Break Me Down: God Seeking Us When We’re Hiding (Genesis 3:6-13)
“I'm Yours if You can break me down, break through these
walls I hide behind.” – Tenth Avenue North 🎭
Dear wall-enclosed wrongdoer,
Let’s admit it: it’s more than just occasionally when we do
the wrong thing. If we claim we have no sin, it’s ourselves we’re deceiving (1
John 1:8). Even the converted apostle Paul said, “What I hate, that I do”
(Romans 7:15). We can’t say that once we’re Christians, our sins will be few.
What we can rejoice in is that we are saved evermore from
the wages of sin once we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. However, while
we’re in this world, we’re in a battlefield where we wrestle with the devil.
There will be times when we do evil things like have anger toward a fellow
human or call someone a fool, which both show hatred and make the hater a
murderer. When we think of evil, we think of violence and destruction. We
wouldn’t think of a mere disobedience of one rule, but sin is disobedience of
God’s commands, and its wages is death (Romans 6:23).
Read this passage to see how one noncompliance has caused
humanity’s mortal stance:
Genesis 3:6-13 (NKJV)
6 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. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were
opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves coverings.
8 And they heard the
sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in 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.
9 Then the LORD God
called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 So he said, “I
heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid
myself.”
11 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?”
12 Then the man said,
“The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
13 And the LORD God
said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The
serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
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Because of this, the world was cursed. Women’s birthing
became painful and they shall be ruled over by their husbands, men shall labor
in order to live, and everyone shall return to dust. This is the Fall of Man,
the curse down to the last clan.
In the start of the text, we see worldliness at its core as
described in 1 John 2:16. Eve seeing the fruit as good for food was the lust of
the flesh, her seeing it pleasant was the lust of the eyes, and her desiring to
be wise was the pride of life. She gave in to these temptations and ate the
fruit, and so did Adam who was with her.
It was so timely for me to hear this as a topic in a podcast
I listen to every night on Spotify, Your Daily Bible Verse. Betsy St. Amant
scripts in the episode, “Adam failed Eve in the Garden by standing there while
she was being deceived by the serpent, by not speaking up for God’s Word, and
by not taking charge of the situation and leading her away from temptation”
(Haddox, 2021).
What happened after eating the forbidden fruit? Their eyes
were opened to the miserable truth. In Barnes' Notes on the Bible on verse 7,
he wrote that the opening of their eyes means “a new aspect was presented by
things on the commission of the first offence. As soon as the transgression is
actually over, the sense of the wrongfulness of the act rushes on the mind”
(Barnes, 1884). They knew now what evil they have done: they wanted the
knowledge of the All-knowing and they disobeyed Him.
Then, they knew they were naked. Going back to Barnes’
Notes, he said, “They now take notice that their guilty persons are exposed to
view, and they shrink from the glance of every condemning eye. They imagine
there is a witness of their guilt in every creature, and they conceive the
abhorrence which it must produce in the spectator.” Because of their shame,
they sewed coverings for their bodies and wore them.
When they heard God walking nearby, they hid among trees as
if they’re cartoon characters that can be magically hid behind structures
thinner than them. They may have hidden themselves behind thicker trunks, but
they can never hide from God.
However, God asked where they were. It’s an indication that
God seeks to reach out to people. This is why I titled this epistle with the
song “Break Me Down” by Tenth Avenue North and quoted the lyric above. God
breaks through the walls we hide behind, or in this case, the trees Adam and
Eve hid among. He called for the man. His inquiry was “a gracious pursuit” for
Adam’s recovery according to Benson’s Commentary.
Then, God asked if he has eaten of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. He knows everything including all our sins, yet He “requires
from us an ingenuous confession of them, not that he may be informed, but that
we may be humbled” (Benson, 1846–1854).
What follows is the blame game. They point to others, for on
their own fault, they’re ashamed. The result is the consequence that affects us
all, what man gets when he puts himself up a pedestal. God cursed the serpent,
the woman, and the man. Even the animals were affected because in order to
clothe man, animals had to die for their skin to be used as clothing.
God drove man away from paradise, so that he won’t have
access to the tree of life. This is the beginning of man’s mortality, but thank
Jesus for He gives us back eternity. I’m talking about everlasting life, for
there’s the other eternal state, which is eternal death in hell.
Fellow human, you do not wish to go there. Do you feel like
you deserve it because you’re a sinner? There is hope for everyone. There is
life in God’s Son. Receive Him as your Lord. Read the Bible, which is our
Sword. Watch God change you. Through Him, you can make a change in this world,
too.
With love,
Celina <3
References
Barnes, A.
(1884). Genesis 3 Commentary - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible.
Retrieved from Truthaccordingtoscripture.com:
https://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.com/commentaries/bnb/genesis-3.php#.YLhmNagza00
Benson, J. (1846–1854). Genesis
3 Commentary - Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments.
Retrieved from Truthaccordingtoscripture.com:
https://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.com/commentaries/rbc/genesis-3.php#.YLht2Kgza00
Haddox, B. S. (2021, June
1). What Happened When Adam Failed. Retrieved from Oneplace.com:
https://www.oneplace.com/devotionals/bible-study-minute/when-adam-failed-genesis-312-13-your-daily-bible-verse-june-1-11826807.html
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