Friday, January 3rd | Genesis 3

About this Episode

Passage:
1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’? ”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”

4 “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you? ”

10 And he said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? ”

12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me ​— ​she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done? ”

And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent:

Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than any livestock
and more than any wild animal.
You will move on your belly
and eat dust all the days of your life.
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.
16 He said to the woman:

I will intensify your labor pains;
you will bear children with painful effort.
Your desire will be for your husband,
yet he will rule over you.
17 And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’:

The ground is cursed because of you.
You will eat from it by means of painful labor
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 You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow
until you return to the ground,
since you were taken from it.
For you are dust,
and you will return to dust.”
20 The man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.

22 The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.
-- Genesis 3:1-24 (CSB)

Song:
Grace Greater Than Our Sin by Bart Millard, Brown Bannister, Julia Harriette Johnston

Lyrics:
Marvellous grace of our loving Lord
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt
Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured
There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt

Grace grace God's grace
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within
Grace grace God's grace
Grace that is greater than all our sin

Sin and despair like the sea waves cold
Threaten the soul with infinite loss
Grace that is greater yes grace untold
Points to the refuge the mighty Cross

Dark is the stain that we cannot hide
What can avail to wash it away
Look there is flowing a crimson tide
Whiter than snow you may be today

Marvellous infinite matchless grace
Freely bestowed on all who believe
You that are longing to see His face
Will you this moment His grace receive

Prayer:
Kindness flows from you, Lord, pure and continual. You had
cast us off, as was only just, but mercifully you forgave us;
you hated us and you were reconciled to us, you cursed us
and you blessed us; you banished us from paradise, and you
called us back again; you took from us the fig leaves that had
made us so unseemly a garment, and you put on us a cloak
of great value; you opened the prison gates and gave the
condemned a pardon; you sprinkled us with clean water and
washed away the dirt.

Never again, after all this, will Adam blush when you
call him, never will he try to hide because his conscience
reproaches him, never will he seek concealment under the
trees in the garden. The flaming sword will nevermore whirl
about the walls of paradise and cut off the entrance from
those who approach it.

For us that were heirs to his sin, all has been changed to
rejoicing; for man now has access to paradise and even to
heaven itself. The whole creation, heaven and earth, is at
one again in friendship, its former differences forgotten;
men join their voices with the angels and echo the angels’
praise of God. . . .

There is no doubt who it is that dresses the bride in her
finery: it is, of course, Christ—he that is and was and will be.
Blessed is he, now and throughout the ages. Amen.
-Gregory of Nyssa