Man’s consequences for disobedience

Today we are going to take a closer look at the consequences that God gave the serpent, Eve and Adam for their disobedience and what it actually says.  If you missed our last post about God's commandment in the garden, be sure to check that out first. I have so many thoughts and it’s really hard to accurately represent them all in cohesive sentences but i’m trying yall.

God said, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the Tree of Knowldege of Good and Evil, you must not eat thereof; for on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.” When the commandment was given, the consequence was death however the first thing that takes place after they eat of it, is that their eyes were open and they realized they were naked and they hid, they removed themselves from God first. Interesting. Also, when they were in the garden prior, we were told that they were naked and not ashamed, now they “know” they are naked, hid and covered themselves. What changed, what was so significant about the knowledge? Let’s pause for a minute and remember before how we talked about tov and ra and balance and function and unbalance and dysfunction. Before eating of the fruit, everything was tov, balanced, functional, working as it should. They could be naked together and it wouldn’t cause any problems. However, now they know about ra, unbalance and dysfunction. What kind of consequences does nakedness potentially bring? Why would we need or feel the desire to cover up? What kind of dysfunction can happen from nakedness? All kinds of immorality and unnatural unions? Just something to think about. And they hid from God. Previously man and God’s relationship was balanced, it was tov. Now I would argue that it is unbalanced and dysfunctional. When God asks where they are, a Hebrew source that I found described God’s question as a lament or out of grief. Without knowing Hebrew myself, I can’t deduce the full meaning of that word/phrase but considering that possibility does seem to explain better why an all knowing God wouldn’t “know” where they were. That just doesn’t make sense but if the original translation expresses more about God being grieved, it would be easier to conclude that something changed in their relationship, it was no longer in balance. Later on after the consequences, we see that God clothed them. Wouldn’t that show that he still had care and concern for them. Another interesting side note is that right after the consequences and before God clothes them, Adam names his wife Eve because she would be the mother of all living. Did you know that science says that by tracing our mtDNA, all those alive today can be traced back to one common female ancestor. (Eve gene) But I digress, let’s get back to the consequences.

Now, some theologians will suppose that death meant a spiritual death, seeing that Adam did not die immediately.  However, if we are just going off of other places where death is referenced, it's physical not spiritual and the text does tell us that Adam did die eventually (and we are assuming Eve did as well).  So for the sake of this post, we are getting rid of the assumption that it was a spiritual death.  We are also not going to presuppose anything else (i.e. that all mankind is now eternally separated from God, that we are all born in sin, that we all dead in sin, etc) as that is not what the text says here. If we can suppose anything it would be that we all now possess the knowledge of tov and ra. Remember, we are not reading into any mysteries, or using the New Testament to explain what the Old Testament says. We are trying to keep things plain and simple, ok!  I think we also can't say definitively if the additional consequences are all universal for all of mankind, for all of time or if they just apply to those that God is speaking to, except where it still remains true for us today.

Let's start with the serpent, what is his place in our story and why?  Let’s consider what took place right before this.  God said it wasn't good for man to be alone and so man searched through all of the creatures that God had created but none of them were the right one for the job.  Then woman is made.  Could it be that the serpent is upset that it wasn't chosen?  Does that give him reason to seek revenge? Is revenge right?  Is that why the serpent targeted Eve and not Adam?  The serpent can walk and talk, in his eyes he may have thought that he was the right choice.  He too must possess some kind of reasoning and understanding because he knew what God's commandment was, right? But wait, am I saying that this animal really existed? We know that other animals existed that aren’t alive today or that may have changed from its original creation, so it is possible that in the beginning the serpent was created to walk and talk. 

Then the serpent tells Eve that she will not die but that her eyes will be open and that she will be like God, knowing good and evil.  Hmm.. so why was the serpent punished?  On the surface it doesn’t necessarily seem as though he did anything wrong but was it seeking revenge?  Was he tempting others to disobey? So, what was the punishment?  The serpent is accursed, upon its belly shall it go and dust it will eat all the days of its life.  Enmity is between the serpent and the woman and between their offspring.  Woman's offspring will pound its head and it will bite man's heel.  Ok, besides the obvious, that if a snake is on the ground, man has the potential to step on it and if man steps on it, more than likely, the snake will bite the man, is there anything else going on here? So far everything seems to line up with reality. Now what about this enmity thing? Enmity is defined as the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something. Well, if both the man and the snake have the possibility of injuring or even killing one another, I could see why they might have some hostility towards each other. Christianity says that this is a future prophecy of the messiah, really? I think that is a huge stretch. There is nothing found HERE in this passage that would hint at a messianic prophecy.  Everything in this section is in line with reality and we can still see these consequences today.  The serpent slithers on its belly, therefore eating its fair share of dust and many people have an aversion to snakes.  Moving on!

To the woman, God said "I will greatly increase your suffering and your childbearing; in pain shall you bear children.  Yet your craving shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.  We know childbirth is painful.  By saying He will increase, the original design may still have caused pain but now there will be more.  Even though it's a painful experience, women will still desire their husband and to have more children.  And he shall rule over you… I'm not sure what to make of this, we know that previously there was an equality, she was taken from a whole side of Adam and that she was his strong rescuer/savior.  The other consequences seem to apply to all women but I’m not sure that saying he shall rule over you applies to everyone for all time.  Maybe just Eve's husband ruled over her?  I am married but my husband doesn't rule over me, we are equal partners, we are one, we choose balance.  However, the fact that this statement is found here and because of what we will go over later about sin, I think that unfortunately some men give in to this desire and become unbalanced, and therefore can and do use this as an excuse to rule over their wives but I don’t think that is the rule, I think it is an exception to the rule.

To Adam, God said, accursed is the ground because of you; through suffering shall you eat of it all the days of your life.  Thorns and thistles shall it sprout for you and you shall eat the herb of the field.  By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread until you return to the ground from which you were taken; for you are dust and to dust shall you return.  Alright, the ground is now cursed not the whole earth and everything in it, it will sprout thorns and thistles.  Through suffering and toil you will eat of it.  At this point they were still only allowed to eat vegetation. From my experience gardening is a ton of work and so I would say that all of those situations do line up with reality. You will turn to dust and return to the ground from which you were taken. When we die, if we are buried, our bodies decompose and return to the earth. Again, I don’t see anything about a curse over everything. Everything currently is not considered evil all the time. Cursed is the ground however, when we get to the flood account, I am going to point out something very interesting that I NEVER saw until now. 

Lastly, they are banished from the garden.  They are no longer allowed to work and guard God's garden. Why? Because they failed the test? They didn’t live up to the standard for that position. But I see absolutely nothing about the need of a savior, that man is eternally separated from God, dead in their sins, condemned to hell, etc.  Zilch, nada, nothing. But don’t take my word for it, read it for yourselves.