Who Told Us We Were Naked?

Tom:

This portion of our program is dedicated to Understanding the Scriptures, especially the major doctrines taught in the Bible.  And that’s not only for our sake that we might all grow in the faith which was once delivered to the saints, but also that we might be able to explain and clearly share our faith with others.  Today we are continuing our study of the first book of the Bible, Genesis, which holds the key to some very critical questions about the Christian faith, the foremost being, why did God have to become a man and go to the cross to die for the sins of mankind.  What problem could have caused such a staggering event?  Well, the answer is found in the very first book of the Bible, so if you’re not familiar with what it says, we hope we can be an encouragement to you to search these particular scriptures with us.  In verse 17 of Genesis 2, God presented a condition to Adam and Eve telling them that if they ate the fruit of a certain tree in the Garden of Eden, the penalty for their disobedience would be death, spiritual death, which meant spiritual separation from God forever and physical death which would begin to take affect in their bodies.  Sometime after that Satan tempted Eve with lies; her response as well as her husband’s is found in Genesis chapter 3:6, she disobeyed God and so did Adam.  Dave, we’re going to pick up with verse 8.  “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.”  They sinned; there would be consequences, certainly reactions that they would have never considered prior to sin in their life.

Dave:

Well Tom, you know, some people think, wait a minute, come on, what is this, some kind of a myth, this tree and this talking serpent and so forth is some allegory, or just a fable to illustrate something?  No, it actually happened, Genesis is the foundation of the Bible.  And it was, as we have said in the past, just to remind our listeners out there, it’s the simplest command God could have given. That’s why it was a tree because they had an abundance of trees and why would they have to eat of this tree?  I don’t think it was anything special, I don’t think it had a different kind of fruit than any other tree had.  It could have been an apple tree, peach, pear, whatever, I’m sure that they had many other trees with the same kind of fruit.  It wasn’t that there was some power in the fruit; it was the act of disobedience, that’s the problem.  So He gave them the simplest command and they didn’t obey it, they rebelled, they tried to be little gods themselves, to run their own lives, and that’s the problem that we have in the world today.  Now suddenly—

Tom:

Things changed, big time!

Dave:

Yeah, suddenly they are separated from God.  They are guilty; they realize they have done wrong.  It’s like a little child that’s been stealing cookies while Mommy has been at the store.  When she comes back and finds out—uuhhoo you’ve got jam on your mouth, or whatever, you know.  So it’s a reaction that has repeated itself all down through history.  But this is between the first man and his wife and God, and this is where the separation began, this is why the Bible tells us.  There’s a barrier now, and from this point on between God and man there is a chasm, a separation, and it can’t be taken care of just by, okay, that’s all right, pat us on the head, and tell me you’re sorry.

Tom:

It’s not going to work here.

Dave:

Tell me you’re sorry, and then we’ll start over again.  No, God is a God of perfect justice.  It’s just like the inexorable laws of the universe, laws of gravity.  You jump out of a plane and say, Well, Granny says that there is a law of gravity, but I mean, birds can fly, why can’t I?  No, there is!  This is a moral law and we violated it, we are rebels, we’ve rebelled against God, I mean rebelled against God!  That is so unthinkable, it is so horrible!

Tom:

Dave, I want to get on these scriptures, but there’s a thought that I’m sure some people may be troubled some.  God is love, God is certainly just, but He is also merciful.  Why couldn’t mercy have come into play here?  I mean it does, but I’m talking about in terms of sort of smoothing over their sins.

Dave:

Well, there is mercy.  You get it in Psalm:85:10Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
See All..., “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”  There is no peace without righteousness, and there’s no real mercy without truth.  Mercy over what?  You know, a lot of parents say don’t tell me what my child has done, don’t tell me that they’re into drugs or into that; I just want to forgive them.  No, I have to face the consequences, and then mercy.  Mercy rejoices in judgments, mercy must be merciful about something because of something.  And if it’s just so simple that God can just say, Well, that’s okay, no problem.  No, God made a statement, He said, “You eat of this tree and the day you eat of it you will die.”  Now, death came, God can’t go back on His Word. The problem now is how are we going to bring life out of death?  I can’t go back and say, Well I’m sorry I said that, you know God says, well I made a mistake; I shouldn’t have really made the consequences so severe.  No, the consequences are because of who God is, because of His character, and because of the very nature of the universe that He has made and the relationship that man must have with Him.  It’s that basic, and now death has entered the human race.  Now we going to have to somehow bring life out of death, a new race out of this old race, how will that happen?  That’s what the rest of the Bible is about.

Tom:

And if we’re not understanding that, if we are not taking heed believing this first book of the Bible, I don’t know how you could put together the rest of it, which is why we are going through Genesis.

Dave:

Then we become the authors of scripture and we decide what is true and what is not, and what we like, and we will accept that part of it.  No, you have to take it as a package, and we’ve mentioned that before.

Tom:

Picking up with Genesis:3:9And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
See All...:  Again, we are looking at the consequences of the first sin committed by mankind.  “And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, “Where art thou?”  Now, that’s curious, God knew where they were, so this was for them, not for Him.

Dave:

And—where are you? You’re hiding.  Why?  What’s the problem, Adam?  Tell me about it, and we have to confess our sins, we’ve got to admit what went wrong and why.

Tom:

And, picking up with verse 10:  “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”  Here are two reactions that have never taken place in Adam’s heart with regard to God prior to sin.  Fear, recognizing—I mean he was always naked, why now is this the problem?

Dave:

Well, it goes beyond physical nakedness, the scripture says, “all things are naked and opened before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

Thou God seeth me, God knows everything about me, He can look right into my heart.  But there would be no concern about that if there wasn’t something wrong in my heart.

Tom:

Never happened before, he was always in that state, God saw his heart.  But everything he did up to that point pleased God.

Dave:

Right, Now Adam recognizes that there is something wrong.

Tom:

Verse 11:  “And he said, (that is, God) who told thee that thou wast naked?  Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?”  Dave, we’re just about out of time, but it’s interesting that God gives questions here that He already knows the answers to, why is that?

Dave:

Because we have to admit it.  He knows everything about it, I mean, of course in the very question He’s letting Adam know that he knows.  He’s eliciting a response from Adam, a confession, acknowledgment of his sin.

Tom:

Dave, we’re just about out of time.  What we want to do as we continue to go through these scriptures in Genesis is identify, not just the problem, but the consequences of the problem at the beginning, because if we don’t, as we said, I know we are repeating ourselves here, but if we don’t understand the problems and the solutions—

Dave:

Absolutely!

Tom:

Absolutely incredible solution that God brings is not going to make sense to us, and even if we have an idea of it, we want to understand it well enough that we can explain and share it with others that they might know the love of God, what He’s done, and that they might respond to it.

Dave:

Amen.