⁶ Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? ⁷ If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

⁸ Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

⁹ Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

We see the same choice presented to Adam and Even, and echoed throughout scripture: choose life by following God’s law, or choose death by rejecting it.  God saw Cain’s heart, and gave him a chance to escape punishment by guarding his own heart.  This is also described in Proverbs 4:23 (Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life).  Again, in verse 9, God gives Cain a chance to voluntarily repent.  Instead, Cain gives a snide response (“I dunno…wasn’t my turn to watch him“).

As we read the rest of the chapter, Cain’s sin sets up a path for his descendant’s destruction.  By the time we get to Lamech, we see prideful independence from God, manifested by polygamy (v.19) and wanton violence (v.23-24).  This results in ultimately the rejection of Cain’s lineage.

However, the hope is shown in Seth’s descendents.  At the end of the chapter, there is a quiet little postscript: At that time, men began to call on the name of the LORD. Mankind saw that their sin was something that could not be celebrated and could not be solved by themselves.  At this point, they started repenting and asking for God’s forgiveness.

¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

⁴ “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

• Why didn’t Eve respond with “EEK!  A talking snake!”?Why does the Bible state that the serpent was more crafty than any other animal?

  This seems to insinuate that the animals had personalities, and that communicating with them, perhaps verbally, wasn’t out of place.  That’s all I’m going to say about this subject, but I invite comments about it.

• First, the serpent questions God’s law.  Eve, in her humanness, fights this battle alone, and adds her own law to it for her own protection.    Next, the serpent flat-out denies God’s truth, and offers his own counterfeit reality.

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. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

¹³ Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

• At this point, Adam and Eve tried to cover their own sin.  In the same way, we try to do more, do better to gain favor with God.  We pray more, read the Bible more or perform acts of service in the hopes that perhaps we will cover our own sin.  The only way to truly take care of our own sin is through God’s grace.

• Up until this point, I don’t picture that Adam and Eve had been naked and completely clueless like children.  I believe that it just had not been relevant.  For a better picture, please read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.  But notice Adam’s words: I was afraid because I was naked.  He realized that he had left God’s protection, and was suddenly at odds with God, and authority above him.  Once again, this is our normal reaction when we attempt to escape God’s authority: we attempt to run and hide.  Not physically, but we do our best to escape through activity, busy-ness, entertainment or some other means.

¹⁴ So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.

¹⁵ And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

¹⁶ To the woman he said,
“I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.

¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.

¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

²⁰ Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

²¹ The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. ²² And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ²³ So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ²⁴ After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side ^[e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

• In verse 15, we see God’s ultimate plan to solve this problem.  This is the first messianic prophecy, indicating that even at this early point in history, God had started to unfold His plan.  At this point, all Adam and Eve knew was the God would take care of their covering, using one of their children.  Keep in mind that they had never even seen a child yet, much less had one of their own.  They had probably seen the animals procreating, so they had an idea of what would happen at some point.

• Notice God’s grace in verses 16 and 17-19.  God’s curse extends to relationships, as well as to the physical creation.  God could have made the curse worse.  He could have eliminated Eve’s ability to have children, or made it so the ground would not produce any edible plant life, and doing so would have been within His righteousness.  However, out of God’s grace, He still provided a way for mankind to live, multiply and rule.

• In verse 21, we see the first sacrifice for sin.  Up until this point, no death of any kind has been recorded.  From what we’ve read in Genesis, man at that point had a vegetarian diet, as did the animals.  It never occurred to Adam and Eve to kill and animal and eat it, much less use skins as a covering.  What were their thoughts when they saw an animal be slaughtered because of their actions?  Shock and horror…disgust at the results of their actions…sorrow?  Here we see another precedent about sin: blood is required to cover it.  This will be echoed before the Mosaic laws are given, and is fulfilled when Jesus sheds His own blood to cover our sins, once and for all.

• Also, this marks the start of what Chip Ingram has called “living between the bookends”.  Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22 show how The Lord intended humanity to live, and intends humanity to live once again.  Those passages serve as bookends, surrounding time as we know it.  We are used to a world of injustice, betrayal and horror.  When we are confronted by it, we shrug and pass it off by saying “That’s how the world is.”  True.  But that’s not how the world was, that’s now how it will be, and that’s not the world for which we were made.

⁴ This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- ⁵ and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, ⁶ but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground- ⁷ the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

• In verse 4, we see the first time that God has identified Himself by His covenant name “Yahweh” (denoted by the all uppercase “LORD”).  This is a line in the sand against the other cultures of the time that Genesis was originally written.  Here is the author of the book introducing himself personally to the reader.  Up until now, God has stood at a distance, designating Himself as creator and authority over His creation.  Now, as Genesis re-tells the account of the creation of man, God draws nearer to the crown of creation, and lets Himself be known by a name.

• I’ve always been curious what the first breath was like for Adam.  Was it calm and gentle, like waking up for the first time?  Or, was it a sudden rush of air, filling his lungs almost to the point of bursting?  Did he spend his first few minutes marveling at his hands, his eyes and his feet?  Or did he need time to recover from the gift of life?

⁸ Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹ And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁵ The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

Here is the ultimate temporal choice, presented to man again and again.  Choose life or death.  There is no in-between; God does not allow for sampling of either.  The terms are repeated often (Deut. 30:19, Joshua 24:15, Proverbs 8:10, John 7:17).  Blessings or curses, both for ourselves and for others.

Why did God put them together, in the middle of the garden?  Why weren’t they kept far away from each other?  (This is an invitation to leave a comment, by the way).

Also, even including the Tree of Life stands in contrast to the culture of the time Genesis was written.  Ancient pagans believed that their gods had always intended man to be mortal.  Here, Yahweh is stating I have always intended for you to enjoy eternal life without death, but you must choose it.  You must choose Me.

And man, as a race, has repeatedly chosen to take what will kill us, rather than receive life graciously offered from God’s hand.

¹⁹ Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

In creating man, God formed something completely different from every other creature.  Man is clearly a part of creation, since other beasts and birdies out of the ground.  In my longing for Heaven, I tend to forget that, as a part of creation, I am tied to this earth.  I want to be separate from it, to go somewhere else.  Yet, I was created to live on this earth.  However, man was also created to have dominion over creation.  Not as an exploiter, but as a caretaker and steward, but definitely in charge.

In chapters 1 & 2, we see a picture of man, inhabiting and ruling over the earth, and God living with man.  If we take a moment to read the end of the Bible, in Revelation 21-22, we get to see the end of the story.  God will come back to earth again, to live with man, and mankind will once again have dominion over creation as God intended.  That seems to be the true meaning of Heaven: God living with man on earth.  Genesis 1-2, and Revelation 21-22 are bookends, describing God’s ultimate plan for mankind.  We live in between the bookends, experiencing life full of strife, injustice and pain.  Yet, we daily have the option to choose life, and establish pockets of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, now.

If you get an opportunity, search on YouTube for clips from Rob Bell’s video Everything is Spiritual.  Better yet, pick up the DVD.  You won’t be disappointed.  I first saw this video in Spring of this year (2009).  In the first part of the movie, Rob goes through the Genesis account, and presents it in a way that I had never considered.

One of the things that Rob points out is a  dichotomy present during the first four days of creation:

Day 1: Light <==> Dark

Day 2: Water below (surface) <==> Water above (sky)

Day 3: Land <==> Sea

Day 4: Day <==> Night

Day 4 seems to be a bridge between the first three days, where God was forming the foundations of this world, and the next three days, where he fills what he has already created.

Day 4: God fills the sky with celestial bodies (sun, moon, stars)

Day 5: God fills the sea and the sky with life

Day 6: God commands living creatures to populate the land.

So, in the first three days, there are pairs.  Next, there are pairs of days, matching forming with filling (Day 1 with Day 4, Day 2 with Day 5, Day 3 with Day 6).

Even from the very beginning, nothing in creation stood alone.  Everything was created in relationship.

*     *     *

If you look at each day in creation, it ends the same way: “And there was evening, and there was morning”.  Obviously this is mirrored by the Jewish custom of marking the ending of one day and the beginning of the next at sundown, as opposed to sunrise (or even more oddly, a somewhat arbitrary moment in the middle of the night).

I’ve always pictured the creation account happening during the day.  As each day progressed, there was incredible bursts of light as celestial bodies came into being, and incredibly loud roars as tectonic plates were raised to form shorelines.  Instead, it seems to me now that, each morning, this new world awoke with another new foundation, or with a new population.  In some ways, it was like a week of Christmas mornings–each day, there was a new gift to behold.