Starting at the beginning to recognize features of God’s and the serpent’s work can invigorate our study of Scripture, clarify difficult passages, and help us recognize God’s character in his repeated actions.

The early chapters of the Bible present stories that seem distant from our experiences, difficult to comprehend, even disturbing. Yet in them there is a logic that is foundational to understanding the whole of Scripture.

Paradigm of the Good

The creation story of Genesis 1–2:4 moves from the dark, formless, and empty to rest and a fruitful land. God addresses the three pre-creation problems by declaring, “Let there be light;” then with three days of separating to form heavens, waters above and below, and land; and with three days of filling each newly formed domain.¹ God sees what he has made as “good” or “very good” seven times.

God considers his purpose for people and shares it with them:

“Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”

God created humankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them,
male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I now give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” (Genesis 1:26–29, NET)

In the opening chapter of Scripture, God declares the role he has for people: we represent him to his creation—with responsibilities toward animals, plants, and the land (though without intrinsic authority over other people)²—and we are to increase. God speaks light into being, forms, fills, and, finally, sets the example of rest on the seventh day.

In Genesis 2’s creation account, there is also movement from the uninhabitable to a fruitful land.³ God forms a man in a place without plants or rain, then places him in a well-watered garden of fruit trees.

The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain[/guard] it. Then the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.” (Genesis 2:15–18, NET)

After God forms the woman from part of the man, the author notes, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife, and they become one family. The man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed.” (Genesis 2:24–25, NET)

Together, these and other Genesis 1 and 2 elements constitute a paradigm—God’s original intent for his creation, for people.

Proposed Elements—Genesis 1–2 Paradigm (Reference)

• Representing God to his creation—“Let us make man in our image” (1:26–27)
• Responsibilities toward creatures—Rule over the fish, birds, cattle, creeping things (1:26)
• Fruitfulness without shame or abuse—“Be fruitful and multiply”; clothing/covering nakedness (1:28; 3:22)
• Responsibility for the land—Fill the land and subdue it (1:28)
• Rest—“God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had been doing in creation.” (2:2–3)
• Cultivating and guarding the garden—“Then the Lord…put him into the garden…to cultivate it and keep[/protect] it.” (2:15)
• Ordered liberty—“From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” (2:16–17)
• Man-woman as whole—“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” (2:24)
• Walking in the garden as relationship with God—“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (3:8)

The Turn

In Genesis 3, the woman and man choose the opposite of God’s purpose for them. Prompted by the snake, the woman sees as good the very thing God told the man not to eat, and then she takes it:

When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. (Genesis 3:6a, NET, emphasis mine)

This is a phrase worth remembering because variations on it return in story after story,⁴ alerting us to temptation scenes.⁵

Seeing and Taking—Selected Echoes of Genesis 3:6

• “…the sons of God saw that the daughters of humankind were beautiful[/good]. Thus they took wives for themselves from any they chose.” (Gen 6:2)
• “When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. When Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. So Abram’s wife was taken into the household of Pharaoh…” (Gen 12:14–15)
• “When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.” (Gen 30:9)
• “When Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force. He was deeply attracted to Dinah the daughter of Jacob…” (Gen 34:2–3)
• “…when I saw among the spoil a beautiful[/good] mantle from Shinar and two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I coveted[/desired] them and took them” (Josh 7:21)
• “Now when evening came David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king’s house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful[/good] in appearance. So David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” David sent messengers and took her…” (2 Sam 11:2–4)

The man also eats the fruit. Both realize they are naked and attempt to cover themselves.

God walks in the garden and questions them. They imperfectly acknowledge what they’ve done. He responds with poems for the serpent, woman, and man. In the serpent poem, God declares an enduring conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman:

The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all the cattle
and all the living creatures of the field!
On your belly you will crawl
and dust you will eat all the days of your life.
And I will put hostility between you and the woman
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:14–15, NET)

The generational conflict reveals the serpent to be not merely an animal but a spiritual force in opposition to God’s purpose. This is the central conflict of Scripture evident from Genesis to Revelation, later authors recognizing and incorporating the work of earlier ones in narrative, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, Gospel, epistle, and apocalypse.

In Hebrew, the word for the serpent’s cunning (arum) resembles the word for nakedness (arom).⁶ We might receive the pun as linking the serpent to the man and woman’s exposure. In contrast, God provides skin clothing to replace the humans’ feeble attempts at covering themselves. Uncovering nakedness will return as a euphemism for sexual abuse in subsequent passages. We learn here first that it is in the character of God to cover nakedness—and in the character of the serpent to expose it.

To prevent access to the Tree of Life once the man knows of good and evil, God exiles the man from the garden “to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken” (Gen 3:23).

Losing Battles and The Paradigm of the Bad

In Genesis 4–11, the conflict continues. There are few glimmers of good against a dark backdrop, a backdrop we might synthesize as a paradigm of the bad—example after example of “seed-of-the-serpent” behavior. Actions opposite those God requires in Genesis 1–2 lead to outcomes opposite those God desires.

Read More