Boy, this is amazing! In one day, one actual day, one 24-hour period, this man and his wife have gone from praising God to blaming God. Total reversal. You did it. If You hadn’t made that woman, this never would have happened. Singleness is preferable; he is saying. However, it’s exceedingly difficult to reproduce. And they were to “fill the earth.” So what God gave was the best that God had to give. And necessary, as in the case of all other living things. She was the best. She was the necessary complement to man. And Adam foolishly followed her. So he says: “‘The woman you gave me,’” why, she just “‘gave me from the tree and I ate.’” It was just that simple, wasn’t it? She walked over and said, try this, Adam. Come on. But that’s the way it is with depravity. It just always wants to see itself as a victim. There’s really nothing wrong with me, he said; there’s something wrong with her, and something really wrong with You.
Isn’t it amazing? Depravity settles in so fast and turns the lover of God into the hater of God. Still the way it is today; don’t ever admit you are a sinner. And, if you can’t get out of it because it’s very obvious that you have sinned, then you can blame God for the circumstances that caused you to do it, or the people that influenced you to do it. Blame it on somebody else. Maintain your victim status. That’s what the sinner does. So evasive, deceptive, blame-shifting. But depravity will never own up to its true condition. And I guess what’s really sad is there’s no repentance, and so there’s going to be judgment. Verse 17 — we’re going to get to it later — he says to Adam: “‘Because you listened to the voice of your wife, you have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying ‘You shall not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground because of you.’” And he goes on and on, and he pronounces this curse on Adam and Eve, and throws them out of the garden.
It’s just a tragic picture. They are now — listen carefully — void of any love for God. Adam doesn’t love God. Eve doesn’t love God. They resent God. They see God as a frightening figure who is going to bring about death. They see God as their judge, not their friend. They see God as the author of their sin, because it’s God who creates the circumstance in which they fall. And so they resent God. They hate God. They despise God. They want to be out of God’s presence. They want to keep their distance from God. Their hearts are now void of any love for God.
Listen further. They have no interest in God’s honor. They seek immediately, in a self-defensive response, to dishonor God, to — to indict God. They have no interest in God’s glory. Their hearts are now void of righteousness. They are empty of holiness or purity. They are full of sin. They refuse to repent. The only emotion they have toward God is to resent God and, at the same time, fear God. It’s true of Adam and it’s true of Eve. Look at Verse 13. “The Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’” And He’s coming to her now with the same approach. Explain yourself, Eve. By the way, Adam was no defender of his wife, was he? He blamed her and God. Adam didn’t try to protect his wife, but he’s supposed to be a protector of his wife. That relationship has become so twisted that Adam blames her and God. So God goes to her. She’s now unprotected. Adam isn’t doing anything but blaming her. And he says to Eve: “‘What have you done? What have you done?’” Again, He’s not asking for information. He’s endeavoring to elicit a confession. “‘What have you done?’” It’s the same chapter in Chapter 4 Verse 10 when God says to Cain: “‘What have you done?’” And God knows exactly what he’s done. He’s killed his brother. So God isn’t seeking information. He is saying: Eve, will you own up to this? Verse 13:
“And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’” I am a victim. Self-justifying, blame-shifting again. Well, she can’t deny that she ate. What she wants God to think she is a victim of circumstances which God must have created, because God created everything, including serpents. So here are these who one day earlier were lovers of God, now indicting God for what’s wrong in their lives. This is depravity. This is how it acts, always.
Classic definition of depravity: It can be defined as a condition of the human soul in which there is disobedience to God, lack of fellowship with God, the sentence of death, an unwillingness to acknowledge sin, a concern only for the consequence of sin, not sin itself, in which there is no desire to repent; in which there is no desire to turn from sin; in which there is blame-shifting and a constant effort at self-justification and self-exaltation. This is what Jeremiah said when he said: “The heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked.” And the condition cannot be changed by the sinner.
Adam and Eve were fallen. They were lost. They were unsaved. They were shamed. They were guilty. They were impenitent, the plight of all sinners. And the depravity was so pervasive that they would not and could not repent. Paradise was lost. And the very last thing that a depraved sinner would ever do is to own up to his sin before God; confess his lost and undone condition. Even when the sinner is conscious of his wickedness, he seeks shelter behind his own self-righteousness and trusts in his own good works to counterbalance his evil. Or he redefines God in his own terms or, like the atheist, he dismisses God altogether. I think Adam and Eve felt, if I can say it that way, experienced a sense of moral distance between themselves and God. He was holy; they were sinful. I think they felt that. I think the unregenerate feel that. But there’s no love for God there, so there is no desire to restore that: Just to run from God and hide, and indict God for whatever is wrong in your life.
You say: What’s the remedy? Folks, nobody would ever be saved unless God, in sovereign grace, shattered the bonds of that depravity. And that’s what He does when He awakens the dead to life. Well, next time we’re going to see the Judge passing sentence on the impenitent, depraved couple.
Let’s pray.
Such dishonor to you, oh God, is distressing to even speak about. We would honor you and glorify you in everything. You are holy, holy, holy. And we are the wicked ones. Thank you for sovereignly bringing us to the recognition of our sin, that we might be saved; for granting us grace to love you and to seek to honor you. That is our desire. That is our prayer. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
