Totally: Getting to Know Our Knowing, Present, Capable, Caring GodSample

God knows everything (see 1 John 3:20). He didn’t need to ask Adam and Eve what had happened, but He did—on their level, one question at a time.

Once Adam and Eve confessed, God displayed His wrath. Thinking about God’s wrath makes us uncomfortable, but God’s wrath is His controlled and completely appropriate response to evil.

Because Satan had deceived the people whom God dearly loved, God rebuked Satan with passion. Then, God rebuked Eve. Her punishment may seem extreme, but God is just (see 2 Thessalonians 1:6). He always does what is right. Truthfully, God could have taken Eve’s life, but He didn’t because He is gracious and merciful.

After God rebuked Eve, He rebuked Adam. When Adam sinned (rebelled against God), sin became a part of the human experience forever. Adam’s sin broke the world and doomed Adam and every person after him to death (see Romans 1:12). God could have taken Adam’s life for this as well, but He didn’t.

Instead, God took good care of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had proven they couldn’t be trusted. If God had allowed them to stay in the Garden of Eden, they probably would have eaten from the Tree of Life as well, and their bodies (and ours) would have lived forever. God had a plan to fix what Adam and Eve had broken, but our bodies had to be able to die at the appropriate time so our souls could be set free to live with Him forever.

Adam and Eve didn’t understand God’s words to Satan, but we know that He was promising to save human beings from the effects of sin. When God talked about Eve’s offspring, He was talking about Jesus. Basically, God told Satan that Satan would cause Jesus to suffer, but Jesus would win in the end by dying on the cross to set people free from sin.

God’s promise to fix what Adam and Eve had broken through Jesus is part of what we call the Adamic covenant, a binding agreement between God and all mankind.

The world would like to twist the story of Adam and Eve’s banishment and use it as proof that God is mean and doesn’t care, but the opposite is true. God sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden for their own good and ours!