Paradise Lost

Sin is really hard to deal with honestly. We’ve all seen the fake apologies from politicians or celebrities that did something wrong and got caught. Sometimes the non-apologies are easy to spot: “I’m sorry you were offended.” That’s rookie stuff. Sometimes they are a bit more sophisticated: “Mistakes were made.” A phrase like that gently moves responsibility off of the speaker without it seeming like that. This is a phenomenon related in a really fantastic book Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me). In the book, the author, though writing from a non-christian perspective, points out all the ways that we justify ourselves when we do something wrong. It is so automatic, subconscious, and universal, all of us can feel seen in a book like that. Seriously, I read that book and questioned everything I was thinking for weeks (or was I?). 

However, once we look at our passage today, I think you will be able to see the roots of this sort of response to sinful actions. Right after the first sin on Earth is committed, the first appearance of shame and blame begin. Shame and blame are two ways of dealing with sin that when used in the wrong way just lead us even deeper into sin. We will see the wrong way of dealing with our sin, and then we will see how Jesus’ work saves us from both. 

As we dive into our passage, it is worth reminding ourselves where we started. At the end of chapter 2, Adam and his wife have everything that they could possibly want. They had food, paradise, each other, naked and unashamed. But after they were led down the path of sin through the Serpent’s words and their own desires, now their eyes are open. They see that they are naked and are filled with shame. Who would have seen that coming? One commentator saw the sudden shame Adam and his wife felt as being like if we were suddenly ashamed of our hands (Cassuto, 137). It would feel very foreign to us to have that happen, and I can only imagine how disorienting that was for them, as they didn’t even know what shame was. 

When we feel shame on something, our first instinct is to cover it up. This is what our first parents do when they have sinned against God: get some leaves! It would be comical if it wasn’t so tragic. Here they have sinned against God who has done nothing but good things for them, a sin so serious as to deserve death, and the best that they can come up with is leaves. That’ll fool God! He’ll never notice that! 

This is an example of shame used wrongly. The problem is not that Adam and his wife feel shame. They should! They’ve sinned against a loving and gracious God! They should feel bad. We should feel bad when we sin, too. God has been just as good to us. In fact, you might even suggest that God has been better to us than Adam and Eve, because he has blessed us despite our sin! Shame is an appropriate initial reaction to our sin. The problem comes when we try to solve our shame ourselves. 

Adam and his wife try to solve for their shame by putting leaves on themselves. Initially, this seems like a good solution. They are ashamed to be naked, so leaves will cover up the parts they aren’t comfortable with anymore. But what is this really doing? Is this actually resolving their shame? Not really. It is just coping with it. They’ve disobeyed God; they can’t undo that. All they can do is try to deal with the uncomfortable symptoms. 

Can we not relate? How many times when we sin do we just retreat into our computers? Retreat into our work? Retreat into our drinks? Guilt is such a powerful emotion. Can it not ruin everything? Everything else can be going perfectly, but when there is something we know we have to confront, even paradise is a living hell. Now some have an even more powerful and sophisticated way of dealing with shame and that is wallowing in it. They have done this terrible thing, and they cannot stop talking about it and beating themselves up about it. They don’t try to distract, but quite the opposite: they try to deeply punish themselves. They take on the shame as a massive part of their identity, making it so that no life ever really reaches them. They suffer for a completely indefinite amount of time, simultaneously too much and not enough. 

None of these ways of dealing with shame addresses the root problem: you have sinned against God.  

Adam and his wife have not truly covered up their shame, because as soon as God comes into the garden, they retreat to hide amongst the trees. This is an interesting little moment here, as they are trying to use God’s blessings of the trees to hide themselves from God. 

God isn’t fooled. He says to the man, “Where are you?” Scholars note that God isn’t actually confused about where they are, and the text itself hints at that by saying that God said this to Adam. In fact, as Matthews points out, God is very specifically talking to Adam in verses 9-11 as the words are singular when God says “you.” (240). God’s Word also demonstrates that God’s knowledge of all things is completely comprehensive. There is simply nothing that God doesn’t know about. But here, God is noting to Adam that he is missing from the usual place. Something is different, and it is time for Adam to confess what he has done. But Adam doesn’t really do that. He starts out by saying that he was ashamed to be naked in God’s presence. God won’t let him off the hook and asks specifics about their eating of the tree. Again, Matthews comments, “There will be no possibility for reconciliation if the guilty are unwilling to confess their deeds.” (240). If someone will not even agree that what they have done is wrong when they are wrong, there is just no way a relationship can thrive in that condition. Confession is the first and often one of the hardest steps. 

When it is clear that God already knows what Adam has done, Adam deploys the next trick for not dealing with one’s sin: blame. Adam begins by blaming his wife for giving him the fruit. There is also the not-so-subtle blaming of God Himself for giving Him his wife in the first place! One scholar notice that the word “gave” is used here twice, almost to say, “You gave me her, and she gave me the fruit!” (Matthews, 241). That same scholar goes on to say, “Now, like the serpent, he charges that God’s good gift was malicious, for she has led to his downfall. She is a mistake.” (241). Is that not chilling? Here, Adam has become snake-like. He follows those steps we talked about last week. God was stingy in not giving Him the right woman, whereas Adam would have been a much better person to evaluate the fitness of this woman for him (nevermind that this is precisely what happened!). He does eventually say that he ate the fruit, but wow, it took us a while to get there, and what horrors we had to endure to get through blaming! Adam admits to sinning, but only after blaming literally everyone else in the world first. 

His wife is quick to pick up this trick! When she is confronted by what she has done, then she turns and says that the serpent deceived her, so she ate. And while that can be seen as true, it wasn’t as if she didn’t know what the command of God was. The serpent was just successful in getting her to flat-out disregard what God had said. She also, after making this excuse, eventually confesses her own sin, and Matthews notes that she is able to do so without blaming God (242). 

Blame is just another trick that we tend to use when we are confronted with our sin, and often comes with shame. When it is undeniable that the sin has taken place, and it is equally undeniable that you have done it, the next step is to try to blame someone else for making you do it. When I was a new dad, I thought that my grumpy moods were due to my lack of sleep, and blamed my son’s sleep habits for my crabbiness. Getting sleep is needed, but all that sleep deprivation was doing was revealing what was really down there. It turns out that I am a sinner who gets mad when things don’t go my way. Sure, sleep deprivation brings that out (more), but it didn’t create it. Adam’s blaming brings this out really well, because Adam is ultimately blaming God for his sin. He says in effect, “If you hadn’t given me this woman, I wouldn’t have sinned.” How often have we heard that today? It is certainly not God’s fault that Adam sinned, and it isn’t His fault that we sin, too. Turn with me to James 1:13-15. Notice that sinners are led away by their own desires. The only reason why something is a temptation is because it is something that you already desire. I’ve not felt the temptation to steal anything because I have not had a desire for something that strongly. That doesn’t mean that I am incapable of stealing, it just means that I haven’t had the right desire stoked yet. When Eve took the fruit, she saw that it was “desirous,” the same word that is used for coveting (Ross, 136). She wanted what that fruit had, and it didn’t matter who was saying no. Blaming the serpent doesn’t change that.  

So what we have seen at this point is that blaming is just as effective a strategy for dealing with our sin as covering up shame. Blaming someone else for your sin is never going to get you anywhere. Now, can it be true that someone sinned against you? Of course! Can it be that someone sinned against you worse, even way worse, than you did against them? For sure! That said, it doesn’t excuse sinful response to that sin. Look at Jesus Himself. He is the ultimate example of someone who was sinned against in an absolutely horrific way. Jesus literally did nothing to deserve that kind of treatment, but He opened not His mouth. He didn’t curse those who harmed Him. He didn’t zap them with lightning, or even call ten thousand angels to His aid. He didn’t even so much as complain! 

Indeed, Jesus does the exact opposite: He takes the blame and shame onto Himself. All of the elects’ sins He takes the blame and shame for, and then dies with it. Oh, if you can just grasp this, you would enjoy your life so much more, because this is the gospel. This act of Christ removes the need for shaming and blaming and instead replaces it with forgiveness! 

Follow me, here! Shame comes from knowing that we have done the wrong thing, and blaming is the attempt to find the cause of the shame. When we rightly conclude that we have no one to blame for our sin except ourselves, we are left with shame. This shame can never go away because nothing will ever change the fact that we sinned except that Jesus offers forgiveness! Jesus doesn’t pretend that this sin never happened. Quite the contrary! Your sin was so heinous in all of its God-dishonoring, God-denying, pride-exalting ways, that the only way to get rid of it was to have God Himself in the person of Christ absorb all the just wrath aimed at those sins. Jesus has taken the true penalty of those sins, and offers total forgiveness. God chooses to not hold your crimes against you even though He is fully aware of them. That and that alone frees you from lasting shame. Do we still feel bad when we sin? Of course! But now that shame can drive you towards God to find forgiveness there rather than cover yourself in the fig leaves of your silly excuses and attempts to fix things. 

Knowing that you have such a way of dealing with your shame, you can now direct the blame where it needs to go: yourself. This doesn’t mean that we blame ourselves for things that we didn’t do wrong. Never blame yourself for something you didn’t do wrong. That’s lying. But where you do find your fault, you can admit to that fault, and then run to Jesus for forgiveness. 

This was the mistake that Adam and Eve made. When they sinned, the proper response should have been to say when they heard God in the Garden, “Here comes the Lord. We have sinned. Let’s go to Him and seek His forgiveness. He has been so merciful to us in all that He has provided; it is just His character and nature. Let’s be honest with Him, and throw ourselves at His mercy and love.” That should be our response to sin, and really the only way to have a response like that is being transformed by God. 
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So what is our takeaway today? We will do anything with our sin other than confess it. We will hold onto shame by either trying to cover it up or wear it as a badge. If we don’t take that approach, we will blame anything and everyone, including God Himself, for our sin. Neither approach makes the sin go away. But what we find in Christ is freedom from guilt! Romans 8 declares that there is no condemnation for those in Christ, and if God is for you, who can be against you? Nothing can separate you from the love of God! All of this should drive you towards Him and away from your sin. Sin only brings shame and blame. It is Christ and Christ alone who can take it away forever.   

​Image by Jonas