WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: What in the world today do you suppose makes God most angry?

Harsh words
The results of our sins are tangled and unpredictable but always dire. Eve’s two-word answer: ‘I ate’ is correct but fails entirely to grasp the awful change her disobedience has brought about.

In verse 13 Eve still feels almost like the innocent being formed so lovingly in God’s image. But now harsh words are spoken, such as were never needed before: ‘eat dust … crush and crawl … through painful toil’.

Consequences of sin
Of course, many of the details are familiar. This is the damaged world we know too well! Turn back immediately to the verses describing God’s blessings from Genesis 1 if you want a proper sense of the contrast between Eden and the consequences of our sin.

It is important to notice that God describes Adam, Eve and the serpent as ‘cursed’ – he does not say, ‘I curse you’. It is through their own decisions that they have become rejected.

Holy God
The Hebrew word used is horrible: it expresses utter disgust at something loathsome – the very ground itself is cursed too (v 17). How else can the pure and holy God react?

Yet the man and woman are not utterly forsaken. Charmingly, when we least expect it, here God himself makes proper clothes for these silly people before he drives them out. (The best they could manage was fig leaves.)

Respond: Though this all happened so long ago, our proper response should still be fresh anger, shock and lamentation.

http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-01-05