The Perished Kingdom Series

Well that’s what it’s like here. They realise they’re naked and hastily sew fig leaves together to cover themselves up.

Here we see the first evidence of the relationships breaking down. There’s more to come, but right from the start they feel the need to hide from each other, to cover up their bodies. The relationship of mutual love and comfort is compromised.

Similarly as God comes walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, what do they do? They hide themselves among the trees. They’re afraid to face God, even though he’s always been their friend, even though he’s given them everything they could desire. But their disobedience has broken that relationship as well.

As God begins to question them you see the breakdown of relationships in full view. The man blames the woman, but at the same time puts some of the blame back onto God. She’s the woman God gave him. Everything would have been OK if God hadn’t provided this woman as a helper for him. "Big help she’s been!" And the woman in her turn blames the serpent.

We’re very good at deflecting blame aren’t we? I find it’s a very rare occurrence that I do anything that I’m completely responsible for. I can usually find someone else to pass the blame on to and I’m usually pretty sure I’m right! So here, the woman blames the serpent and the serpent, of course, hasn’t got a leg to stand on!

So God proclaims a curse on the serpent, From now on he’ll be cursed among all wild animals, he’ll crawl on his stomach, etc. But most importantly, there’ll be enmity between him and the woman and their descendants from that day on. Now he’s not just talking about the way people fear snakes. What this is really about is the enmity between Satan and humanity and especially one particular human being. When God says "he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel", it’s a prefiguring of the cross, where Satan does his best to kill off Jesus, but Jesus rises victorious and in the process takes away Satan’s power forever.

God then turns to the woman and pronounces the curse that she will bear from now on: "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." The result of her rebellion is that the relationship between her and her husband is broken down. From now on they’ll be fighting for supremacy in their relationship, instead of working together as complementary sides of an equal partnership. And her relationship with creation is broken down within her own body. Even the natural process of childbirth will now be a source of pain.

To the man God says "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ’You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Here we see the full force of the breakdown in their relationship with the earth. The man is still there to till the ground, but now it’ll be hard work and the land won’t be as easy to control as it was. In fact the opposite. It’s almost as if the earth is now set on making it as hard as possible for the man, bringing forth thorns and thistles. And only by hard work and sweat will the man be able to feed himself and his family, until the day when God’s warning comes true, when they return to the ground from whence they were taken. Suddenly being made from dust takes on a whole new meaning. Previously it simply implied that we were an integral part of creation, but now it reminds us of the transitory nature of our existence. "You are dust, and to dust you shall return."