Articles
Punishment, Promise, and Purpose
Reading: Genesis 3
We have no indication how long the utopia of God’s “very good” creation lasted in terms of time. But at some point, Satan stepped in and deceived Eve through the form of a serpent. She, like all of us, looked at the choice between obedience to God’s ways or doing things on our own terms and chose the latter. Adam followed suit, and the first humans took the first step of rebellion against their Creator. Immediate shame and despair washed over them; when God was near, they hid (v. 8).
We still feel and live in the aftermath of “the fall” today. We don’t inherit a guilty sin record at our birth, but we feel the brokenness of the world, the strain in relationships, and the inevitability of physical death (vv. 16-19). Disobedience to God always comes with terrible consequences, and for Adam and Eve it meant expulsion from the garden—God’s very presence. Yet at some point every single person, save One, has stepped through the same door Adam and Eve did (Romans 5:12).
Before the foundation of the world, God Almighty knew this would happen—and even as He administered the punishment, He extended a promise of hope and demonstrated His purpose in an act of grace. First, in condemning the serpent, He spoke of a conflict to come that, though costly, would end in the serpent’s defeat (v. 15). And then, before they left the garden, God demonstrated His eternal purpose in a gift: God clothed the man and woman in garments of skin (v. 21). Such coverings took away their shame, but it came at the cost of the life of a sacrificed animal. In this we see a glimmer of Christ to come, the Passover Lamb slain for us, to take away our sin and shame.
