AUGUST  11, 2023 – WHERE ARE YOU?

READ: Gen. 3:7-14: Then the eyes of both of them were opened ….  Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ … I was naked … The woman whom You gave … The serpent deceived me …

As the Lord, in His grace, seeks out Adam after the fall, you can already see the further effects of sin in Adam’s response. While God shows unprecedented grace here – He could have immediately killed Adam – all honesty and openness toward God are gone from Adam. One would expect a humble, remorseful attitude from him. Instead, Adam first tries to hide from God, as if God does not see everything. Then he evades God’s question about his nakedness, and finally, he points to his wife. In this, there is even a hint of blame towards God: “It is the woman whom You gave me, she gave me of the tree to eat.”

Certainly, the woman and the serpent also share guilt. The serpent because it is the tool of Satan, and the woman because she did not know her place in relation to Adam and took leadership where she should not have done so (1 Tim. 2:14). She should have immediately contradicted and stopped the serpent when it spoke deceitfully about God’s words.

However, Adam is ultimately responsible here. The fact that he shifts the blame to his wife shows how even from his side, the marriage is affected. All harmony, faithfulness, and love are gone.

But despite these signs of corruption and misery, God initiates a new beginning in verse 9 as an expression of divine mercy! God seeks out His lost human being! He enters into a covenant of grace with the fallen human being who turned away from Him!

But this also means that God upholds His justice. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne (Ps. 97:2). This applies to His punitive righteousness and His redeeming righteousness. God will prove this by enforcing His punishment and by sending His Son to bear that punishment. In the meantime, God’s punishment will already become visible in the toil-filled lives of man and woman.

Why did not God destroy Adam and Eve?

Singing: Ps. 51:1