After the sin, Adam and Eva were expelled from the Paradise. Up to that time, they did not know the word “loss“.They only knew to receive the blessings from God. Now, they would begin to reap the results of the sin. How many people are used to divine goodness and end up abusing it? They do not know, or they live as if they did not know, that God is fair and will bring the repayment for the sin.
Adam and Eva lost the marvelous communion that they had with God, lost the access to the fruitful trees of the garden, and principally to the tree of the life. God put in two cherubim and a sword that stopped their return to the paradise. We see God’s action against the man, but we can not forget that the initiative in this process was the actual human being who acted against God.

The way to the Paradise was blockaded. We cannot think that God’s blessings will be at our disposal for an indefinite amount of time or in the hour that we want. We cannot think that the blessings of God will be at our accessibility, for indefinite time or in the hour that we desire. We can not afford to lose the opportunities that the Lord gives us, because tomorrow may be too late. There can be a second chance, but this is not guaranteed. If the recuperation of the blessing is not impossible, certainly it will be very difficult. We cannot negotiate our spiritual rights, because tomorrow may be too late to try to rehabilitate them. It was what happened with Esau. He sold his right of primogeniture and then later had no way to recover it, even though he begged and shed tears (Heb.12.16-17).

Following the Biblical history, in Apocalypse there is talk again about the tree of life and the possibility of our access of it. How many thousands of years have passed and will pass until this day arrives! Another example is the experience of the people of Israel faced with the Promised Land. Therefore, they had lost that chance to take over Canaan and had been condemned to become vacant for the desert during 40 years. Do not lose the opportunity to serve God today. Do not devaluate what God offers today. This is the acceptable time, the day of the salvation (II Cor.6.2).

Genesis 3.15 is the first prophecy messianic. Talking to the serpent, God said: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her descendant. This one will injure your head and you will injure his heel”.

This text talks about two seeds, two descendants: the descendants of the woman, through whom Jesus would be born, to crush the head of the enemy; and the descendants of the serpent, in other words, the children of the devil.

From then on, the Biblical history presents these two genealogies that develop in parallel. We have its symbolic representation in chapter 4. Cain represents the malignant seed and Abel representing the blessed seed. Later we have the descents of Shem and Torah, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, etc. In the New Testament, John Baptist referred to the Pharisees as “race of vipers”. It was there “well” represented the descent of the old snake. In all the times we have children of God being persecuted by the sons of the Devil, until we come to Jesus and Judas Iscariots.

The children of God suffer some damage at some moment. The devil wounds their heel. After all, this is the only part of contact between both; therefore the enemy is underneath of our feet, having his head crushed (Rm.16.20).

This is one of the more intriguing questions that can be thought about the Bible and creation. Why does evil exist? How did it appear? Why? Who did it? This subject disturbs many students and theologians. A division between the studies exists. Some affirm that God created the evil. Others deny it. We know that God did not create the sin, but allowed it to enter the world. Anyway, we know that, ultimately, God, in his sovereignty, could prevent the sin or eliminate it at the time of its sprouting. He could have destroyed Satan and his angels when they sinned. However, he did not. Therefore he has some purpose in that.

We do not have the pretension to answer satisfactorily this question but may guess that God did not destroy evil for seeing that it would be useful in some form. How could man have choice and freedom if evil was not a concrete possibility? God might have created robots, which could live with perfection eternally. However, what value would that have? The value of love is the possibility of his absence. If we are free to love and we love, this is valuable. If we were planned to love, this would not have any value. The questioning on the origin of evil and his purpose can bring discussions without end. However, let’s not forget the most important thing: to reject the evil and to choose the good (Is.1.16-17).

The Escape Of The Man

The guilty conscience dominated man as soon as the sin was committed. He started to be conscience of himself, in the most negative sense that he could have. He looked at himself and saw that he was naked. He felt the necessity to be covered, to be hidden, to escape.

The holiness covers and protects us, but the sin leaves us vulnerable. The conscience tells us to escape, to hide, to deny the mistake and to try to transfer the fault to others. So, Adam and Eva tried to hide from God (3.8), As if this was possible.

They had made insufficient investments to cover themselves (3.7).

Then Adam tried to place the fault on Eva and she on the serpent (3.12-14) that, not having whom accusing, was kept in silence.

Later, when Cain killed his brother, he also felt the impulse to escape, and wondered if he could leave the presence of God (4.14).

Many are escaping God. They avoid the church, the Bible, the gospel. Do not escape, because the Lord is everywhere. Do not run from God. Run to God.

The conscience of your own nudity was so much, that man made clothes for them. The human being is conscious of their own faults, their misery and degradation. They try then to create religions, philosophies, philanthropy, and other artifices to appease their conscience. Their clothes may even be fine, pretty, but they do not cover sin. We are able to be covered by culture, knowledge, positions, titles, fame and glory, but nothing of that clears our sin neither justifies ourselves before God.

God called the man: “Adam, where you are?” Still today He calls the man. God wants to have communion with us. He wants to forgive us and restore us. Rather than flee, the Bible encourages us to approach God (Hb.4.16) with an uncovered face (II Cor.3.18), knowing that all the things are naked and obvious before his eyes (Hb.4.13). Instead of covering our sins up or trying to launch the fault on others, we should have recognized our faults and confessed them to the Lord.

After that moment of confrontation of Adam and Eva to God, the Lord did two things: Determined the punishment for the sin and made clothes to cover the man (3.21). We see there, His justice and his compassion. Like a Father, he corrects but also He receives and welcomes. To make clothes from skins, God needed to sacrifice an animal. This was the first sacrifice for sin, symbolizing the future death of Jesus in the cross.

With all this, Adam and Eva were still expelled from Paradise.

We are a target of the divine compassion; the consequences of the sin are, normally, inevitable.
Through Christ’s sacrifice, our sins are covered in an efficient and definite way, since this is the divine method to forgive and restore us. Jesus died so that the way to the paradise could be opened. Again, for Christ’s merits, we will be able to have access to the tree of the life (Ap.2.7)

CURSES BY THE SIN - Gn. 3.14-19; 4, 11.

A Curse is to speak badly against someone. God’s word has creative power. When he promises or commands a punishment, this is called “curse”. The punishment is then a form of evil created by God. It is not about something pertaining to the Devil.

“A curse without cause will not come” (Pv.26.2). Above of all credence or superstition, a curse is, in its origin, connected with sin. Even if someone pronounces a curse, it will only take refuge in the one that is living in sin.

The curse pronounced against Adam reached the earth directly. After all, the man was made of earth and he is part of it. His work started to be laborious and painful. The curse for Eva was the multiplication of her pains of childbirth and submission to her husband. Even with the conversion, these curses remain.

The Tree of Knowledge of the Good and Evil - verses 16-17.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was put in Paradise so that man could be tested. Man already knew the good, because he was created in holiness and also knew God.

He could only hear or experience the evil by disobedience to God. In verse 17 we hear of the only restriction imposed on man, and therefore the only temptation to sin. Not taking into consideration the nature of the tree, eating the fruit was disobedience. This would bring about death and the knowledge of evil. There are several things we should keep in mind about this first test:

Adam was warned of the awful consequences of the sin. On the day that he ate of the prohibited fruit he would die spiritually {Ephesians 2:1]. Because of Adam’s sin,man is now spiritually dead, or dying spiritually, and suffering the risk of the second death [Apocalypse 20:14].

Why does man grow old and die? We can never understand the physical process, but through the Scriptures we know the spiritual cause. All this knowledge shows how arbitrary and irrational Adam’s sin was. This was not a small sin, but a betrayal against the benevolence and the fair authority God.

Conclusion
Before the fall of the man, the world only knew life. Now that death reigns, God talks about life in Jesus Christ.

In chapter 3, Satan enters the scene. As there was no human being available to him, since Adam and Eva still had not sinned, the enemy used the snake that was in the first form. The Devil used misleading propaganda for them to sin.” You will be like God, knowing the good and evil”. He only shows the temporary, immediate, and apparent benefits, hiding the profound harm (Gn.3 and Mt.4). An immediate vision can make the sin something very interesting. Thus, for an immediate pleasure, the future is sacrificed. This was the case of Esau when, for a meal, sold his right of primogeniture (Gn.25.29-34; Hb.12.16-17).

The knowledge of the good and of the evil might seem something desirable. However, the knowledge of the evil, in the human case, meant the acceptance of the evil, a deep and bitter experience with the malignant.

Man did not know the depth of the abyss in which he was entering. Many people are still looking for more deep knowledge of the evil. There are those that are dedicated to the occultism. Paradoxically, perhaps imagine that the evil is good.

But everything that is connected to the ambition (Gn.3.6; I João 2.15-17; Tg.1.14-15), the desire to earn more and more and more, beyond everything that God already gave. The desire, in certain measure, is legitimate, but the greed can lead man to the depths of hell. How do we know the difference? Greed is the desire for the forbidden, for what belongs to others, or the unbridled excess of material possessions or carnal pleasures.

Desiring more than what was allowed; man lost what God had given graciously. How many young people lose their lives for wanting the pleasure of drugs and sexual lewdness early? They lose all the pleasure of life for the pleasure of a moment. The sin is a form of losing what God gave us, but this is not the worst.

The sin makes us lose God, and the pleasure to be in his presence. God does not take from us what He gave. We ourselves destroy everything, as did the prodigal son with the paternal inheritance.

After creating all the things, God saw that it was good (1.4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, and 31). In 2.18, however, God saw something that was not good: the loneliness of man. This shows us how important human relationship is , marriage, family, love and companionship (Cf. Ec.4.9-12).

What God gives us and what and what He ask us. (1.29; 2.16, 17)

God gave Adam and Eva the Paradise to live with a great variety of fruitful trees. However, He ordered that they should not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil. What he gave to the man was infinitely more than what he demanded. However, humans want more, even what it is not ours. the Man did not eat many of the Fruits that have been made for him, but was keen to eat what was prohibited.

Do not eat all the results. There is a “divine reserve”. This can be compared with the offers that we do or with the help that we give to the needy. In Moses’ law we see this Principle. The harvesters had to leave behind the “scrawls”, which was a remaining of harvest. This should be for the foreigner and the poor person. However, human selfishness often is greater than human kindness, which may be the cause for human ruin.

God gave man his own will, right of choice, many things for his delight. However, there is a limit. In all the areas of our life there are limits that need to be respected. We need to begin respecting what belongs to God and, after that what belongs to our neighbors. “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” We cannot want everything for ourselves, or wait for an absolute freedom, which allows us to have everything, to use everything, as if each one of us was the center of the universe.