Creation Falls - Genesis 3

Genesis 3

He did it!  She did it!  That wily snake did it!  Really God, you did it!
Adam goes from praising Eve as being “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” who also shares in the image of God, to then also treating her as a science experiment to see if she does die after eating the forbidden fruit.  And then worse, Adam throws her under the bus.

Genesis 3 is the rebellion of man.  Not content on God’s way and Word, mankind forges a new path from the temptation of the serpent.  Everything is ruined.  The relation between God and man, ruined. Things between mankind destroyed.  The peace that creation experienced, is now at shreds.  Hopelessly ruined. The serpent presented what appeared to be a better option, but it was a dead end.
 
Adam forsook his role as head and it is on his shoulders for the failure. Eve forsook her role as the helper and usurped Adam.  The serpent, another created being, became the object of faith and trust rather than the Triune Creator.  Everything is out of order, and chaos has entered into the created order.  Creation is being undone.  

As all this is unfolding, God comes to visit.  The very sound of God’s arrival, though, scares them all.  They know what is coming: judgment.  Death.
And just like any parent wanting their children to come forward they hear back from God: “Where are you?”

And upon finding out what has happened and how his beautiful creation has been upended, God does what you would also do if something you loved and made was destroyed or broken: he curses.  God curses the earth, the man, the woman, and especially that rebellious serpent and a future descendant.  When God spoke blessing, it was created.  So when God speaks curse, it too happens.
But amid the curse, there is also a beautiful promise that is given to us all.  A piece of hope is rekindled from the ashes of God’s good world that speak of a restoration.  God tells the serpent that the future child of the woman will smash the serpent’s head.

This first Gospel promise concerning Jesus Christ causes Adam in faith to turn again to his wife and call her Eve.  Her name means that she is the Mother of all the living.  Because in Jesus Christ, all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve live.