THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST: THE TWO ADAMS: CONTRASTED

*Genesis 3:16-24 (NIV)***

THE FALL – Part 3

16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

3:16-24 Through disobedience to the terms of his rule, man "falls," thus experiencing the loss of his "dominion" (vv.22, 23). Everything of man’s delegated realm (earth) comes under a curse as his relationship with God, the fountainhead of his power to rule, is severed (vv. 17, 18). Thus, man loses the "life" power essential to ruling in God’s kingdom (vv.19, 22). Beyond the tragedy of man’s loss, two other facts unfold. First, through his disobedience to God and submission to the Serpent’s suggestion, man’s rule has been forfeited to the Serpent. Rev.12: 9 verifies that the spirit employing the snake’s form was Satan himself. The domain originally delegated to man now falls to Satan, who becomes administrator of this now cursed realm. The serpent’s "seed" and "head" indicate a continual line (seed) of evil offspring extending Satan’s rule (head) (v.15). However, a second fact offers hope. Amid the tragedy of this sequence of events, God begins to move redemptively, and a plan for recovering man’s lost estate is promised (v.15) and set in motion with the first sacrifice (v. 21).

3:16 The woman is not directly cursed, although it is obvious she comes under God’s general curse. Rather, there will be a major marring of her appointed roles as wife and mother. Maternity will be with great suffering, a particularly disappointing consequence to OT women who saw large families as a sign of blessing. He shall rule over thee asserts the divine assignment of the husband’s servant-leader role, There is no evidence that this was ever intended as a diminishing of the woman’s person or giftedness, but rather as a redemptive role assigned the husband toward the wife as a means toward reinstating the original partnership. Note: the passage does not assert male dominance over females. It does assign husbandly responsibility for leadership in the marriage relationship. See Eph. 5:22-33.

3:17-19 Adam is also spared a direct cursing. His major mistake was in heeding the voice of his wife rather than the voice of God. As the one having the greatest responsibility, his sentence is the longest and most comprehensive. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it notes a marring of man’s fundamental role as laborer/provider work shall be with difficulties and futilities (thorns also and thistles…In the sweat of thy face). This lifelong struggle will then end in death.

3:22-24 This curse is reinforce by the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden, the place of their unique communion with the Lord God. Cherubims, wielding a zigzagging sword, sure to hit and bring death, prevented their return. The lesson is clear: there will be no communion with God without imitative.

A FINAL SUMMARY FOR YOUR STUDY

A NEW NATURE.

All are descended from Adam. Whether it be Jew or Gentile, each will have to get rid of the first Adam and be clothed with the second Adam. Then, when the consumable will have put on the enduring and everlasting, and the mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).

All-Powerful God given us a choice: First Adam or second Adam? His Word tells us, "It is appointed to man once to die and after that, the judgment."

Old Testament speaks of the resurrection. Job, when he was a dying man, said, "Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I my-self shall behold, and whom my eyes shall see." (Job 19:26-27).

The Prophet Daniel said, "there would be a resurrection, some to judgment and everlasting contempt, and some to glory and blessing" (Daniel 12:1-3).