The second half of Genesis 3 really starts something that still remains rampant today – the blame game. Adam accused God of creating his problem – “the woman you gave me” – no personal responsibility here – just blame God for creating her. Immediately Eve picks up on it and says “the serpent seduced me”. Wow – how quick we are to point fingers and push blame somewhere else, anywhere but me. It started in the garden and it sure hasn’t slowed down since. Everyone is quick to look for someone to take the fall. No one wants to just stand up and raise their hand and accept responsibility. It all goes back to this moment – and only by making the right choice an battling our human nature do we have any hope of changing it.
God then says too bad and begins to hand out punishment for disobedience:
- To the serpent He says “you’re cursed”
- To the woman He says “you’ll give birth to your babies in pain….you’ll want to please your husband but he’ll lord it over you”
- To the man He says “getting food from the ground will be as painful as having babies”
This is where it all went wrong. God created a beautiful garden. He gave it to man and Adam messed up – sinned and caused all God’s goodness to be taken away. God makes it clear that sin has consequences: “you started out as dirt, you’ll end up as dirt”. Not a happy day in the garden. Bad choices and lack of personal responsibility caused this. It wasn’t that they didn’t know what they were not supposed to do. They absolutely knew as we normally do. The problem was they chose to be in control and do what they wanted anyway. Self gets in the way of obedience. The results were strong and eternal: “God expelled them from the Garden of Eden….he threw them out”. What a sad outcome of being blessed with the most beautiful thing God created. Sin gets in the way of a lot of things. We must never forget there is a severe cost – if there wasn’t Jesus would not have needed to go to the Cross…..
Posted by asorensen 
