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Last
week we began a new series of talks on the Holy Bible with an
introduction proving the credibility and authenticity of Genesis. Today
we will begin our study on the first chapters of Genesis and the
creation story. The Bible quotations will be from the Septuagint Bible
because as I said last week this is the official text used by the
Orthodox Church. References to the Old Testament, quoted by Christ and
the Apostles in the New Testament are from the Septuagint, thus making
it the most authoritative and authentic. But besides this, where there
are differences, and there are many, the Septuagint comes across much
clearer and understandable than the Masoretic text used for the
translation of the KJB.
Genesis
begins: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Much is
revealed in this first sentence. With the words "In the beginning" is
revealed that God is eternal before the creation of the world, because
in the beginning reveals the beginning of time and for God to create
time he must exist outside of time. God created: here is preached that
God is one, in contrast to the two gods of the Persians: the good and
the bad gods, the many gods of the Greeks, Egyptians and Babylonians.
"The heaven and the earth:" In the Hebrew tongue, this term expresses
the whole universe, because the heaven and the earth are what are
clearly visible to every man. According to the fathers of the Church,
the heaven and the earth means everything visible and invisible,
material and spirit. Thus heaven must mean the spiritual heaven and the
angels. From the very beginning the Biblical origins of the universe are
engraved with great truths concerning the world and God. To be more
precise: 1) the world had a beginning, 2) it is not a result of chance,
3) the world was created by God, 4) it is not a procession or extension
of God's nature, 5) God is before and above all things. Science can
increase the age of the earth all it wants through its various systems
of calculating to millions, billions or trillions of years. In no way
does it come into conflict with Holy Scripture, because with the words
"In the Beginning" no time is determined for the creation and the
duration of the universe's evolution. Also as God created Adam fully
grown and not as a baby to evolve into an adult, as he created the trees
fully grown with mature fruit, we can also apply this to the rest of
creation that God created the earth fully mature appearing as having an
age millions of years old.
The
Bible speaks of six days of creation and a seventh of rest. The span of
each day is sometimes interpreted as meaning long periods of time,
possibly thousands or millions of years, but the text clearly speaks of
a normal day and night because it literally says that there was evening
and there was morning. Thus it speaks of a day consisting of a period of
darkness and a period of light. But we can say that these days may not
have been actual 24hour days, because the sun, which determines the day,
was created on the fourth day. Or was it created on the first day? Verse
three to five reads: "And God said, Let there be light; and there was
light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided between
the light and between the darkness. And God called the light day and the
darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning,
one day." Further down from verse fourteen we read: "And God said, Let
there be lights in the firmament of the heaven for light upon the earth,
to divide between the day and between the night; and let them be for
signs and for seasons and for days and for years. And let them be for
light in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth. And it
was so. And God made the two great lights, the great light to rule the
day and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars. And God set
them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule
over the day and over the night and to divide between the light and
between the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was
evening and there was morning, a fourth day."
This
is a problem that has baffled many Biblical interpreters and scholars.
Is this a contradiction? On day one God creates the light then on day
four he creates the sun, moon and stars. If the sun was created on the
four day then how is there light on the first day? The answer is not to
be found in the chain of creation events, but in the purpose of the six
days. The sun was actually created on the fourth day, but for technical
reasons light and the separation of night and day is also mentioned on
the first day. Light is the bases for all order and work and so that God
can teach us to work six days and rest on the seventh, he appears as a
common worker creating the world in six days. For this purpose it was
essential to have a separation of the day from night on the first day,
otherwise there would be no day one or day two or day three. There is no
contradiction between the first day, where there is light and the
separation of day and night from God, and the fourth day where the
vessel of light, the sun, determines the day and night, because on the
fourth day is revealed the material reason for the separation of the day
and night and on the first day the ulterior reason which is God.
But
there is more we can say concerning the order of the six days. If we
look carefully at the contexts of the six days we will notice that it is
divided into two corresponding groups of threes. These two corresponding
threes have a connection between them. The first group of three days are
separations while the second group of three days are supplementary. To
be more precise, during the first day there is a separation of light
from darkness. On the second day the heaven is separated from the sea.
The third day the sea is separated from land. The second group now comes
and supplements these first three days. The fourth day we have the sun
to supplement the light of the first day. The fifth day we have the
supplement of heaven and earth with the fowls of the air and the fish of
the sea and the sixth day we have the land animals and man to supplement
the land and plants of the third day, because on land and by eating of
the plants will both man and animal live.
The
purpose of the six days is religious and educational. It is not meant to
be a scientific report on the creation and should not be studied as
such. The creative energy of God is portrayed in human images and speaks
of six days and a day of rest emphasizing in these divine works a
simplicity which can be understood by simple people. The text is simple
that even a child can understand. The interpretation has no right to
stray from the literal sense if there is no real need for this. The
words day, light, morning, evening etc, must be understood in their
usual literal sense. God speaking as a human is a Biblical expression
denoting that in creation the divine thoughts became a reality and that
the things created are the physical revelation of the power, the wisdom
and goodness of God. Thus the creation is revealed as a work made in six
days followed by a day of rest symbolizing the six working days in which
man is obliged to work and the seventh, the Sabbath, in which he is
obliged to rest and glorify God.
The
day of rest is not because as some have stated, that God was tired like
some common worker after his six days of work. The Bible states that God
finished his creative work on the sixth day meaning that after this
there was no other new creation. According to St. Augustine, the
creation and the Sabbath have a deeper meaning for the recreation of the
world by the Son of God. In other words, as the Father created the world
and rested, so also the Son of God worked for the salvation of mankind
and rested on the Sabbath in the tomb after saying on the cross "it is
finished". For us Christians, in place of the seventh day Sabbath, is
Sunday, the first day of the week. This is because of Christ's
Resurrection on the first day, which was then sealed with the descent of
the Holy Spirit after 50days again on a Sunday. The work of salvation,
the new creation and recreation is by far superior, wonderful and
magnificent than the first creation because it leads us to the blessed
Sabbath – the eternal and blessed rest. The old Sabbath was a type of
the new Sabbath which is the reality. The divine rest has an educational
character. God separates the seventh day from the other days and gives
it a special character, not because God needed to rest, but so that on
this day man can rest from his daily routine and during this day of rest
to find time to think of God, to rejoice with this rest, to profit from
prayer and become a partaker of the eternal rest which God prepared for
him before the foundation of the world. This is the meaning of the day
of rest, which in the New Testament, Christ had to remind the Pharisees
that: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. (Mark
2:27)
Not
only the Sabbath, but all of creation was made for man. Man was not
created as just another animal to fill up the earth. Man is God's
special creation and everything he created, he created for man. He was
created to be king and lord over all the earth. This is seen by God’s
words to him: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it;
and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of heaven,
and all the cattle and all the earth, and all the creeping things that
creep upon the earth."
Three
actions of God separate man as a special creation. With all the other
creations God said "let there be" this or that and it was so. When it
came to creating man God said "Let Us make man according to Our image
and according to Our likeness." Before we see what this means we should
note that here in the first chapter of Genesis is clear testimony that
God is triune. God is represented as speaking in the plural and carrying
on dialogue with other persons: "Let Us make man according to Our image
and according to Our likeness." (Genesis 1: 26) In chapter two God says:
"It is not good that the man should be alone; let Us make for him an
help meet for him." In chapter three after eating of the Tree of
Knowledge of good and evil, God again speaks in the plural saying:
"Behold, Adam is become as one of Us" (Genesis 3: 22), and again in
Chapter eleven “Come, and let Us go down and confound their language”
(Genesis 11: 7). If there was only one occasion of God speaking in the
plural, then we could say that it was a grammatical error, but can four
occasions with six plural pronouns be considered a mistake? The Prophet
Moses, the great leader and lawgiver of Israel and author of the Book of
Genesis, would not have made such a simple mistake, to attribute to God
a plural character four times, if he was not inspired by the Holy Spirit
to do so. Also, if it was accidental, why didn’t the God-inspired
prophets of Israel notice and rectify the mistake?
Let's
now see what the image and likeness of God means. This has nothing to do
with the external appearance of man because God is Spirit and does not
have a body so the image must refer to the soul. We understand that the
image is man’s spirit, the soul, which is endowed with intelligence,
with thought, wisdom and prudence, so as to be able to discern good from
evil. It is man’s sovereign state and free will to choose his own
destination: to choose between knowing and having communion with God, or
to separate himself from God. These are specials gifts that God bestowed
only upon man, his very special creation. The likeness of God is man’s
ability to put the special gifts he has been granted to their proper use
to acquire knowledge of God which is obtained only through his
relationship with God. This was and is man’s destination - to be united
with God, to be deified by the Holy Spirit and become a god. In other
words, to be united to God by using his own free will and accepting
God’s will as his own.
The
second action of God that separates man as a special creation is that
God formed man from the dust of the earth. With the animals God said let
it be and they were created, but when it came to the creation of man we
are not told that he was created with the Word of God, but we have an
image of God forming man with his hands.
The
third action of God that makes man extremely special is that after
forming man from the dust, God breathed into his face a breath of life,
and the man became a living soul. Man therefore is not part of the
animal kingdom, he is a special creation like no other creation: he is a
psychosomatic being, in other words he is both body and soul.
The
first chapter of Genesis is a chronological order of creation and gives
the general lines of creation showing that the visible world was created
as the habitat for man whom God created to have dominion over the fish,
fowl, animals and any other living thing. The second chapter again
mentions some of the creations and the creation of man, which some
scholars have claimed proves that there are two creation stories and
probably two different authors. The second chapter is not a different
version of the general line of creation, it doesn’t follow a
chronological order because it has already done so in chapter one so it
must be trying to say something else. The second chapter is
supplementary to the first chapter and gives more emphasis on the
supernatural gifts with which man has been endowed with so that he may
be capable of partaking in the eternal and perfect divine blessing. Thus
in the first chapter it simply says that: "God made man, according to
the image of God made He him, male and female made He them." In the
second chapter we are given the details of how man was created, how God
formed man from the dust of the earth and how he breathed into his face
a breath of life. The first chapter simply says that he made them male
and female, the second chapter gives the reason and details of how Eve
was formed from Adam's rib. Also in the second chapter there is mention
of paradise as the perfect habitat for the man that God has endowed with
such special gifts that make him stand above all other creatures. There
is also mention of the first commandment, and a hint on their still
innocent condition.
Between
the two chapters there is a difference in the order of creation e.g. in
the first chapter man is created last, but in the second chapter man is
presented as being created before the animals. If we accept the fact
that the two chapters are not a contradiction in terms then we are open
to see that they are harmonious to each other. The first chapter as
already said follows the chronological order but the second follows the
honorary order. It wants to stress that the whole world was created for
man and by mentioning him before the animals and plants it doesn’t want
to show that man was created before them, but to show man’s value,
dominion and honour above everything else.
After
creating man we are told that God planted a paradise eastward in Edem,
and there He put the man, whom He had formed. Note that the Septuagint
uses the word Paradise whereas the Masoretic text says: God planted a
garden. Paradise denotes much more than a garden, a place of exquisite
pleasure, beauty, delight and bliss.
This
paradise or garden is a place on earth and has a river going through it
to water it, which then parts into four heads meaning four main rivers.
We are given the names of these rivers and the lands through which they
run. The Phison which runs through the whole land of Evilat, where there
is gold. It then tells us that the gold of this land is good and that
there also is carbon and the green stone. Carbon must refer to diamond
and the green stone to the Emerald. In the KJB it says "there is
bdellium and the onyx stone." bdellium has been identified as an
aromatic gum, but it is very unlikely that gum would be specifically
mentioned with gold and gems as some remarkable gift of nature. The onyx
stone also is not clearly identified as it could mean any number of
stones that were known as onyx in ancient times. The Septuagint carbon
and green stone is more credible because they are precious stones worthy
of being specially mentioned to identify a country.
The
second river is named as Geon which compasses the whole land of
Ethiopia. The country mentioned as Ethiopia does not necessarily refer
to the African country known today as Ethiopia. The Hebrew for Ethiopia
is Chus, named after Noah's grandson. His land was an Asiatic area north
of Babylon. In early Christian times a land that was part of Armenia was
known as Ethiopia. The third river is the Tigris which runs through
Assyria and the fourth the Euphrates. Today only the Tigris and the
Euphrates rivers are known and many have tried without success to
identify where paradise was. It has been suggested that it was in
Babylon or Persia, modern day Iraq and Iran. The Tigris indeed runs
through the Assyria capital of Nineveh and the Euphrates runs through
the city of Babylon, but these rivers did not run through paradise. The
source of the headwater began in paradise and then separated into four
main rivers of which two are the Tigris and Euphrates. The source of
these rivers is in Ancient Armenia near Mount Ararat. If paradise was
around Mount Ararat then the place twice served as the cradle of the
human race, the first as the homeland of Adam and Eve and the second
after the Great flood where Noah's ark came to rest and from where
mankind began again.
A
Hebrew myth says that Adam was created in Hebron with earth taken from
Damascus, placing Adam and paradise both in Palestine. Here in Hebron
Abel was killed and Adam was buried. Noah is said to have taken Adam's
relics with him in the Ark and later distributed them to his sons. His
son Shem received Adam's skull, which in Christian times is said to have
been buried at Golgotha from which it received the name as the place of
the skull mentioned in the New Testament.
Genesis
then gives us the first commandment of God to Adam: "Of every tree which
is in the paradise thou mayest eat for food, but of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, ye shall not eat of it; but in whatsoever
day ye shall eat thereof, by death shall ye die." We will look at this
in detail shortly when we come to the fall. But first we must look at
the creation of Eve.
God
says that it is not good that the man should be alone; let Us make for
him an help meet for him. Immediately after this the narration seems to
change subject and we are told that "out of the earth God formed yet
further all the wild beasts of the field, and all the fowls of the
heaven; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And
whatsoever Adam called any living creature, that was the name thereof."
This mention of the animals being created after Adam has led to many
scholars suggesting that it is a second creation story. Also some sickly
minded have suggested that because God said "it is not good that the man
should be alone; let Us make for him an help meet for him" which is then
followed by the presence of the animals, that Adam was to pick a mate
from among the animals. This is not a second creation story neither was
it for Adam to pick a mate.
The
Bible clearly mentions that the reason why the animals were brought to
Adam was so that he would give them their names and not to pick a mate
from among them. The reason why it is mentioned immediately after God
said “let Us make for him an help meet for him” is because the bringing
of the animals to Adam had a double purpose. The one to name them and
the other as educational so that Adam could see that all the animals
were in male and female pairs and by seeing them as such it would
stimulate and arouse in him the desire to also have a mate. Once this
desire had been aroused God then proceeds to create woman from Adam’s
rib.
Why
didn't God create woman from the dust as he did with Adam? If Eve was
made from the dust she would be another creation and would not have any
connection to Adam. Adam is the source of mankind and if Eve was created
as a separate creation she also would be a source of creation. Eve was
taken out of man so in reality Eve is Adam and all their descendants are
Adam. We are all Adam. The fathers say that God didn't take a bone from
Adam's head neither from Adam's foot which could have been interpreted
that woman is above man or a slave to man, God fashioned Eve from Adam's
rib to show that man and woman are equal standing side by side. In the
salvation plan one man caused the fall and Christ the New-man brought
salvation. Also as Eve is the bride of Adam created from a bone of his
side, the Church is the bride of Jesus created from his side when he was
pierced with the spear and henceforth poured out Blood and Water,
symbolizing the two mysteries of salvation; Baptism and the Holy
Eucharist.
Having
created Eve from Adam's rib, God then brings her before Adam. When the
animals were presented before him so that he could name them, Adam
noticed that none of the species resembled himself, but now when Eve is
presented to him he immediately recognizes that she is the same as
himself and says: "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her man." Adam
is prophetically instigating the future bond of marriage and continues
saying: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and
shall be joined unto his wife: and they two shall become one flesh." One
flesh refers not only to the sexual union of man and woman, but also to
the fruit of this union; a child which is one flesh from two.
We
must now ask if Adam and Eve are literally the first man and woman or
are they figurative characters? Was there an Adam or does he just
represent mankind in general? In our introductory talk we saw that the
Biblical creation story is credible and does not come into conflict with
the scientific explanation and many of the biblical events or persons
mentioned in Genesis can be verified historically. This is enough proof
to say that everything in Genesis is not fictional of myth, but
God-inspired and therefore genuine and trustworthy. Sceptics who brush
off Genesis as fictional storytelling have to do so to justify
themselves to others why they don't believe in God, but Christians have
to believe that Adam and Eve were real people otherwise there is no
sense in believing the rest of Holy Scripture and no sense believing in
Christ as our Saviour. If we believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate,
we must believe in the New Testament that records his incarnation, his
preaching, his death on the Cross, his Resurrection and everything else
concerning his person and our salvation. Christ himself accepted the
literal historicity of the Genesis account. He affirmed that the Genesis
account is true by quoting word for word from Genesis “Have ye not read,
that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And
said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall
cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? (Matt. 19: 4-6)
But
there is more proof in the New Testament, as far as faith is concerned,
that Adam was a genuine person and not only that, but that he was the
son of God. In the Holy Gospel according to St Luke (3:23-38), we find
the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ which begins: “And Jesus himself
began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son
of Joseph, which was the son of Heli, Which was the son of Matthat,
which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi,…” and ending
“Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son
of Adam, which was the son of God.” What we have here is a genealogy of
Jesus’ ancestry right back to Adam which is proof that Adam was indeed a
real person and not a representation of mankind. Adam’s genealogy is of
course mentioned in the Old Testament in much more detail as also his
children’s generations, but the fact that it is mentioned in the New
Testament verifies that the genealogy is true.
We
commonly say the Gospel of Matthew, or Mark or Luke or John, but this is
not actually correct. It is the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Mark,
Luke or John. The Gospel meaning "Good News" is the Gospel of Jesus
Christ; it is the Word of God. The genealogy is very important to us and
we will discuss it in detail when we come to the study of the New
Testament. For now I will just say that it is important because not only
does it cement together the Old and New Testament but confirms that Adam
was a real person and everything in the Old Testament and the New
Testament happened because of Adam. Our whole faith, everything we
believe in is based on the fact that Adam was created in God’s image and
likeness and then through original sin and the fall, he lost or
distorted that divine image. The whole of the Bible, the Old and New
Testaments is an account of God’s promise to save man from the fall and
to restore in him once again the image of God.
So
having established that Adam was a real person we now enter chapter
three of Genesis and the account of the fall and exile from Paradise.
"Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild beasts of the
earth which the Lord God had made. And the serpent said unto the woman,
Wherefore hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the
paradise?"
The
devil, being a bodiless fallen angel, appearing as a serpent should not
surprise us, because angels have appeared in bodily form so that they
can be perceived by human eyes and the Holy Spirit appeared as a dove.
Spirits can appear in many forms, but from the punishment that follows
the fall, it is clear that the serpent is not an apparition, but rather
that the devil uses the serpent to speak to Eve. Eve still in an
innocent and childlike state would not have been astonished or
frightened on seeing and hearing the serpent speak. She had just been
created and there were many things in this new creation that she was
continually learning of. What she must have known was that according to
nature serpents cannot speak. She would have known this by divine
knowledge innate in both Adam and Eve as divine gifts. Thus she must
have understood that some kind of other power was within the serpent and
this is what drew her attention.
The
serpent begins with a question to arouse doubts in Eve's mind. "Why has
God said you shall not eat of every tree of Paradise?" As soon as this
doubt appeared in Eve she should have turned away and left, but instead
she starts up a conversation with the serpent telling him that they were
allowed to eat of every tree except of the fruit of the tree situated in
the middle of Paradise and if they eat of it or touch it God has said
they will die.
Let's
look closer at this commandment. What was its purpose? Adam was created
immortal, that is to say, as long as he lived in God’s will and
likeness, he would live forever. He was as yet innocent and sinless, one
can say almost perfect, except for his knowledge, which was only
theoretical. We say theoretical because by nature, Adam possessed
theoretical knowledge of good and evil, i.e. it was innate and natural
to him. This knowledge was included in the “according to the image”,
which was his wisdom and prudence, his gift of discernment. “Adam could
discern both these things [good and evil]”, says St. John Chrysostom,
and “it was impossible for him not to know what was good and what was
bad”, for “God from the very beginning in creating man placed within him
natural law”. Thus man knew from the moment of his creation what was
good and what was evil; what was beneficial and salutary and what was
harmful and destructive. But this knowledge was theoretical. He
possessed knowledge but not experience. He knew that his aim was to
reach perfection and union with God, but perfection could only be
achieved through practical and experiential knowledge. But how was he to
gain this knowledge? Precisely by trusting and obeying God's
commandment.
Many
people speculate on what this forbidden fruit might have been. In truth
it doesn’t matter what the fruit was. The reason for the commandment was
not to deprive them of the fruits of paradise, but to give them the
opportunity to exercise their free will, either to follow God’s will or
to reject it. It was a simple command, which gave them the opportunity
to practice and advance in obedience, virtue and sanctity, an
opportunity to gain the much-desired experiential knowledge. The Devil,
appearing in the guise of a serpent told Eve that if they eat of the
tree “By death ye shall not die: for God doth know that in the day ye
eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing
good and evil" (Gen. 3: 4-5). At this point Eve should have recognized
that the serpent was evil, and should have stopped the conversation with
him immediately, but instead she listened to him with great trust as he
slandered God. She chose to believe in the devil rather than God who
created her. St. John Chrysostom says, “Eve was puffed up with the hope
of becoming equal to God and imagined great things for herself”. Thus
the tree, which she had seen many times before and only identified it
with God’s command, suddenly looked different. She looked upon it as for
the first time and saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was
pleasant for the eyes to look upon, and fair to contemplate. Believing
therefore the serpent, she ate of the fruit and gave to Adam also with
her, and they ate.
At
first glance one might say that their intention was good because their
one desire was to reach perfection, and according to the devil's deceit,
eating of the forbidden fruit would have been a shortcut to perfection
and a godlike state, but they sinned because they disobeyed God’s
commandment [not to eat of the fruit]. They freely chose not to follow
God’s will and this destroyed or distorted in them the likeness of God.
The
significance of their action has a much deeper meaning for by doing what
the seducer suggested, man appeared to be saying to God: I have no need
of you. I shall live by myself, self-sufficient and independent. I don’t
need your guidance and protection. I’m able by myself to live and to
achieve great things. Indeed man’s original sin revealed his unbelief in
God, his egoistic rebellion against the Divine Majesty, his
thanklessness and ingratitude toward the beneficent Creator and Father,
his contempt, insult and blasphemy against the Holy and Heavenly King.
Having
eaten of the fruit or rather having disobeyed God's commandment, they
now had experiential knowledge of good and evil. What was good they knew
before when they were innocent and now they knew what evil was because
they chose to follow the devil, the father of evil. They lost their
innocence and holiness and as a result they were ashamed of their
nakedness. They were ashamed of both their spiritual and bodily
nakedness and tried to hide themselves from God. In an attempt to hide
at least their bodily nakedness from God, they sewed fig leaves
together, and made themselves aprons to go about them.
The
story continues saying: "And they heard the voice of the Lord God
walking in the paradise in the evening, and Adam and his wife hid
themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the
paradise." So much was their mind darkened by the sin that Adam and Eve,
who before were full of grace, now think that it is possible to hide
from the eyes of God in the middle of Paradise.
God calls to Adam and says: "Where are you." God is angry at what has
happened but at the same time he is full of love for Adam and approaches
him in the hope that Adam will ask forgiveness. Adam did not conceive
and discover evil by himself, but was tempted from without by the devil
and thus led into sin, thus God gives him the opportunity to repent and
ask for forgiveness. The "Where are you" does not mean where are you
hiding: God knows and sees exactly where Adam is. God is telling Adam,
where were you before you sinned and where are you now, where are the
promises of Satan, why do you now avoid him whom before you desired,
where is your trust, your innocence, why are you ashamed?
Adam
replies that he was afraid because he was naked and so hid himself. He
does not have the courage to confess what he had done so God helps him
by revealing the sin. Who told you that you were naked, unless you have
eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? Being faced with
the accusation Adam should have admitted his mistake and ask for God's
mercy and forgiveness, but instead pride takes over him and to justify
what he had done does not admit that he made a mistake, but passes on
the blame to God himself: "The woman whom you gave me, she gave me of
the tree and I did eat." So the mistake was not his, but God's for
giving him the woman. If God had not made woman he would not have fallen
into sin.
Having
failed an apology from Adam God then says to the woman. What is this
that thou hast done? Eve replied: "The serpent deceived me, and I did
eat." Like Adam, Eve was too proud to accept her mistake and ask for
forgiveness and passed on the blame onto someone else, in this case the
serpent, or even God himself for allowing the serpent to tempt her. The
first sin therefore was disobedience to God’s will and this immediately
produced an offspring in pride, and subsequently a long chain of other
sins.
The
fact that God gave them the opportunity to repent does not necessarily
mean that if they had taken this path, they would have regained the
likeness of God. God never lies; He said that on the day they eat of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. This did not
mean that they would undergo an immediate physical death. Eternal life
can only be lived as long as it is lived in the likeness of God. They
freely chose to separate themselves from God’s likeness by following
their own free will. This separation was therefore death as opposed to
immortal life.
Having
heard the evidence and determining who is guilty, God now passes
judgement and punishment. The main guilty party is the devil and God
doesn't ask him what he has done, because he has already been judged
when he fell from the rank of the angels. Neither does he ask the
serpent what he has done because the All-knowing God realises that the
snake did not act of his own initiative. Nevertheless the snake is
punished because he allowed the devil to work through him. God therefore
punishes him saying: "Because you have done this, you are cursed above
all animals of the earth; "upon thy breast and thy belly shalt thou go
and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." This doesn't mean
that the snake had legs before, but its possible that most of his body
was upright and when he spoke to Eve he was in an upright position.
Since the fall the snake has became a symbol of evil and using this
symbol God gives us the first promise of salvation. He tells the snake
or rather the devil: "And I will put enmity between thee and between the
woman, and between thy seed and between her seed: he shall crush thy
head, and thou shalt crush his heel." The Church refers to this as the
“Proto-Evangelio”, the first Gospel or the first Good news. The woman in
mention is the Virgin Mary whose offspring Jesus Christ will crush
Satan’s head, but at the same time Satan will crush his heel which is a
reference to Christ’s crucifixion. Christ will conquer the Devil and
save man, but for this, He Himself must suffer. Satan deceived the first
woman Eve, but through another woman Satan would be crushed. Notice that
it says that Satan will be crushed through a woman's seed. It doesn't
say seeds, but a single seed, meaning Christ. It also reveals the
virginity of the woman, because it does not say of the seed of man, but
the seed of a woman meaning someone without a human father.
Next
in line for judgement is Eve. She was the first to sin and so is the
first to be punished. God's tells her: "I will greatly multiply thy
pains and thy groanings; in pains thou shalt bring forth children, and
thy recourse shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
Woman's punishment is twofold. Firstly she will be punished with pains
in giving birth. This means that before the fall childbirth would have
been without pains. The pains of childbirth are a curse or punishment of
the fall. The Orthodox Church believes that because the Mother of God
was cleansed of the consequences of the fall, her giving birth to Christ
was without the normal pains of childbirth we now take for granted as
natural. Woman's second punishment is that she will be a slave to her
husband. Her lust for the forbidden fruit is punished with pains and her
deceit in tricking her husband to also eat of the fruit is punished with
her being submissive to him.
Lastly,
judgement is passed on Adam. "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice
of thy wife and hast eaten of the tree of which alone I commanded thee
not to eat, cursed is the ground in thy labours; in pains shalt thou eat
of it all the days of thy life: thorns and thistles shall it bring forth
to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat thy bread, till thou return unto the ground out of
which thou wast taken; for earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou
return."
God's
loving care is lifted and Adam's kingship over nature comes to an end.
Both plants and animals were submissive to man and now they become
obstacles, some dangerous and poisonous. In Paradise, man's food was the
fruit of the trees; God took care of everything for man. Outside of
Paradise his food will continue to be the fruit of trees, but also
vegetation and by choice animal meat because Abel, as we shall see next
week, was a shepherd of sheep. Without God's care, man will have to till
the earth which now will bring forth thorns, thistles and all kinds of
weeds making tilling the earth very hard work. Adam will eat of the
earth until he dies and returns to the earth from which he was taken.
This is not God's punishment, but a consequence of the fall. Man chose
to follow his own will and disobey God. Of their own free will Adam and
Eve chose to separate themselves from God and eternal life, because
eternal life can only be in God: separation from God means death. The
last verses of chapter three endorse the above punishments with the
exile of man from Paradise. Adam first gives his wife a name and calls
her Zoe meaning life, because she is the mother of all the living.
Next
we are told that God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve and clothed
them. It is generally understood that these skins were animal skins, but
where did they come from? Did God create them? We have already seen that
God did not create anything new after the sixth day. Did God then, kill
animals and skin them to make the coats? It is very unlikely that God
would kill something that he created. So where did these skins come
from? The Church understands the skins as something completely
different. The skins in question are the skins of our bodies. It was the
transformation from the immortal bodies into mortal bodies. If Adam was
originally immortal his skin had to be different from the skins of our
bodies which die.
This
drastic change was necessary for man’s salvation, otherwise sin would
have reigned in Adam’s immortal body and union with God would have been
eternally impossible. This change was in fact their death, because they
had lost immortality. They were in a state of death and subject to cold,
hunger, illness, diseases, pain, suffering and ageing bodies, which
eventually would bring about their bodily death by the separation of the
soul from the body.
Having
transformed man to live in death, God then proceeds to exile him from
the Paradise of bliss. This was essential for man's eternal salvation.
In Paradise was another tree, the tree of life which if Adam should have
eaten would again have become immortal, but he would have been immortal
in a sinful state not having communion with God. Mercifully, God did not
permit this to happen. Adam was cast out of the Paradise. No longer
could he even contemplate eating from the Tree of Life. It was beyond
his reach. God is not punishing Adam, his mortal existence is of his own
doing, but God does not abandon him. God knew the risk of the fall when
he created Adam with a free will and had already a plan of salvation
that would allow Adam to re-unite with him. Part of this plan was the
process of regeneration, which through children, Adam or Adam's nature
continued to live until the plan of salvation should be fulfilled with
the incarnation of God himself.
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