Gen 3:1–7 — The Breaking of the Covenant

This passage narrates a critical moment. It is the moment in which the covenant that God made with Adam and Eve in the garden is now broken. Everything was great up until this point. Genesis 1 and 2 presents this beautiful picture of this glorious world that God made. It has two parts, the heavens, the invisible realm where God dwells with his angels, and the earth which God has given to man. God also assigned man this task since he is made in the image of God, this royal priestly task of subduing the earth and filling it with image bearers. There is a glorious purpose here. God is creating the world to be the theater of his glory. He made this universe for himself, for his glory, for God to dwell with his people.

Everything seems like it is poised to enter into this glorious future that God had in store for man, a future that was hinted at by the offer of the tree of life, that one day they would be able to eat of the tree of life and live forever. A future that was hinted at by this promise that just as God worked for six days and rested on the seventh, so too man would work and do his work of cultivating and subduing and doing that cultural mandate that God assigned to him.

But it would not just be forever as a perpetual labor, but that he too would one day enter into God’s Sabbath rest and the whole world would be glorified and there would be a mighty human race that comes from Adam and Eve filling this world with image bearers so that the whole universe, the whole cosmos, the heaven and the earth would become a cosmic temple for God to be glorified and to commune with his people forever and ever.

Everything seems wonderful, everything seems poised to enter into that glorious future. But as soon as we turn over into chapter 3, we find that everything, at least seemingly, comes crashing down. This is the moment of the breaking of the covenant. The covenant was revealed in chapter two and verses 16 to 17, the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

Even though the word covenant is not used there, all of the elements of a covenant are present. You have a commandment, and you have the sanctions that are attached to that commandment. If they obey, they will eat of the tree of life. If they disobey, they will surely die. Behold, I set before you today, just like Moses did on the plains of Moab with Israel. Behold, I set before you today, life and death, blessing and cursing, choose life.

The covenant that God made with Adam and Eve in the garden has been established, and it is clear. But now in chapter three, Satan himself, using the serpent as his instrument, enters into this holy garden, this holy garden of the Lord, and he has this sinful, demonic incursion into the very temple of God. In order to what? In order to thwart God’s glorious purpose for creation.

Of course we know that he cannot ultimately do that, but that is what he is trying to do in his own mind. So we must begin by looking at this statement here at the very beginning of our text. It is a little bit startling, it is a little bit unexpected, the very first verse. Now the serpent, was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

The Incursion of Satan into the Holy Garden

What is this serpent? Well, clearly it is a real creature. It is described as one of the beasts of the field that the Lord God had made back in chapter one when it talks about the various animals and creatures that God created to dwell upon the earth. So clearly this serpent was a real creature However, this creature is not simply a creature. This creature is Satan’s instrument. A real creature through which Satan himself is operating.

How do we know that is the case? How do we know that Satan himself is behind this serpent? That there is more to it than just simply some physical creature out there in the creation, but that there is something demonic, something spiritual that is happening through this serpent. Well, we know this from the New Testament because the New Testament alludes back to this passage and identifies the serpent as the devil.

For example, in John chapter eight, when Jesus is having his argument with the Pharisees, he says to them, because they are not listening to him, not listening to his claims, and they are rejecting his claims to be the Son of God, he says to them, to the Jews, you are of your father, the devil. They are the devil’s offspring. Where do we get this idea of the devil’s offspring? Well, it comes from Genesis 3, verse 15. The glorious promise of the gospel speaks about this conflict that is going to ensue throughout history between these two offspring, the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent. The children of the devil.

And so Jesus here, by saying to the Pharisees, you are of your father, the devil. He is alluding to this passage here in Genesis chapter three, and saying, you are part of that other group. There is two groups here in humanity. There is those that are the offspring of the woman, that are God’s people, that are saved, that believe in the Messiah, but then there are those over here who are of the offspring of the serpent and who do not believe.

Jesus goes on to say, he says, you are of your father, the devil, and then he says, he is a liar and the father of lies. Again, he is alluding to the fact that here in our text, the serpent, who is really just the mouthpiece of the devil, is a liar and a deceiver. He is directly flat out contradicts God’s word and says to the woman, no, it is not true. You will not surely die. He is a liar and the father of lies.

There is another passage in the New Testament as well that is also very clear, and that is in Revelation chapter 12, Revelation 12 verse nine. It says that the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. That ancient serpent. In other words, John, the author of the book of Revelation is saying, you know the serpent. The one back at the very beginning of your Bibles, all the way back in Genesis 3? That ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan. And so we clearly have the teaching of the New Testament to help us to understand what is going on here in our text.

This may seem a little bit bizarre, maybe a little bit, very supernatural. It is like we are like getting into the realm of things like, weird stuff. Like phenomena and UFOs or things like that. But this is what the Bible is saying. The Bible is talking about this real reality.

We can think of it this way. When you look in the Gospels, right, when Jesus is going around and casting out demons, we see the demonic realm using human beings and possessing them, and even speaking through them. Remember, sometimes Jesus would go to a man who is possessed by a demon, and the demon would speak through the man, using the man’s literal vocal cords, and say, we know who you are, you are the Son of God. Have you come here to cast us into hell before the time? That was not the man himself speaking, that was the demonic speaking through him. And so we see the same thing here in our text. The serpent was a real creature, but it was a creature that Satan was using as his instrument in order to enter into this sacred garden, this sacred temple of God’s dwelling with his people, and to enter into that realm, to have an incursion upon it in order to thwart, or at least in his mind, to thwart God’s purpose.

Now we know that God is totally sovereign. God knows everything, even before the foundation of the world. So it is not as though God created the world and man, and then he is suddenly surprised that all of this happens. In fact, I believe that Satan’s entry into the garden was not only permitted by God, but planned. God intended this to happen. In fact, this was part of the test.

Now the test itself does not explicitly mention this. So go back to Genesis 2, you may surely eat of every tree. Of the garden, but of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil. You shall not eat, for the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” It does not explicitly mention there, and a serpent is going to come in and he is going to tempt you, but you must resist him. And if you resist him, then you will have passed the test. It does not explicitly say that, but is it not implied from the very use of the word evil? In Genesis 2:17, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. What is evil? Evil is rebellion against God. And where does rebellion against God originate from? It originates from Satan’s primal rebellion against God. Satan was originally created as a glorious angel of light. Ezekiel 28 talks about this beautiful cherub who is in the throne of God, or at least around the throne of God and honoring God, but he fell and became this deceiver.

Satan’s entry then, through the serpent, was a supernatural incursion not only permitted by God, but planned by God, and was indeed part of the test that God had prepared for Adam to encounter. There is going to be a test where you are going to be confronted with good versus evil. And you must pass that test in order to eat of the tree of life. Once we see that, once we see that not only was it planned by God, but it was actually part of the test itself, that helps us to understand the nature of this covenant. This covenant with Adam in the garden, it is called the covenant of works, is a covenant that is saying you have a test that you need to pass in order to achieve the outcome of life. It was not just simply that Adam was supposed to indefinitely never eat of the tree. Because then he would never have a chance to be able to pass the test and eat of the tree of life. There has to be a moment in which he can pass the test. And so that is why God planned from the beginning that Satan would come and test him.

What was Satan’s objective? His objective was to disrupt God’s glorious kingdom plan for creation that we have already seen in the first two chapters. This awesome cosmic temple that God wants to build through Adam and through the being fruitful and multiply and filling the earth with image bearers of God. Satan wants to disrupt that plan. And his thinking is that he can do so by inducing man to break the covenant. And if he does that, if he succeeds in getting man to break the covenant, then he is going to force God’s hand because now God is going to have to execute the curse of the covenant upon him. And so in a way Satan is very twisted, is he not? He is almost like saying he is going to use God’s own covenant against him. If he can get the covenant servant to break the covenant and to transgress the word of the covenant Lord, then the covenant Lord will have no choice but to cast him into hell and to execute the curse upon mankind. And so Satan thinks, ah, perfect then. I will get God himself to end the plan. I will get God himself to bring this whole thing down to a ruin and a rubble. And God himself will be forced because of his own justice to end his own purpose for creation.

Of course, we know that God was smarter than the serpent. God knew from the end from the beginning, and he knew that he would not, in fact, cause his purpose to be thwarted, and he would fulfill it through Christ, the second Adam. As we see in our text in verse 15, the offspring of the woman to come who will crush the serpent’s head. And he will bring down God’s judgment upon the serpent, and thereby bring about his plan of salvation.

The Temptation and Fall

Now as we continue in our text, we look into more detail about what happened here in the actual temptation and fall. Verse 1b says, he said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? There are three things to see here about the actual moment of the temptation and sin of Adam and Eve. Satan’s approach, Satan’s strategy, and Satan’s lie.

The Approach of Satan

First, Satan’s approach. He targeted Eve in order to subvert the divine authority structure that God had put in place back in chapter two. We looked at this last week, that God had ordained that the woman would be man’s helper. And that the man is to be the head of the covenant family. Satan’s approach was not to go directly to Adam, his approach was to go to Eve, thereby subverting the divine authority structure that God had put in place for the relationship between man and woman at creation.

Paul himself refers to this in his letters. For example, in 1 Timothy 2, he says, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. So Paul in 1st Timothy 2, and he also says the same thing in 2nd Corinthians 11, verse three, another parallel passage, where he is commenting again on this passage here. He is commenting on Genesis 3 specifically, and he is saying that Adam was not the one who was deceived. Does not mean he did not sin, but he was not deceived. Rather, it was the woman who was deceived. And then she gave the fruit to the man and he willfully transgressed the covenant.

So the first thing we see here is that Satan is trying to subvert the order and the authority structure that God has set in place at creation. We saw that in chapter two. He set in place this divine authority structure that the man is the head and the woman is the helper to the man. And she is to submit to him and to submit to his authority and to listen to what he has to say. In fact, what is interesting about our text is that when Satan comes to the woman and says, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? The woman responds relatively accurately. Now she does add in there that God says you cannot touch the tree, which God did not add that particular statement. But she does demonstrate that she has been catechized by Adam, because she knows the content of the covenant of works. Remember, the covenant of works, as it was revealed in our text, was revealed before the creation of the woman, back in verses 16 and 17 of chapter 2. Then in verses 18 and following, the woman is brought to the man.

When did Eve, of course her name at this time is not yet Eve, she is called that after the fall, but her name is the woman at this point. When did the woman learn about the content of this command, that you shall not eat of this tree? Clearly Adam had to communicate that to her. And he did. And it seems as though she had a pretty good understanding and grasp of what the basic terms of this covenant were. Even though she did add a little statement there beyond God’s own words when she said, neither shall you touch it. But overall, she had the basic content of this doctrine revealed to her through Adam.

And so, it is significant then that Satan, when he is beginning his approach, he does not go right to Adam. He begins by targeting Eve because he is trying to overturn the structure of creation that God had put in place. This is a very significant thing because it shows that he is fundamentally attacking God’s authority as the creator and the one whose word defines reality. God’s word defines all of reality, not just defines the meaning of these trees, not just defines the significance of Adam and Eve as made in the image of God. God’s word defines marriage. God’s word defines the proper hierarchy that should exist within marriage. Of the man being the head and the authority and the woman being the helper and submitting to the man. And so Satan is fundamentally opposed to God’s authority. And by attacking this human authority that God has put in place, he is also attacking God’s authority as the one who has the authority to structure creation and to define the proper order of man and woman.

The Strategy of Satan

So that is Satan’s approach. Satan’s strategy then is to put God in the dock. That is to put God on trial and to question God’s word. Did God really say? That is the very first thing out of his mouth. Did God really say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? He is already raising doubts. He is already raising doubts about God’s word. That is the main thing that he is attacking. He is eroding confidence in the authority of God as the creator, as the architect of creation, as the one who has set in place all of these structures within creation, who defines who man is in his relation to God, who defines the meaning of these trees, and which ones you can eat and which ones you cannot. He is eroding confidence in God’s authority as God himself, as the creator, as the covenant Lord.

Notice also that he, this is still under Satan’s strategy, notice also that he highlights the negative. He highlights the negative prohibition. Did God really say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? There were not only negative prohibitions for Adam, there were also positive commands. Adam is to love God, Adam is made in the image of God, and so he is to imitate God, Adam is to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Adam has all these positive duties as this royal priest that God has ordained to govern creation and to cultivate it and to bring about this glorious temple project that God has in view. And he does not mention any of that. Satan just completely ignores this grand calling and vocation that God has given to Adam and Eve as the helper of Adam. And he just simply focuses only on this one thing. Why would God make this seemingly irrational requirement that you cannot eat of this one tree? He focuses on the negative to divert attention from the positive duties.

Let me just give you an illustration of that today. We could easily focus on the negative form of the Ten Commandments. Like, for example, the Seventh Commandment, you shall not commit adultery. And just think about that, and just think, why does God forbid that? Why does God forbid us from committing adultery? From this one thing. What is so significant about that?

But if we only focus our thoughts on the negative prohibition, we lose thought, we lose track of the positive idea behind it, which is that God wants us to uphold the sacredness of marriage. God wants us to view marriage as this sacred one flesh union of a man and a woman. And it is this beautiful, glorious, sacred, holy thing. And so that is why God is prohibiting adultery or any form of unchastity. Because he wants us to have a positive sense of our calling as image bearers of God who are seeking to fulfill God’s purpose for humanity.

By focusing only on the negative then, Satan is calling into question whether God really has Adam and Eve’s best interests at heart. He just does not want you to enjoy this fruit, this fruit that is actually good for you. It will make you wise, it will make you like God. And so he is focusing only on the negative in order to create in the heart of Adam and Eve this doubt, this question. Yeah, why does this God have this crazy command that I cannot eat of that tree?

Well, the reason he has that command is because it is part of this bigger picture of the positive calling that God has for Adam and Eve as the image bearers of God, as the royal king and priest that governs creation, that brings about God’s glorious kingdom plan to make the universe a theater for God’s glory. That is why. It is God’s purpose to glorify himself through creation.

The Lie of Satan

So that is Satan’s strategy, to question God’s word and to impugn his goodness. But then we have Satan’s lie. He not only questions God’s word, he not only questions God’s goodness, he then boldly makes a flat out absolute lie. What does he say? After the woman said, God said, you shall not eat of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. The serpent then said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows, this is verse five now, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Satan now comes out with an absolute lie. First questioning God’s authority, but then now boldly, with his deception, putting out this lie that if they eat, they would become like God. This is the fundamental lie of the devil. It is a philosophy that permeates human history, apart from God’s people, apart from the offspring of the woman, which begins with the first believers, after, in Genesis 4, after Abel is killed, you have Seth, and you have the godly line of believers that continue all the way down to Noah, then to Abraham, and the people of God. And then ultimately into the new covenant in the church.

Apart from the covenant community of the people of God that believe in God and believe in his word, this is the lie that all of humanity, apart from God’s grace, all of humanity has believed this lie that they could be like God. It is the fundamental philosophy of fallen mankind apart from God. Later on in Genesis, we will see this when after the flood, they try to build a mountain that reaches to heaven itself. They are trying to become like God. They are trying to assert their authority, their autonomy, their ability to rule themselves and to define reality for themselves rather than listening to God.

The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 1 says, the fundamental problem with man, apart from grace, is worshiping and serving the creature rather than the creator. Saying that we can become like God. All of the false religions of the world, even ancient paganism with its polytheism, all the religions of the world are this. They are flowing out of this fundamental lie of Satan here, that there is no God over us that we must submit to whose word defines reality. We are God. We can define reality for ourselves.

It is a denial of the distinction between the creator and the creature, and it is worshiping the creature, in fact, worshiping ourselves, ultimately, as if we are God. I am sure you have heard of people today, there are many like this today, who say they are not religious, they do not go to any church, or they do not follow any particular religion, but they are spiritual. They are spiritual, but not religious. In saying that, they are saying that they are pagans. They are saying that they identify with this false religion that Satan first instigated here in the garden. They are saying that they are spiritual. They are saying that we are all divine in some way. We all have a spark of deity within us. And we are all a part of this glorious spiritual divine reality that is in the created world around us.

Of course, they do not call it created, because they do not believe in the creation, but what we would say is the creative world around us. They are spiritual but not religious. That is what leads to all kinds of pagan practices. That is what leads to worshipping the various parts of creation. Worshipping the sun, or worshipping the storm, which becomes like a storm god. Or worshipping all of the different spirits that supposedly live and inhabit this world. It leads to the attempt to engage in magic or witchcraft. That is to try to have power over creation by tapping into the spiritual reality that is in creation, that is in the world.

It is ultimately pantheism. Pantheism is the belief that there is no distinction between the creator and the creature. There is no distinction between this creation that is made by God and is under God’s authority and must submit to God. It is just the belief that we are all God. And so we are able to define reality for ourselves. We can use all kinds of rituals and magic and spiritual practices to try to tap into that spiritual experience within the world that is ultimately within our own hearts. It is self-deification is what it is. That is Satan’s lie. And that lie has been permeating humanity since the very beginning. And it is the lie that we must resist by God’s grace and that we by God’s grace have begun to see through. Because God has opened our eyes to see that is a lie and that there is a creator who defines reality and that we are not God. We are made as creatures of God, made in his image to worship him and to honor him.

The Breaking of the Covenant

Now, when we come to the actual moment of the breaking of the covenant, in verses six through seven, we see what happened. So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

That is an astonishing statement, is it not? We did not know where Adam was until that point. In the first five verses it does not mention where Adam was. You could imagine that perhaps he is there not and it is just the serpent coming and talking to the woman. But the text in verse six tells us that he was standing by her all along. He was there with her. And so when she gave some to her husband, who was with her, he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.”

It seems like such a small infraction. It almost seems like nothing. If you just look at it, all they did was just take a piece of fruit from a tree and eat it, and then she gave some to her husband. What is the big deal. It seems like nothing. But it is a big deal. This was total apostasy. This was, as God had hinted at all the way back in chapter two, verse 17, this was evil. This was the heart of evil.

What is evil? It is self-deification. It is putting yourself in the place of God. What did the woman fundamentally do? She put herself in the place of God. She said, I do not need to listen to what God says about this tree. I can just look at this tree myself and I can just observe that, look, it is beautiful. It is a delight to the eyes. It looks like it is going to be very tasty and very good for food. And I want it. And so what is wrong with just taking it? It looks like it was made to be eaten. So she is using her own reason, her own judgment, to decide that she thinks that this fruit is intended for her pleasure, rather than what God says it was intended for, which was to be this covenant test. And so she is engaging in self-deification. She is using something that seems on the outward surface to be good and pleasant and pleasurable, but it is not for what God intended it to be.

How often do we see that today? For example, very common. You hear people talk about people who want to engage in sex outside of marriage. What is the harm? We are not hurting anybody. We love each other. It seems like a delight. It seems like a good thing. Seems good to me. Why not? Well, why not is because God has defined what he wants sex to be. He wants it to be within this holy one flesh bond of a man and a woman in marriage as part of this whole covenant plan that God has for the whole creation. It is this glorious purpose, it is a sacred thing. And so you are taking what you think makes sense to you based on your own judgment and your own feelings at the moment, and you are saying, I am just going to do what I think makes sense to me without listening to what God has said. Without listening to what God has determined to be reality and without submitting to his word.

This is not a minor thing. This is not just a minor infraction that happens here. This is a major apostasy. This is Adam and Eve placing themselves over God and rejecting God’s authority and rebelling against him. One way we can see this is that you see the parallel with Israel. This whole passage was communicated by Moses to Israel, either at Mount Sinai or later on as they are in the wilderness. And Moses was telling them about this story that happened long ago, but he was doing so in terms that they could immediately recognize and connect with themselves.

How often was Israel in this same exact situation. What is the harm in, offering a sacrifice to one of the pagan gods, the gods of the Canaanites. It seems to be effective, it seems to bring about greater fertility and crops and so on, and so what is the harm? We can do that and still worship Yahweh. And they are using their own mind to make their own judgment about what they think seems reasonable and rational, rather than submitting to God’s authority.

Like Israel. Adam here in our text is engaging in this covenant breaking that results in divine judgment. Israel would have heard this story and seen their own experience as well.

That they would be expelled from the Garden of Eden, that is from the land. They would be expelled eastward, just like here in the text, where it says in Genesis chapter three, verse 24, he drove out the man and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword. Israel also went eastward into Babylon to the east as God’s judgment for their covenant violation.

Christ Confronts the Serpent

But the wonderful promise of the gospel is that even in the midst of total apostasy and failure and sin and the activation of the covenant curse because of sin, God in the midst of that also gives his promise of grace. The promise of the offspring with a capital O who would defeat the serpent.

Christ, the second Adam, he did what Adam failed to do. He confronted the serpent. Remember when he was in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights? And the serpent was coming to him and saying, well, has God really said? Why not? You have this power, go ahead and just use it to make some bread for yourself right here. He comes with his deception and his lies.

And how does Christ as the second Adam do? He does not fail like Adam and Eve. What does he do? He says, get behind me, Satan. Be gone. That is why I picked that as our silent meditation for today.

Then Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. He not only says to Satan, be gone, but he also appeals to the word of God, to the authority of God’s word. He wields the word of God as the weapon against the lies of the serpent. And in so doing, Jesus has delivered us from the tyranny of the devil.

The devil’s tyranny is experienced in many ways. We see it, for example, with those poor people who were possessed by demons in the gospel story. But another way we see it, and probably the primary way we see it, is that we are born into this false religion that Satan began here in our text. We are born into this false religion of self-deification.

But Christ is delivering us from the deception of Satan. Christ is undeceiving us. That is what He does by His Spirit when He gives us faith and repentance. He is undeceiving us so that we stop questioning God, so that we stop putting ourselves on the place of authority, so that our wills are subdued, and so that we say, not, has God said, not, I think I have a different opinion and a different judgment, but rather, I agree with you, God, that you are right. Your word is right. That is fundamentally what repentance is. Repentance is when we submit to God’s covenant word and say to God, you are right, I am the one who is wrong, you are right. And that is the work of the Spirit that Christ himself is working in us. He is undeceiving us by the Spirit, giving us that heart that says to God, you are right, I am not going to put myself in that throne anymore. What you have defined as reality, what you have given to us in your word that tells us the meaning of creation, the meaning of all these structures within creation, like marriage. Your definition of all these things, your purpose for all these things is right. And I am not going to assert my own will and my own desires. I am not going to say, well, it looks good to me. It looks pleasurable, it looks like it is right. I am going to submit to your will, Lord, and seek your grace to do what is right by the power of the Spirit within us.