Matthew Henry once said of Genesis 3, “The story of this chapter is perhaps as sad a story as any we have in all the Bible . . . We have here an account of the sin and misery of our first parents, the wrath and curse of God against them, the peace of the creation disturbed, and its beauty stained and sullied, all bad, very bad. O that our hearts were deeply affected with this record!”
When Snakes Slink and Speak
We are told, “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.” The word “crafty” in 3:1 sounds almost identical to the word “naked” in 2:25. The apparent wordplay in these verses implies that Adam and Eve were oblivious to evil, not knowing where the dangers lay. The snake thus slinks up to Eve and begins to—amazingly!—speak. We know nothing about where the snake came from, but the New Testament makes clear that the serpent is none other than the vaunted foe of God and God’s people, Satan (Rev. 12:9).
In high school I found Anatomy a most difficult subject. Memorizing all those bones, muscles, and anatomical information overtaxed my limited memory. While I loathed the anatomical memorization required at the time, I’ve since come to see how beneficial, particularly as I played sports, the knowledge was. Well, I want us to enter into a spiritual anatomy session for a moment as we observe, from Genesis 3:1-5, “The Anatomy of Temptation.”
The Anatomy of Temptation
The first point to see is it’s a temptation to doubt God’s word. Notice the second half of 3:1, “He said to the woman, “Did God actually say . . .?” “The incredulous tone — ‘Did God actually say . . .?” — is both disturbing and flattering: it smuggles in the assumption that God’s word is subject to our judgment.”
The second part of the temptation is to downplay God’s goodness. The serpent asks, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” Nope, that’s not what God said at all. Look back to 2:16-17 to see what God actually said, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” Eve evidently heard about this command from Adam and so she repeats it in 3:2, but adds God saying in 3:3, “neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” Satan tempts Eve to doubt God’s word, downplay God’s goodness, and thirdly . . . deny God’s justice. Look at 3:4-5, “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” “Not only,” Satan says, “will God not judge you unto death—it’s surely significant that the first heresy in the Bible is there’s no judgment for sin—He actually isn’t just at all, He’s just jealous. He doesn’t want you to be like Him.”
Do you see the irony in Satan’s words? Chapter 1 announced that only man and woman were created in the image of God, they were already “like” God. But Eve listens to the creature instead of the Creator and follows her impressions instead of God’s instructions. Notice 3:6, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” We might want to ask, “Where was Adam in all of this?” He was right next to Eve. As God’s vice-regent on the earth Adam should have told the snake to be quiet, stepped on its head, and stopped Eve’s hand when she reached for the fruit. Yet, instead he reaches for the fruit when she offers and he too eats. Sin has a way of not only involving others, but getting others to validate your sing by them sinning with you.
As it always does, sin promises much but actually offers little. Satan said, “Eat, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.” But look at what happened when their eyes did open in 3:7, “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” Can’t you just picture the serpent’s devilish smile as Adam and Eve sewed together their makeshift clothes? Far from being just like God, they go from being unashamed to totally ashamed.
An Anatomy of Autonomy
What then is at the root of this spiritual anatomy lesson? I believe it’s this: the root of all sin is autonomy. It’s the refusal to live under God’s lordship and submit to His word. It’s to live like we are in charge, like we are Lord, like we are autonomous—separate—from God’s lordship. This is a spiritual anatomy lesson to memorize. Where are you currently being tempted to doubt God’s word, downplay His goodness, or deny His justice? Wherever that may be, Genesis three tells us Satan may be speaking and autonomy is probably creeping.
What we now see as this sad story continues is sin always leads to shame and shrinking away from God in fear. Notice 3:8 tells us upon hearing God walking in the garden, “the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God.” God says to Adam, “Where are you?” Adam responds, “I hid when I heard you because I was naked.” Look at 3:11 as God asks, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” Then ensues the original blame game. Adam says in 3:12 that it was Eve’s fault, and Eve says in 3:13 it was the serpent’s fault.
And so it was that Satan’s temptation unraveled everything.
This post is adapted from my recent sermon, “The Beginning of the End,” on Genesis 3.