Introduction
The first question found in the Bible came from Satan. The second question came from God. These two questions reveal a vast difference in the characters of these two speakers. They also reveal two different eternal destinies.
The First Question
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (Genesis 3.1)
Satan’s question to the woman revealed his nature. His nature to deceive. All we need to know about Satan is this: his nature is to deceive; he can never be trusted. Jesus called him the “father of lies” (John 8.44). He is the source of all lies and deception. The strategies he employs are manifold and work on many levels but their foundation is deception. In Jesus’ great dissertation upon end times, He repeatedly warned His hearers not to be deceived. During the Tribulation Satan will be his most convincing by working great wonders of deception (Matthew 24).
Satan’s question to the woman was designed to cause her to question God’s character, specifically, His goodness. How long their dialogue lasted is not revealed. Surely it lasted much longer than the record in Genesis. The account provides the main points of the conversation. Satan succeeded in his plan (2 Corinthians 11.3), convincing the woman to doubt God’s goodness. She ate.
Satan’s main objective was not the woman but the man. He reasoned he could not deceive the man but that he could attack the woman and defeat the man. He was right. Adam, when he discovered what had happened recognized the problem but chose unwisely in solving the problem. His eating did not as a result from deception (Genesis 3.13; 1 Timothy 2.14). He knew what he was doing. The Scripture places the blame of sin upon Adam, not Eve (1 Corinthians 15.22). It is unlikely Adam understood or appreciated the consequences of his choice. It cost him dominion over the earth (Genesis 1.26, 28), returned rule of the world to Satan (Ezekiel 28.12-15; Luke 4.5-6; 2 Corinthians 4.4), and plunged the earth under a curse which resulted in decay and death (Genesis 3.17-19; Romans 8.19-22). From that point, every living thing died (1 Corinthians 15.22). What ruin!
God’s First Question
Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3.9)
After Adam and Eve ate fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they recognized they were naked. More is here than appears on the surface. They may have been clothed in a glory that vanished with their eating. At the very least they acquired an unknown knowledge of nakedness: shame. This was the true nature of the “knowledge of good and evil” of which God had warned. Satan had represented it as something desirable which God was withholding (Genesis 3.5). In reality, this “good” was grief, sadness, regret, heartbreak, and death.
Because of the shame Adam and Eve felt, their first act was to try to cover themselves. They attempted this by sewing fig leaves together, fashioning crude “clothing” (Genesis 3.7). Volumes could be written about this. It was a representative act of what every human being does when we try and cover sin, excuse failure, and rationalize evil. The fig leaves were: “I’m ok, you’re ok.” They were not and we are not.
In Genesis 3.8, we read of God’s walking in the garden.1 Apparently, this was His habit with the couple during the “cool of the day.” During these walks He met and conversed with Adam and Eve. Prior to their eating, this had been the highlight of their day. But that had all changed. They were now afraid of Him and hid.
The Nature of the Question
Satan asked his question to manipulate Eve to doubt God’s goodness. God asked His question to restore the couple. God’s asked, “Where are you?” because He could not see Adam and Eve. They were not were they usually met for their afternoon walk. But the larger sense of His question was psychological, not geographical. God asks each of us this question. Where are we? If we are truthful, we can only answer: Lost!
Jesus taught this lesson to the Jews of His day through statements and parables. One familiar passage is the parable of the lost sheep. Luke recorded:
3 So He told them this parable, saying, 4 “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7 I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance (Luke 15.3-7).
Like the sheep, Adam and Eve were lost. They were the human race. The point of Jesus’ parable was that the lost sheep knew it was lost. The ninety-nine the shepherd left did not. They thought they were ok. They did not know they too were lost. They shepherd rescued the sheep who knew it was lost. God sought Adam and Eve in the garden for they too knew they were lost.
Conclusion
7 So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10.7-10).
Because of Adam’s failure, each of us enters the world without Christ, without hope, and without eternal life. We are lost. God asks each of us the same question He asked the first man: “Where are you?” If honest, our answer is that we are lost and without hope. Jesus told the Jews He was the door (cf. John 14.6). If anyone enters through Him he will be saved. Paul declared how one is saved in our age:
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15.1-4).
Salvation is a gift. The Lord Jesus Christ solved the problem of sin and death with His death and resurrection. He paid for every person’s sin with His sacrifice. Putting one’s trust in His work, that He died for your sins and rose from the dead is how we enter into life.
1 This is the first account of a theophany. God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His pre-incarnate form visited with His creation, created in His image.
©2012 Don Samdahl. Anyone is free to reproduce this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold.
So in the beginning the serpent spoke? And my other question is when God walked with Adam in the evening, do u think it was Jesus?
Theresa,
Maybe. Difficult question. Did animals speak? Eve didn’t seem surprised. Bullinger had an interesting take on this: https://doctrine.org/companion-bible-appendix-19/. Yes. The Lord Jesus walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. THAT was Paradise!
I have really learnt a lot from you and Les. Thank you sir Don
1) I believe Moses saw this in a vision. And had some pictures or symbols just as revelation. The serpent refers to Satan. The book of revelation told us that. The tree of Life, I believe, refers to Jesus. Adam rejected Christ( some sort of symbol). What do you think?
2) There’s hardly any mention of Satan in the old testament( Genesis, Job) and though they didn’t even know about his existence or they didn’t consider him relevant. I believe it has great significance. Why do you think this is? What do you think?
3) What exactly were the “works of the devil”
beside sin? Was it only sin?
Tomi,
Thank you. How God communicated this the Moses is not revealed. He may have given him this information as He was giving him the Law. The tree of life is/was a literal tree. The Jews understood there were good and evil spirits. A good example is found in 1 Kings 22. The “works of the Devil” are certainly sin and also include things like deception, influencing the governments of the world, and leading rebellion against God.
Thank you.. About the Jews understanding good and evil spirits. It was, however, believed or recorded that those evil spirits were sent from God, not from Satan or the devil.. It’s kind of controversial because we understand that in God is no darkness at all and evil cannot proceed from God.
How can you possibly reconcile this?
Tomi,
There’s much we do not yet understand about the operations of God regarding fallen angels and the divine council in heaven. But what seems to be the case is that God allows certain operations to go on until he finally resolves the angelic conflict. At the midpoint of the Tribulation, Satan and all the fallen angels are removed from heaven. So those operations will then cease. Until then, God allows these evil beings freedom to influence human events.
Pls what do you mean by angelic conflict?
Did Adam have internal life?
What is the essence of the tree of life?
Thank you
Gideon,
The angelic conflict is the rebellion of some of the angels along with Satan against God. Adam would have lived forever had he not sinned, barring accident. It appears to tree of life has restorative powers.
It was Jesus that walked in the garden with Adam. The scripture says in John 1 that no man has seen the Father at anytime, except the Son.
John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
Good morning from NZ
I was praying for a word for this Sunday
And i came to the Genesis story when God ask the first question Adam where are you?
So i decided to google this morning and to my surprise, I ended up here.
Thank you for your writing and has been tremendously very helpful and insightful
I think i have found a good place to chat and ask questions if that is fine with you
God bless
Atu Lagi originally from Fiji but have lived in NZ for 31 years
Atu,
Thank you. Hope the articles will bless you.
I am impressed the depth of all the work here…not just this article. I’m interested in the background of the contributors. I have studied for a long time and this is the most comprehensive coverage I have found. Few unhappy bad eggs have responded as far as I can see. I’m hoping I can read all of this. I see a lot of Les Feldick here…..or I see a lot of this on Les Feldick. Either way I’ve learned a lot. thanks.
Joe,
Thanks for the kind words. I have written all the articles except where noted. Les is a great teacher and the one who opened my eyes to the unique apostleship of Paul.
I thank God for you and the comprehensive way you explain God’s Word. Our group has been studying Les Feldicks DVD’s for several years now and we are amazed at how rightly dividing the Word has opened our understanding and given us answers that we were not getting before. You have become my “go-to-guy” when I need an answer to a Bible question. Every article I have read so far stands the Berean test of Acts 17:11.
Gary,
Thank you for your kind words. May the Lord continue to bless you. Grace and peace.
Hi Don,
As I have mentioned before, my wife and I host a weekly Bible study in our home for couples and single people. We watch 2 Les Feldick DVD’s and then have a discussion. At the end of one of our recent meetings I asked a woman to close the meeting in prayer. Several days after the meeting one of the men, a man who found Christ through Les Feldick after having been a Jehovah’s Witness for 34 years, told me that is was unbiblical to have a woman pray at a couples Bible study.
I believe that the Scriptures tell us that a woman cannot be in a leadership position in a church meeting, but I don’t think that saying a prayer at the end of a Bible study is the same as being a pastor of a church congregation. What is your scriptural understanding as it pertains to this situation?
Thank you for your ministry. You are changing lives and helping people remove apparent Bible contradictions and confusion. God Bless you.
Jack,
Thank you. I would ask your friend to support his view with Scripture. I can think of nothing that supports such a viewpoint. Women had a tremendous ministry working with the apostle Paul. I just finished teaching a class on Romans and we looked at Paul’s closing greetings. I believe he mentioned 29 people by name and 7 or 8 were women. Grace and peace.
I am blessed by your view on dispensasionellism. Without understanding this it would be very difficult to understand Paul’s writings. I would like to leave a thought for your consideration.
For many years I struggled with the question as to why God put the tree in the garden. Being all knowing and being a God of love, could he not have avoided the whole controversy?
The way I see it is as follows.
Salvation be grace through faith has always been God goal for man. The lie the devel presented man with in the garden was a that he could attain to perfection by works or by his own effort, i.e. I am what I do vs I am what I am. This points to the luceferic rebellion. Man had been created in the perfection of God, but had to both know this and choose this perfection above one of his own making. The moment man accepted the lie, that he could become like God by what he does, he died. the bible calls this ” dead” man flesh. The same power by which we live after the cross is the power that killed in the garden.
Heb 11:6 and so many other verses gives us an indication as to the power of this thing the word calls faith or persuasion. Gal 2:20 and 2 Cor 5:12- speaks about a persuasion of being, not based on works but on Gods having presented us with a indesputable display of having put an end to flesh and of our rebirthh as sons of God in Christ. To put it bluntly, He gave us the tools to enable us to choose. We are presented with the same question that man was presented with in the garden. Are you righteous by what you do or by what you are. What you are is what God came to demonstrate in Christ. Rom 1:16,17, Gal 3:11, and Heb 11:38 all say, ” the righteous will live by faith.”
We are sons of God, borne into the family of God, and this determines both our value, or fighteousness, and our purpose. We could fill books with this, please excuse my brevity.
God loves you and I thank you.
Hennie,
Thank you for your wisdom. It all boils down to obedience. Will one believe/obey God or not? To believe/obey is life. Other paths lead to death.
I don’t know under which topic to ask this question so I picked this one dealing with deceit.
I met two JW’s at my door this a.m. I gave them my testimony. I gave them the gospel 1 Cor. 15:1-4 (which they agreed with), I asked who it was that translated their New World Translation bible then reminded them (there were two JW’s) that none of the translators knew Koine Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew, I talked about John 1:1, I reviewed the Alpha and Omega passages at the beginning and end of Revelation and even talked about the court case back in the 50’s where a JW leader said he could speak the original languages then refused to when given the opportunity………………..is this too much? Do I keep it short and sweet? Do I say, “Have a nice day” when they leave. What would you do?…What do you do?
Joe,
All you can do is give the gospel and pray God opens their eyes. I do not see how one can believe anyone but God can forgive sin.
Am blessed greatly with this episode. Thanks
I am blessed with this study. Many of my foundational aspects about the designs of devil and our God have been . Thanks.
Very good article. I was doing some research and your write-up was perfect.
Naration of word of GOD with parables is an art of GOD’S gift to reach the innernes of hearts of Readers.Replies to questions are also superb in simple way. Messages are re-usable in our own regional language (TELUGU) in INDIA too for the glory of God.
The only reason Christians think that the character named Satan appears in the Adam and Eve story is because the author of the Revelation of John identifies the serpent as Satan. But that was written hundreds of years later–maybe even 1,000. Worse than that, the Hebrew word “satan” in the Hebrew Scriptures, almost every time, is preceded by the definite article, “the.” So it’s “the satan.” That is to say, it’s not a proper name. It’s not the Satan conservative Christians think of when they think of Satan. It’s not Satan or the satan at all because the word never even appear in Genesis 2-3. I guess you can still justify that you’re taking the bible literally (if you do take it literally) but, in my view, by introducing Satan into the Adam and Eve story, you’re not taking it literally at all. (Your are also working with the Christian point of view that what is said in the New Testament may be used to interpret passages in the Old Testament.) Besides If you take Genesis 2-3 literally, you will find nothing about being given or losing eternal life or of a close relationship with God, or the so-called Fall of Man. Neither does it say they were expelled from Eden because they ate the forbidden fruit. All those “interpretations” are far, far away from a literal reading. On top of that, never in the rest of the 800-or-so pages of the Old Testament does it ever refer back to the episode in the Garden as the origin of human sin.
Steven,
The first time שָׂטָן is encountered it is without the definite article. It became a personal name by usage. If you read Matthew 4, we know that “the Devil” and Satan are the same individual. Jesus did not use the definite article when He called him Satan. He could have for sometimes definite articles are used with personal names as with place names. But a noun can be definite in Greek with or without the definite article. We know what we know by comparing Scripture with Scripture. This is the work of interpretation. Paul explained the anthropology of spiritual death. In the Genesis account God told Adam the day he ate of the the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil מֹות תָּמֽוּת, “dying, you will die.” That came true. Adam and Eve immediately died spiritually and began dying physically. Death is the great proof of the Bible.
Hi. Thank you for such awesome work. I have two questions that I would love your thoughts on. 1. Adam and Eve are made in GOD’s image and then we read in Genesis 5:3 that Seth was made in Adam’s image. This is because sin had now entered into mankind and no longer can be made in that perfect state. My thoughts are, that we are no longer made in HIS perfect image, we have sin, but we have the Holy Spirit training us to be like HIM in preparation for things to come when we will be restored to HIS image. The current understanding in most circles or world views is that we are still made in HIS image. What are your thoughts?
2. At the transfiguration we see Moses and Elijah joining GOD the Son in all their glory. Moses had died and was buried by GOD and should be by all accounts in paradise, yet he is in glory with Elijah. How could Moses have been at the transfiguration when he was in paradise? It makes sense that Elijah was in glory as we know that Elijah was taken to heaven without death. My only explanation would be that GOD the Son was showing them a time in the future, after the resurrection. What are your thought.
Stephen,
Thank you. 1. Both are true. We are made in the image of God but that image has been marred by sin. So in that sense, we are in Adam’s image. Paul summed it up when he wrote, “all in Adam die; all in Christ will be made alive.” 2. Moses is an interesting case. God buried him and no one knew the location of his grave. Michael the archangel argued with Satan over Moses’ body. So something is clearly important about Moses’ body. Maybe God put him into a stasis field? Elijah did not experience death. Not everyone dies. God can make exceptions if He has a later purpose. Moses and Elijah are the two witnesses in the Tribulation and the Beast will kill them. God will then resurrect them. Lots of fun stories people are going to tell when we are all with the Lord.
I really enjoy your articles as I have been studying the word rightly divided for about 7 years. I noticed in your first paragraph you used the word though when I believe you meant to use through.
Patricia,
Thanks!
Thanks for sharing such a fantastic wisdom
Thank you for your clear teaching.
Was Eve aware that it was not a serpent but Satan appeared as angel of light? I think she must have known as she and Adam were given dominion over all the animals, therefore she couldn’t be fooled by an animal. She wasn’t surprised by his presence, instead she listened to him, doesn’t that show that he must have been around Garden of Eden as she did to be so familiar with her. Why was he allowed to be there?
Your reply will be appreciated.
Margaret,
Eve did not talk to a snake. She knew she was talking with a heavenly being but probably not Satan himself. He is a deceiver. What the couple knew of God’s heavenly beings is unknown. The earth once belonged to Satan (Ezekiel 28) and he was determined to regain it. As to why he was allowed there, that is unknown. It seems God allows Satan access to earth until the end of the angelic conflict: until God creates a new heaven and new earth (he is incarcerated 1,000 years during the Millennial Kingdom).
Hi Don,
It seems contradictory that Adam’s sin was linked to eating the forbidden fruit, while Jesus says that what goes into a man doesn’t defile him, but rather what comes out. Additionally, the Bible designates certain foods as unclean and Peter initially refuses to eat them in his vision about Cornelius. Why then did Jesus say that food doesn’t defile a person when there are clear dietary restrictions and examples of food related sin in the Bible?
Finally pls what did Jesus mean in John.6.56 – He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
Is he talking about believing in him or the Holy communion?
Thank you
Gideon,
Adam’s sin was disobedience. It was not the fruit that defiled but the disobedience. God gave Adam a single restriction, a single test. He failed. As far as food itself, only produce from the ground was allowed. After the Flood God allow mankind to eat meat. When He gave the Jews the Law, He told them what foods to eat and what foods were forbidden. God revealed to Paul that all foods were allowed to eat. So it all depends on the time and program. In John 6.56, Jesus meant His body and blood represented by bread and wine. He made this clear at the last supper.