Scripture
22 the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever…” 23 Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim/f + cherubim are powerful angelic creatures, messengers of God with wings. See Ezekiel 10./f at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.*
Audio Commentary
Abstract
Genesis 3:22–24 closes the account of the Fall as God drives Adam and Eve from Eden and bars the tree of life with cherubim and a flaming sword. The expulsion is judgment — the first covenant irreparably broken, peace with God disrupted — yet it is not without mercy: God would not have them seize eternal life and live forever as sinners, grasping the benefits of His favor without submitting to His transforming Spirit. Even the flaming sword points forward, for this forced passage out of a lost innocence toward a hard-won, redeemed one is the very road the faithful still walk.
Brief Observations
-
Truly changed — their eyes opened — Adam and Eve were fundamentally transformed by the fruit; their eyes were now open to the knowledge of good and evil.
-
Disgrace that humbles toward repentance — God will let us feel disgrace and dishonor, because such shame has a way of humbling us back to reality and encouraging repentance; the contrite ask what benefit they ever derived from what now shames them.
-
Better to confess than to save face — The moment one catches oneself believing a lie, it is better to own it and ask forgiveness than to manipulate the truth to save face; God’s word that man had “become like one of Us” was tailored to remind them they had been deceived.
-
Barred from the tree of life — God expelled them and barred the tree of life; it was no longer enough merely to forbid it, for eternal life was reserved for the faithful, and to seize its benefits without submitting to God’s transforming Spirit is disaster — the same danger as grasping the blessings of the Christian life without its Lord.
-
Driven out, with no say — God drove Adam from Eden, giving him no choice; humanity’s peace and correspondence with God were now disrupted and their relationship lessened.
-
A just and gracious God — God remains compassionate by nature — a perfect judge of evil, yet a gracious God glorified in His power to save and redeem.
-
The flaming sword, and the broken covenant — The angels and flaming sword expressed both God’s wrath and a now-irreconcilable hostility, and signaled that the first covenant was irreparably broken — no hope of life by the path once given in paradise.
-
The journey forward — This forced passage out of a perceived innocence toward a hard-won one mirrors our own road from childhood’s naivety to the true innocence of a redeemed eternity — the destination of the journey for those with courage to press on.
Full Commentary
It’s true that Adam and Eve underwent a fundamental transformation upon consuming the forbidden fruit. Something changed in them and now their eyes were open to the knowledge of good and evil. God remarking how the man has become like one of Us carries some bit of humiliating irony though. What kind of gods had Adam and Eve become? They couldn’t even clothe themselves. They felt the humiliation of having listened to Satan’s deceitful counsel. Now they were disgraced before God and His holy angels. They may have gained the knowledge of good and evil, but they lost virtually everything else in the process.
God will allow us to feel disgrace and dishonor because these things have a way of humbling us and encouraging repentance. The Psalmist writes concerning enemies of God who had exalted themselves over His people:
Psalm 83:16-18 16 Fill their faces with dishonor, That they may seek Your name, O LORD. 17 Let them be ashamed and dismayed forever, And let them be humiliated and perish, 18 That they may know that You alone, whose name is the LORD, Are the Most High over all the earth.
When we exalt ourselves in pride against God, shame and humiliation are normative consequences which bring us back down to reality. A repentant person with a contrite heart will ask himself the questions, “What benefit was I deriving from the things of which I am now ashamed? Is not the outcome of these things death?” And the interesting thing about those questions is that God will have you asking them one way or another. If you’re too arrogant to ask them yourself He’ll knock you down to a position where the questions become the only next logical step. But if you’re humble and faithful, you’ll ask yourself those questions everyday as you imperfectly walk with Jesus and are progressively sanctified by His Spirit.
As soon as you catch yourself believing a lie, it’s better to accept it and ask for forgiveness than it is to manipulate the truth in hopes of saving your own face. God’s announcement that the man had “become like one of Us” was tailored to remind our first parents they had been deceived.
God ejected our first parents from Eden and barred their access to the Tree of Life. Adam’s sin changed his relationship with God insofar as it was longer deemed sufficient to merely forbid Adam from eating fruit from the Tree of Life. Adam couldn’t be trusted. So God had to keep Adam out Himself. If Adam ate from the Tree of Life in this new, fallen condition, then he would profane a divine sacrament and defy another direct order from God. This time eating the fruit would grant him immortality, and such immortality would fuel his pride far more than the knowledge of good and evil ever could.
Eternal life was a benefit reserved for those who remained faithful to God. Seeking after the benefits of a Christian life without allowing God’s Spirit to transform your character sets you up for disaster. We always want the kingdom of God to advance in our world, but popularizing the gospel comes with its own set of challenging consequences. If being a Christian confers social advantages, the number of people who pretend to follow Christ will be enormous. These people are not interested in the Spirit of God transforming their hearts or renewing their minds, they just want to be seen at church by their friends and neighbors.
This effort to snatch up the benefits without submitting yourself to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is functionally the same concern God had over Adam and Eve. He didn’t want them to steal eternal life. Not only would it be a cosmic injustice if they did, but it would also destroy their souls. It would destroy their souls in the same way those who use the name of Jesus in vain destroys their souls. If God and His church mean nothing to you beyond reputational advantages or popular influence, then you’re neglecting the only true source of life for your soul — both here on earth and in eternity. You’re chasing after a shadow at the expense of the real thing. Circumventing submission to Jesus Christ in your efforts to usurp the fruits of eternal life only makes your sins more heinous, your conversion less likely, and your destruction more certain.
So God drove Adam out from the Garden of Eden. Our first parents had no say in the matter, they had to leave and God gave them no choice. Adam loved paradise and he wouldn’t have left on his own accord. This forced removal was the exclusion of Adam and all of humanity from the bliss of communion with God. To be in the direct presence of God was the glory of paradise, and humanity would taste it no longer. All the little ways in which God favored Adam were now suspended. The overt displays of God’s grace had ceased. Adam’s strength left him and he became weak like other men. The same thing happened to Samson when the Spirit of God departed from him.
Adam’s relationship with God was lessened and changed. Humanity’s peace with God was gone and their correspondence with Him disrupted. Adam was driven from the garden as one who is unworthy to occupy it and unfit for service there. By rights God could have driven Adam and Eve from this world completely. He would have been justified to cast them into Hell just as He did with the angels who had sinned. But such permanent condemnation would have been in cross-purposes to God’s eternal counsel of redemption. Adam would be sent to till the earth from which he came. He would be sent to a place of work instead of a place of torment. God’s punishment for humanity was less about vengeance against them and more about keeping them humble. Adam’s new station in life would keep him humble and daily remind him of his own mortality.
God is compassionate toward humanity because it’s in His nature to be compassionate. He is a just God, a perfect judge of evil, but He is also a gracious God who is glorified by His power to save and redeem. He could have abandoned our first parents to despair, but instead He reforged His covenant with them on new terms. Adam would be forced by lack of options to journey forward. There would be no going back to the former paradise of Eden. God placed cherubim with flaming swords to guard the passage to the Tree of Life — preventing any possibility of Adam trying to turn back.
This forced process of moving forward is analogous to our own passage from the perceived innocence of childhood to the actual innocence of a redeemed eternity. We start out as little kids with no real conception of good and evil, but as we grow we encounter the brokenness of the world. Some children, tragically, encounter this brokenness far sooner than others. We ourselves become hardened by it and any chance of returning to childhood innocence is gone from us. This is the point along which nothing is sufficient to make us righteous except for Jesus Christ Himself. Only the Spirit of God is able to instill a child-like faith into the heart of a person who has lost his childhood. Since God knows childhood isn’t our eternal destination, and is far from the heavenly existence on offer, He pushes us forward through the painful process of sanctification and eventual glorification. If Adam could return to Eden he wouldn’t have had the courage to walk the journey God wanted for him. Similarly if we could return to youth we may not have the courage to face our own deaths.
Mixed in with this expression of mercy was the reality of Adam’s new irreconcilable hostility to God. The swords were drawn and the flames indicated God’s wrath against our first parents. There could be only one atoning sacrifice sufficient to bridge this impassable divide — the second Adam who is Jesus Christ. The weaponized angels also indicated a war between humanity and the heavenly company. From this moment forward some of humanity would be reconciled to God and others would take up their lot with Satan. The Fall of Man caused humanity to be inextricably mixed up in this spiritual war. There can be no peace with the angels while we are in rebellion against their Lord.
Another reason God stationed angels to guard the Tree of Life was to communicate the first covenant with humanity was irreparably broken. We have no hope of righteousness, happiness, or life by the same path given to our first parents in paradise. We have no more hope of entering the kingdom of Heaven by our own merits than Adam and Eve had hopes of getting past the cherubim. When a person tries to build a good life independent of the Spirit of God they inevitably come undone and hit rock bottom. This experience is so painful that it can feel cruel. It can feel like a spiritual crucifixion. But God doesn’t allow us to experience this out of cruelty anymore than He sent Christ to the cross out of cruelty. It’s all to move us forward into reconciled relationship with Him. It’s all part of His design for the same kind of running embrace given the prodigal when he returned home to his father.
This is our future if we have the faith to see it. This is the destination of our journey if we have the courage to press on. As perfect as paradise was, our eternity in Heaven will be incomparably better. No more tears, no more grief, no more pain. And having known all of these things, we’ll be instilled with a kind of appreciation Adam and Eve never had before the curse. Better than paradisal creations, we will be redeemed creations and that means our eyes will be opened. Our eyes will be opened not so we can have the knowledge of good and evil — as was Satan’s temptation. Our eyes will be opened so we can see the Lord our God. Our holy Savior in all of His magnificent glory forever.