Genesis 3:11-15: a reflection

11God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13The LORD God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. You shall go on your belly and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. 15I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

Confronted by God after eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve do something instantly recognizable: they shift the blame. Adam blames the woman, and implicitly God himself: The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit. The woman blames the serpent: The serpent deceived me. No one says simply, I sinned. Each deflects responsibility onto someone else. And yet, into this scene of failure and blame, God speaks the first promise of the gospel: to the serpent he says that the offspring of the woman will bruise your head, even as you bruise his heel, the first hint of a coming deliverer who will crush the enemy.

Notice both the failure and the grace. The failure is the blame-shifting, the refusal to own sin, the instinct to point at someone else, at circumstances, even at God, rather than to confess. It is the oldest evasion, and it is ours too. But notice the grace: even here, amid the failure and the blame, God does not abandon them; he speaks a promise of hope, of an offspring who will one day defeat the serpent. Judgment and mercy together, and mercy already reaching toward the cross.

Both speak to us. The instinct to shift blame, to say it was her fault, his fault, the circumstances, anything but I sinned, lives in every heart, and it keeps us from the honesty that leads to grace. And yet the God we have sinned against is a God who, even as he names our sin, is already at work to save, who spoke the promise of a deliverer into the very scene of the first sin. Resist the ancient instinct to shift blame; own your sin honestly before God. And take heart that the God you confess to is the God who promised, from the beginning, the offspring who would crush the serpent, and who kept that promise at the cross.

Lord, when confronted, Adam and Eve shifted the blame, each pointing at another rather than confessing, and yet you spoke into that failure the first promise of a deliverer who would crush the serpent. Search me for the ancient instinct to shift blame, to say it was someone else's fault, the circumstances, anything but I sinned. Give me the honesty to own my sin before you rather than deflecting it. And thank you that even as you name my sin, you are already at work to save, that you promised the serpent-crusher from the beginning and kept that promise at the cross. Help me confess honestly, and trust your saving grace.