I. “And the eyes of both of them were opened” (Gen. iii. 7). This was what Satan had promised and Adam and Eve had desired, but it was different from what they expected. Their eyes were opened in disillusion. They found themselves deceived, fooled, robbed of their most precious possession. Peace, tranquillity, enjoyment were gone; anxiety and bitter remorse had succeeded. They had not taken their place in the sinless sphere of lower creatures; that sphere was adequate for the animal world, but not for rational beings that had once been supernatural. Their natural faculties, sufficient for life in the lower sphere had they never been raised above it, were insufficient under the blighting influence of sin. There was little satisfaction in their new independence, for they now felt how necessary to their life was the dominion of God. First of all they were conscious of shame; their fearlessness and confidence were gone; they felt unfit to be seen by God or by one another. There was turmoil in their souls, an insurgence of the inferior and the animal against the higher and rational element. They had fallen under the degrading dominion of sense which had been their slave; for their mastery had been ensured by their subjection to God. So it always is. Sin promises much, but it is never really profitable. Its boasted revelations amount only to disillusion, disappointment, failure, and shame.
II. A second new feeling was a dread of God and desire to escape from His presence. When He appeared, Adam and Eve fled to the depths of the thicket. The unchangeable God was still their Father and loved them, but they could not feel themselves to be His children. Previously on terms of familiarity with the Infinite and delighting in His revelations, now they were ill at ease before Him. Their sense of guilt changed Him in their eyes to a Judge and Master, a God of wrath and terrors, far removed above them. This sense was transmitted to their progeny, and dominated them till God the Son came in the flesh and restored the old relations of man towards his Maker. This is the usual effect of sin. It turns men against religion, virtue, and truth. It does not so much alienate God as alienate the sinner from Him. His beauty becomes a terror, His holiness an irritation, His goodness hateful. This is the cause of the eternal separation in the next world. The society of the devils is less uncongenial and less tormenting to the sinner than the society of the blessed and the sight of the divine glory. Flee from sin as from a basilisk.
III. The answers of Adam and Eve to God are evidence of their rapid and complete moral deterioration. There is no honest contrition, no spontaneous sorrow for their offence against their Benefactor, such as might be expected to arise if their sin had been one of surprise and weakness, and if they had suddenly realized its enormity. On the contrary, there is sullen and futile excuse, as of those who are hardened and will not admit their guilt, and who seek to deceive God. They explain their flight from God as being shame at their nakedness, ignoring the evil deed which was the cause of their shame. Then Adam tries to shift the blame from himself, and cast it on the weaker one, and even on God Himself. “The woman whom Thou gavest me” tempted him, he says. Eve too has no sorrow; it is not she who is to blame, she says, but the tempter. All this shows depravity of character, consciousness of deliberate hostility to God, and a hardening of their hearts. Such parents could no more generate a spiritually perfect race, than consumptives, lepers, or idiots, a vigorous, healthy offspring. Our first parents accordingly transmitted to us an inability for the higher life they had rejected; or, in other words, the state of sin. All deliberate sins, especially the first ones, lower the moral level of a man, degrade him, and make him incapable, more or less, of taking high views and fulfilling the nobler duties of life.
II. A second new feeling was a dread of God and desire to escape from His presence. When He appeared, Adam and Eve fled to the depths of the thicket. The unchangeable God was still their Father and loved them, but they could not feel themselves to be His children. Previously on terms of familiarity with the Infinite and delighting in His revelations, now they were ill at ease before Him. Their sense of guilt changed Him in their eyes to a Judge and Master, a God of wrath and terrors, far removed above them. This sense was transmitted to their progeny, and dominated them till God the Son came in the flesh and restored the old relations of man towards his Maker. This is the usual effect of sin. It turns men against religion, virtue, and truth. It does not so much alienate God as alienate the sinner from Him. His beauty becomes a terror, His holiness an irritation, His goodness hateful. This is the cause of the eternal separation in the next world. The society of the devils is less uncongenial and less tormenting to the sinner than the society of the blessed and the sight of the divine glory. Flee from sin as from a basilisk.
III. The answers of Adam and Eve to God are evidence of their rapid and complete moral deterioration. There is no honest contrition, no spontaneous sorrow for their offence against their Benefactor, such as might be expected to arise if their sin had been one of surprise and weakness, and if they had suddenly realized its enormity. On the contrary, there is sullen and futile excuse, as of those who are hardened and will not admit their guilt, and who seek to deceive God. They explain their flight from God as being shame at their nakedness, ignoring the evil deed which was the cause of their shame. Then Adam tries to shift the blame from himself, and cast it on the weaker one, and even on God Himself. “The woman whom Thou gavest me” tempted him, he says. Eve too has no sorrow; it is not she who is to blame, she says, but the tempter. All this shows depravity of character, consciousness of deliberate hostility to God, and a hardening of their hearts. Such parents could no more generate a spiritually perfect race, than consumptives, lepers, or idiots, a vigorous, healthy offspring. Our first parents accordingly transmitted to us an inability for the higher life they had rejected; or, in other words, the state of sin. All deliberate sins, especially the first ones, lower the moral level of a man, degrade him, and make him incapable, more or less, of taking high views and fulfilling the nobler duties of life.
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