Thoughts about Genesis (20)

Review of Chapter 3

•   after eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve realized for the first time that they were naked.
•   Adam realized that his relationship with God had been shattered.
•   When they heard the sound of God’s voice, they ran and hid for fear of being in the presence of a holy God.
•   When confronted by God, Adam did not confess his sin.

In this article, we will get a glimpse at the very first shift the blame game. Unfortunately, shifting the blame onto someone else is something that we still do today. When someone points out our sin, how often do we say, You do it too, as if that makes it okay? It’s a case of never accepting responsibility for what you can blame on someone else. Adam has now experienced shame and stood before God as someone caught in an act of disobedience.

Additionally, Adam had woven fig leaves together to cover his private parts. (That must have itched something fierce.) Adam ran from God, rather than running to God. Sin still has that same effect on us. Instead of running to God in repentance, we run from him or pretend it never happened. We foolishly think that if we ignore our sin long enough, God will forget about it, and it will simply go away.

Genesis 3:11-13
¹¹ He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?
¹² The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.
¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate.

These verses show us the shift the blame game in process. We need to be very careful when reading these verses and remember that they are us, and we are them. God considered it unacceptable behavior then, and He still does not tolerate it today.

Please notice that Eve realized that the devil had deceived her. Was Adam deceived as well? No, Adam saw through the deception. 1 Timothy 2:13-14 even points out that Adam was not deceived. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, to be deceived is to be persuaded that something that is false (not true) is true.¹ The devil managed to convince Eve that his lie was true. If 1 Timothy 2:14 is true, then Adam saw through the devil's lies but chose to sin anyway. Even though Adam knew that eating the forbidden fruit was wrong, he decided to eat. He had no excuse.

Genesis 3:11a
He said, “Who told you that you were naked?

Good question. God never asks a question that does not have a point. Keep in mind that God already knew the answer. God was giving Adam another opportunity to repent. God already knew that Adam ate the forbidden fruit, but God’s intent in asking the question was to guide Adam down the path of repentance. Nobody told Adam that he was naked. The devil’s lie told Adam that the fruit would cause him to be like God, but all Adam could see was that his disobedience had caused him to be nothing like God.

In case you don’t remember from our last lesson, the word naked (Strong’s H5903) is used in the OT to designate more than just physical nakedness. The word used here, erom, comes from the root word ur, which means to be exposed. Erom can be thought of as being naked (totally exposed) and unable to hide secrets. To be naked depicted an awareness of the openness and understanding of their guilt to God.² The prophets often used the word naked to portray the shame and destitution Israel would suffer for her covenantal disloyalty.³ This is precisely what happened to Adam and Eve. The spiritual nakedness that they had enjoyed with God (a fully open, undefiled, transparent relationship) was suddenly gone. They were expecting the ability to see God’s wisdom. All they could see, however, was their shame, because they had destroyed their intimate relationship with God.

Adam’s knowledge that he was naked did not come from God. The knowledge of nakedness was born out’ of his disobedience. While it was true that they were now naked, that truth wasn’t given to them by God. They had been naked all the time, but it didn’t matter. Why not? Because God had not revealed it to them. Up until now, nakedness was normal because it was part of God’s truth. Now that sin has entered into the equation, nakedness is no longer normal because sin has no part in God’s truth. Clothing should be a reminder that sin has no part in God’s truth.

Now that sin is part of the equation, we encounter a problem regarding truth. What is truth? The world’s definition of truth is that which lines up with facts or reality.⁴ But now we have another problem: who defines what is fact and what is real? The world’s answer is: you do. As a result, everyone’s truth is different. Truth is now relative. When truth becomes relative, truth becomes irrelevant.⁵ Biblically speaking, however, truth is absolute; it is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God.⁶ Truth is the self-disclosure of God Himself. It is what it is because God declares it so and made it so. We must define all truth in terms of God, whose very nature is truth.

Genesis 3:11b
Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?

We do not know how much time elapsed between the two questions. Did God give Adam time to pause and reflect, or did God require an immediate answer? I assume that God gave Adam some time to answer the first question. What we do know is that Adam did not answer the question. My curiosity wants to know why Adam did not answer the question. Unfortunately, all I can do is speculate, and I'd probably be wrong in my guesses. Since Adam did not answer the question, God asked another one that went straight to the heart of the matter: disobedience. God essentially asked Adam if he had disobeyed the command. Why? Was it because God doesn’t know, or is God trying to make a point?

Please note that this question contained the phrase which I commanded you not to eat. God was reminding Adam that not eating the fruit was not a suggestion, but a command. At this point, God was still giving Adam an opportunity to repent. However, it was his last chance to repent. It was his last chance to come clean. (This contradicts modern theology, which holds that God’s patience is infinite and never-ending.) If Adam wanted to restore his relationship with God, this was the time to do it. All he had to do was take responsibility for his actions and repent. It sounds so easy, but how often do we find ourselves in the same situation? How frequently do we test God’s patience?

Unfortunately, Adam squandered his opportunity to restore his relationship with God. He chose not to repent.

Genesis 3:12
The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.

And with that comment, Adam began the "shift the Blame" game. Instead of taking responsibility, Adam blamed God. Notice what he said: The woman whom you gave to be with me. He didn’t outright blame Eve at first; instead, he blamed God, who gave him Eve. Wow, that takes a lot of chutzpah (Yiddish word for extreme audacity or self-confidence).

First and foremost, he was blaming God. It was God's fault because he created Eve. I imagine that God was looking at Adam with that really expression on his face (you know that look). Adam may have immediately realized the mistake in that strategy, so he shifted the blame again.

She gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate. First, Adam blamed God; when that didn’t work, he then blamed Eve. (How do you think Eve reacted to that accusation? How would you have reacted?) Adam was telling God that it was not his fault that he sinned. I don’t know if Adam realized it or not, but he was actually admitting to God where his priority was. Here is what Adam was essentially saying: My desire to please her was greater than my desire to please you. Ouch!

The person Adam wanted to please leads us to the core of the problem. Who was Adam worshiping, God or Eve? Now, before we jump up and down and start pointing our fingers at Adam, we need to take a close look in the mirror. It is very easy for us to do the same thing that Adam did. That other person in our life can easily (and quickly) become the object of our worship. If pleasing that other person becomes more important than pleasing God, we have a serious problem. If you don’t have this problem, you likely know someone who does. That’s how common this problem is.

Genesis 3:13a
Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done?

Since Adam was non-repentant, God then shifted his focus to Eve. We can reduce this question down to four words: What have you done? As with Adam, Eve was given the opportunity to repent. Unlike Adam, however, Eve will only be given one opportunity to repent. There was a time limit on God’s mercy and grace. Once God closes that door, it does not get reopened (which once again goes completely against modern theology). Eve must take advantage of this opportunity while it is available. She must confess and repent while God is holding that door open. Once the door of grace and mercy closes, it is time for judgment.Please refer to lesson 17 for a discussion on how to translate the word “serpent.” If you have already read that article, then you know that I prefer the term “shining one” to serpent.

2 Corinthians 6:1-2 states: Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (emphasis mine)

Adam and Eve had a period of time called now in which to repent. They did not repent. God closed the door. I wonder how many times they looked back and wondered “what if?”

Genesis 3:13b
The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate.

Please refer to lesson 17 for a discussion on how to translate the word serpent. If you have already read that article, then you know that I prefer the term “shining one” to serpent.

In this verse, it was Eve’s turn to tell a half-truth. She conveniently omitted the other half. The half-truth was that the shining one deceived her. The half that she omitted was that she sinned by disobeying the command. Essentially, Eve slyly, and only partially answered the question: What have you done? She only admitted to eating the fruit. Did you notice that she conveniently left out the part about giving some fruit to Adam? Oops.

God was not impressed. It is easy to fall into Eve's trap of thinking that omitting the truth is not telling a lie. But think about that. Here is the logic: remaining silent and refusing to tell the truth is not the same thing as telling a lie. Really? How is it not different? Refusing to tell the truth is the same thing as telling a lie (not telling the truth). It boils down to this: intentionally omitting the truth to create a false impression or to deceive someone is a lie.⁷ In other words, omitting the truth is knowingly leaving out information that the other person wants or needs to know about.

God treated Eve’s half-truth as a lie. That should put fear and trembling into us when it comes to omitting (deliberately withholding) the truth. God treats it as a lie. Furthermore, God took Eve’s half-truth as a refusal to repent. The problem with Eve’s omission of the truth was that she was trying to deceive God. She didn’t tell God what she didn't want him to know. What was it that Eve did not want God to know? That her sin was her fault.

Eve also shifted the blame to the shining one. It was his fault because he deceived her. (Therefore, her sin was not her fault.) Shifting the blame did not work for Adam, it did not work for Eve, and it will not work for us. Shifting the blame is never an excuse for sin. Granted, it makes us feel better if we can shift the blame onto someone else, but God sees right through it. So please don’t do it. Peer pressure works the same way: it’s okay if I sin if you sin with me. Peer pressure is an attempt to shift the blame onto our peers because they’re sinning too.

Final thoughts

So why did the devil go through Eve to tempt Adam?

1) When God confronts us with sin in our lives, we need to take care how we respond. Are we going to shift the blame, offer an excuse, or genuinely repent? God only gave Adam and Eve a small window of opportunity to repent. But I have to ask the question that I do not have the answer to: How long is our window of opportunity open to us to repent? Is that window open for as long as we think it is? Do we really want to find out?

2) Who are we worshipping, God or someone else? Adam’s focus was on Eve instead of God. Who am I focused on? Who are you focused on? It doesn’t even have to be a spouse or a person. I know people who know their favorite sports team better than they know God. They know their team’s statistics better than they know the Bible.

3) We’ve already talked about telling God half-truths and omitting the truth. One more point I want to make is this: don’t try to outsmart God by omitting the truth. It is easy to outsmart and deceive people by omitting the truth. You don’t tell them what you don’t want them to know, and you can keep them ignorant. Omitting the truth is a type of deception. Keep in mind that we cannot deceive God. We tend to forget that God is all-knowing. God sees right through us.

Here is my paraphrase of the 3 verses we covered:

Genesis 3:11-13
¹¹ He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
¹² The husband said, “The wife whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
¹³ Then the Lord God said to the wife, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The shining one told me that you lied, and I believed him, so I ate.”

© 14 September 2025 by Steven P. Wickstrom, all rights reserved.