Genesis 3:1-19 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
God’s Zoo Summer Worship Series Sunday, June 13, 2021 “Clever Serpent”
Last week as we began our summer worship series, we visited God’s Zoo. We visited the start of it all, the Grand Opening, the very beginning. And we heard God himself describe everything that he had made, including all of the animals: the flying animals and the water animals and the livestock and the wild animals and the creeping animals…he described all of it as very good. He created people as well, something different and greater and above the animals that he had made, and they were very good as well. But the zoo when it opened seemed very different from any zoo that we could go visit today, and the animals as they were created seem to bear little resemblance to what we see today. And, perhaps to an even greater degree, the people that God created have changed in drastic ways from the way that we find them in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. And all of those changes can be summarized this way: things are no longer very good. Things are no longer perfect. Things are no longer following the pattern that God established in the way that all creatures relate to each other and to their Creator. And that’s what today’s visit to God’s Zoo is all about. It is a key account in salvation history, a key account in all of world history. If you don’t understand this event, the world will not make sense to you. It cannot. This is the account of Genesis chapter 3. Maybe, like me, you can think of visits to the zoo where you stood in front of an enclosure and you tried really hard to figure out what exactly you were looking for. Was the animal hiding back in a den out of site? Was it so camouflaged that you just couldn’t see it? Was it out for a visit to the zookeeper or veterinarian? You nearly push your face up against the glass in order to see what unique features are in the animal there. At other times, you don’t even have to look at the sign. The giant elephant or tall giraffe is right there in the open where you can see it and study it. Today’s animal is not nearly as large as those, but he sure sticks out. He’s not hiding from our view. In fact, the very first Hebrew word of Genesis chapter 3 tells us who we are dealing with. That word means, “and the serpent” or “now the serpent.” This is the character in the account— keep in mind that this is a true story—this is the character who gets the spotlight. This is where we focus our attention. It is even unusual, different from the way that Hebrew is normally written. The most frequent way for a Hebrew sentence to start is with the verb, the action word. Not Genesis chapter 3. We turn the page on God’s creating everything very good, and all the emphasis, all the focus goes to the serpent. And this serpent is very clever. Other translations have told us that he is crafty or cunning. He is shrewd. All of these words capture at least to an extent that Hebrew adjective. And already we have to wonder whether there is something more to this serpent than being simply a serpent. We don’t expect any of the animals to be crafty or shrewd or clever. We expect them to simply do as animals do. And one thing that animals don’t do our clever serpent does: he talks. Just in case we had still been confused, this is no ordinary serpent. This is a serpent and more than a serpent. He is a serpent in whose form the devil, Satan, the enemy of God, presents himself. God doesn’t have Moses record all of those details here in Genesis, but he does share those details with us in the rest of Scripture. And what does this clever, devilish serpent do in the account before us? We’ll consider really three parts: he brings temptation, he is successful, and he is cursed. The temptation comes when the serpent approaches the woman, Eve, and starts by saying, “Has God really said.” “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The answer was no. God had given Adam and Eve many fruit-bearing trees throughout the garden from which they could eat their fill. And Eve said as much to the serpent as she answered. She rightly explained that there was only one tree that had a different command. There was one, special tree in the middle of the garden. The fruit from that tree was off limits. It came with that command, and it came with the warning that those who would disobey the command would face death.
The serpent’s clever question suggested that just maybe it didn’t matter that God had given Adam and Eve so many other trees throughout the entirety of the garden. If he was withholding something from them, he was withholding something from them. And then the serpent got less subtle. He said that the fruit of that special tree would not bring death but would bring knowledge. It would bring a knowledge of good and evil. That’s what the tree had been called. The tree would open the eyes of people and make them more like God. It was a good thing to be enjoyed, not something to be avoided. And there it was. Temptation was laid out. Adam and Eve could listen to God or they could listen to someone else. They could trust their Creator or they could give in to his enemy. They could obey the command of a gracious and loving Lord, or they could give in to the whispers of a clever serpent. That’s what temptation is for you and me, too. It doesn’t look quite the same. We don’t live in that garden surrounded by fruit trees with just the one prohibition by which we can demonstrate our loving obedience to God. But we have a God who has promised to supply our every need. He has given us commands that lovingly guide our lives in the path that will serve us best. He has promised good things when we love and obey him, and he has threatened that all sorts of evil will come from disobedience, including eternal death in hell, being separated from the love of God forever. But the devil whispers in our ears, “God didn’t really tell you the truth. He’s keeping something from you. He’s hiding something from you. His rules ruin your fun. They ruin your freedom. They ruin your self-determination. You would be better off not doing what God says, but doing what I say.” And he doesn’t come to us as a talking serpent. He comes to us as a powerful but hidden adversary who has the help and partnership of the whole sinful world around us. And just as he did in the garden, he often wins. He often succeeds in convincing people to listen to his temptations and to turn aside from God’s Word, to rebel against God. Adam and Eve saw the fruit. It looked delicious. They wondered whether God had been keeping something good from them all along. They liked the sound of becoming more like God. They ate the fruit. And they suffered the consequences. No longer were they perfectly comfortable in their nakedness. No longer were their wills perfectly aligned with God’s and with the other’s. No longer did every creature live in harmony. And death had entered into God’s previously perfect creation. Adam and Eve were separated from God in a way that they had never experienced before, and they would eventually die. And they have left a legacy of sin and death. We inherit sin from our sinful parents, just as every generation since Adam and Eve have inherited sin from theirs. Another partner of the devil, our own sinful natures, are with us from the day we are conceived until the day we leave this world. And so temptations are constant and powerful. They don’t make sense. They aren’t logical. They invite us to look at all that God has done and all that God has promised and all that God has commanded and to turn away and rebel, to listen to Satan’s voice instead. And that’s what we do. And sin dooms us to pain and suffering and death and destruction. But there is still a third aspect to the account of the clever serpent. He was cursed. Adam and Eve failed in their attempts to hide from God, just as we would have expected. There was nowhere in the garden to hide from the one who had created the garden. And when God expected an explanation, he got one excuse after another. Adam blamed the woman that God had put in the garden with him. Eve blamed the serpent that hadn’t told her the truth. And God declared curses. There would be consequences of sin. There would be pain and toil and suffering. It would be hard to grow food, and weeds would annoy. Giving birth would be painful and relationships imperfect. And a very special curse was pronounced against the clever serpent. Remember this was a serpent and more than a serpent. Serpents would suffer a dust-eating belly-crawling mode of transporting themselves. It would be a constant sign of the humiliation and judgment. Hostility would dwell between the descendants of the tempter and the descendants of the woman, and one particular and special descendant was in view. God would send a serpent-crusher to win this great battle and rescue people for God.
See how immediately God responds to the people who had rebelled against him! See how his amazing love and grace gives them a promise that will bring peace and rescue! See how God has helped helpless sinners! God has kept this promise. He sent his dear Son Jesus to do battle with Satan’s temptations. He sent his Son to defeat those temptations and to be the perfect person those first people were created to be. Yes, Jesus died on the cross. He suffered. His heel was bruised and crushed. But it was a price he was willing to pay because it crushed the head of the satanic serpent and rescued people from sin and death and hell. This is the good news. Salvation is yours, sinner. God has rescued you. He forgives every time that you have turned away from him and turned toward pleasure or power or fame or wealth or whatever else the tempter has dangled in front of your eyes, saying, “Why wouldn’t God want you to have this good thing?” And because he has forgiven your sins, God has enable you to resist. He empowers you to say no to the voice of the satanic serpent, no matter how clever it may be. He strengthens you with words of promise and with heavenly food, the body and blood of his dear Son. He enables you to honor him with your words and actions and attitudes. And he will take you to live in an eternal paradise. The account of the clever serpent is full of bad news, disappointing news, sad realities. It explains how and why a once perfect world has become the nowhere-near-perfect world we see around us today. But it is certainly not all bad news. It contains that amazing nugget, that incredible promise. It contains the Gospel, the good news that God has not abandoned the people who rebelled against him. He has rescued them and restored them. He has rescued and restored us to live for him now and to live with him forever.
The Text: Genesis 3:1–19 (EHV) 3 Now the serpent was more clever than any wild animal which the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The
woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, 3but not from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it. You shall not touch it, or else you will die.’” 4The
serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die. 5In fact, God knows that the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6When
the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was appealing to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate. She gave some also to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7The eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for their waists. 8They heard the voice of the Lord God, who was walking around in the garden during the cooler part of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9The
Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
10The
man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.”
11God
said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?” 12The
man said, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13The
Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14The
Lord God said to the serpent:
Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the livestock, and more than every wild animal. You shall crawl on your belly, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. 15I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel. 16To
the woman he said:
I will greatly increase your pain in childbearing. With painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you. 17To
Adam he said:
Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, “You shall not eat from it,” the soil is cursed on account of you. You will eat from it with painful labor all the days of your life. 18Thorns and thistles will spring up from the ground for you, but you will eat the crops of the field. 19By the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the soil, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.