Adam And Eve--Sin Pioneers Part 1

Gen 3:12-13 NIV
The man said, "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."


The whole idea that you are the first at anything is a pretty cool thought. Imagine being the Wright brothers---the first to fly a plane. How about being Neil Armstrong—the first to step foot on the moon. What if you were the first to ride on a motorized vehicle, the first to sail all the way around the world or the first to talk on a telephone. The truth is that being the first at nearly anything is something. The first to mix soy sauce with Tabasco for grilling chicken. The first to climb Mission Peak wearing a red bandana tied to your waist. The first to taste a Big Mac. The first to see the premier of Batman. Now, as the first people ever, Adam and Eve were the first to do all sorts of things. They were the first to utter a word, the first people to laugh, to sing, to take a nap and the first to make eye contact. Yet none of these “firsts” is what defines them most. They are best known for being the very first to….sin. And after that, they were the very first people ever to make an excuse.

The dialogue between God and Adam and then Eve is tightly constructed. No fluff in the comments, no sidebars to interrupt the flow. God—“ Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" Adam—“The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” That’s it for Adam and God, at least for now. God’s conversation with Eve is even more compact. God—“ What is this you have done?" Eve—“ The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Neither Adam nor Eve was wrong in the assessments. It was Eve who passed the forbidden fruit on to Adam and the serpent did deceive Eve. God never contradicted their accounts. We have the complete story in the Genesis 3 account and it is just as they reported. What is more, far from evading the questioning of God, the truth is both confessed their sins. Adam admitted, “I ate it”. Eve, “I ate”. Critiquing at all these two brief confessions seems like much ado about nothing. They after all did make their admissions. No police detective would complain much about a murderer’s confession that sounded like these. The bottom line is they confessed. That is all you need out of them, all any judge needs to hear.

The only problem with this line of reasoning is the simple little detail that throws the analogy into a heap. God was not trying to pry out the truth. He was not building a case nor was He trying to figure out what actually happened. The bottom line was not, “I ate”. It was,”I’. As long as Adam pulled Eve into the discussion and Eve brought in the serpent, there was nothing to talk about. Which, explains why God doesn’t answer back to either…He simply moves on to the next one in the micro plot. The probe of God was not into the truth but rather into the heart. The heart, in both cases, was grimly cold and unrepentant. All that was left for God was punishment...

Continued in Next Blog