The Fall and Exile from Eden

Genesis 3:1–24

Genesis 3 shows how disorder enters a world that was declared good. The serpent questions God's word, the human pair crosses the boundary command, and the immediate results are shame, hiding, and blame. But this chapter is not only about rule-breaking — it is about broken trust. The relationship with God is ruptured, human relationships are strained, and even the ground becomes a site of frustration.

The Temptation

Now the serpent is more cunning than any other beast of the field that the Lord God has made. The serpent approaches the woman and begins to question God's word.

The serpent says: "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?"

This is a reframing of God's command. The serpent is not denying that God spoke; it is distorting what God said. Instead of emphasizing God's generosity — the freedom to eat from every tree — the serpent focuses on the prohibition. The question minimizes God's goodness and magnifies the restriction. It plants doubt about God's intentions.

The woman corrects the serpent's misquote. She says: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"

The woman knows the command. She knows the boundary. She knows the consequence.

But the serpent then directly contradicts God: "You will not surely die." The serpent is calling God a liar. It is asserting that God's warning is false, that death will not follow disobedience.

Instead, the serpent offers a different promise: "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

The serpent is suggesting that God is withholding something good from them. God is keeping them in ignorance. If they eat the fruit, they will gain wisdom and power. They will be like God.

Augustine and later theologians have analyzed this moment as a turning point in human desire. The woman looks at the tree. She sees that the tree is good for food — it appeals to her physical appetite. She sees that it is pleasing to the eye — it appeals to her aesthetic desire. She sees that it is desirable for gaining wisdom — it appeals to her intellectual ambition.

Her desire detaches from trust in God and turns inward. She is no longer trusting God's word about what is good for her. She is deciding for herself. She takes the fruit and eats it.

Then she gives some to the man, who is with her, and he eats as well. The man does not question; he does not resist. He eats the fruit that his wife offers him.

The Rupture

Their eyes are opened, but not into wisdom as the serpent promised. Instead, something shifts immediately. The text says: "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons."

They experience vulnerability and shame. They are aware of their bodies in a new way — not as innocent and unashamed, as they were before, but as exposed and vulnerable. They try to cover themselves with fig leaves, a makeshift covering that will not last.

Then they hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. They hide themselves among the trees of the garden, away from the presence of the Lord God.

God calls out to the man: "Where are you?" God already knows where the man is, but He asks the question. He is giving the man a chance to come forward, to confess, to acknowledge what has happened.

The man answers: "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself."

The man is afraid. He is ashamed. He is hiding. The relationship with God has changed. What was once open fellowship is now marked by fear and concealment.

God asks: "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"

God is asking the man to account for himself. The man has a chance to confess, to take responsibility.

But the man does not confess plainly. Instead, he shifts blame: "The woman whom you gave me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate."

The man is blaming the woman. But he is also implicitly blaming God, who gave the woman to him. He is saying: "This is your fault. You gave me this woman, and she led me astray."

Then God turns to the woman: "What is this that you have done?"

The woman also shifts blame rather than confessing plainly: "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

The woman blames the serpent. She is not taking responsibility for her own choice. She is saying: "The serpent tricked me. I am a victim of deception."

Sin immediately fractures both the vertical relationship with God and the horizontal relationship between the man and woman. What was once a partnership of equals, naked and unashamed, is now marked by blame-shifting and accusation. Trust is broken.

Calvin emphasized this blame-shifting as evidence that sin hardens quickly. In his reading, corruption is not only in outward acts but in the heart's refusal to own truth before God. The man and woman do not say, "We sinned. We disobeyed. We broke trust." Instead, they deflect, they excuse, they blame others. The heart becomes hard.

The Judgment

God addresses the serpent, the woman, and the man in turn. The judgments are specific to each role in the narrative.

God says to the serpent: "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life."

The serpent is cursed to crawl on its belly and eat dust. It is humiliated, brought low. Its cunning and its power are diminished.

Then comes a cryptic statement that many interpreters read as containing a promise: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."

The woman's offspring will strike the serpent's head — a mortal blow. The serpent will strike the offspring's heel — a painful wound, but not fatal. Christian interpreters from Irenaeus onward have read this as an early hint that evil will not have the final word. Eventually, through human offspring, the serpent's power will be broken. This is sometimes called the "protoevangelium" — the first gospel, the first hint of redemption.

God then addresses the woman: "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."

The woman's judgment names pain in childbearing. What was meant to be a blessing — the bearing of children — will now be marked by suffering. There is also tension in her relationship with her husband. The partnership of equals is now marked by hierarchy and potential conflict.

God then addresses the man: "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

The man's judgment makes his labor painful. The ground itself is cursed in response to his disobedience. He will toil and sweat to draw food from the earth. The work that was once a blessing — tending the garden — is now marked by struggle and frustration.

And mortality is stated with stark clarity: "You are dust, and to dust you will return." The man came from dust, and to dust he will return. Death is the final consequence of sin.

The chapter presents suffering and death not as original design, but as consequences within a moral universe governed by God. Sin has real consequences. The world is not the same after disobedience.

The Exile

Even in judgment, God shows care. The text says: "And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them."

God makes garments of skin for the couple, replacing their inadequate fig-leaf coverings. This act requires the death of animals. Blood is shed. Life is taken. This is the first hint in Scripture that covering sin requires a cost. Someone must die so that the guilty can be clothed and covered.

But then they are sent out from Eden. God says: "Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken."

The man is driven out. He is exiled from the place of abundance and provision. He is sent to work the ground — the very ground that is now cursed, that will resist his labor.

And God places cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. The way back to Eden is blocked. The cherubim stand as sentries, preventing any return.

The exile is both penalty and protection. It is a penalty because access to God's garden is lost. The man and woman are separated from the place of God's immediate presence. They are cut off from the tree of life.

But it is also protection. If they could eat from the tree of life while in rebellion, they would be locked in corruption forever. They would live forever in a fallen state, unable to change, unable to repent, unable to be redeemed. The exile prevents this. It closes off the possibility of endless life in sin. It opens the possibility of redemption.

What to Notice

The first lie minimizes judgment and questions God's goodness. The serpent doesn't deny God exists; it reframes what God said and what God intends.
Shame, hiding, and blame are immediate social effects. Sin doesn't just affect the individual; it fractures relationships and creates barriers.
Judgment is real but not final. God's judgments are serious, but the story continues. Mercy appears even in exile.
Exile from Eden sets up the Bible's long movement. The rest of Scripture is, in many ways, the story of how fellowship with God is restored.