Paradise Lost

Genesis 3:8 ESV

8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

One of the parables of Jesus that I am very sure all of us are aware of is the parable of the Prodigal Son. And one of the reasons why we enjoy the parable of the Prodigal Son so much is because of how the parable ends.

We all know the parable. There is a certain man who has two sons when the younger of the sons comes to his father and says, “Father, give me the share of the property that is coming to me, give me my inheritance now while you are still alive and thus before the time when I should rightly receive it.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but if one of my boys, when they got older came to me and said something like that, I would say, “You want what?! You don’t actually think that is going to happen, do you? You’re crazier than I thought! And if I were to give you your inheritance now, then I would be crazier than you!”

Without knowing how the parable goes, I think that most of us would think that that is how the father would reply. But surprisingly, the father agreed to this request of his younger son and gave him his share of the inheritance while he was still living.

Not long after that, this younger son collected what was now his after receiving his inheritance and he took off into a far away country.

Once there, the younger son squandered away everything that he had in reckless living. It makes sense that this is what the prodigal son would do. Afterall, prodigal is defined as spending or using large amounts of money, time, energy, etc. in an unwise manner.

After he had spent it all up and everything was gone, he found himself with nothing in a place far from home. But it wasn’t until things had gotten so bad that he hired himself out to a citizen of that far away country and found himself longing to eat the very food that the pigs that he was feeding for the man whom he had hired himself out to that he realized just how bad things had gotten.

Now, we all know what happened next. He came to his senses and said that even the servants at his father’s house had more than enough bread to eat and that now being humbled, he would return to his father’s house and humbly plead with him just to let him be one of his servants and how his father embraced him and treated him as a son in spite of his rebellion.

But let’s imagine for a moment that that was not what happened in this parable. Let’s imagine that everything went the same way that it did in the parable right up until the point that the son found himself feeding the pigs.

So, let’s say that the younger son asked for his inheritance and was granted it, that he went to a far away country and blew all of his sustenance on reckless living and found himself feeding the pigs. Let’s even say that just like in the parable, the son found himself longing for the pig’s food and realizing that he blew it.

He finds himself starving, longing to eat what the pigs were eating, thinking to himself that he had messed up and that things had never been so bad for him, but that was it.

Imagine that the parable ends with the son longing for pig’s feed, knowing that he was in this mess because of his own foolishness, but there was no getting out of it.

He had everything, way more than enough, but now he is forced to live out the rest of his existence begging for pig’s feed until he eventually died in that far away country, far from home, starving to death, knowing that he had messed up and there was no one to blame but himself.

I think that if that were how that parable ended, we wouldn’t talk about it as much as we do. But as we continue throughout our series here in second and third chapters of the book of Genesis, we find the original male and female, Adam and Eve in a situation that practically mirrors this.

As we discussed last week, the man and the woman had found themselves beguiled by the serpent and partaking of the one tree in the garden that God had commanded them not to partake of.

They had been tricked into believing that God was not good, that He was not loving, that He was not conducive to man’s bliss, but was rather prohibiting and hindering his bliss.

What they came to believe is that that which was missing from them fully enjoying their bliss was that they could not do that which only God could do.

God had said that His creation was good, God deemed that it was good for the man to live in the garden in Eden, then when God observed that it was not good for man to be alone, He made for the man a helper, his wife, Eve, and this, God said was good. And God told man that it was good for him to partake of the fruit of every tree in the garden, save the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God said that it was not good for man to partake of that one tree.

So, what we see here is God and God alone deeming that which is good and that which is not good. And initially, man was content with this and knew that God deeming what was good and not good was indeed good.

But then the serpent said that in order for the man and his wife to fully experience bliss that they must also have the ability to deem what is good and not good, and that the only way they can accomplish and obtain this ability is by partaking of the fruit of the one tree which commanded to not partake of.

The serpent says that God knows this to be the case and he said that God does not want the man and the woman to have this ability, therefore He has given the command to not partake of this fruit. Thus, the serpent says that they could fully experience this bliss if they violate the command of God and eat of the forbidden fruit.

Thus, they partook of the fruit, and immediately after partaking of it, their eyes were opened to their now wretched state. Sin had officially entered into God’s good creation, like the prodigal, they had overstepped that which was permitted of them, and what they immediately knew is that they were not good.

Sin had come into the world, and it came into the world through this single disobedience. And what the man and the woman immediately realized was that they had made the biggest mistake they could have made.

And as we come to the first half of our reading, we see what happens next, where it says:

Genesis 3:8a ESV

8a And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,

Sometime after the man and the woman had radically fallen into sin, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden. Thus, they hear, apparently, the footsteps of God as He approaches them, coming nearer and nearer.

And this happens, Moses tells us, “in the cool of the day”. Now, “the cool of the day” has been thought by many to indicate a certain time during the day, and they may in fact be right about that. But I personally believe that “in the cool of the day” is not indicative of a time, but of a substance.

I believe that “the cool of the day” is indicative of wind. When wind blows, it typically produces a cooling effect. And saying that God came “in” this cool of the day, I believe is indicative of the manifestation that God was near.

Thus, I believe that the coming of God here, is heard in approaching footsteps and accompanied by and felt through wind.

And as God was manifestly coming near to the man and the woman, let us look to the second half of this verse to see what their reaction to the recognition of God’s approaching was:

Genesis 3:8b ESV

8b and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

As the man and the woman hear the Lord approaching, they flee from Him, willfully hiding themselves from His awesome presence behind the cover of the trees of the garden.

Now, how ironic is this? It was the wretched, sin-filled desire of these two to be as God. They wanted to be on the same plane as God. They ate the fruit because they wanted to do what only God can do, and they believed that in eating the fruit they would be granted their desire.

But now that they have eaten the fruit and they hear God approaching, they don’t want to be anywhere near Him. They wanted so bad to be as God, but now they flee from the One they wanted to be like in absolute sin-filled terror.

This was the place that man had found himself in, paradise lost. He had it all, but he was deceived, beguiled into believing that it was his purpose to be like God, which is cosmic treason by the way.

Treason: the act of betrayal by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government. This is what the man and the woman sought to accomplish. They sought to overthrow God and be their own masters, the makers and deciders of their own destinies, the ones who authoritatively decided for themselves what was good and what was evil.

And in so doing not only did they lose their former standing with God, but they also were now terrified of the God Whom they desired to be as. They thought that partaking of this fruit would make them like God, but instead, it showed them that they were so unlike God that they dared not remain in His presence.

Thus, we can compare that which occurs in our reading for today with the modified version of the parable of the prodigal son that we spoke of earlier.

We said in that modified version of the parable that the prodigal son had found himself in a very bad condition in a country far away from home, knowing that he was there through no one’s fault but his own and that he lived out the remainder of his days in despair knowing that there was no restoring that which he formerly had.

At this point, this is where Adam and Eve arrived. They knew that they had fallen from their former state. They knew that they had disobeyed God. They knew that what they had done was wrong. But worst of all, at this point, they reckoned that there was no way in which they could be restored to their former state, thus, when they heard God, the One Whom they had offended, they hod themselves.

And the consequences of this original sin still linger to this very day. All of Adam’s progeny, every person who is ever born into this world is born in the same state of rebellion against God. Everyone who is ever born into this world is born at odds with God, like Adam and Eve, wishing that they were God, yet knowing that this perverse wish and desire is not right.

Because we are born this way and because we naturally know that it is not right, we are reminded of man’s proper place, and that is not in rebellion against God, wishing that we were God, but ever in reverence of God, in a state of humility before God, desiring only to serve Him, love Him, and be recognizably and joyfully dependent on Him.

Yet man perpetually and obsessively rebels against God, it’s not something that he can cease from on his own. Indeed, though he knows that it is not right, he persists in it and has no natural desire to cease from it. Thus, God must intervene for a man to be anything otherwise.

For this reason, that we today who are saved are among those who revere God, love God, desire to serve God, and are recognizably and joyfully dependent on God shows us that a miraculous change performed by the hand of God has occurred within us.

What it shows us is that God has graciously caused us, those whom He has chosen to save to experience a rebirth. And this has come about only because God was pleased to do so.

Let us honor God in our rebirth!

Amen?