The devil has been fashioning false gods since his successful encounter with Eve—where the first imitation god he offered was Eve herself. He shamelessly creates counterfeits of the true God and convinces entire nations that they are just as good as God. They look like God, they have some of God’s attributes, they can be worshiped as God, so why shouldn’t they be accepted as God? Satan’s imitations cannot substitute for God—God is one of a kind.

A favorite nursery rhyme is the familiar tale of an egg that takes an unfortunate tumble:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.

According to those who know about such things, this piece of wisdom is a relic thousands of years old. Versions have appeared in eight European languages.

In its primitive stages, however, Humpty Dumpty was a riddle. It asked the question: what, when broken, can never be repaired, not even by strong or wise individuals? As any child knows, an egg. Regardless of how hard we try, a broken egg can never be put back together again. We simply have to learn to live with the mess.

There is a Humpty Dumpty story in the Bible. We call it the Fall.

Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. They claim they possess the necessary wisdom to be like God. When the dust settles, Adam and Eve are not perched on a lofty plane. They have fallen. Regardless of how hard we try, things can never be put back together again.

The Fall

The temptation was not simply an invitation to break a single rule, though it was that.

It was an invitation to begin a revolution, to start thinking differently about where the center of everything is.

In the beginning, there was God. Human beings made in his image rightly related to him. They woke up and thought about him. They loved him and cherished him.

They were rightly related to each other because they were rightly related to him. Now with each human being wanting to be at the center of the universe, then God himself gets relegated to the second division. God now if he, she, or it exists, better exist to please me or, frankly, I’ll find another God,

And there is the beginning of idolatry, and because I am at the center of the universe, but you, think that you’re the center of the universe, pretty soon you start fighting me and I start fighting you. It is not long then before there is someone gets killed, war and hate and lust and greed and animosity. All stemming from idolatry.

All stemming from the simple fact that we say, “I will be God!” That is what this sin really is. It’s a revolution against God, against the Maker, the Maker whose world Adam and Eve are enjoying, whose presence they delight in. “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.”

The woman saw that it was good for food; that is, physically appealing. She saw that it was pleasant to the eye; that is, aesthetically pleasing. She saw that it was desirable for gaining wisdom; that is, mentally transforming. She saw all these things and she made her own judgment. “This is good.”

Already we’re a long way removed from chapters 1 and 2. In chapters 1 and 2, God made something, and he said that it was good. He made something else, and he saw that it was good. He made the whole thing, and he saw that it was very good, for God alone is completely equipped to define what is good and what is evil.

But now the woman wants the right to define for herself what is good and what is evil.

That is not uncommon for us today is it? The woman follows her impressions instead of her instructions, her desire to be fulfilled instead of her desire to obey.

She wants to be like God instead of to love God. She takes some and she eats.

The initial consequences that erupted from that first temptation.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons. 8And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden.

9 And Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. 11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? 12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 13 And Jehovah God said unto the woman, What is this thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

The woman listens to the Serpent under her and Adam listens to his wife instead of to God. God rebukes him for that.

Together they defy almighty God, there is a massive inversion. It is a strange sort of notion to achieve divinity by inverting everything that God has made.

The immediate consequences stressed in the text are these. Their eyes were opened. At one level, you see, the Serpent kept his promise. They now deepen the level of their moral consciousness, but from inside evil. It’s a bit like the patient with a disease. The doctor knows the disease from the outside.

So, the promised insight to have a deepened moral consciousness in some way turns out to be a massive and grotesque distortion, a hideous anticlimax.

Human beings want enlightenment at all cost. What they lose is the light of God. Far from making them rich and insightful, it now makes them pitiful and grotesque. Now so much torn up on the inside, they can’t even see that they’re lost. Just like a whole roomful of diseased people sharing the same disease may not see what it’s like to be healthy.

Because their eyes are open, they now know they are naked. They sew fig leaves together for a covering. At one level, it’s pretty sick, a bit pathetic. Yet God himself suggests that they’re doing the right thing at this point. For He gives them garments to cover themselves, garments that are of a more permanent nature.

For the point of the fig leaves, in part, is this. Now they have plenty to be ashamed of and they start covering up. This side of the fall, there is no going back to innocence. None.

We have eaten the fruit. We know what evil is from the inside. We ourselves now become evil. Standing over against God there is no return to innocence. We need to cover up.

Next, there’s broken fellowship with God, verses 8–10

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” First time. They have one sin and they hide from God. It is always the way. When we have defied God, we are not prepared to meet him.

The Bible is not a book about human beings climbing out of the primordial ooze and trying somehow to find God. The Bible is a book instead of human beings who have defied God and now spend their entire existence running from him, yet somehow drawn to him because they were made in his image, because there is still the stamp of God upon them.

If they don’t want him, they’ll find other gods or a distorted, twisted view of the true God.

God pursues them,  “But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ ” Not because he doesn’t know. He’s not asking the question to get some information but to expose the futility and stupidity of trying to hide from God.

Already here, there is grace, and it is only God’s Word that penetrates their concealment. “Adam answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’ ”

Here is the introduction of fear, the first fear in the Bible: fear of God.

Not the reverential fear that is our rightful due. Here is, fear of exposure and judgment before a God who has every right to condemn us.

Then there is broken fellowship with other human beings, verses 11 and following. “God said to the man, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?’ The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’ ” Not the last time a man has blamed his wife. Mind you, she’s no better. She promptly blames the Serpent. Everybody has to blame somebody else.

The explicit curse that was pronounced as a result of this temptation.

Verses 14–19: “So the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’ ”

God still remains sovereign, He’s not jeopardized by rebellion, His sovereignty remains undiminished. It is now merely focused in a different context. His first pronouncement of judgment is against the Serpent. Many Christians have thought that this suggests that serpents were at one point reptiles and became serpents at this point. That’s not inconceivable.