We must not doubt that the couple actually died at the moment Adam ingested the forbidden fruit. Although they did not immediately ‘drop over dead’, death nevertheless commenced its tyranny. Gen 3:7ff documents the actions of two dead people! Death is experienced essentially as a separation. We should think of death as separation rather than annihilation. Death is the severance of the living unions which God created. Creation is a living tapestry, a fabric of complementary components each knit together in mutual dependence having supportive functions. Death rips that living fabric asunder. In the couple’s disobedience reality began to crack open. Divisions in the created order emerged. What God had joined together began to rip apart.
DEATH WAS EXPERIENCED IN RELATION TO SELF
First, death was experienced as a new consciousness: “the eyes of both of them were opened”. The promise of the Serpent (v5) was deceptively fulfilled: they experienced ‘enlightenment’. But Satan’s opening of our eyes is the death God threatened upon disobedience to His law. Adam now sees as a dead man, separated from God and His Word. His eyes are opened to see a world conditioned by death and understood in terms of the Devil’s deception. He experiences death in his consciousness, in his experience of knowing reality. Notice that emphasis has been put upon knowledge: the tree of knowledge; “God knows”; “knowing good and evil” (v5); “desirable to make one wise” (v6); “and they knew” (v7). The Devil would deceive us into thinking that our problem is ignorance and the solution is enlightenment. But the choice for Adam was not between ignorance and knowledge, but between obedient or disobedient knowledge, between moral or immoral knowledge. The man was not ignorant. He named the animals and acted as steward of the earth and of words. True, Adam was not omniscient. But he possessed true knowledge, righteous knowledge enjoyed in living communion with God. After the Fall, his knowledge is experienced in rebellion and is based upon deception. Now his knowledge has increased and he knows what he did not know before. But this knowledge of good and evil was obtained by disobedience, is contaminated by Satan’s lies, and is held in rebellion against God. In other words, the couple now sees reality from the vantage point of Satan: in rebellious arrogant pride, separated from God and His truth, as dead sinners.
Secondly, death was experienced in the self-consciousness. Adam now knows himself in a way possible only to a dead man, a man experiencing the phenomenon of separation within himself. Adam no longer sees himself in relation to God as image of God, but now defines himself in terms of himself. God is displaced by independent self as the defining point of reference for the man’s identity. In death, Adam is totally self-absorbed. Self is known in an act of separation: the self contemplating self. We are quite used to this way of thinking. But envision Adam. Previously he knew himself only in terms of God and his living connections to creation, but now he is severed from those connections and from God. Now, in death, he experiences a consciousness of separation within himself in which the immaterial man contemplates the material man. This self knowledge assumes an inherent division within the man. It is obtained only from the vantage point of a separated self, that is, a dead self. Adam disconnects from all else and comes to know himself, only to learn that he is naked.
Thirdly, death was experienced in guilt and shame. Compare Gen 2:25 “naked and not ashamed” with 3:7 “they were naked”, which is to say as well that they were ashamed. It was not that previously they were not naked but became so in the Fall. Rather, their being naked was what they came to know themselves to be in a fallen world. Their nudity was discovered by them as a result of their fall into death though sin. That very knowledge itself is a manifestation of the presence of death. In 3:10,11, Adam’s knowledge of being naked is due to his sin and evidences his guilt. Being naked in a fallen world is to be exposed in shame and liable to death. In 2 Cor 5:2-4 Paul uses the language of being naked to describe ‘the disembodied state’ when the spirit is separated from the body, and speaks of obtaining the resurrection body as our being clothed. Our hope does not terminate upon a ‘naked’ dead state of the separation of spirit and body, but upon the ‘clothed’ living state of the union of spirit and resurrected body. But Adam discovers himself in a naked state. He now knows himself in a state of shame and guilt; striped of his pre-fall nobility and ashamed. The concept of shame conveys more than mere embarrassment. Shame involves the horrifying discovery that what was previously trusted has proven to be empty and false. Adam hoped in the Devil’s lie and thought upon eating the fruit that he would open his eyes to see that he was, in fact, divine. Rather, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked.”
DEATH WAS EXPERIENCED IN RELATION TO ONE ANOTHER
The couple experienced death in their relationship. First, death was experienced by their division. They perceived one another in their fallen death-conditioned perspective: divided, independent and isolated from each other. The couple was made to image the Triune God. The grammar of Gn 1:26 is plural: “Let us make man in our image.” We are made to image the one God who yet has a plural self-consciousness. This plural self-consciousness would have been imaged in the sinless couple whose self awareness would have immediately, seamlessly enveloped one another. For Adam to know himself, he would of necessity also know his wife, for they were one. But in sin, their ‘we’ consciousness fractures into a ‘me’ and ‘you’ consciousness.
Secondly, death was experienced by their divorce. Their enlightenment was had at the expense of their marriage. They immediately acted out what they had come to know and they separated from one another and from all that God had designed for them as a couple. When they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings, in essence, they got a divorce. The fig leave now acts as a barrier to sexual union. It is of profound import that they covered their loins, not their eyes, or ears. They are no longer sexually innocent or transparent. Sexuality is now contained in their respective individualities. Their sexual oneness is severed and the union vowed in Gn 2:23-25 is denied. The fig leaf also announces a rejection of God’s purposes for their union. It testifies to a rejection of the procreation mandate; a rejection of God-given companionship in a relapse into loneliness; and a rejection of ‘The Dominion Mandate’ which requires the union of the man and the woman in order to fill and subdue the earth.
DEATH WAS EXPERIENCED IN RELATION TO GOD
First, death was experienced by their superficial religious response to sin. The fig leaf is actually a religious reaction by the couple to their sense of guilt and their exposure to the threatened wrath of God. By definition, our response to the threat of divine wrath is a religious response. The couple knows that they are naked so they try superficially to cover the focal point of their rejection of God’s purposes for them. The fig leaf is man’s superficial, self-centered response to his awareness of his guilt before God. Man responds to the spiritual issue of sin by performing an external rite. This religious reaction is not saving religion, but a religious rite affirming his faith in the Devil’s lie – that he shall surely not die! He fails to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin in relation to God. He thinks that if he can just cover the spot where he has become aware of sin, then all will be well. He does something for the eyes of men, not the eyes of God.
Secondly, death was experienced by their self-sufficient religion. The fig leaf was intended for the couple: “they made for themselves”. This religious response was a self-oriented, works-based religion, done by self, for self. Indeed, self becomes the god to be appeased. Man performs a dead, loveless religious rite and is satisfied with himself and thinks God should be as well! He has believed the lie and acts as though he has in fact become God! His religious energy is directed toward himself as he has now fallen into the dead and dark religion of self worship. But the whole thing is a lie. Man cannot be God. But a dead man does not despair of worshipping himself. He relies upon his fig leaf to placate his sense of shame, not to satisfy divine justice. Besides, his newfound religion teaches him that God will not execute wrath because He is not holy, just and good. Religion is now a man-centered psychological Band-Aid to cover the emotional sting of a guilty conscience. The goal of fallen religion is to declare “I’m OK!” and obtain self-satisfaction. Divine satisfaction is irrelevant. It is a religion void of repentance in wicked disregard of God. Indeed, God is in view only to be deceived. Religion has now become a weapon against God consisting of an external rite to divert His eye lest He too would see their nakedness. Fallen man is yet religious, but adapts a self-satisfying religion which is spiritually dead, a religion designed to keep him separated from God!
Thirdly, death was experienced by their self-concealment and rejection of God. In 3:8, God approaches with the thunderous sound of His judicial majesty. Here we see the beginning of the Biblical theme of ‘the Day of the Lord’. God is present to conduct judicial proceedings against man. He comes to examine evidence and execute justice. But, what wonder of grace! He is not come to execute Final Judgment! In judgment, He remembers mercy and He comes to deliver the couple from the lies of Satan and salvage creation from death. Yet the couple run from Him. They hide – an act which itself evidences their separation from God and their knowledge that they deserve death, separation from God. What excruciating tragedy to see the noble image-bearers, relying upon mere fig leaves, running from their Creator Father. They hide in the trees. See him crouched down behind the trees, each of which bear the ‘thumbprints’ of God testifying of God’s goodness and the man’s privileges. The steward of the earth abuses his stewardship and would use the trees to ward off God! What foolishness! Adam hid from God’s “presence” (v8), that is, His ‘face’. This anthropomorphism emphasizes the personal tragedy of Adam’s rejection of his Creator-Father. God’s ‘face’ profiles God’s personhood: the God who sees, who hears, who speaks, who communicates emotion and love. Man misunderstands God’s approach to him. As Adam cowers in rebellion, God moves toward him in grace to rectify the ravages of death, and ultimately to destroy the works of the Devil. Yes, the issues of the broken law must be addressed. But, thanks be to God!, Gn 3 is not the account of Final Judgment, but the commencement of God’s saving grace given to undeserving sinners!
Friend, do you realize that your perception of life is thoroughly conditioned by your sin and is subject to the influences of death? Do you understand that, in Adam, you have fallen into death? In the light of God’s Word, can you begin to see how death pervades your existence? Do you see your native self-centeredness? Do you recognize your innate tendencies to foster separation between people, even among those you claim to love? Do you have any sense of shame for your sin before God? Could you be guilty of thinking too lightly of your sin? Could you be foolishly relying upon a form of ‘fig leaf religion’ which may satisfy you emotionally and be socially acceptable, but in reality, accomplishes nothing in relation to God? Is your religion saving religion or fig leaf religion designed to keep God contained and at a distance? Is your religion actually an expression of your errant belief that God will not punish sinners, rather than a submission to His justice executed against His Son who died “bearing our sin in His body on the tree”? Could you be in fact, facing the wrath of God, naked and exposed, while trusting in a fig leaf? Our study has brought us to ask such questions as these. Don’t misunderstand God’s approach to you. He comes to announce pardon and mercy. Don’t run from Him. Turn from your sin and self-reliance. Genesis 3 is not Final Judgment and today is the Day of Salvation!
Published in “The Evangelical Presbyterian Magazine,” Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Northern Ireland.
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