Posted on 11/20/2012 5:13:28 PM PST by pastorbillrandles
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.(Genesis 4:1-2)
By now, Adam and Eve had been evicted from their home, the garden of delight, because of their sin. They were not allowed to remain, nor to eat of the precious “Tree of Life”, in fact it would have been spiritually disastrous for them to do so.
They had rejected God’s glory. They chose not to remain within the limits God had set for them, neither did they accept the Word of God which warned them of the consequences of transgressing the Divine command.
Instead, the first couple chose to judge “good and evil” for themselves. They would try the fruit , for they actually believed the alternative ‘word’, that was presented to them in the garden, the word of the serpent, over and against the Word of God.
Like so many millions of their descendents, the first man and woman learned by bitter experience that the Word of God was true after all. They had fallen, and they knew it immediately for fear filled their very being. They would have to be called into account by their Lord for what they had done!
The reality of judgment sent them into hiding. But no matter how ill prepared, they would be brought out into the light to give an answer.
The Lord came to them, and after a brief arraignment and trial, the Serpent, the man and woman received their respective sentences. The man and the woman were to be banished from the garden of delights, she would conceive and bear children in sorrow, and become utterly dependent upon her husband.
The man would be consigned to painful , frustrating toil, thorns and thistles would hinder and vex his life’s work, and at the end, the ultimate futility, death, dissolution and return to the earth from which he (and she) came!
The serpent would be humiliated, he would crawl on his belly and feed on the dust until the time appointed for his final judgment..
But the gloom of the trial is penetrated by a gleaming shaft of light, for the Lord made a promise, indirectly to the man and woman,(for they had refused accountability). To the Serpent the Lord pronounced these words of promise,
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.(Genesis 3:15)
So, there would be a deliverer for the man and the woman! The woman, who had been seduced by evil, lending her ear to the alternate ‘word’ of God, and who with her husband had heeded the vicious accusation against the character of God, would now be the God assigned vessel to bring forth a deliverer. What grace!
The coming “seed of the woman” would indeed crush the serpent’s head, but the victory would be costly and painful, for the Serpent would bruise the heel of the “seed of the woman”.
But how could there be a "seed of the woman"? Does not man provide the seed? The mystery would increasingly be revealed , and that over long centuries. It would only be with the dawning of the "true light that now shines" that the truth would come out that the true serpent crusher would be of necessity be virgin born!
As a token of the coming suffering of the ‘seed of the woman’, which would procure the couple’s deliverance, The LORD removed the home-made fig leaf covering that the newly self-conscious couple had manufactured, and clothed them with the skin of an animal which he had slaughtered. This would be their first encounter with physical death, and it must have appalled them.
All that remained now for the exiled couple, was to cling to the promise, as they sought to make a life for themselves in the now hostile world. They would work hard, learn to love each other, bear children and wait for the time when the woman would bear “the seed of the woman” who would come and undo the curse once and for all.
This is the setting for the first two verses of our text. God saw to it that even in judgment there would be mercy for the man and his wife. There were still comforts within the exile. Adam and Eve had each other. Adam knew his wife… . The two of them could uphold each other, and somewhat help to ease the tensions, fears and sorrows of their alienation.
They could still appeal to God, from a distance, but only by offering the God appointed sacrifices which served to underscore the Divine teaching that sin deserved death, but also the hopeful message that God could be approached through a substitute.
When Eve conceived, and bore son, it seemed that at long last the promise was in the process of fulfillment. They named him Cain, “Gotten”, as in We’ve Got it! Is this not the deliverer, born of the woman? Is this the serpent crusher that we have waited for these long, painful years?
But by the time of Cain’s brother’s birth, the gloom had descended again, for it must have become apparent that this was not the deliverer after all. They named this son Abel, “that which passes as a breath”, indicating that they now knew that life itself is mortal, even a vapor.
And when Cain murdered his brother Able, Cain was banished from the land and took with him his wives (read that his ‘sisters’ - incest was not illegal at that time - or maybe some of them were his daughter/wives - who knows - the boy killed his brother, he’d probably do anything after that)
Ummm,they all had to marry thier own sisters,,,no other choice,,,.
We are still marrying our own relatives!
Was Adam not deceived, but decided to follow Eve above God? We have all done that. We know what is wrong but follow the crowd instead.
Matt 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.Did Adam and Eve sin in their hearts before they ate the fruit of the tree. Eve said that it was a tree to be desired to make one wise. It does not say that their nature was changed but rather that their eyes were opened.
Rom 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
Eph 5:31-32 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.It is not surprising that Adam was not deceived nor that he chose to die with Eve. I suspect that Adam wanted also to know good and evil.
Eve was deceived, Adam stood there while his wife was being tricked and did nothing. Adam made a willing and knowing choice to disobey and the choice was probably made before the serpent showed up.
He just didn't know that the price would be so high.
Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin...How is it that Adam's sin passed to Eve when it appears that Eve ate the fruit first?
Genesis 3:6 "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it."
Adam was right there listening to the serpent, knowing that what the serpent said was a lie and he made no attempt to challenge it.
Maybe he was just waiting for an opportunity like this to present itself.
He was very quick to put the blame on Eve and on God.
"The woman - That YOU gave me, SHE gave me the fruit and I ate it."
And of course there is the question of what they were doing at the tree in the first place.
I have always found it interesting that Eve got a curse and a blessing and all Adam got was a curse.
“And the Lord Gods said, behold the man is become as one of us.”
There is a blessing in there somewhere.
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