Consequences
Please read these verses in your own Bible or online (Bible Gateway: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A+8-24&version=NIV
The notes are from my studies.
v 8: Apparently they had a regular appointment with God. I imagine they were usually eager to meet him. But not this day. On this day, they hid. (Did they really think they could hide from God? I know a lot of people who do.) But God is not “coming for them”; He is walking, as He always did, at the same time He always did, in the cool evening.
v 9: He knew exactly where they were and what they had done. This was an invitation to come to Him in repentance. God still comes patiently, lovingly, personally, and with the truth. heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
v 10: “I heard you… I was afraid… I hid.” First shame, then fear… and next will be blame.
V 11: God gently invites confession.
v 12: Adam unjustly blames Eve and God (“the woman YOU put here…”, refusing his own responsibility.
v 13: God again invites confession. What would have happened if either one had acknowledged their guilt and asked for forgiveness? But even then it was probably too late to change the course of history.
Adam says, “It wasn’t my fault.” Eve says, “I was deceived.” She at least was right.
v 14-15: “The Lord God did not ask the serpent anything, for he knew that he was a liar, but he at once pronounced sentence upon him.” (Spurgeon) Crawling on the belly and eating dust is total defeat. Note that God speaks of enmity between the woman’s (not the man’s) offspring and the serpent: the virgin birth of the Redeemer.
v 16: Woman will henceforth experience pain: in childbirth, in child rearing (no one can hurt us as thoroughly as our children), and in relationship with her husband. She lost the shared authority. She will want to share her husband’s authority again as she had wanted to have God’s wisdom, but getting it will not give her joy.
v 17-19: Neither Adam or Eve is cursed. God curses the serpent and the ground, and simply spells out the consequences of their disobedience. What was once joy-filled had become painful labor.
Sin brought conflict (Hebrews 12:3), thorns (John 19:2), sorrow (Isaiah 53:3),
sweat (Luke 22:44) and death (Hebrews 2:9) to us and to our Savior.
v 20: Adam’s (“Man”) authority is already in evidence. Eve’s (“Life”) name and identity are chosen by him. He named her much as he named the animals.
v 21: It is likely that Adam and Eve knew the animal that was sacrificed. It had been under their care. This first death must have driven home the horror of their disobedience and the reality of the death they would face.
v 22-24: Oh, yes. That other tree. The Tree of Life. God, in his great compassion, makes it impossible for the pair to live forever in sin. Eternal Life would instead come through another tree.
“Cherubim” is plural. Two of them are fashioned into the Ark of the Covenant, where God says he will meet his people. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+25%3A17-22&version=NIV
And the Tree of Life? We meet it again – in heaven. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+22:2&version=NIV
Below is the link to a song that has been around a long time, Don Francisco’s Adam Where are You?. It still brings me chills when I hear it.