Thursday, April 1
We tend to believe people we know and instinctively distrust those whom we do not. Eve naturally would have distrusted Satan. Furthermore, any direct attack against God would have made her defensive. What steps, then, did Satan take to bypass Eve’s natural defenses? (Genesis 3:1-6).
“Deplorable as was Eve’s transgression and fraught as it was with potential woe for the human family, her choice did not necessarily involve the race in the penalty for her transgression. It was the deliberate choice of Adam, in the full understanding of an express command of God — rather than hers — that made sin and death the inevitable lot of mankind. Eve was deceived; Adam was not.” The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 1, p. 231.
As a result of this blatant transgression and disregard to God’s command, the relationship between God and humankind is now broken. It changed from open fellowship with God to fleeing in fear from His presence (Genesis 3:8-10). Alienation and separation replace fellowship and communion. Sin appeared, and all its ugly results followed. Unless something was done, humanity was heading for eternal ruin.
In the midst of this tragedy, what words of hope and promise did God speak? (See Genesis 3:15.)
God’s surprising word of prophetic hope speaks of a divinely ordained hostility between the serpent and the woman, between her Offspring and his offspring. This climaxes in the victorious appearance of a representative Offspring of the woman’s seed who delivers a deadly blow to the head of Satan, while he would only be able to bruise the Messiah’s heel.
In their utter helplessness, Adam and Eve were to gain hope from this Messianic promise, hope that would transform their existence, because this hope was God-given and God-supported. This promise of the Messiah and of final victory, however vaguely stated at that time, lifted the gloom into which sinning had placed them.
Read Genesis 3:9, where God says to Adam and Eve “Where art thou?”. God, of course, knew where they were. His words, instead of being filled with condemnation, were to draw guilt-ridden humankind back to Him. In short, God’s first words to fallen humanity came with the hope of His grace and mercy. In what ways do we find, even now, God seeking to call us to His mercy and grace?
