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IV. A Test of Love - Failed

A. Sacrifice and Selfishness

What’s going on here in the Garden? Adam failed a test of his love - not only of his love for Eve, but his love for God.

God gave Adam the responsibility of guarding the garden sanctuary, the dwelling place of God and man.

In the confrontation with the serpent, he failed in his duties. He didn’t protect the garden or his wife or himself.

Why did God test him like this? Because covenant love requires total self-giving. Self-sacrifice is essential to fulfilling the obligations of the human relationship with God.

Remember what we said in the last lesson: A covenant means that God "gives Himself" to His people and the people, in turn vow to "give themselves" to God.

In the Scriptures, each of the covenants requires the people to make a symbolic offering of themselves to God.

There is no covenant without sacrifice. The sacrifice is offered by the people to symbolize their offering of "themselves" to God. The sacrifice is a kind of token of their commitment to the covenant, their commitment to give all that they have and all that they are to God.

Noah makes a sacrifice from each of the animals he took with him in the ark. Abraham is asked to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. The Israelites in the time of Moses are required to sacrifice an unblemished lamb in the place of their firstborn. And in the time of David’s son Solomon, sacrifices were offered daily in the Temple.

Each of the covenants foundered and was only partially successful. Why? Because of a failure of love, a failure of sacrifice. The people refused to give themselves completely.

Noah, Abraham and the rest all did great things. But they also did dumb and terribly wrong things: Abraham took a concubine. Noah became drunk. Moses lost his temper in the desert. Israel worshipped the golden calf. David committed adultery with Bathsheba. His son, Solomon, built a harem in addition to building the Temple.

We see in Adam’s failure the beginning of this pattern. In fact, because the human race was so weakened by Adam’s original sin that no one could give himself completely to God. And because of Adam’s sin, humanity lost its birthright - its divine inheritance, its membership in God’s family.

B. Death Threats

But before we move from Adam to Jesus, let’s look at the riddle of the story. God tells Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. "The moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die," he warns (see Genesis 2:17).

In the Hebrew there is a "double death" threat here - literally "You shall die die" or "die the death." Why the repetition of the word "die" Can you be more dead than dead?

The serpent directly contradicts God. He tells Adam and Eve: "You certainly will not die" (see Genesis 3:4). He says, too that they will be like "gods who know what is good and bad" (see Genesis 3:5).

And it’s true that when they eat the fruit, they don’t keel over and die. Instead, their eyes are opened just like the serpent said they would be (see Genesis 3:7). Even God has to admit, "See! The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil" (see Genesis 3:22).

Is the serpent right? Was God lying to the two? It certainly looks that way on the surface.

But of course it isn’t that way.

Adam and Eve do die the moment they eat the fruit - spiritually. The truth in Satan’s lie was this: Adam and Eve would not die a physical death once they ate the fruit. Adam and Eve lost something greater than natural life when they sinned; they lost supernatural life, the life of grace in their souls.

Seduced into trying to be like God without God, they died the death. Yes, they chose the fruit freely, like God they exercised free will. But their freedom only led them into slavery. Their eyes were indeed opened, and they discovered their nakedness and were ashamed.

We know that Satan has "the power of death" (see Hebrews 2:14-15). Adam and Eve should have listened to God, whose warning seems to echo in these words of Jesus: "And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna" (see Matthew 10:28).

Continue to Section 5