I’ve decided to post a bunch of my papers related to theology and the Bible after submitting them for anyone who might find them helpful (I’m thinking mostly Sr. Highers). The format is a bit odd since it was enforced. This is the passage that first got me started thinking about expiation; I’m probably going to be writing more about that doctrine in the future.

Text: Genesis 3:11

Title: God’s response to our sin and shame.

Interpretive summary: Adam – having eaten from the tree from which he was forbidden to eat and hidden from God because of his nakedness – is now being questioned by God with regard to his sin and the means by which he discovered his nakedness.

Notes on this episode:

• Adam and Eve had, until eating from the tree, been naked without shame (Gen. 2:25). The discovery of their nakedness had come with the opening of their eyes upon having eaten the forbidden fruit (Gen. 3:7).
• Adam had openly stated that his reason for hiding from God was his own nakedness (Gen. 3:10), this despite the fact that he had already made a covering for himself (Gen. 3:7).
• The word Hebrew word here translated “naked” (’eyrom) is frequently used in the book of Ezekiel with a connotation of shame (Ezk. 16:7, 22, 39; 23:29). Clarke writes: “Their eyes were opened, and they saw they were naked. They saw what they never saw before, that they were stripped of their excellence; that they had lost their innocence; and that they had fallen into a state of indigence and danger.” (Adam Clarke, Commentary on Gen. 3:7)
• Since God knows all things (Prov. 15:3), the intent of His questioning is not likely information acquisition. Calvin believed that the questioning was pedagogical, intended to teach the man what he had done. “God asks, in the language of doubt, not as if he were searching into some disputable matter, but for the purpose of piercing more acutely the stupid man, who, laboring under fatal disease, is yet unconscious of his malady…” (John Calvin, Commentary on Gen. 3:11)
• God’s decision to teach Adam and Eve rather than simply enact in full the judgment which He had promised is grace. He sought them although they did not seek Him. “They began to feel their misery, but they did not seek God for a remedy.” (Geneva Translation Notes on Genesis 3:7)
• God does not refer to the tree as “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” like before (Gen. 2:17). He calls it “the tree of which I commanded you not to eat.” This makes his disobedience abundantly clear. “Sin appears most plain and most sinful in the glass of the commandment.” (Wesley, Commentary on Gen. 3:11).
• The questions and ordering thereof seem to indicate that God is telling Adam that His sin is the means by which he had discovered his nakedness.

Big Idea: God patiently disciplines.

Application: God could have punished Adam and Eve on the spot. His line of questioning helped them to understand their sin. Adam and Eve only knew that they were naked because of their sin; their nakedness had not mattered to them prior to their having sin. They had run away and hidden from God rather than going to Him for help. In His grace, God went to them rather than leaving them on their own. We can go to God even in our sin; even when we don’t go to God, He comes to us. As Christians we should run to God rather than from Him because we know that He has taken our sin and shame from us in Jesus.