They knew that they were naked.

John Farley
Pastor Teacher
Sunday,
October 16, 2022

Note: Apologies, no recording this week.

They knew that they were naked

 

GEN 3:1-3

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" 2 The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'"

 

We are searching the Scriptures to answer the question: What is man?

 

We began with the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Next, we turned to the first two chapters of the book of Genesis to observe man as God originally created him. God originally made man in His image and likeness.

 

The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden. He told the man that he could eat from any tree of the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

 

If the man disobeyed the word of the Lord, death was certain.

 

In today’s passage, we find out that the man, Adam, disobeyed the Lord God, and did so willingly and in the full knowledge that what he was doing was evil.

 

Chapter 3 of the book of Genesis records the sin of Adam (verses 1-7), and the consequences of that sin (verses 8-24).

 

As we shall see, the human race would never be the same.

 

Now, there are many, many things worthy of close study in chapter 3 of Genesis. There’s deception and temptation. The serpent of old. The promise the Lord God made that woman that her seed would triumph over the seed of the serpent.

 

But we are going to hue to the line of the effect of Adam’s fall on the human race.

 

Keep one question in mind as we proceed through chapter 3 this morning:

 

What happened to the human race when Adam disobeyed the Lord God?

 

What changed? In what ways did the human race after the fall differ from the human race as originally created by God?

 

Here’s a clue: nothing good came of it. Only evil resulted from Adam’s sin. So the question really is this: What was lost in the fall of man? What was ruined? What died?

 

For now, we will seek to answer this question using the material in the first few chapters of Genesis. Later on, we will turn our attention to the New Testament, where much more about this subject is revealed.

 

We will pass quickly through verses 1-5 with a couple of relevant observations.

 

First, the conversation between the serpent and the woman was all about the word of God.

 

The serpent of old, satan, questioned God’s word.

Then the woman misstated God’s word. She exaggerated the prohibition and weakened the punishment.

Then the serpent contradicted God’s word. It was a direct attack on God’s character.

 

The woman took it from there. Her imagination ran wild, and her desires overwhelmed her. She was completely deceived.

 

GEN 3:4 The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! 5 "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 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 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also 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 loin coverings.

 

Satan is a master of the half-truth. The three-quarter truth. The nine-tenths truth.

 

It was true: her eyes were opened when she ate from that tree. Verse 7 says that.

 

It was also true that she would know good and evil.

 

Yet what new knowledge did they gain? They knew that they were naked.

 

But they certainly would die. And they would not be like God. They became evil, and subject to death.

 

The sin itself came quickly. She took. She ate. She gave. He ate.

 

It was over in an instant.

 

It was one brief act for a man, one calamitous fall for mankind.

 

As went Adam, so went the human race.

 

Adam was made by God, in His image and likeness.

 

But every other human being would be born, not made. And they would not be born in the image and likeness of God.

 

GEN 5:1-3

5 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created.

 

3 When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.

 

So what changed? What happened to the human race when Adam sinned? What was lost? What was ruined?

 

You and I and every other human being since Adam were born in the image and likeness of Adam, not God.

 

Back in GEN 3:7.

 

GEN 3:7 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 loin coverings.

 

Adam and the woman didn’t become naked when they sinned. They already were naked. So what changed?

 

Now they had knowledge. And they now understood what it meant to be naked before the Lord God.

 

They wanted to cover up. They wanted to hide. They were always naked, but now they were afraid.

 

Before they sinned, they were not ashamed of being naked.

 

GEN 2:25

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

 

Now they were ashamed.

 

They knew that they had sinned against the Lord God. That was the knowledge that came to them. And there was no hiding from the facts. All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

 

And next, Adam and the woman would be confronted by the word of God.

 

GEN 3:8-11

8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man 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 the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" 10 He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so 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 not to eat?"

 

I need to point something out here. The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God. The Lord God did not hide Himself from them.

 

What changed? They had alienated themselves from the Lord God.

 

What else changed for the human race as a result of the sin of Adam and the woman? Let’s continue in verse 16.

 

The Lord God will now pronounce the judgments on the woman and Adam.

 

GEN 3:16-19

To the woman He said,

 

"I will greatly multiply

Your pain in childbirth,

In pain you will bring forth children;

Yet your desire will be for your husband,

And he will rule over you."

 

What changed as a result of the woman’s sin?

 

First, she will experience pain - intense pain.

What should have been a pleasurable, joyful experience: the birth of a child - will now be a painful thing.

 

Before the fall, God said “be fruitful and multiply”.

After the fall, the Lord God said, “I will multiply your pain in childbirth.”

 

The pain of childbirth will be a reminder of the evil that came from listening to the lies satan told about the Lord God.

 

Yet your desire will be for your husband,

And he will rule over you."

 

He will dominate you. Don’t mistake GEN 3:16 for Christian marriage! This has nothing to do with the wife submitting to the leadership of her husband as to the Lord. This was a miserable fate, a punishment, a struggle.

 

GEN 3:17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it';

 

Cursed is the ground because of you;

In toil you will eat of it

All the days of your life.

18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;

And you will eat the plants of the field;

19 By the sweat of your face

You will eat bread,

Till you return to the ground,

Because from it you were taken;

For you are dust,

And to dust you shall return."

 

What changed?

 

The ground was cursed.

 

Why? Because Adam took the word of his wife over the word of God.

 

From any tree of the garden you may eat freely. The ground there was exceedingly fruitful. You didn’t need to toil, to struggle, to endure pain, to get your daily bread.

 

But you ate from the one tree I forbade you to eat from.

 

And so from this day forward, the ground will yield thorns and thistles. You will sweat in the hot sun to produce a meager crop from the rocky, barren soil.

 

Then one day, you will die. Mercifully, your suffering will end. But until then, you will be eaten up inside by all that knowledge, knowing all the good that you forfeited and all the evil you earned for yourself.

 

Death is the opposite of life. It’s the loss of life, the absence of life. Jesus came that we may have life and have it abundantly. Life in all its facets, all kinds of life.

 

Death is the loss of life. All kinds of life.

 

The Lord God told Adam the truth. You certainly shall die.

 

And it will be a miserable slog to that death. Death will dog you every step of the way.

 

The dead ground, full of thorns and thistles.

 

The death of pain and suffering.

 

Death in the form of fear and guilt and shame.

 

The death of estrangement from the Lord God.

 

 

And as we will see when we continue with Gen 3: banishment from the Garden of Eden, lost access to the Tree of the Life.

 

Yet despite all of these things, God did not leave them without hope. He did not abandon them. He clothed them, and gave them a promise.

 

Life would ultimately prevail over death.