In the judgment narrative of Gen 3:14-19, God dismisses the serpent first, without questioning. The serpent is amoral and has no part in the trial. Its silence here reinforces the notion that it was primarily a representation of Eve’s thinking. However, the judgment on the serpent, that Eve’s seed would crush its head, gives the first clue to Adam and Eve, even before God speaks to them directly, that they will not die on this day. They will live to produce at least the offspring to fulfill the prophecy. So Adam and Eve cling to the hope that they will have at least one succeeding generation, awaiting what God will say to them. God first speaks to Eve, then Adam, and finally adds a summary declaration addressing the situation that their misbehavior has caused.
Their continued life implies the abrogation of “in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.” As obvious as it is to us, I don’t think it was at all obvious to Adam and Eve that they wouldn’t die that day, until God spoke to the serpent concerning their respective seeds. How do we then read 3:16-19? Are these particulars some kind of substitute for, or application, of the death sentence of 2:17? Are they some kind of gradual death? God does say to Adam that he will return to the dust. Do these travails constitute a carrying out of the death sentence?
By no means. Instead, there’s an important frame shift: the details of God’s proclamations to Eve and then to Adam are consequences, not punishment. They do not in any way fulfill God’s stated punishment for their transgression; that would have been death. They live, but they live with consequences.
When God gave Adam and Eve the opportunity, they confessed, and God accepted their confession. Now add the idea of consequences. Even though God forgave them, transgression inevitably brings consequences. The details of Eve and Adam’s ensuing lives do not answer to the sentence of death stated in 2:17. If that were so, their confession availed nothing. That is, if 3:16-19 is an expansion or fulfillment of 2:17, then Adam and Eve’s confession meant nothing to God, for he meted out the same sentence anyway.
God pardons the sinners; as far as east is from west He puts away the iniquity of their sin. I find it beyond any argument that the initial episode of human transgression would lack the accompanying grace of God, and this must in turn be occasioned by a true repentance. Nonetheless, the consequences of their sin abide.
The concept of consequences
Suppose a husband commits the sin of adultery by having an affair. He has done something monstrously evil. He can repent, and his wife can forgive him. This will begin to heal the breach, but the trust between them has been shattered. Un trust worthy behavior destroys trust; this is a natural consequence of extra-marital affairs, and a major issue in the restoration of the marital bond.1
Another example of having to live with the consequences of sin would be someone who abuses their body. If you are a drug user, you can repent, go clean, and pray for forgiveness. God will forgive you. However, you may have done permanent harm to your mental and physical health.
Biblical examples
The Bible has many examples of people who sinned, who were forgiven, and who nonetheless had to deal with the consequences of their misdeeds. The Apostle Paul recognized his forgiveness in Christ from his evil ways as a Pharisee and persecutor (Acts 22:19-20, 26: 9-11, 1 Tim 1:13-14). Nonetheless, he seems to have carried an emotional burden of his past deeds (note present tense “am” used with “sinner” in 1 Tim 1:15). The Samaritan woman (John 4) whom Jesus met and spoke with at Jacob’s well believed in his testimony (John 4:39-42), but she still had a complex and unsavory past, with multiple marriages. She had to live with whatever webs she had become entangled in. And what of the men at the cross for whom Jesus appealed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34)? If any of the people directly or indirectly responsible for the crucifixion later came to believe in Jesus, certainly they would obtain forgiveness, but would still live with a heavy conscience for what they had done to the Son of God.
The most extensive and instructive Bible case of consequences comes in the life of David. After Nathan the prophet rebuked him for his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah her husband, Nathan announced (2 Sam 12:10-12) to the rueful king that the sword would not depart from his house, that evil would rise against him from his own house, and that the child born to Bathsheba would “surely die” (same construction as in Gen 2:17).
David confessed, and God forgave him, but this did not cancel the prophecies of evil. David’s sin carried the natural consequences of family strife. He had blown apart Uriah’s family, and now, with Bathsheba added to his family, the inevitable strife ensued among his offspring. Besides Bathsheba’s infant who died, Amnon, Adonijah, and Absalom all were involved in family strife and also met untimely deaths. Bathsheba still bore the designation “Uriah’s wife” (2Sam 12:15) until after the child died and David completed his ceremonial and heartfelt repentance; then “David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her, and lay with her; and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon” (2Sam 12:24 RSV). God accorded David the privilege of having Bathsheba as his wife and the two of them bore Solomon, but the consequences of his sins, notably the rivalry between Solomon and Adonijah, and between Absalom and Amnon, plagued the house of David all the rest of his years.
God forgives, but we must live with the consequences of our choices. God’s abiding purpose with eve and adam
How do the particulars of verses 16-19 constitute consequences if they are not punishment? To get a satisfactory answer we need to ask another question: “What was God’s purpose with Adam and Eve?” The key idea here is that God’s purpose for Adam and Eve remained the same after they transgressed.
What did God intend for them when He created them male and female and placed them in the garden to till it and keep it? God wanted them to have a relationship with Him based on their understanding of who they were and who He was. From this they will learn faith, trust, appreciation, and love. Their sin doesn’t divert God from this goal. In view of the fact they did think equality with God was a thing to be grasped,2God will now work differently with them. Instead of working primarily through the avenue of blessing to develop appreciation and love for him, God will now figuratively transport them from Gerizim to Ebal (Deut 11:29), and work primarily through hardship to inculcate their dependence on him. The details of verses 16-19 show that much of their new form of life carries over from Eden, but in very different circumstances.
God’s purpose with Eve and Adam is the same purpose he has with us: to make disciples, to grow our faith and love, to teach us his absolute sovereignty that we might find our lives in him. We live in the post-Edenic world and have never experienced paradise. God uses both goodness and hardship to develop us.
Similarly, Adam and Eve need development. As a consequence of their disobedience they will not learn these attributes within the blessed confines of Eden. Their transgression doesn’t change God’s purpose for their lives, but it does change His method of achieving that end. As sinners potentially estranged from fellowship with their creator, they will find their way back through His grace in forgiveness and through the toil of life that will teach them the lesson they failed to learn, their limitations as human beings.
There can be no surer way to make them realize their limits than for God to introduce them to the world of woe.
- In real life, there is no such person as an “innocent party”; marriage problems are systemic and healing goes in both directions. This is just a simplified example.
- As opposed to the Lord Jesus, who “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped” (Phil 2:6 RSV). This section of Philippians has several other allusions to early Genesis. The idea of equality reinforces the notion that equality was knowledge of situational good and evil, because they were supposed to be Godlike in their moral knowledge.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One