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30
The Beginning of the End
they had joyfully welcomed the approach of their Creator; now they
fled in terror. But “the Lord God called to Adam and said to him,
‘Where are you?’ So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and
I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ And He said,
‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree
of which I commanded you that you should not eat?’”
Adam blamed his wife and so blamed God Himself: “The woman
whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
Because of his love for Eve, he had deliberately chosen to give up
the approval of God and an eternal life of joy; now he tried to make
his companion, and even the Creator Himself, responsible for the
transgression.
When the woman was asked, “What is this you have done?”
she answered, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” “Why did You
create the serpent? Why did You permit him to enter Eden?”—these
were the questions implied in her first excuse. Self-justification was
indulged by our first parents as soon as they yielded to the influence
of Satan, and it has been exhibited by all the sons and daughters of
Adam.
The Lord then passed sentence upon the serpent: “Because
you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more
than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you
shall eat dust all the days of your life.” From the most beautiful of
the creatures of the field it was to become the most groveling and
detested of all, feared and hated by both man and beast. The words
next addressed to the serpent applied to Satan himself, pointing to
his ultimate defeat and destruction: “I will put enmity between you
and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise
your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Eve was told of the sorrow and pain that she must have. “Your
desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” God
had made her the equal of Adam, but sin brought friction, and now
their union could be maintained and harmony preserved only by
submission on the part of one or the other. Eve had been the first in
transgression. By her urging Adam sinned, and she was now placed
in subjection to her husband. Man’s abuse of the supremacy thus
given him has too often rendered the lot of woman bitter and her life
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a burden.