Genesis III

WE have been looking at a perfect world. We

have seen it to be such as God could call

‘good;’ not a cloud in its sky, not a ruffle on its oceanbreadth, not a tinge upon its verdure; not a pang, or sigh, or groan, or tear, all over its bright plains. It is the dwelling of the unfallen, the outer chamber of heaven, the land wherein dwelleth righteousness. We have seen the “armony of creation; all its parts linked together in loving oneness, the animate and inanimate, the intelligent and irrational; no jar, no dissonance in any. Man is the head, the lord, appointed to exercise holy dominion under Jehovah as his Head and Lord. We have seen the deauty of creation, with its flowers and dew, its gems and gold, its sunshine and starlight above; its green stretch of hill, plain, forest, below. We have seen it as a world without a sin, or a shadow, or a sigh, or a wrinkle; neither decay nor disease have entered it; there are no tossing sickbeds, no heartbreaking deathbeds, no severing bonds, no bitter farewells, no heaving tombs. It is a world altogether good; a world which angels might visit; over which God might delight, and in which He might dwell with man. We need not say of it, as has been done, ‘Fit haunts of gods;’ we may at once say, ‘Fit dwelling of Tehovah.’ A visible dwelling for the invisible God is that which was designed. has always formed one special part of God’s purpose

in all its unfoldings.

We have now to learn the story of its change; its change from being the seat of life and righteousness and

This

joy, to becoming the region of death and evil and sorrow; from being the dwelling of God, to becoming the haunt, nay, the regal residence of Satan, and the sphere of peculiar action to his hosts, ‘the rulers of the darkness of this world.’ From this chapter onwards to the twenty-first of Revelation we have the sad story of its sin.

The

two first chapters of Scripture tell of its unfallen glory, the two last of its restored perfection; but all between is gloom, a story of ruin and desolation — ‘ written within and without with lamentation, and mourning, and woe.’ We have seen a summer’s sky overcast in an hour, the heavens putting on sackcloth, and the sun which had

1 There is a curious old book of the sixteenth century, in quarto, with the following title: — A Hyve full of Hunnye, contayning the jirste booke of Moses called Genesis, turned into English meetre, by William Hunnis, 1578. From the ‘argument’ of this work we extract the following verses as a specimen, he speaks of man : —

‘Who viewing these His gracious gifts,
Should praise His holy name,
And magnify Him day and night,
Entirely for the same,

But man, forgetting quite himself,
And God that rules on high,
a Committed sin, displeased God,
And stumbled wittingly.

Who thro’ his disobedience
Enthralled himself in woe,

And fell from God, from whom to him
So many gifts did flow.’

After describing creation

‘risen in calm going down in storm. So was it with our world, as this chapter proceeds to record; once holy, yet only for a day. How sudden and sad the change! Yesterday it was paradise; to-day, the wilderness. Yesterday it neighboured heaven; to-day it is the suburb of hell. ‘Yesterday it was God’s footstool; to-day it is Satan’s throne. Yesterday it was linked to the sanctuary above by a bond that seemed everlasting; to-day that bond is broken, and it commences a swift descent into the uttermost darkness.’

This third chapter records the manner in which this change was effected; the different steps which led to it. And here we have the /vve origin of evil — God’s own account of the way in which tares were first sown in the field in which God had sown the finest of the wheat.

The passage takes for granted that there was already an enemy in existence. There had been siz before, somewhere, though where is not said. There had been an enemy somewhere; but how he had become so, or where he had hitherto dwelt, or how he had found. his way to this world, is not recorded. That he knew about our world, and that he had some connection with it, is evident; though whether as its original possessor, or a stranger coming from far in search of spoil, we cannot discover. All that is implied in the narrative is, that there did exist an enemy, — one who hated God, and whe now sought to get vent to that hatred by undoing His handiwork.?

i £ If creation is the first wonder of time, the second is the origin of that new element which extends through all generations, the en- ’

This enemy now makes his appearance. He has not been bound; he has not been prohibited entrance: he gets free scope to work. He shall be bound hereafter, when the times of restitution of all things commence, but not yet. He shall not be permitted to enter the ‘new earth,’ but he is allowed to enter and do his work of evil in the first earth. In order to deceive, and in order to prevent any suspicions arising, or any questions. being put as to what he was, or whence he came, or what he sought, he takes the form of one of those animals with which man was surrounded; he selects that which possessed more intelligence than the rest,! not only to excite less suspicion, but probably because,

trance of evil into the pure creation, the defilement of that which was formed good, by the first sin. As the history of creation can possess complete truth only where the idea of the Creator and the creature is a true one, so also can the history of the fall only where the idea of good and evil may be discovered, in its true form, where the history proves itself to be true in its idea.’ — Havernick Ox the Pentateuch, p. 100.

1 *Quum instrumento opus haberet, delegit ex animalibus quod sibi aptissimum for videbat.’ — CALvIN. This expositor, after showing that the serpent was but ‘the mouth of the devil,’ goes on to consider the question why Moses does not explicitly state Satan’s agency in this scene. He gives various reasons for this, such as ‘puerilis ecclesize ztas,’ etc. They do not satisfy. May not the true reason be just the very opposite of these suppositions? May it not be, that from the beginning men so thoroughly understood the thing to be Satan’s daing, that there was no need for using other language? The personality and agency of Satan were far better understood and realized in ealy days than in our own. Hence, not only all Jewish, but all heathen traditions, while making mention of the serpent as helping in the origination of sin, introduce also along with him the evil spirit as the great agent. Serpent-worship was universal among the heathen. (See Faber’s Hore Mosaice, vol. i. p. 71, etc.) 5 xt

a according to the nature of things, he could more easily and more fully take possession of it, and wield it more successfully as the instrument of his deception.

It is, however, only from other parts of Scripture that we directly learn who the real tempter was. It is simply said here,

Ver. 1. ‘ Vow (or and) the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.’

This language is too simple to be allegorized or perverted. It obviously refers, in the first place, to the literal serpent. This was the visible instrument through which the enemy spoke and acted. Nor is it a greater difficulty to suppose that Satan spoke to Eve through the wisest of animals, than that God spoke to Balaam through the stupidest, wnen He opened the ass’s mouth to utter His message. The description here given is, as usual, of the matter just as it appeared.? It was the serpent that was seen and heard. It was the serpent that acted throughout, so far as Eve or Adam understood at the time. Hence it is the serpent alone that

1 *T]le insatiabilis homicida.... non ursos, non leones, non fortia terree animalia delegavit, sed tortuosum et callidum serpentem,

.. serpens non fortior erat sed callidior cunctis animantibus.’ — BERNARD, Serm. de Septem Spiritibus. As Adam had just been naming the animals according to their natures, Eve would know that the serpent was more subtle or cunning than the rest. (See Lord Barrington’s Dissertation on the Temptation ana Fall, p. 4.)

“2 As Satan can change himself into an angel of light, so did he abuse the wisdom of the serpent te deceive man.’ — Bushops’ Bible, The original nature of the serpent is evidently referred to as being ‘more subtle’ than other animals,

SET a ne eee 110 THOUGHTS ON GENESIS. is mentioned. Yet that it was Satan assuming the disguise of a serpent, is evident. No mere animal could thus of itself reason of good and evil; could thus plot

man’s ruin, and show such hatred of God. Besides,

the sentence afterwards pronounced on it implies this,

just as the apostle’s statement doesy (2 Cor. xi, 3. See

also Rev. xii. 9-14, XV. 20-22).

Thus we learn, even at the outset, that God is not the author of sin. It is the creature that introduces it. God, no doubt, could have hindered it, but for wise ends He allows it. We know also how sin spreads itself. It is always active. It multiplies and propagates itself. Every fallen being becomes a tempter, seeking to ruin others, — to drag them down to the same death into which he has himself been driven.

Nor is it merely the upper orders of being that become

1 The plague of the fiery serpents seems to point to this, showing us the way of man’s ruin by Satan, and the way of restoration by Christ (John iii. 14). We may notice the other allusions to the serpent. 1. Its dite (Gen. xlix. 17; Jer. viii. 17; Prov. xxxili. 32). 2. Its congue (Ps. cxl. 3). 3. Its voice (Jer. xlvi. 23). 4. Its poison (Ps. lviii. 4). 5. Its wisdom (Matt. x. 26), 6. Its hatefulness (Matt. xxiii. 33). Such are the Scripture references. They preserve an awful uniformity throughout, presenting to us this one animal as pre-eminent above the rest for its evil qualities, and associating that one creature with Satan himself; with the introduction, propagation, and punishment of sin, giving us in it the emblem of sin’s exceeding sinfulness, and of the ruinous results of contact or connection with it, See a very full collection of passages from the Fathers relating to the serpent and his subtlety, in Suicer’s Zhesawrus, vol. ii. pp. 535-537. He thinks that xavovpyos, not paves (as the LXX. render it), is the proper translation, citing in proof the words of the apostle, ‘As the

serpent deceived Eve by his cunning’ (ravoypyia), 2 Cor. xi. 3. snares or tempters, The lower parts of creation can be made instruments of ruin. God cannot tempt, but the creature does, in all its parts. The smallest, commonest thing — a leaf, a tree, an animal — may become Satan’s instrument. Whatever can touch or affect any of our desires or feelings, may be made use of by Satan for our injury, just as the serpent was made use of here. How watchful ought we to be in such a world, where so many things minister to the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye! Flee sin; flee its very shadow; flee its most distant approach under any guise! Say not the temptation is a feeble one. That cannot be. The strength of the temptation lies in yourself, far more than in the tempting object. Get as far from sin and as near to God as you can; that is your only security. In God you are safe, but nowhere else. In Him who is God manifest in flesh, you are beyond the reach of danger.’ No tempter can succeed; no enemy can reach you there.

Ver. 1. ‘And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God saia, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden ??»

The angels fell wntempied. Man’s case was different.

1 The use of ‘ God’ (Elohim) here and in what follows, instead of the Lord God (Jehovah-Elohim), gives rise to the following striking remark of Hengstenberg : — ‘ The masterstroke of the tempter’s policy was then, as it is still now, to change Jehovah into Llohim, the living, holy God into a nescio quod numen. (With what vagueness the term Elohim is used by the serpent, is shown by the expression, Ye shall be as Elohim, ye shall be raised to an unearthly nature and dignity.) Having done this, and not before, he could venture upon deluding

A tempter ensnared him. That tempter took the form

of a serpent.. Hence he is named so specially, ‘that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan’ (Rev. xx. 2). He had himself fallen wntempted, but this did not make him less willing to tempt. He had become the enemy

of God, and thus became the enemy of man. A ruined’

being himself, he sought to ruin others, that so he might have companions in guilt and woe, and thus avenge himself upon God.

From the first clause regarding the serpent’s subtlety, we are prepared for a well-laid plot, manifesting consummate art and guile.t The temptation will be well disguised; the snare will be well laid. The tempter must speak fair, if he hopes to succeed at all. He must veil Azmseif as well as his object; for if he be recognised, or if his object be discovered, the victim will elude his grasp.

them with a downright falsehood. Jehovah is not a man that He should lie. The woman should have employed the name of Jehovah as an impenetrable shield to repel the fiery darts of the wicked one. The use of the name Z/ofim (that this was not from ignorance of the name Jehovah, is proved by chap. iv. 1) was the beginning of her fall. First, there was a depression or obscuration of the religious sentiment; then the tree appeared good to eat and pleasant to the eye; God died in the soul, and sin became alive.’ — On the Pentateuch, Vole Pp. .3L7-

1 “Magis metuendus est cum fallit quam, cum sevit,’ says Augustine (on Ps. xl.), This will remind the reader of Rutherford’s well-known remark, ‘ Brother, since we must have a devil to trouble us, I love a vaging devil best.” Hence the apostle speaks of the “wiles of the devil;’ and hence the serpent seems to have been fixed on by God as the animal of all others fitted to set forth Satan’s characteristic, — deadly cunning. The violence of the ‘roaring lion’ is subordinate to this.

GENESIS mi. 1. uz

It is the woman that he assails, as being ‘the weaker

i vessel,’ * and therefore more likely to yield, and, in

yielding, to draw the man with her. Then, as now (as,

for example, in Popery?), he avails himself of woman’s.

weakness and woman’s influence.

He comes up to Eve, as one may suppose that a stranger might do, seeking information. He feigns to be one who has just heard a rumour that has greatly surprised him, — a rumour which he cannot credit, so insulting does he deem it to God’s character, so injurious and unkind to man.* It is evident that he had heard: God’s prohibition. How, we know not; but we see here that he has access to learn what is taking place amongst us. He can hear and see the things that we hear and see! He is on the watch to gather them up, — ever listening, ever looking, ever following us, that he may discover alike what we say to God, and what, God says to us. At one time he is the beguiling serpent, at another the devouring lion, but always ‘ walking about,’ — — ‘walking to and fro throughout the earth,’ — to learn what may serve his purpose of malice towards man and’ revenge against God (Job i. 7; 2 Cor. xi. 3; 1. Pet. v. 8).

1 debeverrtpoy cxevos, — weaker than the man, — less capable of resistance. ‘Imbecilla res est foemina,’ says Quintilian; and, Hilary speaks of ‘sexus mollioris.’ — Comment. on Matthew.

2 For striking illustrations of this, see Zhe Secret Instructions of

the Fesuits, and Michelet’s Priests, Women, and. Families. Satan,

through the priest, does now to the daughters of Eve what, through the serpent, he did to Eve herself.

2¢The devil feigneth that he believeth God had wholly forbidden them the use‘of the fruits of the garden, to make way to talk with the woman, and to induce her to ewe ear to him.’ — DI1oDaTI.”

VOL. VI. H
ae ee

With well- feigned surprise and incredulity he puts the question, ‘Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ meaning thereby to insinuate the harshness of the injunction which he pretended hardly to believe! Is it possible that God can have said so? Is it conceivable that He who has just made you, and provided you with such abundance, should grudge you a. little fragment of that plenty, and debar you from the garden’s choicest fruits; making you lords of creation, yet not allowing you to put forth your lordship; nay, refusing you access to that tree, the fruit of which would enable you rightly to exercise wise dominion?? In this his object was to calumniate God; at least, cunningly to suggest an idea which would misrepresent His character to man. He keeps out of sight all that God had done for man, all the proofs of love, so manifold, so vast; he fixes on one thing which seemed inconsistent with this; he brings up this before man in the way most likely to awaken evil thoughts of God.

y The Jewish rabbis affirm that this is but the conclusion of a long conversation held between the woman and the serpent. Bush remarks, ‘The probability is, that this was not the commencement of his discourse, but that something, which the historian does not record, had been previously said.’ The words are literally, * Yea, surely, has God said?’ Mercer translates them, ‘Itane verum est eum dixisse;’ Calvin, ‘ Etiamne dixit Deus?’

2 Some have thought that Satan really began with a Ze: insinuating that God had forbidden them the use of every tree of the garden. The woman’s answer does seem to confirm this; only it is more likely that Satan took advantage of a ¢ruth, in order to misconstrue it, than that he framed a Zie, which could be at once denied and disproved.

* * He begins by calling in question the dvwh of God. Is it true me

— — GENESIS mi. 1. are

Not as if 4e wished to say one word against God, nor even as if he needed to say anything; but as if the thing

itself were too plain to be mistaken; as if, on the supposition of its being true, it could admit but of one

interpretation. He leaves the fact to speak for itself.

His object is to isolate the one fact, and so to separate it from all God’s acts of love as to make it appear an instance of harsh and unreasonable severity. Man had hitherto known the prohibition; but he had put no such construction on it; he had not imagined it capable of being so interpreted. Now Satan brings it up, and sets it out in an aspect likely to suggest such constructions as these : — ‘God is not your friend after

all; He but pretends to care for you. He is a hard

master, interfering with your liberty, not leaving you a free agent, but constraining you, nay, fettering you. He mocks you, making you creation’s head, yet setting arbitrary limits to your rule; placing you in a fair garden,

that God has prohibited the use of any tree? For what was it created? Such are the inquiries of wicked men to this day. ‘‘ For what are the objects of pleasure made,” say they, ‘‘but to be enjoyed?” ‘We might answer, among other things, ‘‘to try them that dwell on the earth”’ (FULLER On Genesis). Calvin suggests the same idea: ‘Mulieri scrupulum injicere voluit ut verbum Dei non esse crederet, cujus non palam extabat plausibilis ratio.’ He hints also at another shade of meaning: ‘ Can your eating or not eating of a tree be of any concern to God? do you think He would take the trouble of forbidding you?’

1 ¢Tt seems to contain an insinuation that, if man must not eat of every tree, he might as well eat of none. Thus discontent overlooks the good, and pores upon the one thing wanting. ‘‘ All this availeth me nothing, sc long as Mordecai-is at the gate.”’ — FULLER On Genesis,

A yet debarring you from its fruits. He grudges you His gifts, making a show of liberality, while withholding what is really valuable.’

Thus Satan sought to calumniate God, to malign His character, to represent Him as the enemy, not the friend, of man. If he can succeed in this, then man will begin to entertain hard thoughts of God, — then he will become alienated from Him; then he will disobey; and then come the fall, the ruin, the guilt, the doom, the woe! Man is lost! Hell gets another inmate. The devil gets another companion. God’s second work is marred, and He Himself is left to grieve over His new-made child torn from His embrace. In this way Satan thrusts in the wedge between man and God, — breaks the link between the creature and the Creator. Howsimple, yet how successful the process!! A single question is put. God’s character is maligned. The lie is believed. Man suspects God and perishes! Such is the dark process still by which Satan seeks to hinder our return to God. His

’ «Fallax diabolus et ad traducendum artifex calidissimus,’ says Hilary (on Matt.); and again (on Ps. exli.), ‘ Quicquid iniquitatum homines gerunt a diabolo suggeritur.? Thus it is that the Fathers speak of Satan. They always seem to see him and to contend with him hand to hand. He is always personal to them, — their great enemy; no mere figure or personification of the evil principle, but a living agent of perilous power and craft. In their days men calling themselves Christians had not learned to speak of ‘ extinct Satans.’ Chrysologus has a singular passage, setting forth the evil agency of Satan. We can only quote part : — ‘Diabolus mali auctor, nequitizeorigo, rerum hostis, secundi hominis semper inimicuo; ille laqueostendit, lapsus parat, foveas fodit, aptat ruinas, stimulat corpora, purgit animas,’ etc. — Serm. xi. on Christ’s Fasting and Temptation.

-aim is to misrepresent God to man; to prove God to

be unkind in what He has prohibited, and a liar in what He has declared. The gospel is the full representation of God’s gracious character made known by God Him-

- self that the sinner may be induced to return. Satan ~- perverts it or says it is untrue.: Man believes the tempter,

stands afar off, and dies!

Vers. 2, 3. ‘And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eai (or we shall eat) of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ve shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.’

Had the woman fully understood the wicked suggestion of the serpent, or had she seen who it was that was speaking to her under the guise of the serpent, she would perhaps have fled at once. But not fully realizing either, and wishing perhaps to vindicate God for imposing, and herself for submitting to, such a restriction, she stood still to reason with the tempter. To a certain extent she was not so inexcusably guilty in this thing as we are in parleying with Satan instead of resisting him at once, and placing God’s armour between us and his assaults; still there was enough to leave her without excuse. Even though she might not fathom the malignity of the suggestion, still it touched the question of obedience or disobedience to God, and this she ought at once to have resented and flung off with abhorrence.

Yet she does not yield at once. On the contrary, she defends her position. She makes ready mention of God’s kindness and wide liberality, reminding the tempter that there was but one tree forbidden, and that all the rest were free for use,

Still she alters the words of the prohibition, and in this we see her beginning to waver. The change may be a slight one, yet we cannot help thinking that there is a meaning in it. She adds to it, for God had not said, ‘Neither shall ye touch it;’ she ¢akes from it, for she greatly softens the threat, making it not ‘thou shalt surely die,’ but ‘lest ye die.’* She thus exaggerates the restriction, as if wishing to prove it to be a hardship, and she dilutes the penalty, or at least the awfulness of its certainty, as if trying to persuade herself that it was not quite such a certainty as she had once thought it. Thus does sin work still. It magnifies God’s prohibitions into hardships, in order to find an excuse for disobedience, and then it tries to underrate both the certainty and the greatness of the penalty. Simple obedience is what man does not like. Simple acquiescence in God’s commands is what he is. slow to learn. He altered God’s words in order to get an excuse for departing from God, and so he still alters ‘the word of the truth of the gospel’ for the purpose of excusing himself for not returning at once to God, and taking advantage of the free welcome of His abundant grace.

1 Calvin does not admit the former alteration to be an indication of apostasy already begun, but contends for the latter being so. He thinks that she was overlooking the penalty, or at least its certain infliction: ‘Mortis periculum procul et frigide sentire se demonstrat.’ Bernard has brought out the same sense: ‘Ista (Eva) sub dubio supponit, ne forte, inquiens, si comederimus moriamut.’ ‘Deus affirmat, mulier dubitat, Satan negat.’ — Sermones.

And again:

GENESIS m. 4, §. rg

ay Vers. 4, 5. ‘And the serpent said unto the woman, Ve shall not surely die: 5. For God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as gods (or as God), knowing good and evil.’

The tempter immediately catches up the words of the woman, in which she had spoken of death as being the penalty of eating. Professing to act as her friend,? he speaks as one attempting to undeceive her as to a mistake under which she was labouring. ‘You speak of the tree as dangerous to eat, or even to touch; nay, as involving the penalty of death to the eater. You have been quite deceived in this matter; there is no such deadly penalty; it isa mere threat on the part of God to prevent you eating of a tree which He knows would open your eyes and make you as Himself, knowing good and evil.’?

Thus he proceeds with his design of calumniating God, and questioning His veracity as well as His goodness. He goes a step further than in his former suggestion. He openly denies the certainty of the threatened penalty;

1 Coverdale’s translation is very expressive: ‘Tush, ye shall not die the death.’ An old writer notices that the devil says ye, not ¢hou, having his eye on Adam as well as Eve.

2 One of the Fathers remarks: ‘ Diabolus plures decipit blanditiis quam terroribus.’

3 “Knowing good and evil.’ To know good and evil is sometimes a general expression for knowing everything, just as not to know good or evil is the expression for total ignorance, — the ignorance of infancy. (Deut. i. 39.) Or the expression may refer to ‘ sitting in judgment on good and evil;’ as in Eccles. viii. 5, ‘A wise man’s heart discerneth (knoweth) both time and judgment;’ and in 2 Sam. xiv. 17, ‘As

an angel of God, so is my Lord the king, to discern good and bad;’ and 1 Kings iii. 9, Solomon prays for a heart to ‘discern between he questions its reality, and casts suspicion on God’s intention in announcing it. Nay, more than this, he goes on to affirm that God knew well that, instead of a curse, there would come a blessing from the tasting of the tree; and that it was because He was jealous of man, and envious of the blessing thus to be reached, that He had shut him out from the tree. Thus he insinuates that God was a being of mere craft and falsehood, bearing no kindly feeling towards man, standing between him

and a treasure-house of boundless blessing.

In this answer to the woman he speaks as one conscious that he was making way. He sees from her answer that he has made an impression by his indirect suggestion; and he now follows it up by something bolder and more direct. ‘Ye shall not surely die!’ God neither can nor will execute His threat. Do-not be alarmed. Do not let a mere fancy hinder you reaching out after such blessings as lie before you. So says Satan to the sinner still. ‘There is no hell; the second

good and bad.’ The temptation then would be that they should be as God in judging, sitting on His judgment-seat. In the world as it stood, they were only to be rulers of what God had pronounced ‘good:’ they are tempted to seek to be judges of ‘evil’ — to enter on a new domain both of rule and of judgment. Into this new region they sought to be introduced, not in God’s time or way; and hence they found it only a region of shame and darkness. But the time is coming when we shall possess it in a different way, the way of faith and obedience; the obedience of Him who ‘ grew in wisdom,’ waiting God’s as filling Him with knowledge; not like the first Adam, snatching at it impatiently. Then we shall ‘judge all things;’ we shall ‘judge the world;’ we shall ‘judge angels.’

* “Nemo cumserpente securus ludit, nemo cum diabolo jocaturimpune.’ — CHRYSOLOGUS, Serm. 155.

h is a mere dream; ce drinks and be merry; ‘sin ou like, and don’t fear punishment.’ Thus he beguiles ee the soul, and leads it onward to the second death, Strange that men should believe him; that they should Bien to his voice in preference to God’s s. They want to be persuaded, and so they are persuaded; they want to be deceived, and so they are deceived! Yet can all this deception quench the flame of the burning lake, or set aside death, or make the wrath of God less true or terrible? Let him say there are no diseases, no pains, no sicknesses, zow, would men believe him? No. And will they believe him when he tells them, there is no death hereafter? q ‘Your eyes shall be opened.’ They shall be opened

4 by that very act which you so much shrink from. It is God who is keeping them closed. He is drawing a ZZ curtain round you, excluding you from visions of bright- ness on every side. What a prospect spreads round you!. A little boldness in disobedience, and all this fair region shall be yours, as it is already mine.

Ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.’ No lower level than that of God Himself shall you rise to. All His height of honour shall be yours. Nay more, all His knowledge. Ye shall know, and judge, and see, even as He knows, judges, and sees. From all this wide circle of knowledge God is shutting you out. He wants the throne wholly to Himself; He cannot bear a rival.

Thus Satan sowed the seeds of mistrust, unbelief, atheism, hatred of God. Thus the ‘evil heart, of unbelief? was produced, and separation from God was

ne the immediate result. It is thus that he still keeps the sinner at a distance from God, and prevents his ‘submitting to the righteousness of God.’ He sows and waters the seed of dark distrust in the sinner’s soul, by persuading him that God is not sincere either in His wrath or in His grace. He leads the sinner to exalt, nay, to deify himself; to think so highly of himself, that he will not consent to God’s terms at all. And hence the first thing that the Spirit does to a man is to make him stoop, by convincing him of sin, and bringing him ‘to forget all his ideas of self-deification. Then he is glad of another’s righteousness, and takes it eagerly. But till then, he will not take even heaven itself on God’s terms. He looks on God as his enemy; or at least as not so entirely his friend that He will at once receive him and bless him as he is. Strange that it should be so now! Whatever our first parents might plead in excuse, we are inexcusable. God’s gift of His Son, — the cross, the death, the grave of that Son, — have all unfolded in its fullest breadth the love of God, proving that He is the sinner’s true and real friend. Yet who believes this? How few take God’s word concerning this, and enter into peace and friendship!

Nay, more than this, Satan tells us that siz is a blessing, not a curse; that its consequences are good, not evil; and under this aspect the sinner pursues it. He sees in the command not to sin a restriction of his liberty, and. he spurns it! He sees in sin itself the attainment oflwhat is pleasant, and he pursues it. What is sweet in sin ls present, what is bitter is future; so he drinks the cup, and bids the future care for itself, Yet that future involves in it the favour of Jehovah Himself, and the joys of an eternal heaven. Is he prepared to say that that favour is a mere dream, and the loss of it a trifle? Is he prepared to say that there is no heaven as well as no hell, — no joy as well as no sorrow for eternity?

Ver. 6. ‘ And when (“‘ when” is not in the Hebrew) ¢he woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes (Heb. a desire to the eyes), and a tree to be desired to make one wise (Heb. to cause to understand), she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.’

The tempter has now thrown a new and peculiar interest round the tree. He has riveted the woman’s eye upon it, and what shall hinder her heart from following her eye? She had stood still to reason with him. This was her first false step. She now stood still to gaze upon the object reasoned about, and to wonder why she should be shut off from it. He had thus succeeded in fixing her eye on the tree; he had succeeded in shaking her belief as to the penalty; and now what remained but that she should wholly yield? Nay, is she not already overcome? ‘The fascination

1 ‘Pleasant to the eyes,’ — -Vulg. pulchrum oculis. Sept. dperrdv ris 6@barwois. Coverdale, ‘lustye unto the eyes.’ The word means delight, or pleasure, and refers here to something that the eye delights in. ‘To be desired to make one wise.’ This is a still stronger word: ‘flagrantius appetendus,’ says Robertson. ‘This author derives the word ‘to make wise’ from one signifying ‘to ripen,’ implying that the meaning in the present passage is ‘to bring to maturity in knowledge.’

becomes stronger and stronger. She lets it carry her unresistingly along. She consults neither her husband nor her God. She hurries into the commission of the sin.y

There were three things that wrought upon her.

1. The tree was good for food. A strong reason, had she been famishing, but none when surrounded with the plenty of the rich garden. Strange that she should have cared for it on such an account! She is in no need of food, yet it is on this account that she covets it! She is without excuse in her sin. It was the lust of the flesh that was at work (Eph. ii. 3; 1 John ii. 16). She saw in the tree the gratification of that lust, and in God a hinderer of it. Thus she fell.

2. It was a desire of the eyes. And had she no other objects of beauty to gaze upon? Yes; thousands. Yet this forbidden one engrossed her, as if it had acquired new beauty by having been prohibited. Or can she not be satisfied with ooking? Must she covet? Must she touch and taste? It is plain that hers was no longer the natural and lawful admiration of a fair object, but an unlawful desire to possess what she admired.2

1 Though it is evident that she consulted not with Adam, yet the words ‘with her’ would lead us to suppose that he was present, or within sight. Calvin gives reasons against this, but they are very slight. The Jewish writers seem to have believed that he was with her at the time.

Jerome will have it, that we are not even to gaze upon what we may notldesire: ‘Jntueri now debet quod non licet concupisci’ (on Jerem.). This is too much; it is ascetic rigidity, making restrictions where God haslmaiie none. Admiring and coveling are two very different things. Whdn reading such remarks, we cannot -help

GENESIS ‘1. C

‘It was ‘the lust of the eye.’ Job understood this, and ‘made a covenant with his eyes’ (xxxi. 1); the Psalmist a knew it, and prayed, ‘Turn away mine eyes from behold- ing vanity.’

3. ft was a tree to be desired for imparting wisdom.

This was the crowning allurement. She must have wisdom, and she must have it at all risks, and she must have it without delay. She made haste to be wise. She would not in faith wait for God’s time and way of giving wisdom. So strong was the craving for knowledge, and so strangely did the divine prohibition sharpen the appetite for it! She could not but know a that nothing would be withheld from her that was really: good; that she would get all knowledge in due time, and in God’s own way; but her confidence in God had wavered; she could no longer trust Him for this; she was in haste to be wise; and now that all wisdom was within her reach, she can no longer wait. Such was the desire (or lust) of the mind! (Eph. ii. 3.) These three reasons prevailed. She plucked the fruit, and did eat. Nay, more, she gave also to her husband, who was with her, and he did eat. She was not content to sin alone. Even the dearest on earth must be drawn into the same snare.

believing that we find the prototype of them all in Eve’s ‘neither shall ye Zouch it.’ Jerome, however, adds truly, ‘Neque enim Eva: ‘lignum vetitum contigisset nisi hoe prius zzcaute respiceret.’ And then he remarks, ‘Hinc ergo pensandum est quanto debemusmoderamine erga illicita visum restringere, nos qui mortaliter vivimus, si et mater viventium per oculos ad mortem venit... concupiscendo visibilia, invisibiles virtutes amisit.”

Let us mark here such lessons as the following :- —

1. The danger of trifling with objects of temptation. To linger near them; to hesitate about leaving them; to think of them as harmless, — these are the sure forerunners of a fall. Beware of remaining within sight. Get beyond the circle of the spell. ‘Flee youthful lusts.’ ‘Look not on the wine when it is red’ (Prov. xxiil. 31). Your only safety is in instant flight. If the tempter can get you to Zook, he has secured his victory.

2. The three sources of temptation: the lust of the flesh, of the eye, of the mind. Strictly speaking, they are not in themselves sinful, but in their excess, or disorderly indulgence. There is no sin in relishing food, nor in looking at a fair object, nor in desiring knowledge; yet through these channels our temptations come. Things lawful in themselves are our most subtle seducers.* There is nothing to taint the ear in ‘the concord of sweet sounds;’ and yet how often does music become our wiliest tempter! There may be nothing to defile the eye in the fairest imitations of nature that art has ever flung upon her canvas; yet has not painting but too frequently ensnared the soul, and drawn it away from the Creator to the creature? What is there in the widest range of science that can be branded as evil? yet do we not see it in the present day supplanting the knowledge of God Himself, and used by Satan as his mightiest instrument for leading men captive at his will? Is not poetry the highest form of word and

1 ‘Fallimur oculis, decipimur auditu, capimur odore, et saporevitiamur.’ — CHRYSQLOGUS, Ser. xxvii.

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on hought? yet man has corrupted it into the utterance of his own wild passions, or the idle breathings of his fond affections. In the scenes of nature there is nought but what is good, and fair, and bright; yet these has man made use of to shut out God, either saying, with the Atheist, ‘There is no God in nature;’ or maintaining, with the Pantheist, that nature itself is divine.

3. The swift progress of temptation. She listened, looked, took, ate! These were the steps. All linked together, and swiftly following each other. The beginning how small and simple; the end how terrible! ‘When lust (desire) hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death’. (Jas. i. 15). And therefore, adds the apostle, ‘Do not

&rRR,? my beloved brethren;’ that is, do not turn aside one step out of the right way, as you know not where you may end. You begin with a Jook, you end in apostasy from God. You begin with a touch, you end in woe and shame. You begin with a thought, you end in the second death. Yet of all these steps God protests solemnly that He is not the Author (Jas. 1. 13). It is man that is his own ensnarer and destroyer. Even -Satan cannot succeed unless seconded by man himself.

4. The tendency of sin to propagate itself. No sooner has the tempted one yielded than he seeks to draw others

(
.

‘
-
7
1 *Creditus est serpens, contemptus est Deus; tactum est vetitum,
4 mortuus est homo.’ — AUGUSTINE on Ps, lxxiv.

2 un gravacds, do not go astray;’ do not let temptation allure 4 you one step out of the way. This word is used eight times in q the Apocalypse in connection with Satan and his seductions. into the snare. He must drag down his fellows with him. There seems an awful vé/aZity about sin; a fertility in reproduction, nay, a horrid necessity of nature for selfdiffusion, It never lies dormant. It never loses its power of propagation. Let it be the smallest conceivable, it possesses the same terrific diffusiveness. Like the invisible seeds that float through our atmosphere, it takes wing the moment it comes into being, flying abroad, and striking root everywhere, and becoming the parent of ten thousand others.

Ver. 7. ‘ And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons.’ +

Their eyes were opened! They in that moment saw things which they saw not and could not have seen before. They saw into a new region, but that region was a sad and dark one. Their eyes were opened, and they seemed as if suddenly placed before a mirror, for the first object that met their view was, — THEMSELVES.” And the first thing that struck and startled them about themselves, was their nakedness! They were naked before, but nakedness had brought with it no sense of shame. But the moment they disobeyed, the conscious-

«Sewed’ is too strong and definite a word; it is simply ‘ wrought

ors fastened together.’ AWe all know something of this ‘ opening of the eye’ immediatel

on the commission of an act of sin, Up to the moment of the ee mission, we are blind to the sin and its consequences. The moment it is done a strange feeling seizes us, we become aware of the sin, / conscience stirs, and we wish the deed undone. In addition te this, however, there might be something in the actual tree affecting the moral nature, and stimulating conscience, parts of their body wefe ‘comely;’ now certain parts be became ‘uncomely’ (1 Cor. xii. 23). Just as certain 4 animals were afterwards set aside as unclean, so were - certain parts of man’s body, that there might be about man the perpetual token and remembrance of sin. It would seem as if, when Adam ate of the fruit, the grosser passions of his nature were let loose, and rose into mastery. All parts of his nature had hitherto been in equal and harmonious proportions; now the flesh rose ‘| up, and sin revealed shame. As, in the case of bodily disease, the general virus which may be pervading the q whole frame fastens or settles down upon some special ‘| part, so was it in the case of the moral poison which now shot through the whole man, in consequence of that fatal act of disobedience.

r, A sense of shame either in regard to soul or body is Zi not natural. It does not belong to the unfallen. It is. the fruit of sin. The sinner’s first feeling is, ‘I am not fit for God, or man, or angels to look upon.’ Hence the essence of confession is, Jeing ashamed of ourselves. We are made to feel two things; first, a sense of condemnation; and secondly, a sense of shame; we are unfit to receive God’s favour, and unfit to appear in |. His presence. Hence Job said, ‘I am vile;’ and hence Ezra said, ‘I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to Thee, my God’ (ix. 6). Hence also Jeremiah describes the stout-hearted Jews, ‘They were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush’ (vi. 15). Hence

:

— — Se

=

Solomon’s reference to ee impudent face’ of the strange VOL. VI. I

e ‘woman (Prov. vii. 13), and Jeremiah’s description of Israel, ‘Thou hadst a whore’s forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed’ (ili. 3). It was the same of our sin that Christ bore upon the cross; and therefore it is said of Him that He ‘despised the shame.’ It was laid upon Him, and He shrank not from it. He felt it, yet He hid not His face from it. He was the well-beloved of the Father, yet He hung upon the tree as one unfit for God to look upon; fit only to be cast out from His presence. He took our place of shame that we might be permitted to take His place of honour. In giving credit to God’s record concerning Him we are identified with Him as our representative; our shame passes over to Him, and His glory becomes ours for ever.

It was this sense of shame that led Adam and Eve to have recourse to fig-leaves for a covering. Suddenly possessed with the awful thought that they were unfit to be seen, even by each other, they eagerly betook themselves to the first thing that lay within their reach, glad to get hold of anything which would hide them from each other’s eyes, or prevent that strange feeling of shame which had thus:arisen.

It is to the eye that the sense of shame appeals, and it is only in the Zght that its appeal can be made good. To prevent this appeal the sinner seeks the darkness, and hence it is that deeds of shame and deeds of darkness axe the same in; import. Hence it is also that our Lord speaks of men ating the light and loving the darkness because their Ceeds are evil. But whether it is to fig-leaves or to darkness that the sinner betakes himself, the

GENESIS it. 7.

feeling that leads to the act is the same. His object is to get where no eye can see him. He forgets the eye

above, that can look through every human covering; and

hence, as Adam tried his fig-leaves, so he tries his good deeds, his prayers, and his repentance; forgetful that the eye of flame (Rev. ii. 18) can look through them. The covering he needs is one which will hide his shame from the eye that is divine. He learns this when the Holy Spirit begins His work of conviction in him. For then it is as if God’s eye of awful holiness were piercing through his coverings and flashing through the darkness in which he had wrapt himself. Then he learns that the covering he needs must be divine. It must be as divine as that eye which is looking into him from above. It must be something which will hide his shame even from the eye of God; something that will do for him not merely in the darkness or the twilight, but under the brilliance of a cloudless noon.

What is it but this same consciousness of shame that leads man to resort to ornaments? These are intended by them to compensate for the shame or the deformity under which men are lying. They feel that shame belongs to them; nay, confusion of face. They feel that they are not now ‘perfect in beauty,’ were. Hence they resort to ornament in order to make up for this. They deck themselves with jewels that their deformity may be turned into beauty. But there is danger here ; — danger against which the apostle warns us, specially the female sex (1 Pet. iii. 3, 4).. There is

nothing indeed innately sinful in the gold, or the silver,

as once they or the gems which have ‘been wrought by the skill of men into such forms of brightness. But in our present state they do not suéf us. They are unmeet. for sinners. They speak of pride, and they also minister to pride. They are for the kingdom, not for the desert. They are for the city of the glorified, not for the tent of the stranger. They will come in due time, and they will be brilliant enough to compensate for the shame of earth. But we cannot be trusted with them now.

1 We add the following extract from a work already quoted, which helps to illustrate the whole passage over which we have gone : —

‘Those who are so averse to admit the figurative language of Scripture, are puzzled extremely to account for the vehicle of Satan’s first temptation — a serpent. Let such writers and readers as feel so disposed, amuse themselves with answering the cavils of critics and the sneers of fools on this subject; it shall be our province to attempt a plain and scriptural investigation of it. We have already stated that it appears the situation of Adam in paradise corresponds with our situation now.; he lived by a commandment, as we do; for ‘‘this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of the only-begotten Son of God,” who is the true free of life. In like manner we observe, that there is nothing uncommon, nothing contrary to what is daily experienced, in the first temptation; otherwise Paul was wrong to say, ‘‘ But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from‘the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Cor. xi. 3). As the serpent is characteristic of guile, subtilty, and deceit, so his form was assumed by Satan, as his character daily is by the tempter, corrupting the truth of the gospel. God had placed our first parents in paradise, setting before them life from the tree of life, and death from the tree of knowledge. There are no proofs mentioned as adduced, simply the Divine Word, as to these trees. Satan, by the serpent, reasoned their minds out of the belief of the simple truth God had set before them. And he gradually persuaded them, not only that they should sof die from eating the tree of knowledge, but that the brightest happiness and most perfect

Ver. 8. ‘And they heard the voice of the Lord God (Fehovah-Elohim) walking (or who was walking) in the garden in the cool (Heb. the

wind) of the day: and Adam (Heb. the man) and his wife hid themselves from the presence (Heb. the face) of the Lord God amongst (Heb. tn the midst) the trees of the garden.’

Scarce had the transgressors twisted their girdles, and thus completed the hasty covering which was to hide their shame from each other’s eyes, when they heard the voice of the Lord God, and trembled as they were thus reminded that there was another eye to hide from. It was not, indeed, a long-known, but still it was a well-known voice. They had heard it before, and they recognised it at once. ‘It is the voice of Jehovah! He is coming, — whither shall we flee?’ It was no mere sound; no casual blast or rush of the meeting streams; it was a living voice, — the voice of a being as true and personal as themselves. To them God was a real being, — a person; and His voice a real voice.y

attainments would infallibly ensue. So is it at this hour; the gospel sets the tree of life before us, as connected with present and future bliss; the tempter sets this world, and assures us that everything gratifying to man is to be found in it, while certain death is by no means the penalty. In every age and nation, Satan’s temptation has had the same object — we had almost’ said, the same Janguage. Believing this father of liars, as we are all most prone to do, — persuading herself that every gratification would follow, — Eve ate and gave her husband, who partook in her transgression, and became subject to the same penalty. Their conduct under the impressions of guilt was the same as in all future ages: their eyes were opened; they found themselves naked and exposed to shame and everlasting disgrace; they therefore betook themselves to the only frail covering they could devise — fig-leaves.’ — Morrison’s Key to the Pentateuch. 2“We conclude that the Zogos did not only appear in a visible

Se SS ee

Whether any form were seen we know not. There might be; for God did always, in after ages, as to Abraham, reveal Himself in a form. But this matters not. A distinct and intelligible voice addressed them; and they recognised it as the voice of Jehovah-Elohim, — ‘the Lord God.’ They ‘heard’ it, and they knew it. They had ‘heard’ it before, and they are now to hear it again, though in circumstances far different.

When the Lord God thus uttered His voice, He was ‘walking in the garden,’ for it seems not to be the voice that was moving or walking (as some think), but Jehovah Himself. Elsewhere He is spoken of in the same way. When speaking to Israel of Canaan, as their promised dwelling, He not only says, ‘I will set my tabernacle

manner, but conversed also with Adam and Eve, audibly and by an articulate voice.’ — FLEMING’S Christology, vol. ii. p. 249. The word “voice’ is used in several senses in Scripture. Sometimes it denotes a distinct articulate sound (Deut. iv. 12, 36, v. 22; Ezek. i. 24, 25, 28, x. 5); sometimes a commandment (the thing proclaimed by the voice) (Ps. xcv. 7); sometimes thunder (the sound accompanying the voice) (Ex. ix. 23, 28, 29; Job xxxvii. 5). It was this voice that spoke to Cain (Gen. iv. 9), to Noah (Gen. vi. 13), to Abraham (Gen. xv. 1). It is said (Ex. xix. 19) that ‘Moses spake, and the Lord answered him by a voice.’ It was God’s voice that shook Sinai and its wilderness; that shook the posts of the temple (Isa. vi. 4). It is by this voice that ‘the Assyrian is to be beaten down’ (Isa. xxx. 31). It was this voice that Isaiah heard (vi. 4), and Ezekiel (i. 24, x. 5, 9), and Daniel (x. 6). It was this same voice that was heard at the baptism of Christ (Matt. iii, 17), at His transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 5). It is interesting to trace this ‘voice’ throughout Scripture, so generally in connection with the ‘cloud,’ or ‘glory’ (2 Pet. i. 17). It is sometimes terrific as the thunder; sometimes a ‘still small voice;” sometimes as the noise of a ‘multitude;’ sometimes like many waters, — by all these figures setting forth ‘the majestic, melodious, mighty voice of God.’

ee Te Ne pe cee ee

rf» m pe
GENESIS ml. 8.

i & ong you,’ but ‘I will walk among you’ (Lev. xxvi. 12).

Or, when referring to their desert-sojourn, He gives, as

i a motive to entire purity in their habits, ‘The Lord thy

God walketh in the midst of thy camp, therefore shall thy

i camp be holy’ (Deut. xxiii. 14). As the reference here

is obviously to God’s presence, as manifested in the Shekinah, or visible glory, so it might have been in Eden by some such visible form that the Lord revealed Himself and ‘ walked’ in paradise.

It was ‘in the wind of the day’.that Jehovah was heard. Meaning thereby, either at the time that the breeze was blowing, or zz the breeze; or, more probably, Jo¢#. It is generally in connection with the wind, or whirlwind, that

Jehovah is said to appear (Ezek. i. 4). In 2 Sam. xxii. 11,

we read, ‘He was seen upon the wings of the wind;’ in Ps, xviii. ro we read, ‘He did fly upon the wings of the wind;’ in Ps. civ. 3 we read, ‘Who walketh upon the wings of the wend.’ In these passages we note the difference of expression, yet the identity of the general idea, — He was seen upon the wind; He did /y upon the wind; He did walk upon the wind; which last is the very expression in the passage beforevus.*

As soon as Jehovah appeared and His voice was heard,

1 Vet, as in our passage it is 5 and in others by, and as the former is the usual expression for a, or at the time of, we must take ‘at the breeze of the day’ as the primary sense. (See Gen. xlix. 273 Josh. x. 27, etc.) The Vulgate gives it, ‘ad auram post meridiem;’ the septs vo desAsyay, 2.2. the evening. Symmachus renders it, a rveduaros nutpus; Theodotion, tv ro rveduars rpos xararliiy rns nutpus. Jerome paraphrases it ‘declinante scle.’ (Works, vol. v. p. 269.) Calvin thinks

that, after their sin, they slept all night, and that it was in the morning that.the voice awoke them. So also Diodati. (See Morrison’s the transgressors fled. Terror took hold of them, and shame covered them.! Fig-leaves might hide them from each other’s eyes, but when God comes nigh they must

try something more effectual. They fee. That is their.

first effort. Their object is to get as far from Him as possible. But they need something else. They flee to the thickets, that there the gloom may render them invisible.

It was from the ‘presence,’ or ‘face,’ of God that they fled. It is evident that something was seen by them,

Introductory Key to the Scriptures on this passage.) ‘The following passage from a writer formerly quoted may interest the reader : —

‘It is evident from Scripture that Jehovah the Son, the only visible God, appeared to Adam so soon as he was created, and on many after occasions. Adam heard His voice, and held familiar conversation with Him, as a man does with his friend. Then and ever afterwards, in all the ages previous to His incarnation, Jehovah seems to have made the sound or rushing of wind the visible symbol of His appearance. Thus He announced His approach to Job (xxxvill. 1). So He appeared to Ezekiel (i. 4). This also was the sign by which David knew that Jehovah was gone out before him to smite the host of the Philistines (1 Chron. xiv. 15). And, as this had always been the sign of the divine approach, the coming of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles was announced in the sound of a rushing mighty wind (Acts ii. 2). Hence God is said to walk on the ‘wings of the wind.” Now, as this was the usual token whereby Adam knew the approach of his Maker, so soon as he heard the sound of wind issuing from a cloud, walking among the trees of Eden, he was apprized of the approach of the offended Jehovah; and, alarmed by his fears, he ran to hide himself from the divine presence among the thickets of the garden.’ — Pirie’s Works, vol. iii. p. 68.

1 Our readers will perhaps remember Spenser’s line —

* All wrongs have mends, but no amends of shame,’ — (Ffaerie Queene, book ii, cant. x ) Most true! No ‘amends of shame,’ but through Him who took our shame upon Himself.

Pe Tk ee

..? here and elsewhere called by this name. It was from this ‘face’ of God that they turned away, just as the wicked are said hereafter to be ‘punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord’? This name seems to be given because the manifestation (whatever it might be) was that which, in God, corresponded to the face of man, — the part which reveals most of the man himself. It was a visible glory indicative of a personal presence, — the presence of the second Person of the Godhead, who, from eternity, was the brightness of Jehovah’s

lari rpocumov rod xvupiov. This, of course, refers to the presence of Christ. But it was to this ‘presence’ that all former ‘presences’ pointed. All these were but prefigurations of His glory, — the bright raiment which was to invest the person of the God-man in the fulness of time. It is to this ‘ presence,’ or ‘glory,’ or ‘Shekinah,’ that reference is made in such passages as the following : — Gen. iv. 14, 16, Ruin 22, ix, 23 5x, XxVi, 21, XXvill. 12, 30; Lev. 1.3, 5, 11. It is to the second Person of the Godhead that ‘ presence,’ or ‘ face,’ refers. He is essentially and eternally the ‘ off-shining,’ or radiance, of Jehovah’s glory (arabyacua ris d0fns), and the express image of His person (yupuxrinp tis txsrrdcews wrod, the impression or stamp of His person). He is also the * Word,’ as being the utterance or expression of the mind of Godhead, — the communication between the invisible and the visible. Thus Owen calls Him ‘the essential image of the Father,’ and says, ‘were He not the essential image of the Father in His own divine Person, He could not be the vepresentative image of God to us, as He is incarnate’ (on the Person of Christ). Thus the voice that spoke in Eden was the voice of the Worn; and the presence that was seen was the presence of Him who is the radiance of Jehovah’s glory. ‘The Logos,’ says Fleming, ‘according to the agreement of the sacred Trinity, was He that acted even to created intelligent beings as their immediate Head, in the name of God, essentially considered. The Logos, being infinite in regard of essence, could never be seen or known, even by the most glorious created spirits, had He not condescended to assume some created form, — such as that which the Jews called the Shekinah, or rae THOUGHTS ON GENESIS.

glory and the express image of His person. This visible glory (like the Shekinah in the wilderness pursuing the rebels) seems to have advanced towards them; and as 7¢ advanced ¢hey retreated, — the voice and the glory from which the voice issued combining to terrify them, for they were the voice and the glory of that God whom they had disobeyed. Their own refuge is the trees of the garden; yet what shelter could they be from a glory so bright, or from a voice which makes the mountains to shake? PRS oxx1x.)

That voice! It pierces the sinner’s ear in a moment. It forces its way into the conscience. Nothing can withstand it. It is specially to the conscience that it speaks, alarming, convincing, overpowering. When it speaks in the Zaw, then the commandment comes (Rom. vil. 9); the sinner is smitten, he flees before it or falls under it. It

the glory of God; and it seems plain to me, that the Logos appeared thus in heaven to the angels. And I look upon it to be more than probable, that this assumed image was not barely light, or something like a luminous cloud, but was something likewise of a determined shape, appearing as an animated being. And I believe, from what I can judge by laying things together, that it was the exact representation of a man clothed with a most glorious garment of wonderful light. And I make no question but this ancient image was the very same with that wherein Christ appears now in glory, excepting that He has now a real animated body of human flesh, whereas before He had an ethereal one only, or one of some such sort of composition. But, excepting this, I make no question but that the features and lineaments of the one body and the other were as exactly, and more exactly, the same, than ever any picture was like an original. And when Christ was transfigured, I believe He appeared the very same to Moses that He appeared to be to him formerly, when he and the elders of Israel, as well as the angels then present, saw Him upon Mount Sinai(Ex, xxiv. 1, etc.).’ — Christology, vol. ii. p. 255.

* = Aar~4 ide a ee doe a Be re Pe.
Rpt VA eraser An
ot oe ‘ a,

GENESIS 1. Syerts 139

: sweeps through him and lays him in the dust. His mouth is stopped; he is compelled to plead guilty. ‘By the law is the knowledge of sin.’

And then, that glory! It terrifies the transgressor. He cannot bear it, even afar off. Its approach overwhelms him. Even the saints have trembled at it, — Job (xlii. 5), Isaiah (vi. 5), and Daniel (x. 7, 8), — how much more the sinner! The ‘presence’ of Jehovah is Zgh#, and that he cannot bear, for he loves the darkness. Israel got a glimpse of it on Sinai, and trembled; the ungodly shall see it in the day of wrath, and flee to the rocks for shelter.

And then the insufficiency of human coverings. Till God came nigh, the fig-leaves seemed safe enough; but He shows Himself, and then the covering is found ‘narrower than a man can wrap himself in it’ (Isa. xxvill. 20). He flees, and tries another covering (for feaves will not do; he must have the whole ¢rees), still ‘making lies his refuge, and under falsehood hiding him- self’ (Isa. xxvill. 15). For whither can he flee from

God’s ‘presence’? (Ps. cxxxix.-7:) Neither fig-leaves nor thickets will do. It is God that is the sinner’s terror; and the nearer that He comes the greater is that terror.’ No human coverings can avail. Darkness will not do. Distance will not do. The wrappings of man’s merits will

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1 Jerome, in commenting on the first verse of the 82d Psalm, — ‘ God standeth,’ or, as he has it, ‘ Deusstetit,’/ — has a curious passage, in which he attempts to show the difference of the expressions, ‘God stands,’ - ‘God walks,’ ‘God sits;’ referring the first to His posture in refery euce to man innocent; the second to God’s posture in reference to man % guilty, aS if He were moved out of His place to come to him; and the ‘ third in reference to God’s posture to men before the judgment-seat,

[ee he ee. =. ’: uty R not do. To be naked before God is what he shrinks from; and none of these can hide his nakedness. That which alone can remove his terror and his shame is a shelter that is divine, — a covering that is infinite, — the righteousness of the Son of God.

In the day of wrath this scene of Eden will be raped — man fleeing from the presence of God. In the absence of thickets he will betake himself to the rocks and hills (Hos. x. 8; Rev. vi. 15, 16). But what will these do? Can His eye not pierce these? Can His hand not pluck them thence? For thus the Lord has spoken, ‘Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down; and though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence’ (Amos ixse2, 53)

Ver. 9. ‘ And the Lord God (Heb. Fehovah-Elohim) called unto Adam (Heb. the man), and said unto him, Where art thou ??

The voice which had been heard was no inarticulate noise such as tempest or thunder. It spoke explicitly and articulately. It addressed itself to Adam, — to ‘the man.’ The words are not ‘ He sazd to,’ but ‘ He called to,’ Adam. And there could be no mistake as to who was meant. He proceeds by making inquiry after him, that, step by step, He may make sin unveil itself, and draw confession from the sinner. He does not at once lay hold of the offender and extort a confession by terror. Neither does He proceed upon His omniscience and say, ‘Thou art the man.’ His object is so to speak to the conscience that the man may confess, and be led without compulsion to survey his own devious steps. ‘Where art thou?’ was the question. Simple, yet, like the Lord’s words to the woman of Sychar (John iv.), effectual for bringing all to light. As if He would say, ‘I expected to find thee at the appointed meeting-place, but I find thee not. How is it so? What has led thee away? Where art thou?’ Thus He goes in quest of the sinner.?

Ver. 10. ‘And he said, [ heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself”

The man replies immediately. God has met him face to face, and he cannot evade Him or decline an answer. He had heard the voice. He had known it at once. It was ‘in the garden’ that he heard it, and terror took hold of him. He admits that he had fled from God, and that he was not where he ought to have been found. He excuses himself for fleeing because, being naked, he was afraid of the majesty of God; and feeling that he was unfit to stand before Him, he had hid himself. In so speak-

1*Graciously calling him to return, who would otherwise have eternally fled from God.’ — F. Wesley’s Sermons, vol. ii. p. 25.

?Fleming supposes that man, before he sinned, had a sort of ‘luminous vestment,’ which disappeared the moment he sinned (Christology, book iil. chap. 3); and adds, ‘ Adam turning apostate, was no way fit that he should wear the livery of the Shekinah any longer, and therefore the luminous garment with which he and Eve were clothed is taken away, and they are left naked.’ Mede has a somewhat similar idea, when he speaks of their ‘nakedness’ as being an ‘obscuration of that glorious and celestial beauty which he had before his sin; the difference whereof was so great, that he could not endure afterwards to behold himself any more, but sought for a covering, even to hide himself from himself.’ — - Works (folio), p. 233.

ing, he seems to take credit to himself for having fled, and rather suggests that the blame lay with God, who had made him naked. In this there is no confession of sin; there is fear and shame; but that is all. Instead of ‘declaring his transgression,’ he first attempts to hide it by hiding himself; and when that is vain, he shifts the blame from himself to God. It seems to be to this that Job refers, when he says, ‘If I covered my transgression as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom’ (Job xxxi, 33). Covering sin in any such way avails not. There is but one covering which is effectual, — the covering of the blood. It is by blood alone that sin can be ‘covered.’ Man, however, knew not this. He thought he could cover it himself. He had yet to learn that the only thing that can cover sin is that which can adsorb it and make it to be as though it had never been. God had yet to unfold His own method, and to teach man the efficacy of the blood as a covering; so that when he came to understand this he would feel that, in order to cover sin, it is not necessary to flee from God or to resort to thickets, but that, receiving God’s testimony to the covering efficacy of the blood, he may meet God face to face without shame or fear, reversing the words of his first father, and saying, ‘I heard Thy voice, and was not afraid, for I had found a covering; and, instead of hiding myself, I returned to Thee.’

Ver. 11. ‘.4ud He said, Who told thee (or declared to thee) that thou wast (or art) naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof 2 commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?’

God pursues the inquiry. His object is to make man convict himself. He has touched the conscience already, —

2 and He now sends the arrow deeper. Thou speakest of

being ‘naked.’ How is this? Thou didst not feel thus at first. Hitherto thy nakedness has been no barrier between thee and me. Who, or what, has suggested the thought that it is so? Who, or what, has made thee afraid or ashamed to come? Whence hast thou got this knowledge, by means of which thou excusest thyself from drawing near to me, and palliatest thy guilt in fleeing from me? Man is silent. He answers not a word. No one has told him. The thought has started up from within. A strange but irresistible feeling has taken possession of him, — ‘I am naked; I cannot look upon God; God cannot look upon me.’ Without noticing man’s silence, God proceeds with His inquiry. ‘ Hast thou eaten of the tree which I prohibited?’ This is the only thing that could have done it. Is it possible that thou hast already transgressed? Thus, by question after question, he leads man to the acknowledgment of his sin, making him feel

that his sin is already known, that the true cause of his fear is no secret, and ‘that all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom he has to do.’

Ver. 12. ‘And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.’

He feels that God has had His eye upon him, and that what He says is true. It is the tree that has given him this knowledge of ‘evil.’ Had he waited God’s time, the eating of it would have given him the knowledge of only good; but he has refused to wait; he has po ee

disobeyed God; he has made haste to be wise; and it has opened his eyes only to the ez7. Still, however, he will take no blame to himself for doing what he has done. He makes no direct and honest answer to God, in freely confessing that he had eaten; yet he cannot deny the deed, and therefore, in the very act of admitting (not confessing), he casts the blame upon the woman, — nay, upon God, for giving him such a tempter. Here let us mark such truths as these.

1. The difference between admitting sin and confessing it. Adam admits it, — slowly and sullenly, — but he does not confess it. He is confronted with a Being in whose presence it would be vain to deny what he had done; but he will go no further than he can help. He will tacitly concede when concession is extorted from him, but he will make no frank acknowledgment: It is so with the sinner still. He does precisely what Adant did; no more, till the Holy Spirit lays His hand upon his conscience and touches all the springs of his being. Up till that time he may utter extorted and reluctant - concessions, but he will not confess sin. He will not deal frankly with God. He is sullen, and admits that he is a sinner because others do it, — because it would be

1 Jerome has an ingenious comment on Lam. iii. 65. ‘Give them sorrow of heart’ is our translation, the margin giving ‘ obstinacy;” and Jerome translating it ‘scutum cordis,’ as the text had given imepuoriowov. He represents Adam as holding up this shield when God came nigh, flinging back the blame not only upon the woman, but upon God: ‘Ut quasi reatum suum oblique in auctorem redideret.’ Eve also holds up the shield: ‘ Hoc scutum etiam requisita

mulier tenuit.... ut ipsa quoque reatum suum oblique in creatoremduceret.’ — Works, vol. iv. p. 323.

thought pride in him not to do it, — because he cannot help it, — because he is conscious there is something wrong; but still there is no open-hearted confession. If there is not actually the ‘keeping silence’ (Ps. xxxii. 3), or the ‘covering of sin’ (Prov. xxviii. 13), there is nothing of the ready spirit: ‘I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin’ (Ps. xxxii. 5; Prov. xxviii. 13; Luke xv. 18-21; 1 Johni. 9).

2. The artfulness of an unhumbled sinner. ‘Even while admitting sin, he shakes himself free from blame; nay, he thrusts forward the name of another, even before the admission comes forth, as if to neutralize it before it is made. How artful! yet how common still! Men do not only give a mere reluctant admission, — they do not merely in so doing try to shift the blame from themselves, but they attempt, by introducing the name of another, before the admission is made, to give the impression most cunningly that this other is the really guilty

‘person. Thus, by mentioning another first, they hope

to draw away all the attention from themselves to him, so that, before their own, guilt has been conceded, attention has been directed to him as the guilty one; and thus not only is there a bare admission of guilt instead of an honest confession, but there is a most cunning endeavour to undo that very admission by the peculiar way in which it is made. It is difficult to say whether such a method be more cunning or cowardly. It is

certainly the procedure of a man who is, on the one VOL, Vi. Z K hand, afraid to confess; and, on the other hand, afraid not to confess, and who compromises these two opposite fears by a most artful declaration, which shows how sorely he shrinks from the consequences of his own poor admission. Ah! where do we find honest, unreserved acknowledgment of sin? Nowhere, save in connection with pardon. Up till the moment that we

learn the ‘forgiveness that there is with God,’ there will.

always be reserve, — a-. cowardly reluctance to confess, an unmanly shifting of the guilt from off ourselves, a desire to palliate our sins, or lessen their number. There will always be ‘guile,’ for there will always be a motive to hide our sins; but when the free pardon comes, it takes away all reserve, it renders us ‘guileless.’? We confess freely, for the reasons for restraint are. done away. And in coming to receive the pardon we put forward the name of our Surety first, before even mentioning our sins, that, like Adam, though not with his guile, we may call attention to Him on whom we cast our guilt: ‘For THy Name’s sakE, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great’ (Ps. xxv. 11).

3. The self-justifying pride of the sinner. He admits as much of his guilt as cannot be denied, and then takes credit to himself for what he has done. He is resolved to take no more blame than he can help. Even in the blame that he takes, he finds not only an extenua-

* The contrast between this and David’s feeling in Ps. li. 4 is very striking. Adam’s object was to justify Aimsely; David’s was to justify

God ‘That THou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest.’

GENESIS TERO32; z 147

tion, but a virtue, a merit; for he fled, because it was not seemly for him to stand before God naked! Nay, even in so much of the blame as he takes, he must divide it with another, thus leaving on himself, but little guilt and some considerable degree of merit. Had it not been for another, he would not have had to admit even the small measure of blame that he does! There is pride here, but no godly sorrow; nothing of the ‘broken spirit;’ nay, not even despair. His -self-righteousness elates him, buoys him up, and makes him think his case not so bad as to be hopeless. ‘Till the sinner sees the cross it will be always so. Law will not humble him. The voice of God will not humble, though it may alarm him. He must see the utter condemnation of himself in the cross, and at the same time God’s provision for meeting his case and removing the condemnation, ere he will throw away his confidences. It is only the knowledge of the Divine righteousness that can remove either his pride or his shame, just as it is only the knowledge of. the ‘perfect love’ that can cast out fear.

4. The hardened ‘selfishness of the sinner. He accuses others to screen himself. He does not hesitate to inculpate the dearest; he spares not the wife of his bosom. Rather than bear the blame, he will fling it anywhere, whoever may suffer. And all this in a moment! How instantaneous are the results of sin! Already it has rooted out affection, and broken the nearest tie, and made man a being of dark selfishness, He has ceased to ‘love his neighbour as himself.’ SELF has now risen uppermost within him. He is steeled against his dearest of kin. He does not hesitate to expose them to the wrath of God; he cares not what their doom may be, provided Ze escape! ‘ Hateful, and hating one another,’ is the inscription on the forehead of.our fallen race. It is this that we here read upon the brow of Adam.

5. The sinner’s blasphemy and ingratitude to God. ‘The woman whom Thou gavest me,’ said Adam. God’s love in giving him a help meet is overlooked, and the gift itself is mocked at. God’s earnest pains in providing for him a companion so suitable are forgotten, nay, turned into an occasion for casting the blame of his fall upon Him. Had it not been for Zhee, I should not have sinned ; — she whom Thou gavest me has become my seducer. Zhou didst it, in giving me such a companion. Thus it is that Israel taunted God with being the author of their sins and woes (Ezek. xxxili. 10): ‘If our transgressions be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?’ That is, ‘If we die, we must just die; we cannot help it; and God is only mocking us with broken promises, speaking to us of life, yet sending only death.’ And in reference to this it was that God cleared Himself upon oath, refusing to lie under the imputation, or to take the blame of man’s death: ‘As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Thus it is that scoffers in these last days pervert the gifts of God into an excuse for sinning, or into reasons for believing that there is no such thing as sin at all, When we speak of their sin eiven? -or if there be sin in these things, who is to blame 4 but He who gave them?’ 3 6. The sinner’s attempt to smooth over his deed. ‘The woman gave me the fruit, and I ate of it; that was all. Giving, receiving, and eating a little fruit; that was all! What more simple, natural, innocent? How could I do otherwise?’ Thus he glosses over the sin. He speaks smooth things to himself regarding it, and would fain make God think as little of it as he does himself. And so men still trifle with sin. What harm is there in it? What harm is there in the song, the dance, the ‘laugh, the gaiety, the glitter? Are not these amusements

harmless? Ah! it was thus that the first sinner tried

to reason with his God. But did he succeed? Did God accept his plea of harmlessness? Did He turn away His wrath, or dilute the curse, or justify the transgressor? So long as man persists in smoothing down his sin, and trying to make God think as lightly of it as he does himself, he must fail in finding favour. It is not till he acquiesces in God’s verdict, and, accepting condemnation as his due, takes the sinner’s place before God, that he can hope at all. For all hope to a sinner begins in the acknowledgment of his hopelessness, and in consenting to take his hope, not from the idea that wrath is not his due, but from the knowledge of that wondrous grace that has stretched its blessed circle far beyond the uttermost limits of human sin.

Ver. 13. ‘And the Lord God said unto the woman, What ts this —

that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’

The trial proceeds, and the investigation is carried on with all judicial calmness. Adam’s sullen answer awakes no wrath, and calls forth no remark. The Lord God now passes on to the woman. She had been accused by the man, and He turns to her to see how the man’s accusation stands. He takes him at his word, and proceeds with the inquiry: ‘What is this that thou hast done?’ Is it really true that thou hast done this thing with which thy husband charges thee?

In Eve we mark the same self-justifying spirit. She does not, indeed, retaliate upon the man, and say, ‘How am I to blame for Azs sin, seeing he need not have eaten unless he had pleased?’ She admits that she had done the deed, though, like her husband, she does so most sullenly, and not by a direct or frank confession. She does not deny the deed, but she will not take the blame.

! It is the same word as is used in Ps, lv. 15: ‘Let death seize upon them;’ literally, ‘Let death beguile them;’ that is, stealthily and craftily lay hold of them, as did he who has the power of death, of our first parents. Robertson (Clavis, p. 44) refers also to Ps. lxxxix. 23, ‘The enemy shall not seduce him,’ as he did Eve. In 2 Cor. xi. 3 we read, ‘As the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty,’ nrérncey 2y 77 ravovpyiz 3 and in I Tim. ii. 14, ‘Adam was not deceived (4xa776n); but the woman, being deceived (zrarnésion), was in the transgression.’ In Eph. vi. 11, the apostle speaks of ‘the wiles (ras msdodeins) of the devil.’ Of the Lord Jesus (the woman’s seed, and therefore the opposite of the serpent’s seed) it is said, ‘Neither was guile (3¢A0s) found in His mouth’ (1 Pet. ii. 22); and of His seed it is written that they were like Him: ‘In their mouth was found no guile’ (3éA05) (Rey. xiv. 5).

GENESIS uw. 13.

It was the Serpent that beguiled her! How could she help it? As if she would thus indirectly cast back the blame on God. ‘It was Thine own creature, the Serpent; he is the real cause; blame him, not me; why was he allowed to beguile me?’ ‘

Thus it is that the sinner refuses to accept the guzl/t, even when he admits the deed. He dares not say, I did not do the deed; but he does not hesitate to affirm, ‘I was not to blame in doing it.’’ He affirms, either ‘the sin was not a very great one,’ or, ‘there were many excuses for me;’ and the greatest of all is this, that ‘it was a creature of God’s own making that seduced me.’ See how fatally sin works. It makes him a liar, — a liar to his own conscience, to his fellows, to his God. It makes him a coward. It makes him an accuser of others. It makes him a blasphemer of God Himself. To own himself totally a sinner, — made so, not by God, nor by any fellow-creature, nor by education, nor by circumstances, but solely by himself, — is what he will not stoop to. Yet on any other terms God cannot deal with him. AAs a confessed sinner, he may at any moment go to God, assured of finding favour and pardon; but on any other footing, approach to God must be wholly in vain.

1 Tn all this process of inquiry there is no grace manifested. And hence the sinner flies from God, unrepenting and unconfessing. Nor will terror ever do aught but drive a man from God. No amount of

it will ever draw him nigh, or unlock his breast, or soften him into repentance. Nothing but grace can do this. Besides, terror only appeals to the coarser feelings of our nature; grace touches the finer chords. Terror contracts the spirit, grace enlarges it. Terror drives man into’the thicket, only grace can draw him out.

er — — ledgment of entire guilt, otherwise God can have no dealings with him at all.;

And here again, let us mark the forbearance of our —

God. Even before grace is directly announced to man, we can observe the dawnings of it in the way in which God approaches man, and in the difference between His dealings with man and His dealings with the serpent. How slow to anger! How loth to find the woman guilty! How anxious to hear all that she has to say for herself before pronouncing sentence! How condescending, too, in all this; for He comes Himself in person to make the inquiry, not trusting it to another; and comes most graciously to seek after man, when man was fleeing from Him; not hastily putting a harsh construction upon his flight, but waiting to hear his excuse and defence; not threatening nor upbraiding, but, in the words of calm and friendly inquiry, asking, ‘What is this that thou hast done?’

Such is the God with whom we have to do, — ‘ the God of all grace;’ not hating, but loving; not cursing, but blessing; not hasty, but slow to anger; not upbraiding, but dealing tenderly; not condemning, but pardoning.

‘How manifestly is this the same God who so loved the

world as to give His only-begotten Son! How perfect

‘the harmony ox character in this God, from these first

words, spoken to fallen man, to the last which His book contains! How blessed to learn that this God, who sought out Adam when he fled from Him, is seeking the

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sinner still, unprovoked by his amas and resistances and self-excuses; waiting, with undiminished patience and -forbearing love, to receive, and to love, and to bless!

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Vers. 14, 15. ‘ And the Lord God (Heb. Fehovah-Elohim) said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou ari cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. 15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.’

Though both of these two verses refer, in a measure, to Satan himself, yet they do embrace separate subjects; the former pointing moré especially to the curse upon the literal serpent, the latter predicting the curse upon the great Tempter. They seem but one prophecy, and yet they take in two objects, the near and the distant, the literal and the figurative. Commencing, like all double prophecies, with the near and the literal, they end in the distant and the figurative. As in the 72d Psalm, the singer begins with the actual Solomon and ends with the greater Solomon; and as in several burdens the prophet Isaiah begins with the Babylon then in being upon the plain of Shinar, and ends with Babylon the great, upon the seven hills; so is it here. He begins with the serpent, He ends with Satan. The figure used is taken from

1See Usher’s Body of Divinity, chap. ix., where, after giving an exposition similar to the above, he says, ‘If God did punish a poor worm, which had no reason nor will to choose or refuse sin, how much less will He spare us, which have both!’ ‘ As an argument of the detestableness of the sin, and a constant memorial of it, the abused beast is cursed. Compare Ex. xxi. 28, xxxii. 20; Lev. xx. 15; Gen. ix. 5.’ — Bishop Kipper Ox the Pent. vol. i. p. 15, the serpent; but the prophetic picture thus given con- a cerns a far greater personage. For it is evident that one main object gained by employing such a figure in such a way as is done here, is to bring before us the personality of that being who is here introduced to us. The words, no doubt, are fewres, but they are figures of what is Zizerad, — precise and personal. They are not figures of abstractions or principles or truths, but of a person. They do not set forth God’s condemnation of error or of evil, but His judgment upon a gerson.. They do not denote the mere conflict between evil and good, with the triumph of the latter after a brief depression, but they foretell the battle between two Zervsons. The nature of the combat is not declared, but the personality and literality of the - combatants is vividly, and beyond mistake, set forth.?

This much is plain. Let us now look at the words themselves.

God had, in His dealing with our first parents, proceeded in the way of judicial inquiry, step by step. He had taken nothing for granted, but had calmly questioned them, allowing them full opportunity of defending themselves; loth to condemn, nay, giving out His accusations

a ee

1 German rationalists, denying the personality of Satan, make this a conflict between the good and evil principles in man! See Dr. S. F. N. Morus’ Comment. Exeg. Hist. vol. i. pp. 417-419. The literary scoffers of the age, who set aside the truths of Scripture as overdated and obsolete, — unsuited to an era of intellectual progress, — mock at the personality of the Evil One, talk of ‘extinct Satans,’ and treat the ancient belief in the devil’s true being as an old fable. If the Bible testimony to a God anda Christ be plain, equally plain is that testimony to the being and personality of Satan. ‘No God’ and ‘no devil generally go together.

GENESIS u1.-14, 15.

simply as questions, no more. But when He comes to deal with the serpent and with Satan, we find nothing of this. They were dealt with as already condemned, and only waiting their sentence. Such is His grace to man, and such the intimation of His purpose to deal with him in grace, not in judgment. Wondrous contrast between the two races of creatures and His purposes concerning them! With the one all is grace, with the other all is righteousness and wrath! Even in the lower creation this difference is shown. That animal that had sided with Satan, and become his instrument in ruining man, is cursed with Satan’s curse, and for Satan’s sin; while the other animals are cursed with a less heavy and less abiding curse, and that for man’s sin.2 As if God would thus from the beginning proclaim the pre-eminent guilt

1 «Serpens vero jam non requiritur, quia nec ejus poenitentia queerebatur.’ — JrRoME. ‘ As for the Serpent, He vouchsafes not to ask him one question, nor to expect what he should say for himself; but presently, without examination, peoecess to judgment against him.’ — MEDE, Works, p. 221.

2 Satan’s connection with the serpent is a subject of great difficulty. The serpent’s punishment was on account of Satan’s sin, not man’s sin. Hence the heavier curse, — a curse not only heavier in itself, but

’ longer in duration, not. removed even in millennial days, when blessing returns to the rest of creation (Isa. lxv. 25). Dust shall s¢d, be the serpent’s meat. ‘Dum plenam nature integrze ac bene constitutze

instaurationem promittit sub Christi regno inter alia commemorat, pulverem serpenti pro pane futurum esse. — CALVIN. We think it may be made a question whether the animal creation at large were cursed for man’s sin or for Satan’s siz, No doubt they were involved ce in the former, but still was it not for their participation in the latter, through their representative the serpent, the wisest of them all, that

they have fallen under the curse? Is not this implied in the words,

‘Thou art cursed adove all catile’? etc. The,ground is said to be s ‘of every ally of the Evil One; and the swift doom of all that, in the day of doom, shall be found upon his side. The serpent was but the involuntary agent, yet he was cursed; how much more they who have ‘yielded their members. instruments of unrighteousness unto sin’ (Rom. vi. 13),! nay, ‘run greedily’ in the way of the Evil One!

Though the serpent was but the instrument, yet he is cursed.2 And the words, ‘above all cattle,’ imply that the rest of the animal creation were made to share the curse which had come down upon it as Satan’s special agent in the plot against man. And why this universal curse?

1. Zo show the spreading and contaminating nature of sin. — One sin is enough to spread over a world. There is something in the very nature of sin that infects and defiles. It is not like a stone dropped in a wilderness,

cursed for man’s sake, as it was by eating its fruit that he fell; but the animals seem cursed on Satan’s account, as they were connected with his temptation. Yet in the end they are separated from him and his doom, and made to share the grace in store for man, their head and king.

1 The word ‘yield’ poorly expresses the Greek sapiormys, which forcibly implies the willing, nay eager, presentation of our members to be the instruments of sin.

2 «Shrunk from its erect and probably lofty stature; deprived of its limbs; reduced to grovel on the earth and seek its food in the dust; mute henceforth, and abject; the baneful serpent sunk beneath this awful curse, and glided away to hide itself out of sight; and from that day the miserable reptile has ever slunk from the eye of man,’ — HrEAp’s World and its Creator, p. 124. In these figures of the humiliation of the serpent, welread the wtter humiliation of the tempter himself. The posture and theood of the serpent most aptly set forth the present

degradation of the Byil One, just as the remaining words denote his final ruin.

sy, if si a id ] - upon the sand, there to lie motionless and powerless. ‘It is like that same stone cast into a vast waveless lake, which raises ripple upon ripple, and sends its disturbing

influence abroad, in circle after circle, for miles on every side, till the whole lake is in motion. We do not understand the activities and energies of sin. We are slow to credit them. Still less do we understand or believe the strange connection between one sinning creature and another; so that it seems unrighteous to us that one should involve another in evil. Yet it is evident that

there is such a thing as a union, not only of nature, but

of responsibility. I do not profess to explain this. But God proceeds upon it as a law of being. The passage before us takes it for granted; nay, the whole Bible assumes it. It is not some casual or some arbitrary proceeding. It is the law, the righteous law of creaturehood, which unfolding itself first in the curse, has consummated its development in the blessing, when ‘He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.’?

1 We cannot in this place discuss the doctrine of the imputation of sin or righteousness. This much we may say, that not only does the

‘Bible assume them, but they are evidently wrapt up in the history of

man. Why is disease transmitted? Why does woman suffer in childbirth? Why do infants die? Because sin has been imputed. There has been previous guilt somewhere. Many admit the transmission of evil, but deny the transference of guilt. Now we may ask, could there be the transmission of evil, if there were not a transmission of guilt? Would the one be a righteous thing without the other? However difficult it may be to demonstrate the justice of making guilt transmissible, yet it is much more difficult to prove the justice of transmitting suffering, if the transmission of guilt be un-

2. To show how all the manifold parts of creation hang together and depend upon each other. — One being displaced, all are ruined. There is a unity in creation which we have not yet learned to understand, — a unity of the closest kind, yet quite compatible with individual responsibility and separate action. The arch is not more dependent on the keystone than are the different parts of creaturehood dependent on each other for stability and perfection. It is as if the unity of the Godhead had its counterpart in the unity of creation. And, strange to say, it is the fall that has so fully discovered this oneness, and made us acquainted with its manifold relations.

3. Zo be a monument of the evil of sin. Sin needs something visible, something palpable, to make known

righteous. That law of being which transmits suffering or death can only be just upon the supposition of a previous law of being, transmitting guilt. Hence it is not the compensation afforded us in Christ’s righteousness that makes the imputation of Adam’s sin an equitable thing. But it is the great original law of creaturehood, as to the transmission of moral and legal liabilities, that makes both of these strictly and truly righteous.

1 «Because the excellency and sagacity of the serpent had been the occasion of man’s confusion, by being made the lying counterfeit of the devil’s excellency and wisdom, and the mask whereby he so covered his vileness that the woman took him not to be as he was indeed; therefore God in His wisdom thought good to change the copy, and henceforth to blur and deface that unhappy physiognomical letter, and, by abasing the serpent for the time to come, to make him an everlasting emblem and monument wherein man might hieroglyphically read the malice, vileness, and execrable baseness of that wicked spirit that had beguiled him; to hate him (as now we do the serpent) with mortal hatred, and by his unlucky fortune to expect the deyil’s deadly destiny. Ina word, that which was once used for a mask to cover the devil’s knavery, should for the future be a glass wherein to behold his villany.’ — J/ede, p. 220.

. oa

GENESIS ut. 14, 15.

q both its existence and its ‘exceeding sinfulness.’ It a. must exhibit itself to our senses. It must stand forth to

view, branded with the stroke of God’s judgment, as the abominable thing which He hates. Thus He has strewn the memorials of sin all over the earth. He has affixed them to things animate and inanimate, that we may see and hear and feel the vileness and the bitterness of the accursed thing. Before God can proceed to unfold His purpose of pardon, He must rear upon the soil of earth an enduring monument of sin, that thereafter there may be no mistake on the part of man; that it may never be supposed that in being gracious to the sinner He was trifling with the sin.

While the serpent is thus cursed above all the rest of creation, he is made to understand the reason why he is so dealt with. ‘Because thou hast done this.’ God takes care that there shall be no mistake. The curse is no accidental and no arbitrary evil; it is traceable to one distinct cause. The serpent has beguiled man, and therefore judgment lights upon-it. ‘The curse causeless shall not come.’ ‘Because thou hast done this,’ is God’s preface to His sentence on the serpent. It is His preface to the judgment pronounced upon the sinner. ‘ Because thou hast done this,’ are the awful words with which he will be sent into the everlasting fire.

Such is the vzsib/e curse on the serpent. Let us now mark (ver. 15) the zzviszble curse on Satan. ‘There was to be, from that moment, war between Satan and the

woman, enmity between his seed and her seed. Nay, there was to be warfare, — open warfare. This warfare 4

Y6a THOUGHTS ON GENESIS..

would consist of two great parts, or stages. In the first, the woman’s seed would be wounded; in the second, the serpent would be destroyed. The length of his warfare is not stated, or how near its two great parts might be to each other. ‘They might be near, or they might be far off, we are not told, for it was not needful that we should learn this at first. Simply the two things are presented to us, but the question of time is kept out of view, that, from the very first, there might be not merely a looking for the arrival of the woman’s seed, but also a watching for Him. We get here but the far-off glimpse of a great mountain-range. Its lofty peaks seem all clustered together, as if there were not a step between: yet, when we reach them, as now in their last days we have done, we find them separated from each other by valleys, and plains, and precipices of vast extent and height. We could not gather from the brief words of this verse whether the battle was to be the conflict of a day or of ten thousand years. After ages were to unroll the detail; to reveal to us the suffering and the triumph, the shame and the glory. So closely are the first and second comings of the Lord here brought together, that we should have supposed that there was no interval between them.

But though the times and seasons were not given, and therefore much was hidden from man, yet enough was told to let him know that God had taken his part against his enemy; that Divine love had interposed and pledged itself to the final discomfiture of Satan, and the final blessedness of the victim which he had counted on as his own. Here sounds the first note of gladness in the ear of man. It sounds in many respects indistinctly and inarticulately; but in this respect, at least, is it most distinct and articulate, that it announces the free love of God, and that free love not simply as displayed in the sending of a deliverer, but as making for itself a righteous approach to man through the sufferings of that deliverer Himself. Mow the great thought of God’s heart, the idea of grace, began to be unfolded, not only to man, but to the universe. But oh! what a mighty apparatus requires to be constructed ere that one idea can be made plain, and man trusted with it! What an apparatus must be raised (and that gradually, age after age) for carrying out as well as for exhibiting the whole adjustment of righteousness and grace, holiness and grace, wrath and grace, punishment and grace, ere the sinner can be made to comprehend the new, the strange idea, ‘or to distinguish it from mere indifference to sin, or be trusted with the application of it to himself! This was the first step to the unfolding of ‘the mystery which was hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ; that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Eph. iii. g — 11). And it is in reference to this that the epistle thus concludes: ‘Unto Him be glory IN THE Cuuntu, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Eph. iii, 21). And at the consummation of the glorious mystery shall this song be sung: ‘Oh the depth of the VOL. Vi. L

‘
if
NN

riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!’ (Rom. xi. 33.)

Having briefly sketched the meaning of these two verses, let us now look at them more in detail. They are too important to be slightly passed over. They contain the root of all redemption-truth.

1. Let us mark how God proceeds in His inquiries after sit. — He first traces it out step by step, tracks it in all its windings, ere He utters one word of judgment. His dealings hitherto had been with Adam, as the head of creation. Therefore He speaks first to him. Then from’ Adam sin is traced to the woman, then from the woman to the serpent. By this process, it was brought solemnly before the conscience of the transgressors, that they might see what they had done. In this process God takes no advantage of the sinner. He does not make use of His omniscience or omnipotence to convict or overawe the sinner, or to extort confession from him. He proves all by the sinner’s own admission, that his mouth may be stopped, and that the Judge may be acknowledged as righteous in all He does; that He may not only be the just God, but that He may be seen to be so by His creatures (see Job xxxiv. 23; Ps. li 4; Rom. ili. 4). And as is the process of inquiry, so is the judgment. The sentence is judicially announced, not in anger, but in righteousness. Having traced the sin to its source, God begins with the serpent, the source of the evil, or rather with Satan and the serpent jointly, as the twofold source. He began with the transgressor in His inquiry, He begins With the tempter in His judgment; for the

Y first word of condemnation must be directed against the originator of sin, the first stroke of wrath must fall on the prime mover of the deed. Thus, even in the minutest things, showing His truth and justice! Even in the order of judgment, how careful to mark His sense of the different kinds of criminality! Such is a specimen of the way in which He will judge the world in righteousness!

2. Let us mark the circumstances in which the sentence was given. — llt was given in the hearing of our parents. It was not specially directed to them. They were but hearers. Yet the scene was designed for them. This curse on the serpent was spoken in their ears, because it contained in it God’s purpose of grace towards them. God’s design was, that they should learn His gracious intentions without delay, and thus their fears be quieted and their confidence in God restored, but still that they should learn them in a way which should completely humble. them, and make them feel that the grace did not arise from anything in themselves. They learn this grace of God in a sort of side way, as if God turned away His face when making it known. ‘They get it in the form of a curse against the serpent for the evil done by him, thereby learning that the evil done must all be undone before man can be blest! This awful curse against the being that had ruined them intimated such things as these: (z.) That God meant to save them, and not to give them up to the snares of their enemy; (2.) That they could only be saved by their enemy being destroyed; (3.) That this. destruction would be attended with toil, and conflict, and wounds; (4.) That it was easy to ruin a world, but hard to save and restore. How affecting the thought, that God could not preach the gospel directly to Adam, but that he must be left to gather it from the curse against the Evil One, — as if he could not be trusted with the full glad tidings of grace till he had learned the exceeding sinfulness of sin! How different now with us! God preaches that gospel directly to the sinner in all its largeness; saying to each of us, There is grace enough for thee, come thou and be reconciled, come thou and be saved!

3. Let us mark how God hated that which Satan had done. — ‘ Because thou hast done this,’ are the words of awful preface to the sentence. God had no pleasure in the snare or the ruin it had wrought. He had no satisfaction in the marring of His handiwork, no pleasure in the death of the sinner, no joy in the desolation of His world. His words are the expression of deep displeasure against him who had done the horrid deed, and at the deed which had been done. And let us not forget how much of that which Satan has since then been doomed to suffer, as well as of that which he shall hereafter suffer, has its origin here. ‘Because thou hast done this!’ No doubt he was ruined and doomed before, for his own transgression; but now he is to be sunk to a lower level of condemnation, and loaded with a weightier curse, for being the tempter of man, the destroyer of a world. This is the brand upon his burning forehead; this is the millstone round hislneck. God will have him understand how He abhorred that which he had done. And when here-

—- 3 = Pe — -

fter he is seized, and bound, and shut up by the strong angel in the abyss, shall not these words ring in his ears as he is thrust down into his dwelling of darkness, ‘ Because thou hast done this’? His sin, by means of which he succeeded in casting man out of Eden, shall be the sin by which he himself shall be cast wholly out of earth, to deceive the nations no more. 4. In undoing the evil God begins at its source: — The drying up of the stream will not do; the source must be reached. If man is to be saved at all, it must be by the removal of sin; and if sin is to be removed, God must begin at the very root. There must be a complete undoing of the evil, — an undoing which shall not only sweep off the actual sin, with its sad results, but which shall strike at the very nature of sin itself. Thus God’s hatred of sin is the foundation of the sinner’s deliverance; and no deliverance can be sure or permanent, if not founded upon this. God’s purpose of grace does not treat sin as a light thing, but as an infinite evil, which must be met at its first uprising; nay, which can only be rightly met when met there. Grace cannot come forth to the sinner, save in connec- ‘| tion with the utter condemnation of the sin. There can be no true love to the sinner, which does not extirpate and utterly make away with the sin. Sin was the real; enemy, and love to the sinner must proceed at once against this enemy, not resting till it is utterly destroyed. ’ 5. God shows that Satan shall not be allowed to triumph. — He has gained a mighty advantage, but his victory ‘is enly temporary and partial. God is seen interposing and setting His face against the adversary. God is taking the sinner’s side; and this is the assurance that Satan’s victory shall be reversed! His doom is sealed. Degradation, shame, ruin, are his portion. What might have been his doom hitherto on account of his former sin we know not; but here we learn the superadded penalty which he was henceforth to bear. Man hears the condemnation of his enemy, and knows that this defeat is his deliverance. And of this he is to have a visible pledge in the serpent’s form and habits. This very curse upon the serpent is the declaration to man of his own deliverance from the curse, for it is God’s declaration of displeasure against the enemy that had seduced him. Thus Satan’s ruin and the sinner’s deliverance are bound up together. It was to ‘destroy the works of the devil’ that the Son of God was to come; nay, it was ‘to destroy him that had the power of death, even the devil.’ And we now, in these days, know that He has come. He has done His mighty work. He has led captivity captive.

6. God Himself undertakes man’s cause. — ‘1 will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.’ It is not, ‘there shall be enmity;’ but ‘I will put it.” God Himself will now proceed to work for man. The serpent’s malice and success have but drawn forth the deeper love and more direct interposition in man’s behalf.

7. God promises a seed to the womani — All that this

* How JZiterally was this fulfilled in the Son of Mary! He was the

seed of the woman, not of the man.

eo ae Pore

GENESIS mi. 14, 15. 167

implied she could not know at the time. But it is

evidently declared, that she was not to die immediately.

The sentence, ‘In the day thou eatest thou shalt die,’ was to be suspended in so far as death temporal was concerned. She was to have a seed, and that said, Thou art not to die immediately... This suspension was, of itself, an intimation of grace. .The seed of the woman might be supposed to be three. First, there is the whole race of man. Secondly, there is the Church. Thirdly, there is the Messiah. To this last, more especially, does the promise point. On Him, as the woman’s seed, He sought to fix man’s eye from the beginning. Through Him deliverance was to come. For whatever might be the mystery hanging over this, still it was indicated that it was in this way, and through this seed, that sin was to be undone. The woman’s seed was to be God’s instrument in destroying Satan, and avenging the wrong he had done to man. Here let us mark, (1.) The honour put upon the woman, even though she was first in transgression.? This is grace indeed, — grace in its largeness. And thus, while the woman is taught not to be overmuch cast down, the man is hindered from triumphing over her. (2.) The confounding of Satan. It is the seed of his victim that is to be his destroyer. It is thus that he is put to shame, and the

1 Hence to Messiah Himself the promise was, ‘ He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,’ Isa. iii. 10.

? May we not say, that thus the man was veproved for casting blame upon the woman? He was prevented from boasting. If the woman had the dishonour of being the chief transgressor, she had the honour of being the instrument of deliverance.

success of his wiles made the means of his own ruin. His triumph is his destruction. (3.) The directing of the Church’s eye to a person as the instrument of blessing; nay, to a man, — very flesh and blood. The salvation was to come from God, and yet it was to come through man.

8. God is to put enmity between the serpent and the woman, and between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed. — The woman and the serpent had joined together in rebellion; and so long as this friendship lasted, there could be no hope for her or for the race. But God steps in to break this bond. This ‘covenant with death shall be disannulled, and this agreement with hell shall not stand.’ The woman and the serpent had been fellow-accomplices; but henceforth this league was to be broken. As if God had said to the tempter, ‘Thou hast beguiled her to be an accomplice with thee against me, and thou thinkest to get her seed to join thee; but it shall not be so. I will break the alliance. I will not only separate between thee and her, but I will raise up deadly hatred.’ Let us notice here such things as these: (1.) The enmity between Satan and the Church. There can be no friendship with him, and no sympathy with his works. Thus the distinction between the Church and the world is as old as Eden; and it is not merely distinction, it is hostility. (2.) The enmity between Christ and Satan; between Him who is the representative of heaven and him who is the representative of hell; between Him who is the friend and him who is the enemy of man. (3.) The name given to the ungodly, — ‘the seed of the serpent.’ And it was this expression

that Christ took up when He spoke of the ‘generation

of vipers,’ and said to the unbelieving Jews, ‘Ye are of your father the devil.’ By birth we are the serpent’s brood, till grace transforms us, and we become the woman’s seed; then our friendship with the accursed race is for ever broken. (4.) The name of the Church, — ‘the seed of the woman.’ Yes, the seed of her who sinned, who ‘ was in the transgression,’ — offspring of Eve, — of her who was first in apostasy. What tender favour is thus shown to her! (5.) The name of Christ. The same as the Church’s, the ‘seed of the woman.’ Yes, He was indeed ‘born of a woman,’ — the Son of Mary, — the Son of Eve, — the Son of her that had transgressed. We sometimes wonder that Jesus should have allowed such names as Tamar, and Rahab, and Bathsheba to be in the roll of His ancestors; but is not all this implied in His being called at the outset the seed of the woman? What grace is there in His taking to Himself such a name! What oneness with us does such a name imply; oneness with ai the redeemed! Ah, surely He is not ashamed to call us brethren! Truly the Son of man did come to seek and to save that which was lost.

9. There is not only to be enmity, but conflict. — That these two parties should keep aloof from each other was not enough. ‘There must be more than this. There must be alienation and hatred; nay, there must be warfare, and that of the most desperate kind. Satan and the Church must ever be at open warfare. The world and the Church must ever be foes to each other. It cannot be otherwise. No concession, no compromise, can ever make it otherwise, or alter the declared purpose of Jehovah. Neither Satan nor the world can change. They may hide their vileness, they may mask their hatefulness, and seek to win us with flattery, or beguile us with lies; but they change not. They are still ‘from beneath,’ not ‘from above;’ and woe be to us, if by silence, or unfaithfulness, or compliance, we dishonour our Lord before them, and act unworthy of our calling, and name, and hope!

The beginning of this warfare we see in Cain and Abel. Its progress we find in the history of succeeding ages. In Christ Himself we see that warfare at its height. Since then it has still proceeded, and perhaps more than before, in the open field. Babylon was Satan’s citadel at first, round which his armies were gathered, and from which, as from a centre, he assailed the Church in her citadel, which, in former days, was exclusively Jerusalem. In each of the seats of the four successive monarchies Satan found a citadel. These were his four great encampments, from which he launched his squadrons against the army of the living God. Especially in the last of these empires has he found at once a city and a fortress, from which he assails the hated followers of the Lamb, and ‘wears out the saints of the Most High;’ shedding their blood like water, and scattering their bones upon the earth. ‘In a threefold form does this great anti-Christian armament take the field, — as Pagan- ism, asPopery, as Infidelity, — the last the most terrible of all, as.the product and combination of the others, — the concentration and embodiment of all the various forms of evil from the beginning. In its ranks will be found ‘the seed of the serpent’ in fullest development, — the truest offspring of the Evil One to which earth has given birth. This conflict is made up of two great parts, — two events, each of which is the crisis of a long series preceding, and the commencement of another series arising out of it. They are widely different in their nature, though forming part of one great development. They are thus referred to by our Lord, ‘Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?’ (Luke xxiv. 26); and by the Apostle Peter, when he speaks of ‘the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow’ (x Pet. i. 11); and again, when he speaks of himself as a ‘witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed’ (1 Pet. v. 1). They form the two mighty events, known to us as the first and second comings of the Lord, — the first coming embracing that part of the conflict which consists in His ‘suffering, the second coming embracing that which is consummated in His ‘glory.’ Let us notice the two divisions.

1. Zhe bruising of the heel of the woman’s seed. — It is not the woman’s heel that is to be bruised, but the heel of her seed; neither is it the woman that is to bruise the

1 The serpent, as it were, cunningly steals behind and seizes the heel, (See Gen, xlix. 17.) ‘The serpent,’ says Turrettine, ‘can only lay hold on and bite the heel, that is, the humanity and flesh of Christ, by which He trod the earth; and by means of temptations, persecutions, and, death, afflict Him,’ etc. * Thus it is also,’ he adds, ‘ with believers. The old serpent bites their heels.’ — (Vol. ii. p. 242.)

serpent’s head, but er seed; — ‘ it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel’? It was an inferior part. that was to be wounded, not a vital one. Yet still there — was to be a wound. The serpent’s seed was to have a temporary triumph, and this was fulfilled when Jesus hung on the cross. Then the heel was bruised. Then Satan seemed to conquer. That was the hour and power of darkness. Then ‘He was-wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.’ Then that wound was given which defeated him who gave it, and began our victory. Thus it was that the Church was taught to look forward to the ‘bruised heel,’ and out of that symbol to gather the great truth which alone can heal the conscience, that God had provided a swdstztute, by the shedding of whose blood there was to be deliverance. It was not salvation by mere love that was taught; it was not salvation by mere incarnation; it was salvation by sacrificial substitute, salvation by vicarious bloodshedding, salvation by a surety’s endurance and exhaustion of the penalty which was our due. In no other way could love find its way to us, and in no other could our consciences have been pacified. The ‘bruised heel’ I was not the mete display of love; it was ¢he judicial een of the righteous barrier, which would otherwise have for ever hindered that love from reaching the sinner. In the man with the ‘bruised heel’ we see the sinner’s substitute, and, at the same time, the sinner’s pattern, —

LIt is not, ‘she shall bruise thy head,’ but ‘it ’ or ‘he,’ p97. It was not tolbe Eve herself, or any daughter of Eve.

And this was perfectly understood all along from the beginning.

GENESTS ut. 14, 15.’

his ‘leader and commander.’ We are followers of the A Man with the bruised heel! Let us not be ashamed of Him or of His cross! Let us not expect for ourselves anything better than He had to pass through. Tribulation was His entrance into the kingdom. It must also be ours. ‘The servant is not greater than his Lord.

2. The bruising of the serpent’s head.» — It was his most vital as well as his most honourable part that was to be bruised. An intimation this of utter defeat and ruin. He has received many a stroke. His deadly wound was given upon the cross, in that very stroke by which he bruised the heel of the woman’s seed. So that from that moment our victory was secure. But the final blow is reserved for the Lord’s second coming. Then it is that the great dragon, that old serpent, is to be bound in chains, and shut up in the abyss. And it is to that day of triumph that the apostle’s words specially refer, ‘The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.’

Such was the curse upon the tempter; such the glad tidings to man which it contained; such the grace it

1 There is evident reference to this not only in Rom, xvi. 20, but in the promise to Messiah (Ps. xci. 13), ‘Thou shalt tread upon the adder... the dragonz shalt Thou trample under feet;’ and in the promises to the apostles, ‘They shall take up serpents, etc. (Mark xvi. 18); and especially in Luke x. 18, 19, where, after saying, ‘I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven,’ our Lord adds, ‘ Behold, I give you power to tread on SERPENTS AND SCORPIONS, AND OVER ALL THE POWER OF THE ENEMY;’ as if He would say, ‘I, the seed of the woman, the bruiser of the serpent’s head, delegate this power of mine to you; I, who am specially appointed to carry on the enmity between the two seeds, 7 give you power over the enenuy.’

Ee ea Ea en manifested; such the victory which it pledged; and such the process through which that triumph was to be reached. It was this display of an infinite but most unexpected grace that made Adam throw aside his fig-leaves, leave his thicket, and draw nigh to God. He could have expected only avenging wrath; he meets with pardoning love; love that would not rest till it had undone all the evil that had been brought into the world by man’s sin; that would spare no cost, not even the blood of. the Only-begotten of the Father, in accomplishing this end; and would press forward through every enemy and every barrier, till it had taken the spoil from the mighty, and delivered the lawful captive; till it had overthrown the adversary in righteous battle; till it had won back man and man’s forfeited inheritance; till it had compensated for all the dishonours done to God by Satan’s victory; nay, till it had secured glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good-will to man.?

Ver. 16. ‘Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’

In the sentence on the woman there are no words of preface, serving as a link to connect the special sin with the special penalty. In the case of the serpent, the preface was, ‘because thou hast done this.’ In the case

1In this first promise, which so fully contains the gospel, not one word is said o€ anything being done by man, He is set aside, and God does everything for him. ‘Salvation is of the Lord.’ Man stands still and beholds it. The gospel is no command enjoining us to do anything; it is God’s declaration that He has done all for us.

of Adam, it was, ‘because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife;’ but in the case of the woman, ‘it is not, as might have been expected, ‘because thou hast hearkened to the serpent;’ but, without any such introduction, the sentence goes forth at once, ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow.’ The want of this introduction, taken in connection with the peculiar sentence, seems to show that the woman’s punishment was something special, superadded to her share in the punishment of the race, because of her leading her husband into the transgression. As one with the man, she was to partake of his sentence; but, as having misled the man, she was to have a penalty that would always remind her of this. Adam, as the representative of the race, is made to bear the general penalty; and in this the woman, as one of the race, has her part. But, apart from this, as the beguiler of her husband, when given him as his help-meet, she is to have her sorrows multiplied. Yet though her sentence implies this, God, in His tender love to her, does not actually

1 May there not be in the words, ‘I will greatly multiply,’ a reference to the well-known physical law, that adverse circumstances, such as hardship or feebleness in the human race, or a, poor soil in the case of plants, tend to increase the propagative power, and multiply, instead of diminishing, the numbers produced; as if nature, inwardly conscious of more precarious life, and anticipating a speedier end, were putting forth every effort to prevent the cutting off of the peculiar race or kind, by hastening the process of propagation, and multiplying the numbers produced? In that case, it would be as if God, when inflicting the sentence which gave weakness and hardship to woman as her lot, threw around her, as an amelioration and compensation, the protection of a new law — the law which was to regulate her fruitfulness, not by the extent of her healthfulness, and ease, and comfort, but by the amount of her feebleness, and hardship, and oppression; a law

= announce this with a ‘ because,’ lest the man should think that God was confirming his accusation against her (ver. 12), and thereby lessening his guilt. Thus she gets something which the man does not, because she was first in transgression, and because she was both the deceived and the deceiver. ‘Adam,’ says the apostle (x Tim. ii. 14), ‘was not deceived (by the serpent); but the woman, being deceived, was in the transgression. Notwithstanding, she (even she!) shall be saved (no less than Adam) through her child-bearing (by means of that very child-bearing which contained her sentence and her sorrow), if she continue in faith, and love, and holiness, with sobriety;’ for without holiness no man shall see the Lord.

Thus it was made manifest, (1.) That God looked upon the serpent as the great origin of the sin and the evil in both woman and man. (2.) That God treated Adam as the representative of the race, through whom sin entered, and passed over to posterity, so that it was not Eve’s sin that effected owr ruin (though it brought woe upon herself), but that (if we can suppose the case), had Eve sinned alone, no evil would have followed to mankind (Rom. v. 12,14; 1 Cor. xv. 22). (3.) That the very penalty inflicted was connected with gvace;! the child-bearing in sorrow, which was the penalty, being the channel through which which, while it multiplied her grief, multiplied her joys also, giving her ten children, though in sorrow, for one without it, and compressing within the brief period of shortened life on earth the whole strange story of a woman’s heart, and a mother’s tears.

1A promise of mercy, and forgiveness of sin, and great afflictions, or rebukes for the same, may and shall attend the same soul: “I

GENESTS ut. 16.

the seed was to come by whom deliverance was to be ie wrought. (4.) That God wished it to be known that this

sentence of evil, as well as the previous sentence of blessing, came directly from Himself. He is the Almighty, the Sovereign doer as well as purposer of all. ‘I will greatly multiply.’

This sentence takes for granted the previous promise of ‘the seed.’ As if God were saying to the woman, ‘ Yes, thou shalt have a seed, and from it deliverance shall come, and come through //ee, the introducer of the evil; but the bringing forth of that seed shall be a perpetual memorial of thy sin, so that thou shalt be continually humbled, and solemnized, and saddened, -by the very thing which seemed fitted only to lift thee up, and make thee rejoice; with thy joy shall grief be mingled, so that thou shalt not be allowed to forget thy sin, but be perpetually reminded of it; and if at any time thou shouldst exult unduly, and say, “I am the deliverer,” thou shalt hear a voice saying in thine ears, “But thou wast the transgressor.”’ Thus the memorial of the deliverance and of the sin is ove. The two things are kept before

our eyes by the same token; and we are taught that,

will greatly multiply thy sorrow” comes after the promise of grace.’ — Buwnvan’s Lxposition of the first ten chapters of Genesis.

* God does not cast Eve off, or curse her as He had done the serpent. All this was fatherly chastisement, rather than a satisfactory punishment. God might have inflicted the mulct of sudden death upon her, which she had merited; He might have taken away the blessing of fruitfulness before promised, but He only mingleth it with dolours,’ — CHRISTOPHER Nass, History and Mystery of the Old and New Testament, vol. i. p. 52.

VOL. VI. M

[cere nn eee

whilst there is a redemption and a Redeemer, it was an awful sin that needed such a redemption and such a Redeemer. On each portion and fragment of this ruined world has God written the evil of sin.?

His sentence on the woman is, in part, a reversal of the first blessing: ‘Multiply, and replenish the earth.’ God’s blessing alone went out at first with the command to multiply; but now some drops of the curse are to be infused into it, in remembrance of sin. The race was still to go on increasing; but henceforth it was to be in sorrow. The very perpetuation of the species was to be accompanied with marks of the displeasure of God. The dark cloud of sorrow was to take up its station above each man as he came into the world. ‘There was henceforth to be pain and danger, fear and trembling, the shrinking of woman’s feeble nature from the greatness of the conflict which lay before her, ere the desire of her eyes was attained; and that which was meant to have been an unmingled joy, became the sorest trial of humanity; one of Nature’s sharpest struggles; one of the bitterest ills that flesh is heir to. And, kindred to these pangs of her corporeal frame, are the other varied sorrows which overshadow her lot — the weakness, the dependence, the fear, the rising and sinking of heart, the bitterness of disap-

1 Bernard, in alluding to this passage, notices, on the one hand, the pains of child-bearing, and on the other, the disgrace that was attached to barrenness, as if woman were now placed in a strait betwixt the two. After speaking of the ‘hard necessity and heavy yoke laid on the daughters of Eve,’ he adds, ‘Et si pariunt cruciantur; et si non pariunt maledicuntur, Et dolor prohibet parere, et non parere, maledictio.’ — Homil. LIZ. de Adventu.

GENESTS ut. 16.

pointed hope, the wounds of unrequited affection ; — all these, as drops of the sad cup now put into her hands, woman has, from the beginning, been made to taste.

The sentence falls on her specially as woman, not as one with the man, and part of the human race, but as woman. The things which mark her out as woman are the things which the sentence selects. It is as the mother and as the wife that she is to feel the weight of the sentence now pronounced. A mother’s pangs (which otherwise would have been unknown); a wife’s dependence (which, in all save Christian countries, is utter degradation); sorrow, not joy, in that appointed process through which the promised seed is to be born into the world ;* inferiority, instead of equality, in that relationship in reference to which it had been said by her husband, ‘Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh;’ not henceforth the husband ‘cleaving to the wife,’ as at the first (ii. 24), but the wife cleaving to the husband, and the husband ruling over the wife. Such are the sad results of sin! 2

1An old commentator gives four reasons for the sorrow, among which are not only the prospect of the temporal ills of her offspring, but the ioreboding of the eternal ruin of so many of those whom she brings forth: ‘eorum qui generantur, pauci sunt electi et predestinati, plerique propter eorum flagitia eeternis suppliciisdestinati.’ — Vol. i. p. 678 of a Commentary on Genesis, in four quarto volumes, by Benedictus Pererius Valentinus, A.D. 1599. This may be somewhat strained; yet it is a solemn thought for either man or woman.

2 «She must pay the penalty of her sin before she can rejoice in her

child,’ says Chrysologus; and then adds, ‘ What must be the end of

that of which the beginning is penal? Shall joy be the life-portion of the man who begins that life in sorrow?’ — Sermones in Ps. i,

In the helplessness of clinging dependence, as well as in the fondness of blind attachment; in the consciousness of needing an arm to lean upon, as well as in the irrepressible overflow of passionate and unreasoning love, ‘ thy desire shall be to thy husband.’ Nay, more, ‘he shall rule over thee.’ His the lordship, thine the submission; his the rule, thine the obedience. Such, henceforth, is to be thy condition; such the principle on which the domestic constitution is to be rearedt So God has ordained it; not only as the penalty of woman’s sin, but as that which best suits a fallen world, and which best carries out His design in regard to the families and kingdoms of the children of men. And what can that family expect where this divine ordinance is overlooked, nay, perhaps reversed? Hence the apostle utters the command so strongly, ‘ Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands’ (1 Pet. ii. 1); ‘Submit yourselves unto your own husbands in everything. Let the wife see that she reverence her husband’ (Eph. v. 22, 24, 33).?

1 The ‘natural subordination in innocency,’ as Fuller calls it in his Lxposition of Genesis, was to be greatly increased, so as to become afterwards a yoke. It is not merely that she who had thus ‘gone’ beyond her bounds’ should be ‘ forced back into her own proper rank’ (in ordinem suum cogitur), as Calvin remarks, but she was henceforth to occupy a still lower place than before; not necessarily ‘ bondage,’ as he says, but still such a position as would eventually lead to bondage, unless counteracted by higher principles. Yet it is to be noticed (says Trapp), that though the apostle bids wives submit themselves to their husbands, he does not say, Husbands, rule over your wives. — TRAPP Oz Genesis, A.D. 1650.;

2 A just law unto her, who, having given way to her own inordinate phantasie and appetite, had undone both herself and husband. And yet a rule given her for her own good and safety, who, having by g

GENESTS 1. 16.

‘Yet, as if to comfort her spirit under this heavy prospect; as if to elevate woman’s lowly lot, and to sanctify a mother’s pangs, God has taken this very fact concerning her as the groundwork of figures wherein He sets forth the world’s coming deliverance and the Church’s promised glory. To this He refers when He speaks of creation’s groans and travail-pains (Rom. viii. 22); and of His people’s joy when the day of present sorrow shall have passed away (John xvi. 21, 22). Again, as if to dignify woman’s humbling dependence on another, the figure of the wife is made use of in illustrating the relationship between Christ and His redeemed (Eph. v. 23-32). He, the lover; she, the loved one; he, gazing on her beauty (Song vi. 4, vii. 1-6); she, leaning on his strength

experience found how ill she was able to moderate her own desires, must needs be the more secured, by having a moderator set over her.’ — WHITE Ox the first three chapters of Genesis, 1656. A tolerably thick folio, containing abundance of practical instruction deduced from these chapters. Poole thus paraphrases the words: ‘Seeing, for want of thy husband’s rule and conduct, thou wast seduced by the serpent, and didst abuse that power I gave thee, together with thy husband, to draw him into sin, thou shalt now be brought down to a lower degree; for he shall rule thee, not with that sweet and gentle hand which he formerly used, as a guide and counsellor only, but by a higher and harder hand, as a lord and governor, to whom I have now given a greater power and authority over thee than he had before.’ Jackson remarks: ‘ That is, thy desire shall be subject to thy husband. Upon his will and pleasure all thy desire must depend. For in this sense the same phrase is used (Gen. iv. 7) concerning Abel’s subjection to Cain as the first-born. It is true, by the law of creation, the woman should have lived in subordination under her husband, and should have been governed by him; but being here denounced as a chastisement for sinne, it implietha further degree of subjection than that which should have been by the law of nature and creation.’ — JacKxson Ox the Pentateuch, A.D. 1646.

(Song ii. 6, viii. 5); he, decking her with jewels, as the partner of his throne and heart; she, ‘ sick with love,’ yet reverently looking up to and rejoicing in the strength and honour of her husband-king; he, putting on his royal state and raiment of glory, to win her eye yet more; she, though conscious of the infinite inequality, not saying, as human love in such circumstances is represented as doing: ‘It were all one That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it; he is so above me,

In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere;’

but saying, in the conscious security of well-proved affection, ‘ My beloved is mine, and I am his.’

Under the figure of woman’s birth-pangs, the whole creation is described as travailing and groaning, pressing forwards with eager longings to the glorious birth which lies before it, in the day of the ‘regeneration.’ Israel, too, is spoken of under the same figure, as anticipating a wondrous birth in the same day of ‘ restitution’ (Isa. lxvi. 7, 8); and the Church also is represented as, with like pangs and groanings, longing for her expected hour of blessing (Rev. xii. 2).

2 Now be it observed, there is not in nature such an image as woman’s travail for expressing that event which, looking to the substance of it, is the bringing again of the Son out of the womb of the invisible into the visible world, for ever to abide therein; which, looking to the circumstances of it, is, with long-deferred hope, growing towards the consummation into longing desire, and accomplished with rending pangs, yet issuing in joy, transport of joy, that the Man-child

=

And as this sentence.on woman as a mother is thus made use of to set forth the process of bitter grief and anguish through which the coming glory is to be reached, so the sentence on her as the wife is referred to in connection with the Church’s relationship to Christ; for though she is spoken of as the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, spouse of the second Adam, yet to her it is said, as if to keep her in mind of her subject condition, ‘He is thy Lord, worship thou Him’ (Ps. xlv. 11); so that, though in one sense she seems raised to an equality with Him, and placed upon His throne, yet she is ever to keep in mind her inferiority to Him who is ‘God over all.’

Church of God! Bride of the Lamb! keep in remembrance thy heavenly calling, thy relationship to the Son

is born into the world; which, again, for the time of it, is fixed and definite, but as it approaches, all uncertain to the very hour, inducing continual preparation and readiness, yea, and longing, until the fierce trial be overpast, and the joy be come. By this most expressive similitude, dignifying and sanctifying that sorest trial of humanity, having expressed the condition of the parturient Church, and the weakness to which at length she is brought, and her own lamentation over her own unprofitableness in the earth, — ‘ We have, as it were, brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth;’ the Holy Spirit comforteth the Church with these words, spoken in the person of the Christ: ‘Thy dead shall live; my dead body shall they arise;’ which words, without any gloss whatever of an interpreter, convey their own meaning to be, that the deliverance which the Church lamented she had not wrought upon the earth, should be wrought by the rising of her dead men, who are promised this, among other things, that they should rule the nations with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. These dead men of the Church He honours by the name of His dead body, according to the universal symbol of the Apostle Paul, which representeth the Church as the body of Christ, the fulness of Him that filleth all

in all,; 7 P of God, that thou mayest be cheered, and gladdened, and quickened; yet keep in mind thy lowly origin, thy unworthiness of character, thy unlikeness to the Holy One who has bethrothed thee to Himself, that thou mayest be humbled and abased. He is thy Lord, worship thou Him; forget not the adoration that is due to Him for His high majesty and condescending love. He is thy Lord, let thy desire be to Him. Love Him as He hath loved thee, and let His name be written on thy heart. He is thy Lord, let Him rule over thee! Serve Him as He hath served thee, when for thee He tock on Him the form of a servant. Rejoice in being reigned over by one whose sceptre is love. He is thy Lord, look for His appearing, for He comes to complete the espousals. Long for that marriage-day; the day of nearness, and union, and vision, when the bridal-blessing, the bridal-glory, the bridal-crown, shall all be thine. In spite of the ‘much tribulation’ that lies before thee, be of good cheer, for thus He Himself has spoken: ‘A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you’ (John xvi. 21, 22).

Vers. 17-19. ‘And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I conmanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake (or on thy account); in sorrow (or with pain) shalt thou eat of zt -all the days of thy life: 18. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring to thee (Heb. and thorns and thistles shall it cause to bud to thee); thou shalt eat the herb of the field. 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou’ taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’

God now turns to Adam, to pronounce sentence upon him. In his case, as in that of the serpent, He begins with ‘because,’ making him feel the special point on which his punishment is made to turn. Adam had cast the blame of his sin on the woman, as if to palliate his own guilt, or at least to divide it with another. God begins at that very point, and takes up the excuse thus made as the very aggravation of the sin. Had the case ‘been that of the woman hearkening to the man, there I would have been some excuse for her, for she was under him; but it was Adam, ¢he head, hearkening to the voice of her whom he ought to have led, instead of suffering 4 himself to be led by her. God had made him the head of the woman as well as the head of creation, and there- y fore his sin was aggravated, not extenuated, by its being done at the woman’s suggestion. For thus Adam left his q place of rule; he forgot his headship, he overlooked his a responsibility both to his wife and to his posterity; he set his wife’s voice above the voice of God. Thus he made haste to sin; and, as he aggravated the sin by doing it at the suggestion of her whom he ought to have restrained, and guided, and watched over, so he aggravated it still more by trying to make that a palliation which was an increase of heinousness,

The sentence then foliows: ‘Cursed is the ground for thy sake.’ It is not a direct one, as in the case of the serpent and of the woman, but a sentence in the form of a curse upon the earth. The king is punished by a curse upon his kingdom, in addition to the personal woe falling on himself, just as Pharaoh was cursed in the plagues inflicted on his people.

The ground, out of which he was taken, is cursed on his account, as if all pertaining to him had become evil. It is not he that suffers on account of his connection with the soil, but it is the soil that suffers on account of its connection with him, affording proof that it is not from matter that evil flows into spirit, but that it is from spirit that evil flows into matter. That soil from which he had sprung, that soil which God had just been strewing with verdure and flowers, that soil whose fruitfulness had produced the tree whose beauty and desirableness had been the woman’s beguilement and his own ruin, that soil must now be scourged and sterilized on his account; as if God had thus addressed him: ‘I can no longer trust thee with a fruitful soil, nor allow the blessing with which I have blessed the earth to abide upon it; ¢how art to remain here for a season, but it shall not be the same earth; in mercy I will still leave it such an earth as thou canst inherit, not a wilderness nor a chaos as at first, but still with enough of gloom, and desolation, and barrenness, as to remind thee of thy sin, to say to thee continually, O man, thou hast ruined the earth over which I had set thee as king.’ God’s blessing on the soil at first proclaimed the commencement of an age of holiness on earth; His curse proclaimed the entrance of sin; and, in the latter day, His blessing shall again descend, restoring it to former excellence and beauty. It was for man’s sake that it was made a blessed earth at first; it was for man’s sake that it was transformed into a cursed one; and for man’s sake it shall be restored to a blessed world again. The first Adam’s connection with it (being made of dust) drew on it all evil when he fell; but the second Adam’s connection with it — for He also has a body formed out of it — shall undo the evil, cancel the curse, and perfect it again.y

Let us mark the details of the curse.

1. The earth is to bring forth the thorn and the thistle. Whether these existed before, we do not undertake to say, nor whether they are given here merely as the representatives of all noxious plants or weeds, nor whether the object of the curse, in so far as they were concerned, was to turn them into abortions, which they really are. Taking the words as they lie before us, we find that the essence of the curse was the multiplication of these prickly abortions, till they should become noxious to man, and beast, and herb of the field; mere nuisances on the face of the ground. Elsewhere in Scripture they are referred to as calamities. As the effects of judgments, Job refers to them, xxxi. 40, and Jeremiah, xii. 13. As the

1See Ps. xcvi. 11-13, xcvili. 7-9; Isa. xi. 6-9, xxix. 17, xxxii. 15, xxxv. I, lxv. 17, lxvi. 22; Ezek. xlvii, 8-12. It is to this period that our Lord refers when He speaks of ‘the regeneration’ (Matt. xix. 28), and Peter when he speaks of ‘ the restitution of all things’ (Acts iii. 21), and Paul when he refers to the deliverance of the ‘ reluctant’ (ody éxotex) creation (Rom. viii. 19-23), and Peter when he speaks of the new heavens and earth (2 Pet. iii. 13), and John when he describes the same (Rev. xx. 1).:

ee true offspring of a barren soil, the apostle speaks of them, Heb. vi. 8. As injurious to all around, our Lord Himself alludes to them, Matt. xiii. 7-22. And it is evident that all these passages connect themselves with the original curse, and are to be interpreted by a reference to it.t They are tokens of God’s original displeasure against man’s sin, so that the sight of them should recall us to this awful scene in Eden, and make us feel how truly God hates sin, and how impossible it is for Him to change in His hatred of it. These tokens of His anger have not been rooted up, neither have they withered away. They have survived the changes of six thousand years. They are God’s monuments of sin, and must stand till He who erected them shall take them down, and that come to ‘pass which is written, ‘Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off’ (Isa. lv. 13).

Christ, in bearing our sins, was ‘made a curse for us’

1 Thorns are always spoken of in connection with evil. The word occurs twelve times in the Old Testament. We have such an expression as ‘thorns of the wilderness,’ as if the two things were congenial. We have the coming up of the ‘thorn and brier,’ which is spoken of in connection with the desolation of Judea (Isa. xxxii. 13); and the ‘grieving thorn’ is used as the figure for Israel’s enemies (Ezek. xxvilil. 24), as Paul speaks of the ‘thorn in the flesh.’ The anti-Christian confederacy is to be ‘as thorns thrust away’ (2 Sam. xxiii. 6). And as Jeremiah had said, ‘ Sow not among thorns’ (iv. 7), so our Lord had spoken of the good seed being choked by thorns. The word ‘thistle’ only occurs once elsewhere (Hos. x. 8), and Gesenius makes it to mean some ‘luxuriantly growing but useless plant.’ If thorns be really, as is said, abortive branches, the curse of barrenness appears in them more remarkably.

ae)

ee a eS a ere

&: a.:: ~” I (Gal. iii. 13). He took our curse upon Him in all its parts. He was treated as the accursed One. In token of

“a

this He sorrowed, and was crucified, and died, and went down into the grave. It was our curse that wrought all these evils for the sinless One. And it was in token that He was truly the curse-bearer that He allowed Himself to be crowned with thorns. In wearing a ‘crown,’ He was saying, ‘I am a King — earth’s King, as the first Adam was;’ and His enemies, in crowning Him, were unconsciously owning His royalty and dominion; in wearing a crown of thorns, He was announcing Himself as the willing sufferer of the sentence which attached not only to Adam, but to His inheritance, the earth; He was saying, ‘Lo, I have come to stand in the first Adam’s place, to bear the first Adam’s penalty, to-endure the first Adam’s curse, to redeem the first Adam’s forfeited kingdom, and in token thereof I accept this crown of thorns.’

2, Man is to eat the herb of the field. Originally, the fruit of the various trees was to have been man’s food; the ‘herb’ was for the lower creation, if not exclusively, at least chiefly. But now he is degraded. He is still, of course, to eat fruit, but in this he is to be restricted.

1<When the curse, the heavy curse, passed upon him, he had to betake himself to the herb, which heretofore was the property of the lower creatures for browsing on, to which they were created prone, and bowed down. Now, he is truly of the earth earthy, his origin dust, his food gathered from the dust, his eye cast upon the dust, and his bed at length made in the lap of dust; his life a circle from dust to dust, a series of sensations, of animal impulses, of animal gratifications, of animal actions, until, like the animals, he yield up the animal life which, with sore toil and labour, he hath been endeavouring to maintain.’ — IrVING Ox the Curse as to Bodily Labour.

Whether it were that, the earth being less productive in

fruit, he must betake himself to inferior sustenance; or:

whether it might also be from a change in bodily constitution, requiring something else than fruit, we cannot say. The sentence is, ‘Thou shalt eat the herb of the field, not the pleasant fruits of paradise.’ In the ages to come, when the better paradise arrives, every vestige of this is swept away, and we ‘ eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God’ (Rev. ii. 7).

3. He is to eat in sorrow. There was to be no glad feasting, but a bitter eating, or, if there might be feasting, it should be like Israel’s, ‘ with bitter herbs,’- — the sweet and the bitter mingling. A cloud of sorrow was to hang not only over his dwelling, but especially over his table; and perhaps to this we may trace the divinely instituted practice of fasting, as if not only man’s eating was to be in

sorrow, but as if at certain times he was specially to con- —

nect his common food with the remembrance of sin, and to put it away from him altogether, as if not worthy to be sustained by God at all.

Does not man mock all this by his feastings, making them to be special seasons of merriment and pleasure, and forgetting that God had thrown over them a dark shadow, as the memorial of sin! Yet the time is coming when joy shall take the place of sorrow. ‘The great festival is at hand; the feast of fat things for Israel (Isa. xxv. 6), the marriage-supper for the Church (Rev. xix. 9), and the great feast of tabernacles at Jerusalem for the nations of the earth (Zech. xiv. 16). Of this day of happy festival — this time of the removal of the curse — we

Bs eS Se

GENESTS ut. 17-19. IQI

have an earnest in the supper of the Lord, when we show His death till He come; nay, more, we may be said to have an earnest of it each time that, like the early believers, we eat our bread with gladness and singleness of heart (Acts li. 46), as men who by faith have already tasted their deliverance from the curse.

4. He is to eat it with toil. He is to wring a stinted subsistence out of the reluctant earth with sore labour and weariness; and the ‘sweat of his face’ is to attest the hardness of the conflict.” The earth will not yield even the herb of the field without heavy toil, toil in every department of the preparation of his food — tilling, sowing, reaping, grinding. He cannot live but in a way which reminds him of his primal sin. Each day he hears the

1Js not the following a true picture of man’s toil ?- — ‘ If you are up by times, you will hear, in the grey of the morning, the footsteps of the labourer beneath your casement pacing heavily on to the scene of his daily labour. As the dawn makes progress upon the rear of night, the din slowly increases, and ascends until the first watch of the day. One constant volume of sound inspheres the city like the noise of the neighbouring ocean, through which the rattling sound of chariot-wheels, and the rolling din of heavy vans, and the shrill discord of oaths and angry men, break incessantly like waves which dash upon the shore. It ceaseth not the livelong day. It ascendeth into your ears, a ceaseless tide of sound, in which no instant of silence is to be discovered, A voice of men and cattle, and of the instruments of their toils, which are all day long employed in bearing burdens from place to place, and in returning to bear more, until the shades of evening come to loose them from their harness, and allow them to rest their weary limbs. And these burdens which they bear are not the enjoyments of men, but the subject-matter of their toil, as you will discover if you follow them to their landing-places.’- — IRVING Ox the Curse as to Bodily Labour. The whole book of Ecclesiastes is an illustration of this part of the curse.

original sentence ringing in his ears. And yet all this hard toil serves barely to sustain a ‘dying life;’ and even that’ only for a little, until he return to the dust. This is the end of his earthly toil!

s. He is to die. Grace does not remit the whole penalty. It leaves a fragment behind it, in pain, weakness, sickness, death, though at the same time it extracts

blessing out of all these relics of the curse. Besides, in thus leaving men subject to death, it leaves open the door by which the great Deliverer was to go in and rob the spoiler of his prey. By death is death to be destroyed. Man must die! He came from the dust, and he must return to it. The grave must be his portion. Yet, like everything else in the great purpose of grace, this is but the occasion for bringing in larger blessing — that is, resurrection, and all that resurrection comprises. Far beyond our original possessions, are those which flow to us through this channel. Resurrection-life and resurrection-glory are things higher far than that which Adam knew ere he fell.

Thus has sin degraded man; bringing him down to a lower level; introducing toil, and sweat, and weariness;

1 Had we room, we might find an interesting subject in the various connections in which the word ‘dust’ occurs. Abraham speaks of himself as dust and ashes (Gen. xviii. 27). It was ‘dust’ that was to be mingled with the water in the trial of jealousy (Num. v. 17). It was ‘dust’ that was sprinkled upon the head in the time of sorrow (Job ii. 12), It is in the ‘dust’ that we are said to ‘rest’ (Job xvii, 16), to ‘lie down’ (xxi. 26), and it is out of the dust that we are to

awake and arise when He who is our Life appears (Isa. xxvi. 19; Dan, xii, 2).

using sorrow into every part of our lot; nay, making us to be ‘born to trouble as the sparks fly upward’ (Job; ¥. 7, Xiv. I); making our very food to be the memorial of the curse, and existence only to be maintained by a daily warfare with it; bringing in death, preparing the grave, tearing asunder soul and body; ruining this globe itself, - and making its very soil the abode of evil.

Where the actual seat of the curse lies we cannot say. Whether it is in the ground itself, from which noxious in- fluences ascend; or whether it is from the air, in conse- quence of its being the abode of ‘the prince of the power ‘| of the air,’ so that the soil is impregnated with evil by these ever-descending influences, we cannot say. The subtle processes of atmospheric action are only half discovered, and even science itself is not prepared to say what is the cause of earth’s strange fruitfulness in evil and barrenness in good. But the disease is there, though man may not detect the seat. God’s purpose subjected ae the creation to ‘ vanity.” We know this. We know also that it is subjected ‘in hope’ (Rom. viii. 20), and that that hope will ere long become a reality. What efforts man makes to shake off the curse, both from himself and creation! — by means of science healing his own body, alleviating his sufferings, lessening his toil, and fertilizing the earth. To a large extent has he succeeded. Marvellous discoveries have been made, by

1One cannot fail to notice that the various discoveries of the pre- sent day all tend in these directions. Chloroform in one direction, x agricultural chemistry in another, and Liebig’s investigations on the

subject of diet in another. Compare the words of the curse, and mark

the resemblance.
VOL. Vi. N

2 ee Se SO) ee ee eee eee means of which, for a season, the body may. be made insensible to suffering, so that the severest operations may be performed — nay, even woman’s travail passed through, without the consciousness ofa pang. Marvellous progress has been made in tillage, so that with less toil the soil is made more fruitful; in producing the various articles needed for subsistence or clothing, mechanical power has been brought in, to lighten or supersede the toil of man. In many such ways has man succeeded in lightening the curse. Nor in any of these efforts is there sin. It is not sinful to endeavour to heal disease, or alleviate pain, or ease labour, or wipe the sweat from the brow. No. Man is to use all those facilities and advantages which God has given, and to be thankful that any part of the burden can be thus relieved.

If man, indeed, were in these endeavours defying God, and proclaiming his purpose of effacing what God has written so legibly upon creation, then it would be szz; it would be rebellion. But it is evident that God has allowed man to seek alleviations of the curse; He has allowed him to seek to prolong life by medicine; and, in doing so, He has told him that there is no sin in these endeavours, so long as God is recognised. When Paul said to Timothy, ‘Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities,’ he was seeking to lighten the curse. And so, when we take measures either for healing disease or relieving pain, we are only acting in the spirit of that grace which has been dealing with our world since sin intruded, and show- ing us that God has not wholly given it over to the evil one; nay, we are acting in the spirit of Him who came - not to destroy men’s lives, but to save; who was anointed 4g by the Holy Spirit for the very purpose of healing diseases, as well as of preaching the gospel to the poor.

But what then becomes of the curse? Is it to be dis-. regarded wholly? Alas! after man has done his utmost, how very little of it has he removed! How much remains behind! And if those who sometimes are startled at the progress which man is making in soothing pain and healing disease, and who are at times afraid to make use of his remedies, would but consider how very little is, after all, effected; how in most cases it is a mere transient suspension of pain, a mere shifting of the burden from one; shoulder to another, a mere relief such as that which rest gives to the body when it is weary; they would not be under any serious apprehension of man’s interfering with if the curse. That curse is too sore and deep for any to Temove save He who laid it on. He will,in His own way and time, remove creation’s curse, and stay its groans; He will bring to an end man’s toil and woman’s travail; He will swallow up death in victory. For that glorious day of hope let us wait in faith, knowing that not till then will the ‘regeneration’ come; not till then will all things be restored. Man may wipe off the tear, but he cannot dry up its source. He may hide himself from the billow and the blast, but he cannot say to either, ‘Peace, be still.’

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Ver. 20. ‘And Adam (Heb. the man) called his wife’s name Eve (Heb. Chavah); because she was the mother of all living.’ *

The sentence has now been pronounced, the criminals have heard it and have left the place of judgment, each, doubtless, occupied with his own thoughts and pursuing his own way. Satan goes out from the presence of the Lord to begin his ‘going to and fro in the earth’ (Job 1. 7), to lay his snares, to prepare his wiles, to forge his fiery darts with double malignity, because he has been foiled in his purpose utterly to ruin the race. The woman retires to brood over coming grief, yet to mingle happier thoughts with her darker musings in the anticipation of the promised offspring which was to be the issue of her pain and travail. The man departs to look round upon a blighted paradise and a ruined earth, to brood over the days and nights of toil that awaited him, till this brief day here be done; yet to cheer himself with the thought that there was love even now for him, and the undoing of the evil in the end.

What space may have intervened between the announcement of the sentence and the scene in this 20th

1 Was this her first name? or was she called Zs#z before, and now, like Abraham, had her name altered to express her new circumstances as mother not of the dead, as she might have been, but of the living 1 The Septuagint translate the Hebrew name and call her Zw#. Perhaps it would have been as well had we done the same; for surely to an English reader the meaning of the passage would have been better expressed thus, ‘ And the man called his wife’s name Zz/z, because she was the mother of all Zivizg.’ There seems no reason for De Sola’s change of tense here, into ‘now the man had called;’ nay, it appears

from the way in which the statement is introduced, that he had no called her so before.

GENESTS iit. 20.

verse, we know not. We may suppose it to have taken place when Adam and his wife retired from the present vision of Jehovah. They talked or silently mused together over what had just befallen them, — over the evil and the good, the falling and the rising, the condemnation and the pardon, the curse and the blessing, the past, the present, the future of their life. Then the man, as if catching up the notes of grace which were just dying away amid the trees of the garden, adds his Amen, and embodies them in the name of her who was now doubly knit to him, doubly one with himself.

The fact that it was not God but Adam that gave the name to the woman, teaches us much. Why did not God give Eve her name, as He had done to Adam? God did not allow Adam to name himself, even in his innocence; yet now in his fall He permits him to name the woman, nay, sanctions his so doing. ‘This was for such reasons as. the following : — (1.) To show His grace. What grace, what tender love is displayed in allowing man to give a name to his wife, — and such a name, — Eve, — Lire! (2.) To show that Adam was not to be deprived of his headship. He was still to be ‘head of the woman,’ even in his fall, and as such he names her. (3.) To show, that though Adam had so cruelly flung blame upon her before God, yet no estrangement had followed. She was still bone of his bone. They had been companions in guilt, they were to be companions in sorrow, and they were fellow-heirs of the hope just held out to them. Thus they were reunited in new bonds of mingled sadness and joy. (4.) To show the direction in which Adam’s thoughts were running, that

BER ee eee from this manifestation of the current of his thoughts we might learn how the promise had taken hold of him. This verse gives us unequivocal insight into the state of Adam’s feelings. It exhibits him to us as one who understood, believed, prized, rested on the divine promise which he had just heard. He stands before us as a believing man; and we might say of him, ‘ By faith Adam called his wife’s name Eve.’ It is the voice of a believing man that speaks. One cannot mistake either the word or tone. Unbelief could not have spoken thus; none but a believer could have thought on such a name; a name that takes all its significancy from the promise, — Zz/e, or the Living One, — doomed, and yet living; nay, dead by law, yet living; mother of the living; mother of a spared race; mother of one who is the Prince of life, ‘the resurrection and the life ;? mother of a family of men, alive from the dead! He takes the promise, he ponders it, he receives it as a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation; and, on thus receiving it, he gives vent to his feeling, and utterance to his faith, in this expressive name. What can this verse be but the solemn utterance of Adam’s faith in the divine promise? Surely this is one of the most simple and childlike, yet one of the most expressive ways of proclaiming his faith; and as Abraham expressed his faith by calling his son Isaac, ‘the child of gladness,’ so did Adam by naming his wife Ave, ‘the mother of the living’ He looks at her and says, ‘I see in thee the divine promise all realized, — life, not death, coming from thee; God carrying out His purpose of grace in thy seed, though afar off; I see in thee the pledge and embodiment of divine wm! P 7

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GENESTS ut. 20. 199

forgiveness and love, and I proclaim my faith in all this before God and before posterity, by naming thee Zve.’! This name is not the mere burst of feeling or a vague expression of acquiescence or wonder; it is the explicit confession of his faith. It is as a believing man that he speaks; a man strong in faith, and wishing to hand down to posterity a declaration of his confidence in the promise of a gracious God.

How simple is his faith! He has just been listening to the voice of God announcing grace, and life through grace; and forthwith he believes. He cavils not, questions not. A dark cloud had come between him and God; but now that cloud has passed, and the true light is shining again. He has just for a moment tasted the bitter cup of separation from his God (and who can tell the agony of that interval?), and straightway he is brought back to his father’s love and bosom. ‘The child has but wandered a few steps from the parental door, when it is snatched up by the fond mother’s arm and replaced beneath the happy roof, never more to stray. The sheep has but gone a little way from the fold, enough to let it feel the bleakness and famine of the desert, when it is seized by the shepherd’s strong hand and carried back in joy.

How immediately and how simply he believes! ‘ Faith comes by hearing;’ he heard and believed, taking God at His word, and giving Him credit for speaking nothing but the truth, though no sign was given. God had spoken;

1 He manifests his faith in the promise of the Messiah by whom he

was delivered from death, and in whom he and his posterity should live for ever.’ — WHITE On Genesis.

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who was he, that he should doubt or hesitate, or reckon it presumption to return to God at once? He has spoken but dimly, no doubt; it is a very brief word of promise; yet he sees in these few words the free love of a forgiving God, and that is enough. He tastes that the Lord is gracious; and how sweet must that cup of grace have been to the parched lips of Adam! God has spoken once; but that once suffices, for He with whom he has to do is the God that cannot lie. We, with a thousand promises and assurances of love, doubt and tremble; Adam, with — |) but one word, unratified by sign or token, believes.

If any one might have needed a sign, it was Adam. If any one might have said, ‘I am too great a sinner, I dare not’ at once believe,’ it was Adam. For his was deep guilt indeed: he had ruined a world; he had let in the flood of evil upon the earth; he had banished God from it; he had helped God’s enemy to triumph; he had known what holiness was, and therefore knew what sin was. If any might have shrunk from trusting at once, it was Adam. Yet he believed, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Nay, he not only believed, but he ‘confessed with his mouth;’ he testified his faith; he proclaimed his sure hope of everlasting life.

Go, sinner, and do likewise! Go, and like a child receive the simple word of God, speaking to you in love. Go and take forgiveness at His hands, and sonship, and the kingdom, and the glory. Do not, in the pride and pre- sumption of your heart, speak of your unfitness and unworthiness, as if you would fain be fitter or worthier of the favour of Jehovah. Go, and as you are by birth a child

GENESTS itt. 21.

of Adam, rebelling and departing from God, become by

the second birth a child of Adam returning and reconciled.

Take God’s promise of life, — life through the living one, — the seed of the woman; take it and be saved, take it and be blest; and when thou hast thus received God’s record, confess with thy mouth, as thy first father did. Make it manifest thou art a deeving man; not a doubting, distrusting, wavering man, but a delieving man.

Ver. 21. ‘ Unto Adam also (Heb. and unto Adam), and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.’

Adam’s faith, so far as it went, was true and firm, but it was dim. The extent of his own wants he knew not. The kind of remedy which his case required he understood not. The way in which the promised deliverance was to come he could not foresee. All that as yet he knew was, that God had revealed Himself as gracious, and had pledged His love; therefore he could trust Him entirely, not merely for showing favour to the sinner, but for providing a way in which grace and righteousness might be reconciled.

Adam, however, having now made solemn confession of his faith, God proceeds to take another step by which some further insight into the process of deliverance was to be given. Adam had believed at once, without sign or

1 jy mionD, coats of skin. Tunicas pelliceas, Vulg.; Xirdivasdepearivovs, Sept. The word denotes properly, under-garments, fitting closely to the body. Thus there are three points of contrast: (1) skin contrasted with fig-leaves; (2) close-fitting garments with the loose fig-leaves; (3) the self-made fig-leaf clothing with the God-made skinclothing. pledge exhibited, and God honours his faith by a further revelation of His purpose, making him to know that ‘blessed is he that hath not seen, and yet hath believed;’ that ‘to him that hath shall be given;’ that ‘if any man is willing to do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine.’

In Adam’s first estate no shame was felt, but as soon as he sinned shame covered his face. He showed this by his fleeing to the thickets, and he showed it by the fig-leaves with which he covered himself. God now deals with him as one ashamed, and who has just cause of shame. He takes for granted that Adam’s shame and sense of sin were right things, and He proceeds to deepen them, to make him lee, his sin more bitterly, to unfold the evil of sin, to spread out before him the infinite wants which sin had occasioned, to make him understand how largely as well as how entirely he must be indebted to God, and to teach him how great that redemption must be, and that Redeemer who was to accomplish his deliverance.

He begins by taking off their fig-leaves — for, doubtless, this act was His — and then giving them coats made by His own hand, coats of ski for their covering.’ In so

1 The utter blindness of most of the Fathers to the real meaning of this, is one of the many proofs that might be given that they neither prized nor knew the truth of salvation by another’s righteousness, and life by the death of a substitute. Some of them affirm that the garments were made of ‘skins of trees;’ others, such as Origen, that it is Adam’s Jody that is meant, as having become fleshly by his sin. This absurdity Epiphanius refutes in a letter, which Jerome has translated, and left among his own works, calling it frivolam expositionent doing was He not saying, ‘Look at your sin; it is far deeper and darker than you reckon, so deep and dark that no fig-leaves can cover it or hide your shame; there must be something else even for your bodies than coverings derived from the trees of the garden; something which I only can provide and put on; not the growth of the fields like these fig-leaves, but obtained by the death of the being from which it is taken; something which costs life, which points to blood and death; something which will continually remind you that a sinner’s covering must be a thing planned by God, provided by God, made by God, put on by God, yet a thing of earth, not of heaven, a thing not outwardly comely or bright, yet costly, so costly that even God can obtain it only by taking that which is more precious than gold or gems, the life of the creature which He has made’ ?+

Thus was man taught that one great point in his coming deliverance would be the covering. He needed to be covered, else he could not look up to God, nor could God look upon him; nay, he could not look upon himself (JEROME’s Works, vol. i. p. 210). Theodoret and Athanasius come nearer the truth, maintaining the garments to be really from slain animals, and to be intended to point out to man his sin and its penalty, death. But the idea of sacrifice does not seem to have occurred to them; ciuBorov dvrus, ris did Thy dmaoriny vexpuoews ara rporryevoueyns. ATHAN. On the Cross and Passion, Works, vol. i. p. 1012.

1Man was not left to provide this clothing, for the right to use animals for such a purpose could come only from God, and because * God would teach man that it belongeth only to God to cover sin with the clothing of the Redeemer’s righteousness.’- — DIoDATI. Some

suggest that Adam was thus to be humbled and made to feel how lew he had fallen when the beasts of the field must furnish him

with clothing. — F actus.

co =? without shame. One awful feeling of the sinner is, that he is naked before God, and this feeling is met by the clothing provided by God. But as this feeling of shame is the result of sin and a consciousness of guilt, the covering must be one which will assure him of forgiveness; for if the covering does not of itself proclaim pardon, it will not remove the sense of shame. It did this even in symbol when Adam was clothed with the skins; it does so more truly when we see in it the righteousness of Him who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.) Man’s raiment will do nothing; his goodness, his repentance, his prayers, his feelings, these cannot cover sin, nor hide shame, nor purge the conscience; it must be through death that all this is to be done.

God Himself must do it all. He selects the victim, He slays it, He makes the clothing, He puts it on? From first to last, salvation is of Jehovah! It is salvation by death, by sacrifice, by the substitution of life for life. Nor could Adam fail to trace here a connection between the slaying of the animal from whose skin the garment was made, and the bruising of the heel of the woman’s seed.

1 Athanasius, referring to Christ being stripped of His garments, remarks strikingly, ‘It became Him when leading man into paradise to put off the garments which Adam received when he was cast out’ (Works, vol. i. p. 1012), as if Christ thus took more completely our shame as well as our sin upon Him.

? At this time, no doubt, sacrifice was instituted, and the coats were the skins of the slain victims. Adam would at once connect these

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things together, the woman’s seed, the bruised heel, the sacrifice, the clothing; and how much of Christ would he learn from this! That sacrifice should originate with »az, or be a device of his for appeasing

That slain Lamb and that bruised heel were in some

mysterious way linked together. Time would evolve the

connection; meanwhile, the man ponders it in his heart as he looks upon his clothing and remembers whence it was obtained.

Vers. 22, 23. ‘And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good ana evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life (Heb. the life), and eat, and live for ever:

23. Therefore (Heb. and) the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.’

Adam has now been clothed with the God-provided raiment; not raiment such as he would have devised or felt himself at liberty to propose, — raiment which reminded him of his sin, yet exhibited the way of forgiveness and life through the death of a substitute. He stands before God as an accepted man, covered with a garment which removes his sense of shame, and enables him to look up to God without blushing or wishing to be hidden from His face; teaching us that God’s jirst dealings with the sinner are always about the matter of acceptance, and that this therefore ought to be our first point in dealing with God.

But the question of acceptance being settled, that of God, is incredible. How could man suppose that God would be pleased with the slaughter of one of His own creatures, or what connection could man discover between the death of one of these and pardon? Besides, what right had man to take away life? Could he have dared to do so without a command from God? ‘Those who speak of there being a rooted idea in the minds of all men as to the connection between the suffering or death of a creature and the appeasing of God’s wrath, have yet to tell us how and when and where such an idea came into their mind, discipline begins. On this Adam is now to enter. He had much to unlearn as well as much to learn. He had to be taught that, though forgiven, he stood now on a different footing from that on which he stood when a holy being, and that therefore a new line of treatment must be adopted. He might suppose that, being restored to favour, he would be reinstated in his former privileges, remain in Eden, and have access to the tree of life just as before. This, however, cannot be. He is not to be at once placed upon his former footing; he is not to go on eating the tree of life, thus prolonging his days and enjoying an immortality on earth. He has sinned the very sin against which God had warned him; he has gotten ‘ forbidden knowledge by forbidden means,’ and thus far he has gained his end; he has become as God, by eating of the tree of knowledge. God has forgiven him freely and without reserve, yet between his past and his future condition a great gulf must be fixed. He is indeed to ‘live for ever,’ but not the same kind of life, nor in the same way, as heretofore. The immortality for which he is now destined is to be obtained, not by eating of the tree of life, but through death. It is to be reached only by resurrection. Such was God’s purpose respecting him and his posterity. It was toa more glorious immortality than that which he had lost that he was now to be led, but its entrance was the grave! Meanwhile he must leave paradise and be shut out from the tree of life,

God’s lesson now to Adam was, that he must still return to dust. This part of the doom was to remain, not so much as a remnant of the original sentence, as a chastisement, a needed piece of discipline, and as the necessary passage to the new immortality that lay beyond. Had God allowed Adam to have access to the tree of life, it would have just been saying to him, Thou shalt not return to dust; eat of the tree of life and preserve your immortality here, such as it is on this now blighted earth. To prevent him from entertaining any thought of this kind, and to fix his eye on resurrection, he was sent forth from paradise to till the ground from which he was taken, that is, Eden.! He was to be cast out of the zzmer circle which had been his home, and whose special fertility would have made his toil in keeping it a source of pleasure; but he was still allowed to remain within the outer and less fruitful circle, there to remain a toiling man all the days of his life.

Such seems to be the true meaning of the above passage. There is no ground for believing it to be spoken as an interrogation, far less in irony. What more unlike God, than thus to be mocking His creatures at the very moment that He is bending over them in such deep true love? Is this like Him that ‘upbraideth not’? Is it like Him who was ‘grieved at His heart’ because of man’s iniquity? It is only once or twice that Scripture speaks ironically, and it is to the daringly ungodly, as to the priests of Baal. But does irony befit a scene like this? Standing on the wreck of a newly-made, newly-ruined world, having just proclaimed to man His grace, and pointed him to the coming Redeemer, is it possible that He can utter irony, and wound without a cause His weeping

1 Formerly he had but to ‘keep and dress,’ now he is to ‘till;’ formerly it was paradise, now it is the outer region.

children? Besides, what follows is so solemnly expressed (‘lest he put forth his hand, and eat, and live for ever’), even in its very abruptness so like the solemn oath of God against Israel’s entrance ‘on the land (‘lest they should enter into my rest’), that we cannot admit of irony in the case at all. There is so much of deep love on the one hand, and of stern judgment on the other, that the introduction of irony here would be quite out of place. Nor will there appear any necessity for such a supposition, if our previous exposition of the tree of life be remembered.

Ver. 24. ‘So (Heb. and) He drove out the man: and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims® and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life.’

Man, however reluctant, must leave paradise. Neither God’s purpose, nor His honour, can allow him to remain.

1 ying, It is the same word as is used for ‘driving out’ the nations

of Canaan, Ex. xxxiv. 11; for ‘ divorcing’ a wife, Lev. xxi. 73 for ‘casting out’ the bondwoman, Gen. xxi. 10; for the ‘thrusting out’ of Israel from Egypt, Ex. xii. 39. The Sept. give Bare; the Vulgate, eectt; Tremellius, expudit; Orton paraphrases it, ‘He drove out the man by violence.’ The Jews say that God led Adam gently by the hand till he came to the entrance, and then, as he hung back, He thrust him out by force. ‘The double expression of the driving of man out of paradise seems to imply, that God would have special notice taken of that judgment of His upon him.’ — WuirTE.

* The Sept. render the passage, ‘He cast out Adam and made him to dwell in front of paradise, and stationed the cherubim,’ etc. They must have had another reading before them. But the word ‘He placed,’ in our translation, does not bring out the full sense. It is literally, ‘He made the cherabim to dwell at the east,’ etc. It is the same word as in Josh, xviii. 1, ‘He set wp the tabernacle;’ Ex. xxv. 8, aa

BuEeatae G6 Whether ejected by force we cannot say, but his unwillingpe ness to quit seems implied.

His expulsion is not to be viewed, as is generally done, as mere ejection from a happy dwelling, his own special home, as if this were his punishment. No, it is banish- ’ ment from God and from His presence, that is the true idea which the passage presents to us. Paradise was not so much Adam’s home as Jehovah’s dwelling. It corresponded to the holy of holies; it was the chamber of the presence of the great King. And Adam’s being ‘| cast out of this, corresponded to Israel’s being kept out- side the holiest, and not allowed to enter into the immediate presence of God, where He dwelt between the cherubim.? Though Adam’s banishment was in some

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‘that I may dwell among them;’ Ps. lxxxv. 9, ‘that glory may dwell in our land;’ Ex. xxiv. 16, ‘the glory of the Lord adode,’ — -expressions which call to mind similar ones in the New Testament: ‘the Word I was made flesh, and dwelt among us,’ ‘that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith,’ etc, Faber remarks: ‘The force of the original Hebrew is, that God placed these cherubim in a tabernacle.’ — Hore Mosaice, vol. ii. p. 34. i,

1 Hence Cain, using the same word, says, ‘Thou hast driven meal out’ (Gen. iv. 14); and Jonah says, ‘I am cast out of Thy sight’ i ’ (ii. 4), both of them referring to being banished from the presence of Jehovah. ay 2 This ‘dwelling between,’ or ‘sitting upon’ the cherubim, refers: evidently to the service rendered by the cherubim. Sometimes they, Be are Jehovah’s chariot, x Chron. xxviii. 18; Ps. xviii. 10; see also ra) Ezek. i. 15-21; sometimes they are His throne, 1 Sam. iv. 4; Isa,; Xxxvil. 16; in this connection they are referred to in Ezekiel, and 4 ,in Rev. iv. 5, where the living creatures seem to form the throne.: Their presence in paradise is the intimation that it was considered more in the aspect of Jehovah’s temple than of Adam’s home. The;

word cherub or cherubim occurs ninety-one times in the Old Testament, and seems to be derived from a word signifying to engrave, so VOL, VI. 9)

RS eae measure of the nature of a punishment, yet its chief object.

was to announce that truth which it took ages to unfold, that there was a hindrance to man’s drawing near to’God, that ‘the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest.’

Man is banished from paradise, yet he is left aaa sight of it; he is allowed to remain in Eden.t He is not driven into some desert, as if there were nothing for him but wrath. There is favour for him in spite of his sin; and the expulsion does not cancel the pardon he has received, or intimate that God has begun to frown. It merely showed that before the full conseguences of that favour could reach man, time must elapse, and barriers be thrown down. It is not the ‘outer darkness,’ neither is it the full sunshine, into which he is brought. It is the twilight that surrounds him; and that twilight assures him of the coming noon.

He is left to linger at the gate, or wander round the sacred fences of that forbidden ground. For paradise is not swept off nor swallowed up.* It is left as God’s temple, now shut up and empty, but still within sight of

that it would thus mean the ‘ sculptures’ or symbols. We need not enter into the fancies either of the Rabbis or of the Fathers on this point.

1 Adam was formed in Eden, outside of paradise, and then taken into paradise, which was the dwelling of God, where God ‘ walked,’ and where the ‘voice’ was heard. Now, after his sin, he is cast out of the temple and replaced in Eden.

2 White takes up the point of God’s leaving paradise, as a monument both of God’s judgment and mercy, and shows how thereby He ‘justified Himself, and convinced men of their unworthy carriage towards Him,’ — Oz the first three chapters of Genesis, man. Probably it shared-the common blight of creation; though, like primeval man, it took long to wither; till, having waxed old and being ready to vanish away, the deluge came and swept it from the earth.’ It remained as a specimen of God’s original handiwork, reminding man of the glory which he had lost. It stood as a monument of what sin had done in blighting God’s perfect creation, and turning man into an exile. It showed how God estimates the material creation, and that matter is not the defiling and hateful thing which some conceive it to be. It proclaimed that God had not wholly left the earth, and that in His own set time He would return to it; nay, that maz, though for a season dethroned and banished, should yet repossess earth as king and lord. Thus God, in preserving paradise for a season, with man a wanderer outside its gates, announced these truths to the ages to come, — truths which were afterwards embodied in types and promises, and unfolded at length to us by His holy prophets. For the prophecies of after ages are but the translation into words of the facts which these primeval scenes presented to the eye.

Within the sacred enclosure, towards its eastern extremity, God placed, or made to dwell, ‘the cherubim.’?

1 Speaking of the cherubim and paradise, Faber says: ‘As no hint is given that the paradisaical cherubim were ever withdrawn before the flood, and as the same reason which first caused them to be stationed before the garden still subsisted until the very time of the deluge, we have ample ground for conciuding that their manifestation was not temporary, but permanent.’ — Hore Mosaice, vol. ii. p. 35.

2 Some have suggested that the rendering might be, ‘So He drave out the man; and he inhabited or dwelt between the cherubim, at the

Of this word no explanation is here given; but from the way in which it is introduced, and from the article ‘the’ prefixed, we conclude that it was quite familiar to Moses, and that the children of Israel would at once understand it as denoting the same thing which they were commanded to place in the holy of holies. No Israelite would understand it of certain living beings moving to and fro, but of a symbolic figure or statue, such as that in their own tabernacle. Just as ‘the cherubim’ were afterwards set in ‘the holiest,’ and for the same symbolical ends, so were they placed in paradise. There is nothing more to lead us to suppose that they were living beings (such as angels) in their former abode in the garden, than in their latter in the wilderness. In both they were symbols.+

Of what, then, were they the symbols? ‘There is no proof of their being representatives of angels, still less of

east of the garden of Eden, the fire unfolding itself to preserve inviolate the way of the tree of life;’ or, as Mr. Morison (Key éo the Scriptures) interprets it, ‘to point out the way to Jesus Christ, the true tree of life.’ This would bring the scene to a still nearer resemblance of that within the tabernacle; for thus, ‘He who was worshipped, dwelling between the cherubim in the temple and tabernacle, was worshipped also at the east of Eden, between the cherubim also, and that accompanied by the visible emblem, the Shekinah or flame of fire. — Morison’s Key, p. 15.

1 After showing that the form of the cherubim must have been well known to Israel, inasmuch as no special directions are given to Moses or to Bezaleel as to their construction, and after expressing his judgment that they were not withdrawn till the deluge, Mr. Faber adds: ‘We can scarcely avoid concluding, when we reflect upon the close analogical resemblance in every particular, that they bore the very same relation to the stated worship of patriarchism as the cherubim of the Levitical tabernacle did to the stated worship of the law.’ — Hore Mosaice, vol. il. p. 36.

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the Trinity, as some have thought; there are no passages connecting the cherubim with either of these. They are always introduced in connection with man, and man’s redemption! They are referred to about a hundred times in the Old Testament, but only in the above conss nection. In Ezekiel (i. 5, 8, 10) it is said they ‘had the likeness of a man,’ and the ‘hands of a man,’ and the ‘face of a man.’ In Isaiah, also (vi. 2, 6), they have face, and feet, and hands, — being evidently the same as in Ezekiel, though called seraphim. ‘Then, further, we find them connected with the lower orders of creation, with the Zon, and the ox, and the eagle, — the representatives, of the different orders of animals (Ezek. i, 10). Then we find them associated with the vegetable creation, — the ‘palm-tree’ (Ezek. xli. 18, 20, 25), the representative of that order of creation, and the well-known symbol of a triumph and joy, not only in the case of Israel (Jer. xxiii. 40), but of the redeemed multitude (Rev. vii. 9). Then we observe them in connection with Christ Himself (Ex. XXV. I9, xxxvil. 8), being ‘made out of the mercy-seat;’ or, as the apostle expounds it, ‘He that sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are all of one,’ literally, ‘out of one, made or taken out of one being or one piece;’ and in Ezekiel’s description (i. 26, 27) we discover ‘a man,’ evidently the incarnate Son Himself, upon the throne that

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1 See, in reference to the whole subject of the cherubim, Mr. Smith’s admirable work, The Doctrine of the Cherubim (Longman, 1850); also, though with less satisfaction, such works as the following : — Faber’s Hore Mosaice, and Origin of Pagan Idolatry; Dr. Sharp’s Discourses in answer to Hutchison, where the etymology of the name nchesila is well investigated, pp. 397-407.

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was over the cherubim. Further, we find them in closest relationship to the symbols of redemption (Ex. xxxvii. 1, 9). They were part of the mercy-seat; they stood upon the mercy-seat, their feet were upon the blood with which it was sprinkled (Lev. xvi. 14), and, of course, they themselves would share the sprinkling; their abode was a chamber, every part of which was sprinkled with blood; they were enveloped in the incense which went up from the high priest’s censer on the day of atonement (Lev. xvi. 12, 13); their eyes, bending downwards, were ever fixed upon the blood of the mercy-seat. And then, in Revelation, where these same symbols reappear, only as in Isaiah and Ezekiel, instinct with life, there can be no mistake as to the beings represented, for they sing the song of redemption (Rev. v. 9), ‘Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood.’ The whole scene carries us back to the Old Testament emblems as given by Moses, by Isaiah, and by Ezekiel. These are the wings, the mystic faces, the incense, the blood, the throne, and, last of all, the glorious triumph of which the palm-trees were the symbol, ‘ We shall reign on the earth’ (v. 10).

That the cherubim were the symbols of a coming redemption, and foreshadowed re-entrance into that very presence of Jehovah from which man had just been cast out, seems evident.’ But the peculiar forms and various

1 Athanasius, though not interpreting the cherubim as we have done, yet notices rather strikingly the Lord’s promise to the thief, ‘ To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise,’ as showing that Christ has reopened its gates, so that Adam, in the person of the thief, enters his

lost habitation. See his Zxfosition of the Faith. It is as if now the

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os appendages belonging to them intimate that more than man are concerned in this restitution. The figures of the lion, and the eagle, and the palm-tree indicate that the whole creation is to share in the blessing. The symbol is not merely one of redeemed man, but of a redeemed creation, from man, the head, down to the lowest forms of being. All that God created ‘good’ is thus symbolized as awaiting deliverance in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God; and thus the three concluding psalms, so minute in their details of praise, so prophetic of the glory of creation in all its parts, and so often sung before

‘that God who ‘inhabited the cherubim,’ with their commencing and closing hallelujahs, shall be found most wondrously to harmonize with that burst of universal praise from ‘every creature in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and in the sea’ (Rev. v. 13), — to ‘Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.’

But while the symbols of redemption are thus set up in paradise, they are not to be too nearly approached.? In front of them there is placed ‘a flaming sword which turned every way;’ or, more exactly, ‘the flame of the

gates of paradise were thrown open, and the second Adam enters with the chief of sinners at His side, leading the way. Who is there on this sinful earth that may not foliow?

1 Lactantius, in his book on the Ovigiz of Error, alluding to man’s expulsion, says; ‘ Paradise itself He surrounded with fire (igne circumvellavit), that man might not approach till the time when He shall set judgment on the earth, and recall the righteous who serve Him to that same, spot (paradise), when death has been taken away.’ — Book ii. sec. 12.

sword which turned itself.’ This self-revolving flame was.

the symbol of Him who is ‘a consuming jive;’ of Him who appeared as ‘devouring jive’ on Sinai (Ex. xxiv. 17); of Him who sent forth to Israel His ‘fiery law’ (Deut. xxxiil. 2); of Him whose throne is like the frery flame, and His wheels like durning fire (Dan. vii. 9); of Him who is to be ‘revealed from heaven in flaming fire’ (2 Thess. i. 8). That this fiery sword was part of, or at least connected with, the Shekinah, is evident from the first chapter of Ezekiel, which is a description of the Shekinah.’

This fiery sword took up its position at the gate of paradise, to bar all entrance to man. It not only, like the veil in the tabernacle, hindered his entrance, but threatened him with death should he attempt it. It was God’s awful prohibition of man’s entrance into the presence of God until the hindrances which existed should be taken out of the way. ‘Till the woman’s seed should arise, and by the blood of His ‘bruised heel’ remove that flaming barrier, man must remain outside.2 From that flame came the fire which consumed the sacrifice on the altar, which was doubtless erected in front of paradise, teaching man that it was through the altar, and the sacrifice, and the blood, that the way was at length to

1 Ezekiel’s expression (chap. i. 2), ‘a fire unfolding itself,’ bears manifest reference to this expression in Genesis. The self-linking flames of Ezekiel and the self-whirling fire of Moses are strikingly similar,

2 Jerome speaks about Christ removing ‘that flaming wheel and fiery sword, which were at the gates of paradise,’ and entering in with the thiefi — Works, vol. v. p. Io.

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opened up, and paradise repossessed in greater blessedness and glory than before. But not till the true altar had been reared, and the true sacrifice slain, and the; true blood shed, could there be boldness to enter into the holiest. Not till then would it be said, ‘Let us draw near with a true heart, in the full assurance of faith’. (Heb, x. 19-22).

The ‘tree of life’ was not at once uprooted. It remained where it had first been planted. But man was not to touch it yet. He might see it afar off, with the fiery sword between, but access is prohibited. Its fruit; 4 is no longer to be tasted. He is to dive, not to die; he is to be made heir of a more glorious life than he had possessed before, but not by means of that tree of life. His new life is to come in another way, and through 4 another channel, of which that tree was but the symbol; through Him who is the resurrection and the life. So that it was as if that now prohibited tree were pointing 4 his eye to something beyond and above itself, saying, Look not at me, but at Him of whom I am but the shadow.

Man is now to worship outside of paradise. The aM favour of God is freely given; but intercourse, though not ee denied, is restricted. Man must now worship in the Fe outer court, The hope of re-admission is vouchsafed, but the time is indefinitely deferred. The tree of life is: to be again thrown open to him in far more blessed /| circumstances (Rev. li. 7, xxii. 2), but no intimation is made of what lies between.

Man’s altar is reared ‘before the gate of paradise, in

” front of the flaming sword; and there he lays his sacrifice, at once pleading for readmission, and preparing the way for it. The cherubim are at the eastern extremity; the tree of life in ‘the midst;’ the flame at the gate; outside, the altar! Such was God’s first outline of a temple; an outline which, though often altered in the course of ages, still preserved its main features throughout. From that day to this we have been worshippers outside paradise. Faith takes us into the holiest of all: and in that sense we have been already re-admitted, for the veil has been rent, and the fiery sword withdrawn, or rather guenched — quenched in the blood of the sacrifice. But still we have not yet been actually admitted. We still wait the re-appearance of the woman’s seed, and then shall not only our first father Adam, but all the saved seed, a mighty multitude, in one glorious band, re-enter with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, with no dread before of a second ejection and a second exile.

Then we shall have unhindered access into a better paradise than the first, and be privileged to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of it. Then shall the redeemed from among men, the true cherubim, of which all

1 One of these changes we may notice, though net able to account for it. Paradise lay at the eastern extremity of Eden, and the cherubim at the eastern extremity of paradise (though some think that the words ‘at the east’ ought to be rendered ‘before,’ or ‘in front of — FABER), In the tabernacle this was altered, as it was placed east and west, with its gate to the east, and the holy of holies to the west. On the other hand, the temple was placed on the east side of Jerusalem, as paradise lay east of Eden. LEzekiel’s temple is represented as situated on the south side of the mountain (xl. 2), though its position is the same as the tabernacle, the main gate being towards the east.

Ke up their residence in the true tabernacle which the

‘nearest communion, seeing face to face, and knowing even as they are known. have Deane seen er ae been abut the heroes

“Lord hath pitched for them, where they shall abide in