Adam and Eve–Idolatry in the Fall

When the first humans, who already knew all good, chose to disobey God and experience evil, they initiated every kind of idolatry known to later generations. This included worship of created things, of themselves, their own wisdom and their own desires, of their bodies, and, most importantly, of a false picture of the true God as miserly and hostile toward us.

God created the first man and woman wholly good, to rule with him in his creation and enjoy daily conversation with him. He created them as his friends, to be with him. Genesis 1:26-31, 3:8-9; Exodus 33:11; James 2:23; John 15:13-15. Prior to the Fall, God had given the first humans only five instructions–to rule the earth and its creatures, to name the animals, to tend the Garden for him, to be fruitful and multiply (which was intended to be a way in which they would be like God–creating life–and a source of pleasure) and to refrain from eating the fruit of one specific tree.  Genesis 1:26-27, 2:15-17. They were allowed to do anything else with that tree, just not eat its fruit. The fruit of that one tree–and, with it, the experiential knowledge of evil–was the only thing in all of Creation that God withheld from them!

 The serpent’s initial approach to Eve was designed to build in her a false picture of God as a restrictive miser:  “Has God told you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?”  God had, in fact, said they could eat from all of the trees, except one–and that if they ate from that one they would “die.”  He then proceeded to create doubt that God would or could make them “die.” But the serpent’s ultimate  temptation to Eve was that, if she ate the forbidden fruit, she would “become like God” (or, “become like a god”), because she would experientially “know” both “good” and “evil.” Genesis 3:5. Previously, as one who walked with God every day, she had known only good. 

When Eve believed the serpent and trusted his permission to decide to know “evil,” this wonderful thing that God had denied her, she made the serpent her idol and ate the temptation it offered. Eve incorrectly identified the knowledge of “evil”–i.e., acting apart from God, who had previously been her life–with “wisdom,” a good thing–and worshiped and served the lying serpent, a created thing, to obtain it.  Compare, Romans 1:22 and 25.   When her husband later also ate the fruit, he also made either the serpent or his wife, or both, his idol(s) by using his freedom to obey them, rather than God. And it can also be rightly said that, in their sin, Adam and Eve made their own wisdom, their own thoughts and feelings about what was “good,” Genesis 3:6 , into an idol.  But they also, critically, made the true God into an idol in their own minds, both by imagining (even briefly) that they–and the serpent–were his equals, and by imagining God, whom they had previously only known as good and loving, as a stingy and malevolent being who wanted to withhold godlike knowledge of evil from them. 

 The first effect eating the forbidden fruit had on the man and woman was to make them regard God as their enemies–a god (small “g”, because, when viewed in this way, the true God became an idol) who would kill them if he knew what was now going on inside of them.  That is, they “became alienated and enemies” of God “in [their] own minds through [their} evil deeds,” as Paul wrote about all of us. Colossians 1:21.  The enmity was not in God’s mind, but in their minds.  This falsification of their concept of God made them treat both their own bodies and the true God as idols. 

They noticed, for the first time, that they were naked, and felt the need to hide their naked bodies from God and from each other.  Genesis 3:7-8.   They had previously been naked without feeling any shame.  Genesis 2:25.  God was not offended by their nakedness–in which literal physical nakedness was also a picture of the spiritual condition of complete openness, of having nothing to hide, from God or from each other.  No, they were not, as is often said, “clothed in robes of light” so their bodies could not be seen–they were naked, a correct picture of the spirit in which we should walk with God.  For them, as for us, it is our secrets that separate us from God and each other.  But now that they had separated their wills from God, they felt a need to hide their internal reality from him and from each other, and they attempted to do so by hiding their bodies, because they misunderstood the real source of their shame. 

God, for his part, was still gentle and loving.  He came to walk and talk with them, just as he usually did, even though he knew what they had done.  Genesis 3:8.  And he patiently questioned them, trying to get them to admit the truth and return to him. Genesis 3:9, 11, 13.  When God asked “Adam, where are you?” he knew full well that Adam was hiding, and he knew why.  But he patiently asked questions, trying to get the first couple to understand and agree with him about what they had done.  Instead, they tried to shift the blame.  First, Adam shifted the blame to God and the bodies he had given them: “I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”  Genesis 3:10.  God’s next question was “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?” Again, God knew the answer, but wanted Adam to agree with him about his disobedience so that he could be restored. Instead, Adam avoided the question and tried to shift the blame to his wife, Genesis 3:12.  Finally, when God gave Eve the opportunity to agree with him, she tried to shift the blame to the serpent instead.  Genesis 3:13,

In attempting to hide themselves from God, and then blame others for what God could see inside them (despite their clothing), the first humans made the true God into an idol by seeking his approval–or , at least, his indulgence–without allowing him the active presence they knew he desired in their lives.  In using clothing as a defense against God, they also showed that they had made their bodies, in which their once entirely good innate physical and emotional desires had been perverted into evil lusts warring with each other, into idols as well.  Compare, James 4:1-5.  Our abject dread of God, as a malevolent ogre in the sky who delights in spoiling all our fun and wants to kill us, unless we keep our distance and try to appease him, and who will ultimately cause us to die, is the dread of an idol–a falsification of God in which we indulge to excuse keeping our distance from him.

The surprising thing is that God accommodated their newly felt need to maintain separateness from him and from each other.  He did not immediately kill them.  Instead, after cursing the serpent and the ground and declaring to the man and woman the natural consequences of their chosen separation from him, he gave them more adequate clothing to cover themselves Genesis 3:21.  It may be, as many teachers have said, that God provided them coats of animal skins, not linen or cotton, to show them the need to make a blood offering to come into his presence, though neither the text in Genesis nor any other scripture directly says this. It likely is true that God provided the covering for their shame to show the first couple that only he knew how to cover their shame–for it was the shame of their nakedness and their fear of God seeing it, not God’s demand for payment for their sin, which caused them to hide from him. Genesis 3:7, 8, 10; compare, Revelation 3:18; Exodus 20:26, 28:42-43; Genesis 42:9, 12.. Indeed, even while declaring to them the consequences of their sin, God never demanded any payment from them, and never explicitly stated that he required any payment, not even a payment he would ultimately make himself. Genesis 3:14-19. The animal skins were a picture of God covering our shame, the shame that keeps us from coming to him. They were an invitation to come to God without dread. They were not a picture of God paying a penal debt that results from our discrete sinful acts (such as Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit), a debt which would prevent God from receiving us when we come to him. The skins, like the Old Testament sacrificial system that would follow them many generations later, provided temporary “atonement”–covering–for their shame, permitting them to overcome their own enmity toward God and come to him. Exodus 30:14-16; Leviticus 16; Leviticus 17:10-12; Numbers 8:18-21; Proverbs 16:6; Hebrews 2:17; James 5:20. Neither the skins nor the later sacrificial system were ever intended to pacify an angry God by making payment for sins. God was never their enemy, and has never been our enemy.

After providing Adam and Eve with proper covering, God then sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden, wherein was the tree of life–the symbol of their intimate relationship with him, the source of their life. Genesis 2:9, 3:22, 24; Proverbs 11:30, 13:12; Revelation 2:7, 22:1-4. They lived for many years after that, and God continued to speak with them and with their descendants at times. See, Genesis 4:1-6; Genesis 4:25-5:3, 5:21-23; Hebrews 11:4-6. But he, mercifully, no longer allowed them access to the tree of life, to live forever in their rebellious state, with passions warring in their members.

But, by believing the serpent instead of God, then following their own independent “wisdom” to eat the forbidden fruit, and finally by trying to hide from God by hiding their bodies from him and refusing to confess what they had done, the first couple had initiated in principle all of the forms of idolatry seen in later times. They had worshipped and served a created thing–the serpent. They had converted the wholly loving and good true God into an idolatrous mental parody, a supreme deity who is miserly and hostile toward us, a god who is to be dreaded, avoided and appeased. They had worshipped their own “wisdom.” They had worshipped their own physical desires. And, finally, they had–in a negative way–worshipped their own bodies, by imagining those bodies to make them unacceptable to their hostile parody of God, and, consequently, hiding those bodies in their attempt to avoid and manipulate God.

See also, The “Curses” on Adam, Eve and the Serpent: Are Vexed Gender Relations, Meaningless Hard Work and Economic Oppression God’s Will?