What Really Happened in the Garden

God created the first human, male and female, as a being like himself with whom he could share his life and his creation. But the disobedience of the first humans introduced shame, which drove them away from God and hindered them from agreeing with God about their sin and returning to him. This is always the effect of shame, which comes from us, not from God.

I had originally planned to write next about the odd history by which Christianity, originally a faith which taught individual friendship with God as practiced by a group of social outcasts, became the official, established religion of whole nations of people who mostly had no individual relationship with God at all. I was, in the process, planning to write about the importance to this process of the regular promotion of shame by the organized Church. And I will write about this history–later.

Instead, presently, I am impressed that I must first write about the origin of shame and God’s answer to it. I will, therefore, write about the origin of shame in this post, the effect of shame on our ability to do God’s will in the post after that, and then about God’s answer to shame.

Of course, shame originated in the Garden of Eden, at the same time as sin and guilt, as anyone who has studied the first three chapters of Genesis knows. However, contrary to most common thinking, sin did not originate from the same source as guilt and did and does not have the same purpose or effect. To understand this, we must first look at the purpose for which God created the first human (male and female), the commands (yes, plural, commands) he gave that human, and the very different effects of guilt and shame on our common human ability to keep those commands and fulfill our purpose.

What is said about the first human’s purpose

After creating the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, Genesis says God had a conversation with himself:

 God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:26-27 (WEB)

God, who is himself a complex unity, as I have described elsewhere, created the first man to be a complex unity like God himself, “in God’s image” which is both “male and female,” and to have dominion. The word translated “man” here is ‘adam, which is grammatically masculine. And it is clear from the text of the next chapter that the ‘adam in a male body was created first in time, by a few hours, at least. But we shouldn’t rush to draw conclusions from these observations. In the first place, Biblical Hebrew did not have a neuter gender (i.e., no “it” forms) like some languages do, so the masculine is frequently used in a generic sense. But, even more importantly, God created the first human in a male body first–but necessarily containing both male and female, just as God does–intending to show ‘adam his feminine side just as soon as God had convinced him that he was incomplete without her. Read on!

Throughout the Scriptures, love and creativity seem to be the core of God’s nature or existence. The first thing we are told about God is that he spoke everything we see into existence. He then spoke to himself about his desire to have other beings like himself, in his image and likeness, to whom he could show his love, with whom he could converse as a friend (see, e.g., Genesis 2:19, 3:8-9; John 15:13-15; John 16:12-15), share his creation, and share his life (John 15:1-8). It was God’s intention that humans exercise dominion for him over the other living things, and, in learning to do this, come to bear the fruit of God living through them.

But God started this process slowly. He gave the first human the job of tending a garden (Genesis 2:15), a task which necessarily included tending all of the trees in the garden. He also gave ‘adam the gift of speech, which was a part of God’s image (recall that God spoke everything into existence and also spoke to himself in making man). And God had the first human, still found only in a male body, use this gift in performing the god-like task of naming all of the animals (2:19), a task which was also designed to show the man that he was still incomplete:

 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper (‘ezer) suitable for him.”  And out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.  The man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.

Genesis 2:18-22 (NASB)

A word needs to be said about what this passage means when it says that woman was made as a “helper” (‘ezer) like or corresponding to, or, literally, “vividly present to” (neged) the man. An ‘ezer is not a servant! In fact, quite the opposite. The Hebrew Scriptures frequently call God himself an ‘ezer to Israel or to his servants, as in this verse from the Psalms:

But I am afflicted and needy;

Hurry to me, God!

You are my help ( ‘ezri ) and my savior;

Lord, do not delay.

Psalm 70:5 (NASB)

Properly understood, the account of the creation of the woman in Genesis 2 says that, after God made the first man aware of his incompleteness, he then fashioned out of the man another being, one with him but having a separate body, who would make the femininity in him (and in God) vividly present to (neged) him and so would be his helper (‘ezer) by making him complete. And, when he saw Eve, Adam recognized this:

Yahweh God made a woman from the rib which he had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called ‘woman’ (‘ishshah),  because she was taken out of Man (‘ish).” Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh.

Genesis 2:22-24 (WEB)

At the time of these events, before sin entered the world, the first man and his wife were not two separate beings, but coordinate parts of the same human being, in the image and likeness of God, in whom exists three equal, coordinate, totally unified persons. This is even shown by the name the man gave his new wife, which is merely the grammatical feminine form (adding the suffix -ah) of his name for himself! Indeed, this has always been and now remains the model, unfortunately now a broken one, for both the existence of male and female and for marriage, and the statement of God’s continuing purpose for them:

Pharisees came to him, testing him and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”  He answered, “Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?  So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.”

Matthew 19:3-6 (WEB); compare, Mark 10:7-9.

Unity in marriage is also a picture of Christ’s relationship with his Body the Church (and with believers as members of that Body):

After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.  “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”  This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

Ephesians 5:29-32 (NIV)

This was, in other words, all directed towards bringing the first humans–and us–into conscious unity with God as beings who bear his image and recognize that image in ourselves. And in that unity there was no shame, nothing to hide:

And the man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed.

Genesis 2:25 (NASB)

Commands God gave the first human

I have frequently heard it said that God gave Adam and Eve “only a single commandment”–the command not to eat from one tree–and they blew it. Stated this way, it almost sounds like God was simply being a spoilsport, telling them he didn’t want them to know everything he does, just like the serpent told Eve. But the statement isn’t true. Before he forbade eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2:17-18, God had given the first human five positive commands, things humans were to do to join with God in his work of creation:

 God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:27-28 (WEB)

The five things the first human was commanded to do were:

1. Be fruitful. This was God’s first command! I believe this command pertains to creativity–in God’s likeness–and, through it, reproducing God’s life in our own life and the lives of others around us. It also pertains to productive use of what God has given us. Even at the present time, God’s interest in our fruitfulness continues, as Jesus told his disciples: “In this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples.” John 15:8 (which is contained in a long discourse about fruitfulness).
2. Multiply. Yes, as a race, we are to reproduce ourselves. God has given us the ability to create other beings in his image. True, for the time being the image of God in us and our children is a broken image. But it is also a restorable image. Jesus came among us as a completely human being in part to show us what the unbroken image of God looks like, and in part to give us access to the means by which the broken image in us can be restored to be just like him in his now-resurrected life. Having children is not–as some have taught–the sinful, “dirty,” or at best morally questionable, activity of bringing more wretched sinners into the world. No, even in the presence of sin, reproduction is an activity God blesses (and has commanded), the activity of bringing into the world children who may be restored into his image.
3. Fill the earth. This command really needs no explanation, except for the observation that it is something we are collectively commanded to do.
4. Subdue the earth. God did something when he created the heavens and the earth, and he still is active in maintaining the creation. (See, for instance, Colossians 1:16-17). So working to join God in his work of creation, making an effort to subdue things (not people) to make them serve a desired purpose, is a part of God’s image in us. The supposition in this command is that the purposes we are working to make things serve are God’s purposes.
5. Exercise dominion over the created things in the world. Having subdued things, actually exercise the dominion we have obtained to make them serve their purpose. Once again, the supposition is that the purposes for which we are exercising dominion are God’s purposes. With sin now in the world–as it wasn’t when God gave this command–this supposition usually isn’t satisfied, and the results are uniformly bad. Still, exercising our dominion is one of the purposes for which God created us.

After he gave the first human these positive commandments, God gave him permission to eat from any plant that bears seed. Genesis 1:30. Subsequently, when placing the man in the garden he had planted, God gave him specific permission to eat the fruit of every tree in the garden that bore fruit, except one:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Genesis 2:15-17 (NIV)

The instruction not to eat from exactly one tree was, thus, not the only commandment God gave Adam. Nor was it the first commandment–in fact, it was the last. But it was the only prohibition. All of the others gave Adam positive things to do to join God in his creation. And that one prohibition, the last commandment, prohibited only eating from one tree. Everything else Adam might have desired to do was either commanded or permitted!

The First Sin

God had told the man that, in the day he ate of the forbidden fruit, he would “surely die.”  Genesis 2:17

Eve had not been fashioned yet when God said this.  But did she know all her husband knew anyway?  She was, after all, one with him.  We can only speculate.  However, while talking to the serpent, the woman said God’s command was that she was not to eat from the tree, “or touch it.” Genesis 3:3.  It was the first human’s job to tend the Garden, including, presumably, the Tree of Knowledge.  The tree would have to be touched, just not eaten from.  So the woman—and quite possibly her husband—had added a prohibition to God’s commands.  It was a reasonable-looking addition, trying to set a fence around the forbidden act.  She certainly couldn’t eat the fruit if she never touched the tree on which it grew.  But it was an addition to God’s words, nonetheless, and the serpent used it to tempt her.  (The same thing happens when we make “reasonable”-looking additions to God’s instructions, and attribute them to God.  But that is a story for another day). 

Clearly, though, she knew about the threat of death (“or you will die”).    

But herein lies a problem.  The first human had never seen death nor experienced any aspect of it.  They knew it was something bad, but they didn’t know what it was. 

God’s statement that they would die if they ate the fruit did not keep Eve from being temped or deceived by the temptation.   Ultimately, she fell to the lies that eating the fruit would make her “like God,” when, in fact, she was already like God, made in his image, and that she would come to “know good and evil,” when, in fact, she already knew all Good (God) and could only learn about evil.  And it didn’t keep Adam from willingly following her into sin.  They did, in fact, learn about evil—the serpent had told only a half-lie—and immediately became aware of their separation from God and each other, and aware of their nakedness.

Shame, arising from a Sense of Vulnerability, is introduced by the two now separate humans

It is specifically noted that, as originally created, the man and his wife were naked and were not ashamed.  Genesis 2:25.  It is also noted that God came and walked with them in the Garden, 3:8, obviously without warning them in advance to put on their Sunday best because he was coming for a visit.  This appears to have been a regular occurrence—Adam heard God’s voice calling to him and knew who it was.  3:10.  And, before they sinned, the first human took God’s visits naked without feeling any shame.  So the absence of shame did not just apply between the man and his wife, it applied between both of them and God.  This is difficult to imagine, but inescapable from the text.

The first thing Adam and Eve—now separate and very alone—felt after they sinned was fear, because they now recognized their vulnerability to God and to each other.  God had said something about dying, and they were just beginning to feel what that meant.  And they had betrayed each other as well by eating the fruit.  Eve, having been deceived into eating the fruit, brought it to Adam to eat, and he gave in instead of standing up to the temptation and bringing the matter to God.  This feeling of vulnerability, and the accompanying fear, are the essence of shame.  They came not from God but from the sin itself.  Adam and Eve chose shame; God did not impose it on them. 

The first thing Adam and Eve did when they recognized their vulnerability was to hide from each other behind clothing.  They were under the mistaken impression that their sin, hence, their vulnerability, arose from their physical bodies, which they tried to hide. Their descendants have been doing the same thing ever since, and for the same reason.  We, as a race, are ashamed of our bodies, which we believe make us vulnerable to each other and to God.  And we routinely shame each other because of our bodies and ordinary bodily functions, as well as the behaviors manifested by our bodies. 

This was the beginning of all shame.  It is something we do to ourselves and to each other, not something God does to us.  It is a social thing, not God speaking to us. 

The second thing they did was to try to hide themselves—clothing and all—from God when they heard him walking in the Garden, calling to them.  Obviously, they knew that no amount of clothing would hide their problem—or even their naked bodies—from God.   Indeed, when Adam came forward, after he had already clothed himself with fig leaves, he told God “I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”  That God did not want them to hide from him in shame is shown by the fact that he continued to call them until they came forward, and, when they did come forward, he didn’t shame them.  Instead, he asked them why they were now suddenly afraid of him—feeling shame—“Who told you that you were naked?”  (3:9-11).  God then proceeded to deal with their sin.  God didn’t want them to hide because they felt vulnerable, but instead wanted them to honestly recognize what they had done.  This is the office of true guilt, as discussed in the next section, not shame.    

Guilt introduced by God seeking Repentance–and Restoration

It must here be said that what Adam and Eve most pointedly did not feel was guilt for what they each, individually, had done.

What they felt instead was shame, fear based on vulnerability. Adam said so himself–“I was afraid because I was naked.” This is also demonstrated by the rest of their subsequent conversation with God.

God’s objective throughout the conversation was to get both of the now separate and incomplete humans to honestly tell him what they had done, something God already knew! God wanted to hear it from their own mouths because acknowledging and manifesting true guilt for their sinful act would have been the first step in repentance. That is also the one thing neither of them was willing to do.

First, Adam answered God’s question “where are you?” not by stating his location, but by making an excuse for not showing himself–his fear of what would happen because he was naked. As I said already, nakedness had never created any problem between Adam and God previously, even though Adam had always been naked. But now Adam felt that his nakedness made him vulnerable to that bad thing–death–that God had said would happen. But Adam divorces death from his sin–ignoring God and eating the fruit–and attaches it to the nakedness of his body. Making excuses to avoid the social consequences of an act is a sign of shame, not of guilt for the act.

God, knowing what had happened, then asked Adam “did you eat from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?” If Adam had been feeling true guilt, he would have simply said “yes.” Instead, he made another excuse, blaming Eve and God while only obliquely admitting that he had eaten the fruit: “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Trying to pass the blame for an act off to another is a means of avoiding a social consequence of the act–that is, of escaping shame. It does not acknowledge guilt.

Then God asked Eve what she had done, and she blamed the serpent: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The closest either one of them came to confession–agreeing with God about the situation–was a statement in the form “I did the forbidden act, but you/she/it made me do it.” This is still, today, the most common type of excuse–and it always shows an attempt to avoid social consequences, i.e., shame, rather than true guilt leading to confession.

The First Effect of Shame was to Block Repentance

So the first effect of shame was to drive Adam and Eve away from God and prevent true repentance. But this was what was to be expected. Recall from the last post that Wikipedia included hiding and denial in the definition of shame:

Shame is a discrete, basic emotion, described as a moral or social emotion that drives people to hide or deny their wrongdoings… The focus of shame is on the self or the individual with respect to a perceived audience.

WIKIPEDIA, “SHAME” (EMPHASIS ADDED)

In the case of Adam and Eve, the perceived audience was God and each other, and they certainly did try to hide from both.

Hiding myself, and hiding my sin, is the opposite of repentance. Solomon wrote:

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper,

    but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

Blessed is the one who always trembles before God,

    but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble.

Proverbs 28:13-14 (NIV).

Adam and Eve ended their confrontation with God still hiding the sin of their own hearts and trying to deflect the blame on others. They refused to agree with God about what they had done and about the state of their hearts that brought them to it–which is what it means to “confess” a sin. They had hardened their hearts before God. (See, Introduction to the Question of Confession). And what drove them to it was their shame.

Because they could not agree with God about their new situation, they could not change their minds (“repent”) and return to him. They could only face him in fear and with denial, trying to hide their real selves, of which they were now ashamed. In this state, they could no longer appreciate the love of God:

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.  There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

I John 4:16-18 (NIV)

This is, unfortunately, what shame always does. Shame, used as a motivator, may get the desired behaviors out of us, but it always drives us into hiding, away from fellowship and away from God.

Next (in progress): The Effect of Shame and Unrepentance on God’s Positive Commandments to Adam and Eve

Next: The Son of Man has Power on Earth to Forgive Sins

See also: Paul’s Mourning over those who have Not Repented, 2 Corinthians 12:21 (a past post in a different series)