Genesis 3

Genesis 3:1

The story of this chapter is the most afflicting of any we have in all the fields. It contains an account of the sin and misery of our first parents, the wrath and curse of God against them, and on the earth: O that our hearts were deeply afflicted with this record? for we are all nearly concerned in it. We have here, 1. The innocent tempted, vers. 1—2. 2. The tempted transgressing, vers. 6, 7, 8. 3. The transgressors arraigned, vers. 9, 10. 4. Convicted, vers. 11—13. 5. Sentenced, vers. 14—19. 6. Reprented, vers. 20, 21. 7. Newwithstanding their reprieve, execution in part done, vers. 22, ad finem. And were it not for the gracious immonitions here given of redemption, by the promised said, they and all their degenerate guilty race, had been left to codify despair.

1. NOW the serpent was more subtle than any beaft of the field which the LORD God had made: and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. 5. For God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened: and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Our first parents, in bliss and joy united, little suspected the dreadful storm which now was preparing for them, by the great enemy of their souls. The devil, once an angel of light, but still tempted, and now by sin become a bend of darkness, hating God and his work; with envious jealousy beheld this happy pair, and inftant meditates their ruin. Having experienced the efficacy of his wiles, on spirits like himself, drawn

Before Christ 4. 1. 1. in Satan’s Child and in his train from their bright spheres of glory, he with like friend attempts, and but too fatally succeeds with man. He assumes the serpent’s form: a serpent then as harmless in approach, as beautiful in appearance. The garb of innocence with often since imposed on the unwary; and Satan’s wiles are never so dangerous as when thus he transforms himself into an angel of light. And he was more subtle than any head of the field; a fit instrument therefore for the cunning tempter. Note, the craft and cunning of the devil, and wicked men, hath ever been more successful against men’s souls, than open violence. 1. The woman is singled out for the share. He knew of the two she was the weaker, not only in body, but in mind. Note, Satan knows our weak side, and usually there begins his attacks. 2. She was alone. Solitude is dangerous. She is not the only woman who hath been thus undone. ‘Tis faffit for every wife to be near her husband’s side. 3. She was near the tree, perhaps paying an it: it is dangerous to be in the way of evil; they who would not eat of the forbidden fruit, must not approach the forbidden tree. 4. The artful question proposed, Yes, and God

said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. (1.) He concurs his

intention under the guile of innocent enquiry: Satan does not throw his fling, till he has seized his prey. Some previous conversation forms implied, and this subject unhappily introduced. We need be jealous; the most apparently innocent enquiries often conceal the most foul designs. (2.) He insinuates, that it was unkind to lay them under any restraints; the garden was given them, why should any tree be excepted? The moment the heart can entertain hard thoughts of God’s law, obedience will be at an end. (3.) A doubt is suggested, whether God had given any such command? If faith wavers, temptation will surely prevail. Unbelief is at the bottom of all our sins. v. 3, 5. Theft verifies contain her answer to the question of the tempter. It was plain and full. She was not ignorant of the command; nay, rather adds to it: they must not only not eat, but not touch it. Note, ‘Tis ever had meddling with edged tools. Nor was the threatening concealed; though here the believers, and rather diminishers its awful impact. Obferes, 1. How inexcusable she was: the fully knew the will of God. Sin against light and knowledge hath peculiar aggravation. 2. Her weakness to discourse about a point so dangerous: the very mention should have awakened suspicion, and led her fly. Temptations have more than half pervashed, when they can get a hearing. To parley, is the prelude to submission. v. 4, 5. We have here the serpent’s reply. 1. He no longer seeks to invalidate the command, but the threatening being family urged by her, he boldly denies. Note, 1. Confident affections readily pass with weak minds, and those who are willing to be perfused; and it is much easier boldly to deny, than clearly to prove. 2. The hopes of impunity are the great encouragement to sin, and the support of impenitence. By theft, Satan’s kingdom is still upheld. Did a sinner for before him the wages of sin, and were everlasting burning once truly believed, the devil would tempt in vain. I shall have peace, is still the grand lie; when God hath said, there is no peace. 3. He not only promises her peace, but profit. And when most effectually ruining them, assures them of the greatest advantages. How often, by pursuing a false and fancied good in view, do we still lose the portion we actually suffered. The things he promises, were, 1. Knowledge; a vail increase of wisdom, like unto God. He insinuated hereby their perfect imperfection, and prevents cunningly the name of the tree to the purposes of his delusion. It is not the first nor half time that Satan hath quoted the scripture against the serpeture. The knowledge of good and evil, which that tree was designed to teach, was practical; of duty and disobedience: and experienced; of happiness or misery. He confirms it to be remined, as if it would give their minds enlarged views of the nature, kinds, and origin of good and evil. Note, Satan hath hardly ever been more successful against men’s souls, than by the bait of wisdom. To be philosophers, they have turned unbelievers; and affecting to be wise above what is written, they have become vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart hath been darkened. 2. Power. Ye shall be as Gods. Though not self-existent, yet self-sufficient; no longer subjects, but sovereigns. He suggests, (1.) Discontent, as if their cafe was hard, and their situation less happy and glorious than it might be: Lord keep me from the sin of a discontented mind! By this, angels fell; and Adam was undone. (2.) The pride of greatness. He knew the tempting bait; it had seduced himself: Lord, let not the foot of pride come against me! (3.) Hard thoughts of God, as if on purpose he forbid them, because he knew the effects would be to raise them up to an equality with himself. Should his devices: he is still the same. Thus he continues to deceive with fair speeches and lying promises: thus he misrepresents the restraints of God’s law as it was: and, glorious to think, thus he still prevails, and the world loth to be worse, under the power and dominion of this wicked one. Hch. A 6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make our wife; the tools of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. 7. And the eyes of them took were opened, and they knew that they were nebed: and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons. 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.

Genesis 3:6

Unhappy souls! that to give up to a lying and deducing spirit, rather than to the God of truth. 1. She looked, and because she saw the fruit as beautiful to the eye, she concluded the serpent in the right, and that there could be no more harm in this, than in any other tree. It is but judging by the eye: the most pleasing fruit contains often the dreadful position. 2. She not only promised herself pleasure for the truth, but wisdom for her mind. This tree herein excelled all the well, and was more desirable, perhaps too, still more, because forbidden. Sin begins in the defire, and restrants only when the appetite: so perverts are we become. 3. She boldly plundered the fruit, perhaps for a nearer view, or by the tooth fell to allay, whether any ill consequence really would accrue. 4. She did eat; eager to make the last experiment: and it may be, hoping to surprise her husband with the transference, change the bad experiences, and the superior knowledge she had attained. Note, As woman was first in the transgression, she should remember it to her shame. 5. She gave him also; upon to him with the tempter’s power, and, either out of love, walked him to make the trial with her, and enjoy the pleasure, or out of malice, lull herself, resolves not to sink alone. 6. Vanquished by her importunity, or seduced by the same pleasing hopes which deluded her, he joined in the transgression. Note, Though it was the first time, it is not the last that man hath listened to the fyrus tongue of woman, to his ruin. Behold here the usual process of temptation. 1. An outward object presented by the devil, promising us much pleasure and advantage in the pursuit. 2. The eye caught with it, and led to gaze upon it; the eye is the great inlet of temptation: those who would guard their heart, must often veil their eyes. To look upon a woman’s beauty, is the road to halt after her; and to fix the greedy eye on gold, is the prelude to cover it. 3. Desire after it; when temptation has got so far, lull hath conceived, and sin will be the birth. Note, Though we should never seize the forbidden fruit, if the desire be towards it, the sin is already committed. 4. The gratification of the desire. There is no stopping, if once the unbridled appetite is let loose: when we first gazed, we thought it should rest there: we then drew nearer, but resolved to stop. The hand was knocked out to touch, but not to take; till, like the revolving force on a declivity, each revolution accelerated its motion, and sin no longer could be resisted. 5. We cannot be content to sin alone: those who themselves hearken to the devil’s wiles, quickly turn tempters for him. How little does many a sinner think of the dreadful charges against him from those souls, to whose sin and ruin he may have, by his solicitations, some way contributed!

Genesis 3:7

They wanted to see more, and now they are gratified; but oh what a fight! How preferable had blindness been to such a discovery. 1. They saw their own nakedness; not only of their bodies but of their souls. The robe of innocence was rent; the image of God was defaced; their minds now a scene of disturbance; their happiness departed; their misery come upon them; all was lost, and dark despair, and dread of deserved punishment overwhelmed them. 2. How dreadful a thing is for: it faults in the face, but it leaves behind the poison of a serpent: oh that we felt its evil more, and, from the fear of its consequences, kept from the jaws of the destroyer. 3. How thaneful. It must cover us with confusion, either in time or eternity. Happy they, who by real repentance have taken shame to themselves here before God and man, and through the blood of Jesus, have their iniquity pardoned and their sin covered. 2. They sought to conceal it, and the methods they took, showed how improved they were in wisdom. Strange folly, to think that fig-leaves could hide their shame: it was a poor covering respecting themselves: it was useless respecting God. How like are we? (1.) We think all is well, if we can hide our shame from each other, and save our credit among men? But shall not the day come, when it shall be laid upon before an assembled world? (2.) How apt are we to fly to excuses, instead of bumbling our souls under conscious guilt. Frank acknowledgement is in some sort reputation; wholly every fufentfuge is an aggravation of the crime.

Genesis 3:8

Guilt and fear are irresponsible. They no sooner bear the voice of God, than that which was before their delight and joy, becomes their horror and confusion. It should seem God appeared Before Chord

appeared to them in Eden, as he afterwards designed to appear in the world to suffer, and shall appear at the left to judge; and this might tempt them to think it was probable enough, that as he appeared like them in person, they might become like him in power. But now their peremptuous hopes are at an end, and they seek the thicket; even to be hid from his eye. Their own consciences become accusers, and they have already the sentence of death in themselves: now they began to discover the lie of the tempter; their godhead is dehaffed into the lowest wretchedness, their promised power into abject weakness, and their proud wisdom into fordeless folly. Learn hence, 1. The fasthood of sin’s promises: such will every disobedient soul prove to his oest. He expects happiness, but there will be found a lie in his right hand. 2. That God will discover sin, he is never so concealed. Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord?

a Chap. ii.

9. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10. And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden: and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

v. 9, 10. The voice was heard before with dread, how much more the summons? We have, 1. God’s call. Where art thou? It was the call of judgment; prepare to meet thy God. Nate, Willing or unwilling, the voice of the trumpet must shortly summon us to his tremendous bar: happy for the soul who can say with confidence of gracious acceptance, Here am I. (a.) It was a voice of conviction. I know thy iniquity: it is in vain to fire.—It is a great mercy when God finds out the sinner in this world with his awakening calls, for there is then hope of repentance and return. (b.) It was a voice of mercy, inviting him to return. Nate, The great inducement to the soul, to come forth from the thicket of sin, is, that there is pardon to be obtained. Had we no hope of this, we should be desperate indeed. 2. Adam’s reply. A confession of his shame, and therein of his sin, and this wish just apprehensions of his deferred doom. Observe, 1. Whence all our fears proceed: Sin makes the soul afraid to meet the face of God; sin arms death with its poisoned fling; sin kindles up the flames of hell; every pang of conscience, every apprehension of danger, every affliction dispensation; all derive their origin from hence. 2. That there is no approaching God with comfort, in the nakedness of our fallen nature: blessed be his name; he hath provided for us garments, that the shame of our nakedness may be covered. The righteousness of Jesus, the second Adam, can hide every transgression, and we need not then any longer fear to stand in the presence of the most holy God; for therein arrayed, we shall be found without spot or blennish.

a Chap. ii.

11. And he said, Who told thee that thou was naked? hath thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee, that thou shouldst not eat? 12. And the man said, The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, the gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 13. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? and the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

Genesis 3:11

The confession of shame was the proof of guilt. God knew, but he means to bring them down into the dust of self-shaftment; therefore he puts this alarming question, that they might remember the aggravations of their transgression, and turn self-accusers. Nate, 1. Confession of sin is required, not for God’s information, but for our humiliation. 2. When a man comes to the sight of his guilt, he will find abundant aggravations he never thought of till then: the rebellion, the ingratitude, the willfulness of his conduct, will make sin appear to him exceeding sinful.

Genesis 3:12

When they cannot deny, they still would palliate: they had eaten, ’tis true, but they would transfer the load of guilt from one to the other. We are apt imitators of this bad example; just so much of our sins as are known, we confess; but we would sin seek excuse, and extenuate what we cannot conceal. Adam is the first to be addressed: he is the head, and therefore, from him, most is to be expected. He accuses his wife, and that in such a way, as tacitly lays the blame on God. Thus gave her: I hoped for a help-mate, and found a temper. Observe, 1. How often do man say sin at God’s door, and how anxious, as well as ungrateful, the charge? Why, says one, did God give me paffions, if I may not gratify them? Why did he give me the world to be made a snare to me? Alas! men will not see that God meant a blessing, the earth is our abusive of it. 2. No connections, relations, intressy, or influence, will excuse us in the day of judgment, for adding contrary to God’s will. If the wife of our bosom entice us, or the friend of our heart persuade us, we should say, Get thee behind me, Satan.

Genesis 3:13

As Adam accused his wife, she calls it upon the serpent: He beguiled me; a weak excuse. Is the beast wiser than Vol. I.

the man, or was he to be believed sooner than his Maker?—How credulous are we, when Satan is the teacher? any fallacy will pass for argument. How infidel? where God himself hath spoken, there is nothing then, but carnal action will question it. Nate, Seek for shelter where we will, we shall be found without entering at last. Let the tempers have whatever share in it, the deed will prove our own: nay, so have done it at the instigation of the devil, will be our crime, instead of our excuse.

Before Chord

14. And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art curled above all cattle, and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and I dult shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. 15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

I have, ed. 19-24.

v. 14, 15. The criminals convicted, sentence must pass; and it begins with the tempers, whose crime was most notorious, and whose judgment the most dooms.

The curse of God intolerable, and endless is his doom.

The serpent, though but the instrument, must suffer. God will shew his displeasure against sin, wherever it appears. He was more subtle than any beast, and now is most accursed. Nate, The heaviest wrath of God will light upon them heads, who have employed the acutely genius in the service of the devil, against the revealed truths of God. He is condemned to lack the dust, to crawl under every foot, and to kill the lad and howell place: and withal, to suffer perpetual war as hated of man, and crushed by him, wherever he should be found. And though his unvenomed fling would still mark his first malice, and bite the heel which trod on him, yet his head should be bruised, and death be his portion. Mark the end of companions in iniquity; deadly hatred quickly succeeds the most cordial union.

But the chief edge of this sword of judgment is levelled against him who spoke in the serpent. He is doomed, 1. To be degraded, derelved, and abhorred for ever: he was cast from the height of heaven before; now he sinks still lower. As this hath filled the measure of his iniquities, it fills the measure of his punishment: humbled, to be trodden down by those whom he deceived; to be bruised under their feet, over whom he had triumphed; and to be the object of eternal hate, of those whose friendship he had abused. Sooner or later, pride will have a fall.

2. A perpetual enmity is put between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent; with the certain expectation of his ruin in the conflict. Nate, (1.) The believer’s heart, in this world, partakes of both these seeds; and the war of corrupt affections and Satan’s temptations, continue till death; yet grace shall win the crown: and though the wounded heel prove mortal to the body, we shall, through Jesus, shortly triumph over death, and him who hath the power of it. (2.) This world will be a divided world, where the people of God must meet with many a fine thrust from Satan’s seed, the ungodly set on fire of hell; but may we ever remember for our comfort, the triumphing of the wicked is but for a moment.

But what to Satan was to fall of horror and despair, like the pillar of the cloud between Israel and the Egyptians, offered a bright beam of hope to fallen man. He heard the afflicted promise of a seed, who should bruise the serpent’s head; and, however his apprehension of the person might be indignant, yet it afforded him a ground of faith and hope. We now are afflicted, that this seed was Christ; and need not doubt but the gospel preached unto him in this first promise, was an effectual as to the other patriarchs, before his appearance in the field. Nate, If Christianity be not full as old as the creation, it is almost as old.

Christ is called the woman’s seed, as being in the fulness of time to be born of her, and of woman only. Let it be remembered for the woman’s comfort and honour, if she was the first to bring sin into the world, she hath also born him who will make an end of sin, and take it out of the world. His heel being bruised, represents the sufferings of his humanity, when taking away sin by the sacrifice of himself: but his wound is Satan’s ruin. The nails which fastened the crucified Saviour’s feet, soothe him, like Sifers, through the temples: his power and kingdom are destroyed, and his wiles for ever frustrated. The redeemed of the Lord are rescued; that wicked one toucheth them not. Though he thrusts still out his forked tongue, the agonies of death, as it were, are upon him: the spreading gospel of Jesus continues to compleat the conquest, and it will be as a little while perfected; when Satan shall be bruised under our feet, and death and hell be cast into the lake of fire. Thou promised seed, fulfill, and that soon, thy people’s hope!

16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children: and thy desire shall be, to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

D

Genesis 3:16

1. Chap. i. 2. 2. Or Ispell by thy heirment. 3. 1 Cor. 6th. 4. 2 Th. ii. 5. 13, 14. Th. ii. 5. Before Christ and

As the woman is second in guilt, she is next in sentence. She is to share with the man in his curle too; but she hath a burden laid on her; peculiarly her own.

1. An increase of sorrows in conception and childbearing. Of all agonizing pains, these are acute to a proverb; whilst weartome days and nights precede them; and fear, as well as anguish, embitters them. Note, 1. Every groan of travail, is the cry of sin; and every sorrow we feel, springs from this root. If our sorrows are multiplied, no wonder: our sins are to: as the world, we must acknowledge they are less than our iniquities deserve. 2. We should regard the word of God in every sorrow: this alone can reconcile the heart to patient subversion; I knowne dumb, and spend not my mouth, for it was thy doing, Phil. maxim. 9.

2. Her state of subjection pronounced. Whilst innocence remained, if some superiority was placed in man, to gentle and affectionate was the sway, that woman rather seemed the equal partner of the throne; but since sin hath entered, her yoke is heavier. Her husband rules, and as the fallen mind is now disturbed with pride and angry nations, these breed disquiet, and often make obedience real punishment. Happy those, who instead of complaining of their suffering, lament their sin. To disobey or murmur, or affect equality, much more superiority, is not only a violation of the divine law, but an insult on the divine judgment.

nant head and representative, who having taken upon himself our sins, and borne our sorrows, endured the curle, and sailed it to the cross. Blessed be God for Jesus Christ.

But dare any proud raisinor object to this judgment of God, and suggest that the punishment is greater than the crime? Let such an one well weigh the dead, and he will confess the wages men. For in this act of disobedience, every aggravation united: impious unbelief and insistent pride, envy of God’s perfections, and bitterly appetite, costrings of God’s beauty, murmuring, discontent, wilful disobedience, and black ingratitude; and this complicated with the habit treachery, and most unrelenting cruelty towards the unborn millions, whose persons he represented, and whose life was bound up in him. Let any man consider the above catalogue, and then shall God be clear in his sayings, and just when he hath judged.

20. And Adam called his wives name + Eve, because + Ioh. Chas. she was the mother of all living.

Genesis 3:20

Eve, or life, is a very exprecise name of her, who was to be the mother of all living, and most exprecise, if we regard that seed the should bring forth, who should destroy death, and in whom all his people should be made alive. In this view, her name was a profession of Adam’s faith in the promise; and thus beautifully comes in after the dreadful sentence, to shew that though God visited his iniquities with a red, and his sin with scourges; yet his loving kindness would be not utterly take from him.

21. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

Genesis 3:21

An instance this that he still cared for them, and had not, as they deferred, though highly offended, utterly cast them off. They wanted cloaths now to hide their shams, but who shall provide them, or whence? Should the provision, and learn instruction from it. 1. To be proud of our dress, is to value the badges of our guilt; our cloaths are our shame, and his twice our shame to be proud of them too. 2. Ufe, not finery, was here confuted. Let the poor be thankful they are better clad than these father; and let the rich remember needless and expensive ornaments ill befit a sinful body, and a fallen sinner. But above all, 3. The significance of these coats of skins. In the dying beast they behold their death; and not to overwhelm them with sorrow, they saw in the desert of sin, the sacrifice for sin: the blood that was shed caught them the atonement which the Lamb of God on their behalf should make; and the skins which covered their bodies, represented that sordels rob of righteousness which should prevent the shame of their spiritual nakedness from appearing: to conceal which, all they could do for themselves was as vain, as the fig-leave aprons they wore. They, whom the Lord Jesus Christ cloaths, shall not be found naked.

22. And the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil. And now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.’ 23. Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground, from whence he was taken. 24. So he drove out the man: and he placed at the call of the garden of Eden, thereon, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

v. 22, 23, 24. Death was respired; but toil and trouble immediately came upon him, in his expulsion from this bled abode. We have here.

1. God upbraiding his folly and sin, by a most piercing irony or mockery: he deserves to be put to shame, who dares to commit sin. Yet God’s design is not to sport with his misery, but to awaken him to repentance: if he covers him with confusion, it is to lead him to conversion. Note, When a sinner comes to a discovery of his state, he as much upbraids his folly, as he laments his sin.

2. The reason of his expulsion; to prevent his eating of the tree of life; not that it now could profit him, but lest he should flatter himself with hopes of loving, and profane the instrumental seal, when he had broken the covenant it confirmed. (1.) Scandalous sinners, and self-righteous formalists, should be excluded from the Lord’s table: they cannot but abude it. What can the seal signify to those, who are strangers to the covenant of grace? (2.) Though this tree is now no more, hailed be God for a better: Jesus Christ is the tree of Life, growing in the paradise of God, and whoever will, may freely come to him, and eat and live.

3. The manner; driven out: reluctant, no doubt, but go they must. They had forfeited God’s favour, and must bear the burden: yet not to leave these happy groves alone or chiefly grieved their hearts; it was here they met and enjoyed communi-