GENESIS 3:8-13

(8-9) Adam and Eve hide from God; God calls out to them.
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”

a. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: Adam and Eve knew that when they heard the LORD coming, He would want to be with them. This was how the LORD had fellowship with Adam and Eve, in a very natural, close, intimate way.

i. Leupold on walking in the garden in the cool of the day: “The almost casual way in which this is remarked indicates that this did not occur for the first time just then… There is extreme likelihood that the Almighty assumed some form analogous to the human form which was made in His image.”

ii. We can assume this is God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, appearing to Adam and Eve before His incarnation and birth at Bethlehem, because of God the Father it is said, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18); and no man has ever seen God in the Person of the Father (1 Timothy 6:16).

iii. Cool of the day is literally “the breeze of the day.” From Hebrew geography and culture, we might guess this means late afternoon or early evening. Charles Spurgeon thought the sense was, “in the wind of the evening,” when the evening breeze was blowing through the garden.

iv. “Not in the dead of night when the natural glooms of darkness might have increased the terrors of the criminal, not in the heat of the day, lest he should imagine that God come in the heat of passion; not in the early morning, as if in haste to slay, but at the close of the day, for God is long-suffering, slow to anger, and of great mercy.” (Spurgeon)

b. Adam and his wife hid themselves: This shows that Adam and Eve knew that their attempt to cover themselves failed. They didn’t proudly show off their fig-leaf outfits; they knew their own covering was completely inadequate, and they were embarrassed before God.

c. Where are you? This was not the interrogation of an angry commanding officer, but the heartfelt cry of an anguished father. God obviously knew where they were but He also knew a gulf had been made between Him and man, a gulf that He Himself would have to bridge.

· The question was meant to arouse Adam’s sense of being lost.

· The question was meant to lead Adam to confess his sin.

· The question was meant to express God’s sorrow over man’s lost condition.

· The question was meant to show that seeks after lost man.

· The question was meant to express the accountability man had before God.

i. God’s question demanded an answer. They couldn’t refuse to answer God the way a criminal might keep silent when questioned. “In our courts of law, we do not require men to answer questions which would incriminate them, but God does; and, at the last great day, the ungodly will be condemned on their own confession of guilt” (Spurgeon).

ii. The way God came to Adam and Eve is a model of how He comes to lost and fallen humanity ever since.

· God came to them patiently, waiting for the cool of the day – the evening time.

· God came to them with care, coming before the darkness of night.

· God came to them personally, addressing Adam and Eve directly.

· God came to them with truth, showing them their lost condition.

C. God confronts Adam and Eve with their sin.
1. (10-12) Adam tries to explain his sin.
So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”

a. I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid: Sin made Adam afraid of God’s presence and afraid of God’s voice. Ever since Adam, men run from God’s presence and don’t want to listen to His Word.

i. We are still made in God’s image, so we want to be in the presence of God and hear His voice, while at the same time, we are afraid of Him.

b. Who told you that you were naked? God knew the answer to this question. He asked it because He allowed Adam to make the best of a bad situation by repenting right then and there, but Adam didn’t come clean and repent before God.

i. We all sin, but when we sin, we can still give glory to God by openly confessing without shifting the blame onto others (Joshua 7:19-20).

ii. There is often nothing you can do about yesterday’s sin (though in some cases you may be able to make restitution). Yet you can do what is right before God right now by confessing and repenting.

c. Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? God confronted Adam’s problem squarely. This wasn’t primarily a wardrobe problem or a fear problem or a self-esteem problem. This was a sin problem and Adam’s wardrobe, fear or self-understanding could not be addressed until the sin problem was addressed.

d. Then the man said: Notice that to this point, God has not addressed Eve at all. Adam, being the head, is the problem here.

e. The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate: Adam’s attempt to blame Eve is completely consistent with human nature. Few of us are willing to simply say as David did, I have sinned against the LORD (2 Samuel 12:13).

i. Significantly, if there is any blame, it is on Adam, not Eve. Not only does Adam unjustly accuse Eve, but also he refused to accept proper responsibility for his part in her sin.

ii. By saying the woman whom You gave to be with me, Adam essentially blamed God for the sin saying, “You gave me the woman, and she is the problem.” Adam wasn’t content to blame Eve; he had to blame God also.

iii. “He was guilty of unkindness to his wife and of blasphemy against his maker, in seeking to escape from confessing the sin which he had committed. It is an ill sign with men when they cannot be brought frankly to acknowledge their wrong-doing.” (Spurgeon)

2. (13) Eve’s reply to God.
And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

a. The serpent deceived me, and I ate: When confronted by God, Eve didn’t necessarily shift the blame when she admitted the serpent deceived her and then she ate. This much was true: she had been deceived, and she did eat.

b. Deceived me: The problem comes when we fail to see that being deceived is sin in itself. It is sin to exchange the truth of God for the lie (Romans 1:25).