“Did God Actually Say?”

A great old tree in a quiet garden with a serpent coiled along a low branch beside a single golden fruit

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food… she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” Genesis 3:6
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Genesis 3:15

Introduction: Why Does the World Feel So Wrong?

Last week we stood in a garden where everything was very good. A river ran through it, the trees were heavy with fruit, a man and a woman worked and rested with nothing to hide, and God came near. Now look up from the page at the world you actually live in. Hospitals. Funerals. Divorce papers. The news. The way you snapped at someone you love this morning. The thing you swore you would never do again and did.

Everyone knows the world is not the way it should be. We feel it in our bones. The question is why. Some say suffering is just nature, the way things have always been. Some say the problem is society, or poverty, or ignorance, and better systems will fix us. Some say there is no “wrong” at all, only what we happen to dislike. The Bible gives a different answer, and it is harder and more hopeful than any of them. The world is not the way it was made. Something happened. A good world was broken from the inside, by the very creatures God made to care for it.

Genesis 3 is one of the most important chapters ever written. If you understand it, you will understand the rest of the Bible, because the rest of the Bible is God’s answer to it. You will understand the news. And you will understand yourself, which is the hardest part. But do not miss what is hidden in the middle of the chapter. In the same breath that God pronounces judgment, he makes a promise. The darkest page in the story holds its first ray of light.

The Word: Offspring

Genesis 3:14–15 “The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’”

זֶרַע (zera‘, “offspring”)

literally “seed”; a person’s descendants, whether a whole line or one child

many

a whole line of descendants

God later promises Abraham, “I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth” (Gen. 13:16). One word for millions.

→

one

a single descendant

In 3:15 the war is between two lines, but the victory narrows to one: “he shall bruise your head.”

Payoff: The word for “offspring” can mean a whole people or a single child, and Genesis 3:15 uses it both ways in one verse. There will be two families in history, the serpent’s and the woman’s, at war with each other. But the last line focuses on one person from the woman’s line who will take a wound to the heel and give a crushing blow to the head. Jewish translators who put the Old Testament into Greek, centuries before Jesus, used a masculine “he” here even though their word for “seed” was not masculine. They read it as a person. Paul uses the same kind of reasoning about God’s promise to Abraham: “It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). Christians have called Genesis 3:15 the “first gospel.” “Gospel” means “good news,” and this is the first good news announced after the fall. The rest of the Bible traces this line of offspring, generation by generation, looking for the one who would crush the serpent’s head.

Part One: “Did God Actually Say?”

Genesis 3:1–5 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden”?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”’ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”

Who is this serpent? Genesis does not say, but the last book of the Bible does: “that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).

Was it a snake, or something else? Genesis calls it one of the “beast[s] of the field that the LORD God had made” (3:1), and the curse in 3:14 falls on an animal. For most of church history, from Augustine to Calvin, and in Reformed teachers since, such as Geerhardus Vos and Herman Bavinck, Christians have read it this way: Satan, a fallen angel, spoke through a real creature. Calvin called the serpent “the mouth of the devil.” Notice what that means. Satan did not come into the garden as a monster. He came hidden inside something Eve knew, something God had made and called good. He still works that way. Paul warns that “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). Evil rarely comes looking evil. The tempter in Eden did not frighten Eve. He fascinated her.

And notice that he never once says, “Disobey God.” He is too clever for that. Watch how he works, because he still works the same way.

First, he questions God’s word. “Did God actually say…?” He opens with a question, not an argument. He gets the woman thinking about God’s command instead of simply trusting it. And he twists it: “You shall not eat of any tree.” God had said the opposite. Every tree but one was a gift. The serpent turns a generous Father into a stingy one.

Second, he denies God’s warning. “You will not surely die.” This is the first lie in the Bible, and it is still the most popular one. There are no real consequences. God does not mean what he says. You can do this and be fine.

Third, he slanders God’s heart. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.” In other words: God is holding out on you. He is keeping something good from you because he does not want you to be his equal. The serpent was aiming past the fruit at the woman’s trust in God’s goodness.

Look at the woman’s answer, too. She adds to God’s word (“neither shall you touch it”) and softens his warning (“lest you die” instead of “you shall surely die”). She is already beginning to see God as harsher than he is and his warning as weaker than it is. That is how temptation still works. Before the hand reaches, the heart doubts whether God is good and whether he means what he says.

Part Two: Their Eyes Were Opened

Genesis 3:6–7 “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.”

It happens in one sentence. She saw, she desired, she took, she ate, she gave. And Adam was “with her” (3:6). Nothing suggests he was anywhere else while the serpent talked. He had heard God’s command directly (Gen. 2:16–17), before the woman was even made, and he said nothing and then ate. The Shorter Catechism names their sin simply: “The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created was their eating the forbidden fruit” (WSC 15). It may look small, but it was the creature deciding to be the judge of good and evil instead of trusting the Creator’s word. Every sin since has the same root.

The serpent had promised, “your eyes will be opened.” And they were. But what they saw was not glory. They saw their own nakedness, and for the first time they were ashamed. Last week’s chapter, Genesis 2, ended with “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (2:25). Now they rush to cover themselves. Shame entered the world in a moment, and it has never left. Every one of us knows the instinct: to hide, to cover, to make sure no one sees what we really are.

Genesis 3:8–9 “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’”

Before, the sound of God coming near was the best sound in the garden. Now it is terrifying. They hide among the very trees God gave them. And then comes one of the most tender sentences in the Bible. God, who knew exactly where they were, came looking: “Where are you?” The question was a summons out of hiding. Before God asked what they had done, he asked where they were.

Then the blame begins. Adam: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (3:12). He blames his wife, and in the same breath he blames God for giving her to him. Eve: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (3:13). Neither one says, “I did it. I am sorry.” A few minutes into the fall, the man who spoke the first love poem in Genesis 2 is pointing at his wife. That is what sin does to love.

The Turn: Where Are You?

Adam and Eve did what people have done ever since. They sinned, felt the shame of it, and tried to cover it themselves with fig leaves. Then they hid among the trees. Then God came looking: “But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen. 3:9).

It was not a question for information. God knew. It was the call of a Father to a child who had run. Thousands of years later, Jesus explained why he had come: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). The God who walked into the garden looking for Adam came into the world looking for you. Your fig leaves will not cover you, and hiding has never worked. Come out and answer him honestly. He is calling you so that he can cover you himself.

Living It: Three Practices for This Week

1Read Genesis 3 twice. Once straight through. Then a second time, marking every question in the chapter: who asks it, and why.

2Name your fig leaves. Write down one or two ways you try to cover your sin or shame instead of confessing it. Then bring them to God in prayer.

3Watch for the three moves. When you are tempted this week, ask: Am I doubting God’s word? Denying the consequences? Suspecting God of holding out on me?

Before Week 8: Read Genesis 3:14–24 and Romans 5:12–21. Week 8 hears God’s judgment, and the first promise of a Rescuer.

For Discussion

What explanations for “why the world feels wrong” have you heard? How does Genesis 3 answer the question differently?
The serpent questioned God’s word, denied his warning, and slandered his heart. Which of those three do you find most tempting? Why?
Why do you think God’s first words after the fall were a question, “Where are you?” What does that tell you about him?

Sources & For Further Study

Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647), Q. 13–20. Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapter 6, “Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof.”
On the serpent: John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, on 3:1; Augustine, City of God 14.11; Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology; Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics 3:33–36; Reformation Study Bible, note on Genesis 3:1.
For further reading: Derek Kidner, Genesis (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries); Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin; John Murray, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin.

Next, Week 8: The Curse and the Promise · All weeks

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