Genesis 3: 14 - 24

 

¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the snake, ‘Because you have done this,

‘Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labour you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’

¹⁷ To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat from it,”

‘Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.’

²⁰ Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

²¹ The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. ²² And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.’ ²³ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ²⁴ After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

The Consequences of Sin.

Sin is never without consequences. It affects our relationships with other people and it affects our relationship with God. It can affect our relationship with other things too, such as work life and family life, simply because of what it does to our souls. In this second half of Genesis 3 we find a long list of consequences of sin, and the first prophecy of how Christ would defeat Satan on the cross.

Through their sin they brought a curse upon themselves and upon the world. We noted on Monday that God gave the man ‘work’ even before he sinned: Gen. 2: 15 says, ‘The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.’ But at that point the work would have been easy, pleasant and enjoyable. Now, following his sin, God says, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Work is no longer pleasant and easy – it is now very tough! And notice also, the fulfilment of God’s original statement that if they ate the fruit of the tree they would die. They did not die immediately they took a bite, but death is coming for them, as it comes for all of us.

The curse for the woman was that childbearing would be an extremely painful experience. At this point, Eve had not yet given birth – so there never was a pain-free birth as God had intended at creation.

And the curse on the snake was to do with his relationship with mankind. Throughout history, snakes have struck at people’s heels, and people have crushed snakes heads. In that general sense the curse if clear. But there is more to it. It talks of the woman’s ‘offspring’ or ‘seed’ in verse 15 (‘zerah’ in Hebrew, which, like the English translation, can be a singular noun or a collective one). It goes on to refer to that offspring as ‘He’, and for many centuries, Christians have seen this as a prophecy of Christ, who, on the cross, defeated Satan. And whilst Satan also struck at his heel, it is Christ who crushes Satan’s head. There is much more to say on this, and you can find a concise, very readable, but in-depth explanation here: https://answersingenesis.org/gospel/seed-promise-genesis-315/

Mankind lives under the curse of sin. Only Jesus can break that curse, and after he returns, the curse will be finally lifted, once and for all!

 

Prayer

Dear Lord, help me to remember that all sin has consequences. Please strengthen me to resist temptation and to avoid bringing negative consequences into my life and the lives of other people. I praise you that Jesus has won the victory, and the result of the battle is already known! Amen.