The Gospel of God – Part 22

Genesis 3:20-24 tells us a few more snippets of information. Adam called his wife’s name Eve which means mother of all living. Although I have referred to Eve by name in my comments above, in fact this is the first time she is given that name by Adam.

This implies that the woman takes her name from her husband. Both genders are encompassed in terms like mankind, humanity, etc. This is not merely cultural – albeit a disappearing one in the western world – it is Biblical.

See Genesis 5:2 “He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created”.

Genesis 3:21 is the record of God making tunics of animal skins with which to clothe them. This is, by implication, the first time that there had been blood shed as a sacrifice for sin. It is an incredible thing that God did in His kindness to Adam and Eve. It was clothing for them but it represented much more than that. It was a means of their acceptance by God in spite of their sin. God Himself took the initiative to clothe them by a bloody sacrifice.

So, in their darkness moments, being under the judgement of their Creator, hope was extended to them and a way was established in blood, that would be the basis of God’s further relationship with mankind.

This theme will recur in our later studies.

The last few verses in Genesis 3:22-24 record for us God’s final judgement on their sin. They were both sent out of the garden. This was to prevent them for eating of the tree of life and living forever in their fallen state. Expulsion was God’s mercy to them.

“Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” – therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So, He drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life”.

God’s final punishment was to banish them from the garden that had been their home. They were alienated from Him who had created them.

This too was a mercy for if they had remained in Eden and had taken of the tree of life, they would have lived forever in their sinful state.  The cherubim and the flaming sword turning every way prevented their return.