Genesis 3:8-24
Curse and Exile

Adam is your covenant head. His sin is your sin; you are born guilty because of him. So this curse describe not only what will happen to Adam and his wife. It describes what will happen to you.

The devil only should have been cast out of this place. Instead they are all cast out.

1. The Hearing
   1. God comes down "As the Spirit of the Day"
      1. Adam and wife hide in fear
         1. They are not foolish in thinking thus to escape the judgment of God. They are simply terrified.
         2. Rev 6:15-17 - And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, ¹⁶and said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! ¹⁷For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"
      2. And this reaction shows that their consciences already condemn them.
      3. God has come to confirm the testimony of their conscience.
      4. God calls to Adam
         1. remember the serpent starting with the wrong order of authority - beast of the field commands woman who commands husband, all of them wanting to be God
         2. God starts with the one who is answerable for this whole mess.
   2. The Blame Game
      1. Adam explains he hid himself because he was naked
         1. It's natural to be afraid in such a circumstance.
         2. Who would want to appear before God that way?
         3. Yet isn't it God's fault that Adam is naked?
      2. God says, who told you you were naked?
         1. God didn't created Adam shamefully naked
         2. He created Adam clothed in the beauty of holiness
         3. In such a condition Adam would never have felt his nakedness before the Lord
         4. Adam is naked before God in a new sense now; his guilt is uncovered
         5. And there's only one way that could have happened
      3. Have you eaten of the tree? I.e. isn't it really your own fault?
      4. Adam tries again
         1. The woman did it, and you gave her to me
         2. Ok, I admit I took the fruit, but aren't you to blame, God
         3. You gave me the woman and she gave me the fruit
         4. What a petty thing to say! Hadn't he been deliriously happy with this woman when God gave her to him?
      5. The woman in turn passes blame to the Serpent
      6. God is done gathering evidence
         1. it's time to pronounce the curse
         2. starting with the one who brought sin in (the Serpent)
         3. moving to the one first was tempted and sinned (Eve)
         4. And finally to the man who should have judged them both and sinned instead
2. The Judgment
   1. On the Serpent
      1. God has come to enact the judgment against Satan that Adam should have pronounced
      2. This is not a "Just So" Story by Rudyard Kipling like
         1. "How the Leopard got his Spots
         2. How the Elephant got His Trunk
         3. This is not "How the Snake Lost His Legs"
         4. Nor is it "How Women Came to Hate Snakes"
      3. This is a curse on Satan, the deceiver of the woman, the one who brought about the fall of man
      4. And the curse is that he will become like the beast he is inhabiting
         1. He chose the snake because it is tricky
         2. God says, you will become like the snake because the snake is a belly-crawling, dust-eating low life
      5. Yet this judgment has no finality to it.
         1. The Serpent is judged but he is not vanquished
         2. He has been brought low but not overcome
      6. God continues
         1. enmity between the serpent and the woman
         2. and between their "Seeds"
            1. This outlines the rest of history, the battle between the children of the devil and the children of the woman
            2. Culminating in the battle between the one Seed, Christ, and the Devil himself.
         3. Miraculously, the woman will bear a Son who will accomplish the work of judgment where Adam failed
         4. He will be bruised in the process, but He will overcome
         5. This is Christ!
      7. In the midst of the curse, even before the woman and the man hear of their judgment, they hear of their redemption
         1. God is about to frustrate the purposes for which they are created
            1. Woman - help husband bear children
            2. Man - work
         2. But even before he does that he tells them that that purpose will be restored
            1. The woman will bear THE child
            2. And the Son of Man will judge what the first man didn't and succeed where he failed.
      8. In a sense, it is a mercy that God does not come and definitively judge the serpent
         1. What purpose whould there be left for man?
         2. But God provisionally judges the serpent now and proclaims that his servant, the Seed of the woman, will judge him finally
         3. Man's purpose is restored.
   2. On the Woman
      1. The whole pregnancy process is cursed
         1. From conception to delivery there will be heartache and suffering
         2. Difficulty conceiving in the first place, Morning sickness, aching feet, aching back, tiredness and even exhaustion, discomfort of every sort.
         3. And all along the way, the possibility of miscarriage, and the whole process subjected to futility.
         4. And then the agony of delivery. The terrible pains of labor, contractions and through it all the very real possibility of death - for child or mother or both - or mental or physical deformity for the child.
      2. What wretchedness! What misery!
         1. She is created to bear his children yet she will do so in great agony, sorrow and worry
         2. And, she is about to find out, she will bear them not to life but to death. They are dust, and to dust they will return.
      3. Yet she will bring forth children - the curse is not total
      4. Her other purpose is frustrated as well
         1. Her desire shall be for her husband and he shall rule over her
         2. This is not the way things are supposed to be. This is the curse.
         3. Look at how these words are used in Genesis 4:7 "[Sin's] desire is for you, but you must rule over it]
         4. She was the agent of sin which overcame him and he ate
         5. Now, like sin, she will desire to overcome him again, to rule him, to dictate to him, to dominate, to set the agenda whether secretly or openly. She will not look to him for guidance but to see how she may manipulate where she cannot command.
         6. And how will he respond? Tyrrany!
            1. Not gently guiding and guarding her
            2. But Lording it over her, squashing her down, exploiting her
         7. This is not how things ought to be, but how they all too often will be.
   3. On the Man
      1. The man is cursed because he allowed the woman to subvert his authority
      2. This whole curse comes because he listened to his wife instead of God
      3. His purpose is frustrated as well
         1. He was created to tend and keep the garden
         2. Now the ground will yield its crop reluctantly
         3. Frustration, futility, sweat of the brow at least.
      4. Man was created for work, but not this kind of work
         1. Work was supposed to be a delight, now it will be toil
         2. Creation will fight against him
         3. And if it does not win immediately, it will win at last
      5. For the ground will exert its ultimate triumph by outliving him
         1. He will be buried in it and turn into it
         2. He was taken out of the dust, but his mortality should have been clothed in eternal life
         3. Instead, he will return to the dust
3. The Aftermath
   1. Adam renames his wife

Ironically, Adam's first act of faith is to speak a word in contrast to the curse God has just pronounced. God says he will die, returning to the dust; and Adam immediately names his wife Eve because she will be the mother of all living. Yet this is no fist-shaking defiance, as of one who swears he'll beat this lousy curse. Rather, it is a statement that he caught the promise buried in that curse - the Seed of the woman shall triumph. Thus, renaming his wife, he confesses his faith; and the Lord accounts it to him as righteousness.

By this renaming, he confesses as well that he is no longer a covenant head capable of leading his posterity into Life. He himself trusts in another, and so must his posterity. Adam's purpose - to be the bringer of life - is redeemed. He lost that purpose in the Fall, but now it is filtered through God's grace and against all hope restored. Adam can no longer lead us into life, but still he is given the privilege of pointing the way. This woman-Seed, who will crush the Serpent's head - he is the source of Adam's hope. And so must he be of ours. Adam failed to defeat the serpent. Now he teaches us what it means to trust in the One who will succeed. Face with cursed labor and certain death, he cries out, "Yet there is One who's labor shall not be in vain. The woman shall bear Him. And all who trust in Him, though they die, yet shall they live."

And the woman, whose childbearing was cursed, will by childbearing save the world. The woman who heeded the serpent will bear a Son who will crush him forever. In great pain and labor she will bring him forth, but she ... will ... bring ... him ... forth.

What mercy! What grace! What an unexpected, undeserved, and unrepayable display of God's infinite kindness. God has come in curse and in the middle of the curse he has smuggled in blessing. And the very agents of that Fall have become the agents by whom his blessing shall spread. May he be praised, honored, and adored forever.

Come, you who have learned from Adam how to sin. Learn from him how to believe. Learn from him to stare the curse and death itself in the face and cry out that this is not the final word. Jesus, your righteousness, has risen from the dead. In him the miseries of this life are vanquished. In him death itself has been rebuked and conquered. Do not believe what your eyes tell you - that labor is futility and all ways end in death. Believe what Adam tells you when he says this woman-Seed will restore it all and more! The Seed has come! Let no one be ashamed who trusts in Him. Let no one be ashamed to suffer the ravages of the curse and the persecution of the world and the stingless assault of death itself. In Him is life and joy and fruitfulness and peace.

Come, you mothers and mothers-to-be, bear your children without fear. Eve bore her children into a world of sin and death. Yet she bore them in hope that through her the Seed would come who would bring righteousness and life. The Seed has come. You and your children will be saved by that childbearing, as Paul says. You do not fear to bring a child into this world as though you bear it into a world of death. You bear the child to life. You bear your children because the Lord seeks a godly offspring and counts your children holy to himself. You bear them that they may hope in that Seed, that they may fill a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells. And so they shall, though you lose them in the womb.

Come, you Fathers, who have passed this Fall and curse on to your children. Because of you, they are sinners. Because of you they suffer and will die. And you cannot by your works set before them an example of the perfection God accepts. The perfection God rewards with eternal life. Yet, like Adam who passed sin and curse to you, you can point to the Seed, to Jesus the Son of God. Your children cannot trust in you; you cannot vouch for them in the terrible Day of God's wrath. But Christ can. Whatever you do, teach your children to trust in Christ. Tell them about him. Point them to him. And let nothing turn you aside from him lest your children be turned aside as well.

Come you barren who cannot bear or have never borne. The One who above all others must be born, he has been born. And he has brought Life. He will wipe away your tears and take away the reproach of the curse and make the barren woman the mother of thousands.

God knows the end from the beginning. And here, at the beginning, he has told us the end. So we grieve over the Fall and the curse, over sin and over death. But we do not grieve as those who have no hope. Christ has already defeated the serpent. At a different tree of judgment he has paid the dreadful curse for our souls. And he has been raised again, the judge of all the earth. The serpent and all the serpent seed will at last be judged. That last great and terrible day of the Lord is coming and the serpent's head will be crushed. Joy shall be restored and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. And death itself shall die.

Be sobered by this curse lest you trust in yourself. But do not be overwhelmed. Trust in Christ, the Seed of the woman, and rejoice in what he has done and in what he is coming to do.

2. God clothes Adam and Eve
3. God Exiles Them
   1. Ironic if it weren't so serious "He's become like one of Us"
      1. It is God's prerogative to decide what is good and what is evil
      2. When Adam took that prerogative, he became like God in a sense
      3. Yet that way, for Adam, leads to death
      4. So he must not be allowed to take from the tree of life
   2. So he is sent out to serve the ground from which he was taken, but not in paradise, in a much harsher environment
   3. We are about to leave this place with Adam and Eve
      1. We have learned to love it, to be in awe of God's creation and of man's lofty position in it.
      2. Now we must say good-bye and go into the wilderness, but not forever.
   4. And he places and angel with a sword
      1. The sword is the symbol of God's judgment
      2. There is no way back to the tree of life except to pass by that angel and be judged
      3. We will see this angel again
      4. Jacob will wrestle with him to enter the land promised to his father Abraham
      5. Joshua will encounter him when he is about to lead the children of Israel into the Promised Land
      6. And all this is a picture of Christ
         1. Christ alone will bare his neck to that sword and take the full judgment of God
         2. Christ alone will lead his people into this promised land, this paradise, this Eden, and we shall eat of the tree of life and live forever
      7. Hear how it all ends and believe!
      8. Rev 22:1ff. - And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. 4They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. 5There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.

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