Subsequently, God turns to Eve and asks…What is this you have done? (The same question goes to the rest of us) Genesis 3:11. Moreover, even if Eve had been listening all this time, she does what her husband had done. Reasoning with the half truths, playing the blaming game, and somehow giving excuses, as she tried to hide her own sin, instead of taking responsibility. But, I believe God wanted her to think wisely; that acknowledging her sin and having a contrite heart would get her to connect to God again. Nowadays, some of us deal with it by repentance and asking God for forgiveness through Jesus.
What have you done question – helps us to analyse the consequences of our actions, especially when the action is connected to sin. Also to think about God's laws and how it affects us and others. The alarm in our minds (a rooster's call), which goes off before and after the wrong action, is designed to get us to be aware of a sin.
Those who are rooted in faith (Jesus) are more alert to the call, because they read the scriptures and have the Holy Spirit to guide them. Jesus through the Holy Spirit will always remind us to say no to sin and of judgement. One thing about the Bible, it goes into details and mentions every area of sin. Jesus goes even further to explain; it's not just the actions, but the thoughts as well, such as hatred, envy, etc. For every sin begins with a thought, and comes from the heart, Mark 7:20-23. Real transformation or repentance takes place in the heart first and then extends to thoughts and actions.
The first question which can also be translated as (where are you now?) is applied to a situation or temptation, where we have to exercise a thinking process before we take action which normally results to affect us and others before God. When you think about it; we often learn from our mistakes. If we are wise enough we don't do it again, or we sense the danger of sinning and avoid it altogether. Sin normally carries a sting. In this case, Jesus would ask; what have you learnt?
Another crucial point is; the questioning and reasoning process helps us to come to that turning point. Sometimes, when our hearts are contrite, we can express good reasoning and come to a clear understanding. To make a turning point, requires us to assess our lives by looking deep within, and weigh decisions whether they are right or wrong. And eventually to seek His wisdom from the Holy Bible, which delivers us from a lot of heartache and leads us to salvation.
God asks: Who told you that you were naked? …The conversation is getting even more intense. I believe at this moment, God wants him to think even more…it is not about clothes! Before that, he was a confident man without clothes, now he feels ashamed. He wants him to think deeply, even through his confusion. He wants him to acknowledge his own mistake and exercise good reasoning, in order for him to gain understanding.
Back to Adam, God confronts him with more questioning, to remind him about the commandment they had just broken, which was an act of unfaithfulness. When he found his words again, he pointed a finger at his wife. This now goes on to be a blaming game. The woman you put here with me…Probably, in his mind he is thinking, if it wasn't the woman, I would be on the right track. Nevertheless, God wanted him to examine his own heart and responsibility, and stop giving excuses. Does that sound like someone you know? Someone may blame somebody else/society for their behaviour or sins, and some may blame God when things fall apart. But of course as we all know, there is another side to the coin when an innocent person carries a burden of another person's wrong actions' which most of us experience once in a while.
Then he goes on to say, because I was naked…Before that, he was totally in control. Now he starts to feel insecure about life and his own body. The Adam syndrome has a profound effect on us, and we get into the habit of examining ourselves and find something to feel insecure about. 'Nakedness' in a spiritual sense indicates insecurity – without God's protection in Jesus, in his word, or guidance through the Holy Spirit.
I think Adam and Eve must have come to a point when they felt regretful about what they had done. I believe after God saw how insecure and regretful they were, He felt sorry for them and clothed them, which later on symbolises Jesus' sacrifice, as a covering and forgiveness for our sins. When Jesus was about to be crucified, they took his clothes, and then after the crucifixion he was covered with a linen cloth. For every thing that happened to Jesus, was as God planned it to be, to rescue mankind from Satan's control.
Afterwards, he goes on to say, so I hid… he is got so much fear that he hides. (Bearing in mind he had no where to go). Really! How can you hide from someone who knows where you are? To us, sometimes we forget that God is watching us and cannot hide from Him. We have created a lot of hiding places, e.g. science theology, focusing on money, false beliefs, and Just like Adam and Eve we hide our sins. So when Adam and Eve came out of hiding they were able to talk to God again.
Back to Adam, his first answer was, 'I heard you were in the garden… (Avoiding telling the whole truth) Does that sound like someone you know? Sincerely, the majority of us have heard about God, and have come to different conclusions. The word of God is his garden (Kingdom) and the tree of life is Jesus, because he said, in him you'll have eternal life, John 3. What we hear gets us into the action of producing a faith fruit. And normally the actions we take will either lead us to the dry ground or a proper garden. As a scripture says, you reap what you sow…Galatians 4:6.
During Jesus' time of preaching, when people heard that he was in a certain location, they would walk miles to get to him. Each of them had a reason why they wanted to see him. Those who went to him were all healed physically and spiritually, Mark 2:1-6. Most of our time is consumed by hearing information, who said what, what happened, and who is telling the truth. Jesus went on to say, 'I am the truth', because he had no sin, so there was no false information in him. And he says, 'think carefully of what you hear' Mark 4:24. He also said, He and the Father are one, meaning every word Jesus said came from the Jehovah God (the creator of heaven and earth). And he said, 'everyone on the side of truth listens to me'. So it doesn't matter what anyone says. According to God, Jesus is the real deal.
Of all animals Satan decides to use a serpent (Genesis 3:1) to test Adam and Eve, because it was craftier than other animals. And when you go deep into the Bible you get to understand that spiritually speaking Satan is indeed very crafty. And if you look at things now, a snake is the most poisonous animal on land. One bite alone kills if untreated, which is similar to the scenario of sin, Romans 6:23. As you know, big snakes swallow their prey, which also indicates that if we don't turn away from a sin we can be swallowed by it. That's why when you read through the Bible you can see God is advising people to turn to him and away from evil, because of the consequences. And He is also, God of love, encouragement, and wants to save us.
Why did Satan target Eve?
It seems like she went to the tempting place where Satan was, and according to the scriptures she looked and desired what she saw, and then influenced her husband, which was wrong on her part. Being the first creation of God, Adam was supposed to be the stronger one to remind his wife, but failed in this area. So the devil saw that weakness in him. And when Adam decided to listen to the woman, he became weak too. Even now Satan targets the weaker spots in us; the main ones are the unbelief, the doubting and then the desiring. And it also shows that when a person has strong a faith the devil doesn't bother him or her much, only when it notices a weakness in them.
The Devil presented a doubting question to Eve 'Did God really say…Satan has another name (Dragon, revelation 12:7). Note; the devil (tempter) is weak but a dangerous force in the world; it is a master of all wrong doing and acts in ferocious anger. Now days it goes around the world to target every area which is connected to sin, and dominates every area of wrong beliefs. Not only that, it also goes around churches/congregations to find weak spots to do some damage. That's why God gave us the Holy Bible to act as a shield and guidance. And the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin and point us to the truth.
Adam and his wife are living a life of no stress, no desires, no wars, no arguments, no hatred, no fear, no money problems, no pain, no hunger, no diseases or death. And then comes a great fall (sin) which will shake their lives for ever and in the end to affect all of us.
God tells Adam with a strong warning before Eve was even created. You must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil…God explains to him why, because your days will be cut short. (God is Love) I believe He didn't want them to get hurt and desired to protect them. Afterwards, He even introduced marriage, because He wanted them to be happy.
After this I'm sure it is now Adam's responsibility to pass on the information to his wife, just like him was in total perfection of humility and love. I believe they had a perfect love for God, and for each other. And from a pure point of view – without making demands on each other, because when you look into the Bible they had children after the disobedience, Genesis 4:1-2.
Meanwhile, they enjoyed their jobs of working on the land as well as the scenery of the beautiful gardens and the food that came with it. They also lived peacefully with all the animals. And it seems like they could even have a conversation with them, for example, the talking snake, and when you read further in the bible a donkey spoke at one point, Numbers 22:28. I believe the communication they had with them was cut off, because of their disobedience. The mess of Adam and Eve affected the land too. Note: As leaders of all animals their decisions were crucial and critical, the same still stands today (mankind leads all other animals and when it comes to caring for the environment our decisions are critical).