Bible Study On: Book of Genesis, Chapters 3
by Russell J. Schmidt
Genesis Chapter Three ~ NKJV
The Temptation and Fall of Man
1) Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
2) And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden;
3) but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
4) Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5) For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
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.”
14) So the LORD God said to the serpent:
“ Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
15)
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
16)
To the woman He said:
“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
In pain you shall bring forth children;
Your desire shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
17) Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife,
and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:
“ Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
18)
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
19)
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.”
20) And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
21) Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.
22) Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—
23) therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.
24) So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
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Bible Study: Book of Genesis, Chapter Three
Verses 1-17:
The Temptation and Fall of Man
We start right off here in verse one, with an example of how Satan works in our lives. The first question he asks Eve, is sort of a setup question. What Satan is doing here is planting little seeds of doubt in Eve’s mind. Satan asks her, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’”
You see, Satan knows exactly what God said to Adam and Eve. Remember, God had placed Lucifer (a.k.a. Satan) in the Garden of Eden to be a guardian of the garden. Ezekiel 28:13-14 tells us, “You were in Eden, the garden of God... You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you.” I used the New International Version (NIV) for clarity. But, we see that God anointed Lucifer as a guardian cherub and, no doubt, in charge of the Garden of Eden.
Since Lucifer was there in the garden, although we aren’t told in Scripture, he may have been there with God at times when God communed with both Adam and Eve. As we will see here later in this chapter, God came to Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, which could either be morning or evening. But, I will give you more on that thought when we come to it.
So, Satan knew what God had told Adam and Eve, but he was setting Eve up to twist the truth a little bit. To get Eve to think in terms of the physical nature. Let’s move on and I’ll explain.
Eve quickly answered Satan in verses 2–3, “2) And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3) but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
It was clear that Eve remembered exactly what God had said to them, but Satan has this all planned out. He was prepared; he must have grown to know Adam and Eve as he tended them in the garden. Just as he does with mankind today, he takes time to get to know our weaknesses. The one thing Satan cannot do is read our minds, he can plant thoughts of temptation in our minds, but he doesn’t know what you are thinking.
Although humans are very similar in there weaknesses to temptation, each individual has his or her unique areas that they may be stronger or weaker than others in. Satan wants to know you intimately this way, so he can win the battle over you in your thought life. So, he’ll spend time with you and around you, testing different temptations until our weaknesses are exposed.
We are told in Scripture that Satan comes to us as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14 ). He is like a stealth bomber, if you are not familiar with a stealth aircraft; stealth refers to being undetectable by radar. When he comes to us as an angel of light, he is coming undetectable of who he really is and what his true intention is toward us.
2 Corinthians 11:14
14) And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. (NKJV)
But, it’s not that we even see him; he comes to us in the spirit realm, which is true stealth to us. He knows humans are not alert to the spiritual world around them, so when those thoughts or temptations that he plants in our minds come to us, we just assume that they are thoughts or ideas that we conjure up. But, believe me, we don’t! God did not create us this way. On the contrary, When God finished creating us He said of His creation that “it was very good,” (Genesis 1:31).
I don’t believe God could have made a mistake. There was a flaw that was going to become evident in our spirit of man, but until that flaw was exposed we were very good in the eyes of God. I believe that Satan was jealous of us; he was jealous of the fact that one day we would even be above him in the eyes of God. Satan, to this day, is determined to continue to work at those flaws and beat us down so much in hope that even the best Christian will feel so much guilt and shame that he will walk away from God.
That’s why we read in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, “4) The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5) We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Just like with the war in Iraq, America is finding out that we are not able to fight a traditional type of war. America has to find a new way to fight this war, and it is not a physical war it is fighting, it’s a spiritual battle. History throughout the Bible has been repeated over and over and America is at the same crossroads that many other nations throughout biblical history have found themselves in and have chosen the wrong path and have succumbed, as a nation to their folly.
As we move on to verse 4, Satan realizes that he couldn’t trip Eve up by confusing her with what God has said, so now he will try to distort what Eve heard God say. Satan says to Eve in verse 4-5, “4) You will not surely die. 5) For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Satan played on the fact that Adam and Eve really didn’t fully comprehend what God actually said. Yes! Eve knew what he said, but she didn’t comprehend it. When God told Adam and Eve that when they eat the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, “they would surely die,” God was referring to dying spiritually.
Of course, for Adam and Eve to die spiritually, this would also lead to a physical death as well, this will be discussed as we move forward here; but not an immediate death after eating the fruit as Satan tried to deceive Eve into believing. Adam and Eve must have been under the assumption that by eating the fruit they would immediately die.
But, Satan continues in verse 5 and says, “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” You see, Satan is telling Eve, in a round-about way, that God sort of lied to her, because God knows that when she and Adam eat the forbidden fruit they would have all the knowledge and understanding that God has.
This, of course, was the truth that Satan was telling them, but he was deceptive in the way he presented it to them. He neglected to tell them that God didn’t want them to have this knowledge and understanding yet, because they were not mature enough to handle such wisdom and understanding.
We could use the example in 1 Corinthians 3:2, where the apostle Paul tells new Christians, “I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.” He uses this same example again in Hebrews 5:12 and compares these new Christians to infants. You certainly wouldn't give an infant a T-bone steak for dinner.
As we continue on in verse 6, we see that Satan did intrigue Eve because it reads, “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.” It continues that she gave some to Adam and they both ate of it.
Verse 7, tells us that their eyes were immediately opened and they knew they were naked. Satan’s job was complete. We no longer read any quotes from Satan, because he accomplished the task at hand. That being, separating both Adam and Eve from God. The divide has been created that can and will only be closed by the sacrifice of Jesus.
After Adam and Eve sewed some fig leaves together to cover themselves up from their nakedness, God came to them in the cool of the day. I mentioned this earlier and said I would have more to say about this. Of course the cool of the day could be either the early morning, or early evening.
Although Scripture does not say how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden before Satan got to them, we would assume that God came to Adam and Eve each day at this time to commune with them. Scripture is clear through the Bible that God create man to commune and fellowship with.
Now, I am not going out on a limb to say that this “cool of the day” was evening, because of the events that transpired before God came to them. All that happened would leave you to assume it took place during the day while Lucifer (Satan) was overlooking the garden and Adam and Eve, who were left in his care.
In verse 9 God calls out to Adam, “Where are you?” Now, God knew very well, that Adam was hiding, and He also knew why he was hiding. God also knew that Lucifer had the thoughts of ascending to the throne of God to take over authority from God; and that Lucifer would start by trying to corrupt the main focus of God’s plan; Adam and Eve.
Scripture does not tell us this specifically, but I find it hard to believe that God, who is the same yesterday, today and forever; was not all-knowing at this point in time, but is all-knowing today. It just isn’t Scriptural to think that God was not aware of what was going on.
Similar to the accounts in the Book of Job, where Satan needed God’s approval before he could do anything to Job. I believe here in this account with Adam and Eve, Lucifer didn’t seek God’s approval as he did with Job, but God did allow him to tempt them.
Why did God allow that? God needs to allow man to perfect himself through the trials and errors which comes with the freedom of choice that God has given them. Although the transgression of the law (sin) leads man into the penalty of death, because of the sacrifice of Christ, man can now choose to right his sinful direction and avoid this death penalty which Christ took in the place of those who receive Him as their Savior.
Moving on to verse 10, after hearing God call out to him, Adam comes out from hiding and says to God, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” God follows by saying, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” What comes next is typical human nature, which we see all the time today, but has obviously been in man since the beginning of time. He blames someone else!
What does Adam reply to God in verse 12? “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” So when God changed His focus to Eve, she also would not take responsibility for her actions and blamed the serpent for deceiving her.
This, of course, was sort of the truth, the serpent (Satan) did deceive her. But, just as it happens to humans today, Eve knew in her heart that she was not supposed to eat of it, but she allowed Satan’s temptation, to work in her mind, which led her to say, “what the heck, one little bit won’t hurt.”
In verse 14, God begins to curse the serpent, “Because you have done this...On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.” What is interesting about this is, I did a little research on the archaeological studies of snakes and found that archaeologists have discovered a snake with legs. Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Paleontological Collections, show a 98 million year old snake fossil with well-developed hind limbs or legs.
Many of these scientists, of course, will credit evolution for the snake losing its leg. One of the reasons is because snakes who are known to burrow underground, would find themselves in very narrow crevices and their legs would get in the way. Hense, overtime the legs were not needed. Evolution, as it is, is a very imperfect science. There is not one shread of evidence that science can point to, to prove evolution has happened at all.
Of course, science would say that the Bibles account of such things is ridiculous; but, if you really look into the science of evolution, you just have to shake your head and wonder how evolution is even considered as reality. If you look at the overall dynamic of creation, it would take a lot greater faith to believe in science’s explanation of creation, rather than a supreme creator, creating all we know. Our universe is just to complex to even think it could have possibly “just happened.” For more on this, please read my study called, “Creation: Intelligent Design vs. Science.”
As we move forward; in verse 15 we get our very first prophecy of the Bible, it reads, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” This is an interesting prophecy of the coming Messiah; Jesus! You might ask, how do we get that? Well, let’s disect it.
God says that He is going to put enmity, which means hatred, between you (Satan) and the woman. Now, God’s Church in the New Testament is referred to as the woman who is waiting for the bridegroom, referring to Jesus. So, God is referring here to His Church. Many people misinterpret the word Church as being just a building; and understandably so, because we are brought up and told to go to Church as a Christian. Where do you go to Church? A building!
But, the word Church is derived from the Greek word “ekklesia,” and can mean a building, but also means a community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both.” Every instance in the New Testament where Jesus mentions the Church, He is referring to the body of believers, not a building.
The first seed in the verse with the small “s,” is referring to Satan’s cohorts, or demons and the evil they devise. It could also refer to those people who choose to live according to the worlds ways. These people mock and ridicule believers, and in many instances persecute and kill believers.
The second Seed in the verse with a capital “S,” is referring to Jesus, who is the Seed of the Church or woman; these are the people who put their
belief and faith in Jesus and abide by His word. God continues that “He (Jesus) will bruise your (Satan) head, and you shall bruise His heel.” Here God is telling us that, yes! Satan will damage the heel of the Church, but Christ will redeem the Church and bruise Satan’s head.
Now, I would much rather have a bruised heel then a bruise head. In Satan’s case the bruised head is fatal, but the bruised heel of the Church, Jesus has already healed! Praise God!
Now, for the sin committed in verse 16, God tells us that there will be consequences to pay for this sin. He tells the woman, Eve who represents the Church, that He will “greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
In verses 17-19, God turns to Adam and gives man his consequences for sin; “17) Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. 18) Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. 19) In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” What God is telling all of us here, is that sin has entered us, you have confined yourself to a fallen world, full of pain, misery, and corruption. And we wonder where God is when bad things happen.
This scenario, right here in Genesis is proof, to me, that God does not bring negative things on you. They are brought on by sin; the sin that man himself has accepted into his life through the breaking if God’s law. God made the Garden perfect for man, and His intention was to keep it perfect, and for man to grow and mature their into godly beings themselves.
But, with the inception of sin, God had to change His plan. Now, I know I wrote that as though God was not aware of that happening, but He did know it was going to happen and had the alternate plan ready and waiting to go.
We conclude our study of Genesis chapter 3, with God the Father speaking with the Word (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit by telling them in verse 22, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” In the final two verses of chapter 3, God puts man out of the Garden and protects the entrance of Eden with a flaming sword.
Why? Because as God said in verse 22, He did not want to take the chance of man eating from the tree of life and then having to live forever in this corrupted state. Many would say that this is a harsh God who has condemned man, but I say that He did all this to protect man so that His plan for them will still be intact.
He could have easily left man in the Garden to eat of the tree of life and live forever in torment. That would have been the ultimate punishment. But, God cares so much about us that He saved us from ourselves from further making things worse by eating from the tree of life.
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