If you missed last week, I strongly recommend going back and watching it because it sets us up for this week. Let me give you a quick recap.

We talked about how the serpent confronted Eve with misleading questions and statements, Eve responded with some truth, but also some fallacies, Adam was an observer, not a protector. Eve took the fruit and gave it to Adam and sin broke into the world, which we also named chaos. Chaos was brought back into creation, Adam and Eve were filled with fear, they ran away and hid. God pursued them, he went “looking for them” with three questions: Where are you? Who told you? What have you done? All three questions were about proximity and grace?

Where are you, why have you wandered away from me? Who told you, what voice are you listening to? What have you done, can you take responsibility or continue to blame?
Now we come to God’s response. What is he going to do with sin, chaos back in his created order? Does he start over? Does he destroy the serpent?

What is God’s response to a broken and lost world?

Read Genesis 3:14-24- 14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all 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 make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor 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 fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from 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 of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

What stood out to you? What are you wrestling/struggling with? How can you see this passage with fresh eyes?

Obviously, I can’t tackle everything in this passage. I may answer questions you have and I may not. That’s the joy of scripture; it is continual learning. I do want to give just a few quick side bars and then jump into the nuances of the passage.

First, who or what was cursed?

The serpent and the ground. That’s important because humanity wasn’t cursed, there is pain and consequences to living in sinful disobedience, but humanity wasn’t cursed.
It is important to note that the ground was cursed. Think about, not that work wasn’t going to be hard, but God is saying, it will be even harder than before. Work will create strife, grief, and at times feeling purposeless. We also see that the land will lay barren at times, hence we see famines and desolation. All a part of the brokenness of sin and the chaos of the world, the whole world grieves.

Second observation, cherubim with flaming swords. Cherubim are supernatural creatures, referred to over 90 times in the OT, they typically functioned as guardians of God’s presence. Here they are guarding the tree of life, because God knew that if Adam and Eve took from the Tree of life that they would be forever stuck in the broken and lost world. We get a glimpse of God’s warrior motif.

Final sidebar, which is more a perspective change, what did you notice about how this passage was written? You see it more directly if you read it from your bible. It had stanzas, sections, some theologians believe God’s response was like a poem, a lament, it is his song of grief. God knows, that because humanity “took” wisdom into their own hands, that ushered in chaos; which we define as brokenness and lostness, sin.

John Sailhamer shares it this way. “In this subtle verbal interchange, the author has shown that human happiness does not consist in being “like God” but rather being “with God” enjoying the blessing of his presence.” God knows that is broken and lost now, sin defiles God’s presence and prevents us from access to him. Or as John Walton shares, “The overwhelming loss was not paradise; it was God.”

What we see in this passage is the result of the fall, the result of the brokenness of sin in the world. Some of it is natural consequences, stating how it is broken now. Other parts of the consequences still gives us a choice. Are we going to choose to take “in life” which will come with consequences or choose to trust God?

If we take, this is what can happen. If we trust, we can have a different experience, like the Psalmist says. Psalm 16:11- You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

That’s what God is desiring to move us towards, but he names the struggle of what that will
be.