I.Gen 3:14-24 God’s Glorified by saving Through Judgment
Two weeks ago we studied Gen 3:1-7. We learned that we overcome temptation with faith.
Last week we examined Gen 3:8-13. We examined three immediate effects of the fall. Adam felt the shame of his nakedness. He hid from God, and he refused to take responsibility for his actions.
This week, we watch as the consequences of Adam’s sin amplify further. God pronounces judgment on the Serpent, he pronounces judgment on Eve, and he pronounces judgment on Adam in that order.
God relates to humanity in predictable patterns. One of those patterns is that God continually glorifies himself by saving through judgment. The pattern begins here. In this case, God pronounces cosmic judgment, but he also promises a cosmic redemption. The main point of this passage?God glorifies himself by saving through judgment.[1]
A.God Glorifies Himself by Exercising Judgment
The judgment in Gen 3:14-24 appears in two curses, and three judgments. They glorify and display the perfect justice and righteousness of God.
1.Two Curses
Three blessings occur in Chapter one. God blessed the animals, God blessed man, and God blessed the 7th Day. We have seen that blessing is a major theme of Genesis. However, here we seethe opposite of blessing. We see cursing.
a)Serpent Cursed
“14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
God does not owe the Serpent mercy. All he owes him, or us, is justice. In this case he chooses to give the Serpent justice. The serpent will have no hope of redemption: He is cursed by God. This implies no diminishment of God’s ultimate goodness. Rather, it is a display of the beauty of his justice, which is an important facet of his goodness.
God always humbles those who exalt themselves. The Serpent has exalted himself. He has tried to obstruct God’s plan to fill the earth with his glory by making man in his own image, and ultimately, to fill the earth with his own perverse image/glory. Therefore, the Serpent will be humbled. He will eat dust and travel on his belly for the remainder of his days.
God curses the Serpent another way. 16 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.” From this point on, all human society will be divided into two groups—the “Offspring of the Serpent,” who, because they do not believe, are cursed; and the “Offspring of the Woman,” who, because they believe the gospel, are blessed. The promise is that the “offspring of the woman” will culminate in the Messiah who will crush the Serpents head by submitting to crucifixion. (We will return to this theme in a few minutes).
b)Ground Cursed
17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.”
The ground is a synonym for the earth or the cosmos. That is how Paul understood this curse. It was a curse on the earth extending to the entire Cosmos.
(Ro 8:19-22) "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation [the ground] was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now."
Note: Adam’s primary task, his vocation, tilling the ground, is what God cursed. This emphasizes the fact that Adam’s primary task was outward. God created him to support his family by working. He did not create him to be a mister mom.
2.Three Punishments
The remarkable fact is, that though God cursed the Serpent (and his seed), and the ground, He did not curse Adam or Eve. (More on this in a minute).
We learned last week that we are born in Adam. That means that we are by nature all that Adam was. So, the following punishments extend to each of us also.
a)Eve Punished
16 "To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. 16b Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
Anecdote of Sarah’s Birth….
God created Eve to be Adam’s helper. He created her to help Adam fulfill his task of filling the earth with God’s glory. That meant bearing and nurturing children. It also meant helping Adam fulfill his calling to “work and keep” the garden. Now, giving that help will be painful. God “multiplies her pain in childbirth.” Because God is merciful it is not all pain. The Good News is that most women experience great joy after childbirth. In addition, we experience joy and fulfillment through the nurturing, training, and raising of children.
In addition, God created Eve to be Adam’s companion. But God now judges their relationship. 16b“Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” This means the woman will seek to usurp her husband’s authority, and he will respond with sinful domination. Again, because God is merciful, it is not all pain and frustration. Despite the distortions of sin, many couples, Christian and non-Christian, experience significant marital happiness. But, even in the best Christian marriage, relations between husband and wife are never fully what God intended them to be.
b)Adam Punished
(17-19) 17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wifeand have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
God gave Adam a vocation. God created him to work and keep the garden. Now, as he attempts to carry out this task, the ground will resist him. Adam will reap thorns and thistles with pain and sweat. He will not work and keep the garden. Instead, he will be cast out into an alien world, a world under God‘s curse. He will experience scarcity, hunger, and economic injustice. Customers will complain. Some will not pay their bills. He will fear financial failure. He will experience discouragement, boredom, failure, leanness, and stress.
Yet, because God is merciful, some will actually earn their bread with a degree of happiness. Some will even have abundance. But, even the most dedicated Christian will never fully reap the joy from their vocation that God initially intended. That awaits the world to come.
Most significantly, God tells Adam, “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Although God made Adam and Eve to live forever, the spiritual and physical cannot be separated. Physical death follows spiritual death.
c)Adam and Eve Expelled from the Garden
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”
God denies Adam and Eve direct access to the Tree of Life. They will not share in the Divine Nature. More importantly, God separates them from their ultimate good—himself. He casts them away from his immediate presence.
B.God Glorifies Himself By showing Mercy and Grace
The big idea in today’s passage is that God glorifies himself by saving through judgment. We have watched God glorifying his justice and holiness by his curses and punishments. But we also see God glorifying his mercy, grace, and love. This passage contains three extensions of God’s mercy, grace, and love. Against the backdrop of God’s justice, they are especially meaningful.
1.God glorifies his grace through a promise of redemption
(Gen. 3:15) "I will put enmity between you [the Serpent] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Amazing Grace! Good News is coming. The rest of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the story of the outworking of this promise. Note: The promise is all of grace. It is not if you do…I will… It is simply “I will put enmity between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head.” Human effort will not bring this promise to pass. God will bring it to pass. In the words of Rev 7:10,“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
To understand this promise, we need to identify the key characters. As we have seen, “The Offspring of the Woman” is Christ, the Savior to come. In addition, the “offspring of the woman” also includes all who put their faith in the Messiah.
The “Offspring” of the Serpent are all who reject the promised Savior to come (John 8:39-47, Heb 11:4). They die in their sins. They experience God’s eternal curse. The Bible is the history of the warfare between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
The conflict begins in Genesis four. Cain, the Offspring of the serpent, kills his brother Abel, the Offspring of the woman. In both cases their faith or lack of faith, identifies their spiritual paternity.
In Genesis 12:1-5 God blesses Abraham and promises to bless those who bless him, and promises to curse those that curse him. The promise to Abraham is comprehensive. Through his Descendant (descendants) God will crush the head of the Serpent. Ultimately, Christ is the ultimate “Offspring of the Woman,” the Onewho would fulfill this prophecy.
But, Paul assumes that because the church is all the Christ is, that she is also the Offspring of the woman. As such, our job is spiritual mop up. This is what Paul meant when he wrote to the church in Rome,“The God of grace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom. 16:20).
If Adam and Eve found salvation, they found it just like we do, by believing God’s promise of mercy through a Savior.
2.God glorifies his grace by covering Sinnersnakedness
21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Remember, Adam and Evewere naked and ashamed. In great mercy and tenderness, God sheds the blood of an animal and uses their skins to replace the fig leaves with which Adam and Eve desperately covered themselves.
By doing this God predicts Christ’s righteousness with which He will eventually clothe all believers. He also makes it clear that this righteousness will only be available through the shedding of blood.
(Re 3:18) "I counsel you to buy from me…white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen."
(Re 16:15) “Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”
The cost to God to provide these garments will be infinite.
3.God glorifies his grace by exempting Adam and Eve from the deserved Curse.
We saw that the Serpent is cursed. In addition, the offspring of the Serpent are cursed. In the next chapter God curses Cain, the offspring of the Serpent. However, although Adam and Eve deserve to be cursed they are not. Why?
The offspring of the woman who will crush the Serpent comes from the union of Adam and Eve. Ultimately, that “offspring” is Christ. Adam’s sin will not infect him. He will obey God’s law perfectly. So, God does not curse him. God blesses him.
In other words, it is only the Offspring of the woman that is exempted from the curse. We become the offspring of the Woman by believing the gospel. That faith unites us with Christ, and we become all that he is. Because he does not deserve to be cursed, we are not cursed.
We know that God is infinitely just. How can he exempt sinners from the deserved curse and still remain just? Answer: ASubstitute has come to take the curse that we deserve. The Father said to his Son, “They deserve to be cursed by me, but I desire to show them grace. However, in order to remain just, the curse must go out. Someone must take it for them. Here is a way for us to both remain perfectly just and show them grace. Will you go and take their curse for them.”
(Gal. 3:10) "For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
(Gal. 3:13-14) "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. "
All who believe the gospel are the offspring of the woman. Christ has taken your well-deserved curse.
C.Application:
1.Spiritual Warfare
(1 Peter 4:12) "12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you."
If you are the seed of the woman it means conflict with the “Offspring of the Serpent.” (Islam, Mormons, Secularists, Religious Christians, etc.)
2.Mission
It also means that we are responsible to accomplish God’s mop up work, crushing the head of the Serpent. The cross accomplished the decisive blow, the serious mop up began at Pentecost. It is still unfolding. The world will not end, and Christ will not come again, until the church finishes the job, until she emerges victorious. This means great hope. It means great rejoicing.
3.The Gospel is a display of God’s glory. He saves us through judgment.
God Glorifies Himself by Saving through Judgment. That is the biblical pattern.
God’s glory is the reason for creation and redemption. When God saves through judgment, all of God’s attributes are displayed and glorified. That is why we seldom see mercy and grace displayed bythem self. Instead, we see God saving unworthy sinners through judgment.
We have seen how God saved Adam and Eve through judgment.
But, God also saved Israel through judgment. He judged Egypt and the Passover Lamb, but he showed Israel grace.
God has also saved you and I through judgment. That is what happened at the cross. God glorified himself by saving us through judgment. His Son was judged, but we received mercy and grace.
At the final Judgment God will save through Judgment for the final time.
D.Summary Of Genesis 1-3
We have repeatedly said that every world-view contains three things: a theory of origins, an explanation for what is wrong with humanity, and a theory for how we can solve or correct what is wrong. The Christian worldview is radically different from its secular competitors.
1st When God finished creation He said, “It is very good” (Gen 1:31). He blessed his work. He created a Paradise of blessing.
2nd The fall was cosmic. It affected everything. It destroys our bodies, wounds our souls, and crushes our spirits. It warps culture. It infests government and political systems with corruption and selfish ambition. It sets husband and wife against each other
3rdChrist’sRedemption is cosmic. It reconciles God and man. It restores God consciousness. It covers the shame of our nakedness with Christ’s righteousness. It heals the soul. It restores Eternal Life. The deeper we go into the gospel the closer we get to Paradise.