels how Christ became the Object of desire. Think of Zacharias, Elizabeth, Mary, the shepherds, the wise men from the east — all quite at the beginning; He became the Object of desire to them all, and to many others afterwards. Indeed, we may see fully illustrated in the Gospels the three principles brought out here — soul travail, desire towards Christ, and His rule.
[p. 38] Each one who came to Jesus could tell his own tale of mercy; each one had gone through soul travail, and had had his desire turned to Christ, and came under His rule. God used the miseries of men to exercise them so that Christ might become the Object of desire, and when He became their desire they were welcome to Him. And so it is with ourselves. None of us get to the true vein of God’s work until we turn in desire to Christ. Then there is positive gain and progress, and in result His rule is established in our affections for it is the rule of the One who is the Object of desire. In coming under His rule we escape from lawlessness, and come into the region of God’s blessed will. And if His rule is established in our affections, if the Object of desire rules, we are getting near the truth of headship.
Mere mental work and study is fruitless. If anything is to be brought forth for God it must be through soul exercise, and every bit of true exercise turns the heart in desire to Christ, and the result is that we come under His lordship and headship. This is the line of the subjective work in the soul. The disciples went through the deepest soul travail when they lost their Messiah. John 16: 20 speaks of it, but the Lord says, “I will see you again and your hearts shall rejoice”. So on the resurrection day He gathered up every desire to Himself — Mary, Peter, the two going to Emmaus, and others. When that was done it was an easy matter to send them the message by Mary, “Go tell my brethren, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. That gathered them together, and when gathered He came into the midst, and took His place as Head. We have it all there.
[p. 39] The woman in type sets forth the subjective side — the work of God in the soul. The man speaks more of the responsible side. What God said to Eve indicates the spiritual line on which He would work in those who were subjects of mercy. It is the line of His inward working in the spirits of His elect ones. But in what He says to Adam we get the course of His outward government and discipline in this world. To Adam God speaks of curse, of toil, and of death — the consequences of sin in His holy and righteous government. These effects have never been removed, though the conditions were somewhat relieved in Noah’s time; in a general way what we have here is true still. The ground brings forth thorns and thistles, and eventually man after a life of toil returns to the dust. These are the outward governmental consequences of sin having come in. We all have to face the discipline of these things. The two sides go on together — the inward spiritual exercises in God’s elect, and the outward government under which all come.
Satan tries to persuade men that this is a happy world; but all the pleasures of the world — theatres, music-halls, balls, etc. — are only froth on the cup of disappointment. Go into any entertainment, and you would not find a single really happy heart; the thorns and thistles are everywhere, and everyone is returning to the dust.
Man put the mark of the curse of the earth — thorns — on Christ. It was a striking figure of the Lord being made a curse; the curse came upon Him, and through His curse-bearing all trace of curse will be removed by-and-by. In the meantime God turns the governmental consequences of sin to man’s blessing.
The outward circumstances here under God’s government work in mercy for man’s good: for instance, what a mercy it is that men have to work; it is a wholesome restraint upon the lawlessness of man. And God turns to blessing for His saints all that is trying to their spirits — things that may answer to the thorns and thistles. The inward exercises I believe to be figuratively set forth in what God said to Eve; the outward government and discipline is set forth in what is said to Adam. We all have to bear the consequences of sin coming in; we all have to accept the discipline of God’s governmental ways; it goes on with the work of God and the one helps the other.
It is beautiful to see how Adam rose above all that was said to him; he rose into the region of what God had said to the serpent and to the woman; so immediately he called his wife Eve, which means ‘Life’, because she was the mother of all living. I believe Adam saw in faith that a living generation would come out of Eve — a generation for God. I do not think he called her Eve merely because she would be the mother of so many human beings. She would be the mother of all living. Every one of us who live God-ward can say that Eve is our mother; that is, we are begotten of sovereign mercy. I think Eve represents humanity as the subject of divine mercy. In chapter 4 we have the line of Seth; God secures a generation — a people calling on the name of the Lord (chapter 4: 26) — they are the living.
Adam is not mentioned in Hebrews 11, and we should not have known that he had faith if he had not called his wife Eve; that is given to us as a witness of his faith. He recognised Eve according to the place [p. 41] she had as the subject of mercy. She was, in his account, the mother of all living. He looked above the sentence passed upon himself, though doubtless accepting it, and he laid hold of the divine thought that life was coming in. It was coming in on the line of what God said to the woman and to the serpent, and Adam laid hold of it.
Faith having come in, God clothed them; He took account of their state as naked, and met it through death; He clothed them with coats of skins. We see in that a figure of divine righteousness founded on redemption. Thus clothed they could lift up their heads boldly. It does not go as far as reconciliation. Reconciliation is for the divine pleasure, but the coats of skins were to meet conscious nakedness. God met that consciousness by clothing them with that which was in figure a righteousness of His own providing. They could stand before Him with the consciousness that they had a righteousness which would bear His inspection because He Himself had provided it.
It was said to the serpent, “Dust shalt thou eat”. It sets forth the degradation that rightly attaches to the serpent; it is in marked contrast to the green herb and the fruit yielding seed provided for the rest of creation. God has put a mark of special degradation on the serpent; and, in truth, Satan will be the most abject of all lost creatures. This is to indicate the depth of his fall. He was the most beautiful of all God’s creatures, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty; there was no blemish in him until his heart was lifted up with pride because of his beauty, and he fell. God has marked the degradation of such a creature; from the highest place he has fallen to the lowest.
[p. 42] In 2 Corinthians 11 we are warned not to be corrupted from simplicity as to Christ, and Satan is said to be transformed into an angel of light. If we want to be preserved we must watch against his seductive influence. He ought not to be an angel of light in our estimation. It is striking that there are only two forms of universal idolatry — sun-worship and serpent-worship. Serpent-worship is found among all people throughout the heathen world, Satan has made himself under the form of the serpent an object of veneration to man. It is the comfort of faith to see that his head is going to be crushed; all his devices are going to be brought to nothing.