"Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the
garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where are you?" (Gen. 3:9).

Here we begin to trace the actions of divine grace with a sinner. At the same time, God’s righteous
judgment is not set aside, but maintained fully. Herein is seen the harmony of the divine attributes,
the moral unity of God. There is no conflict in His nature. Justice and mercy, holiness and love,
are not at war in Him. When He acts, all of His attributes act in harmony.

Notice that God questions the man and questions the woman; the serpent He does not question,
but proceeds instead immediately to judgment. Plainly there is something significant in this. It
cannot be thought that the One who is omniscient needed to know the things that He inquired
about; therefore, if not for His own sake, it must have been for man’s sake He asked these
questions. It was, in fact, the appeal to man for confidence in One who on His part had done
nothing to forfeit it. This was God’s gracious effort to bring Adam to own, in the presence of his
Creator, his present condition and the sin which had brought him into it.

It is in this same way that we find entrance into the enjoyed favor of a Saviour-God:"We have
access by faith into this grace wherein we stand," the "goodness of God [leading] to repentance"
(Rom. 5:2; 2:4). Confidence in that goodness enables us to take true ground before God, and
enables Him thus, according to the principles of holy government, to show us His mercy. Not on
the basis of self-righteous efforts to excuse ourselves, nor in self-sufficient promises for the future,
but "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:8).

To this confession do these questionings of God call these first sinners of the human race. Because
there is mercy for them, they are invited to cast themselves upon it. Because there is none for the
serpent, there is in his case no question.

Let us notice also the different character of these questions, as well as the order of them. Each of
these has its beauty and significance.

The first question ("Where are you?") is an appeal to Adam to consider his condition_the effect
of his sin rather than his sin itself. The second and third questions ("Who told you?" and "Have
you eaten?") refer directly to the sin. This double appeal we shall find everywhere in Scripture.
If man thirsts, he is bidden to come and drink of the living water. If he is laboring and heavy
laden, he is invited to find rest for his soul. This style of address clearly takes the ground of the
first question. It is the heart not at rest here rather than the conscience roused. However, when a
sense of guilt presses on the soul, Christ is right there with reassuring words:"The Son of Man
is come to seek and to save that which is lost" (Luke 19:10).

These are, as it were, God’s two arms thrown around sinful men. Thus would He seek to draw
them to Himself_appealing first to their self-interest when they are as yet incapable of any higher
motive. How precious is this witness to a love that is the very character of God (1 John 4:8,16).

How slow we are to credit Him when He speaks of "his great love wherewith He loved us, even
when we were dead in sins" (Eph. 2:4,5)! How little we believe it, even when we have before our
eyes God "in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them"
(2 Cor. 5:19)! The awful cross, wherein man’s sin finds alone its perfect evidence and
measurement, manifests the overflowing grace of God. But sadly, even in view of that cross,
sinful man justifies himself rather than God, and refuses the most plain and simple testimony to
sovereign goodness, which he has lost even the bare ability to conceive.

In how many ways is God beseeching man to consider his own condition at least, if nothing else!
In how many tongues is this "Adam, where are you?" repeated to the present day!

Adam does not initially respond to the LORD‘s questions and appeals. His confession of sin is
rather an accusation against God:"The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of
the tree, and I did eat." In patient majesty, God turns to the woman. She, more simply, but still
excusing herself, pleads she was deceived:"The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Then,
without any further question, He proceeds to judgment.

Enfolded in that judgment of the tempted ones lies mercy, and in the pronouncement of a curse
upon the old creation, there appears hints of the beginning of a new creation. "I will put enmity
between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and
you shall bruise His heel." This last expression received its plainest fulfillment on the cross. There
Satan manifested himself prince of this world, able (so to speak) by his power over men to cast
Christ out of it and put the Prince of Life to death. But that victory was his eternal overthrow:
"Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out; and I, if I be
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me" (John 12:31,32).

This is deliverance for Satan’s captives. However, it is not the restoration of the old creation nor
of the first man. The seed of the woman is emphatically the "Second Man," another and a "last
Adam," new Head of a new race, who find in Him their title as "sons of God," as "born, not of
blood [that is, naturally], nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John
1:12,13).

The judgment of the woman and the man now follow, but they have listened already to the voice
of mercy_a mercy that can turn to blessing the hardship and sorrow, henceforth the discipline of
life, and even the irrevocable doom of death itself. Adam was an attentive listener, as we may
gather from his own next words which are an intimation of the faith that has sprung up in his soul:
"And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living." The "woman
whom Thou gavest to be with me" is once again "his wife," and he names her through whom death
had come in as the mother, not of the dying, but the living.

Thus does Adam’s faith lay hold on God_the faith of a poor sinner surely, to whom divine mercy
has come down without a thing in him to draw it out, save only the misery that spoke to the heart
of infinite love. While he bows in submissive silence to the sentence of God’s judgment, the grace
enclosed in the sentence opens his lips again. Beautifully are we permitted to see this in Adam,
a faith which placed him before God for justification. This helps us to appreciate the significant

action that follows:"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and
clothed them." Thus the shame of their nakedness is removed, and by God Himself, so that they
are fit for His presence.

The covering provided by God must be seen as fully satisfying to God. Death provided this
covering. These coats of skin owned the penalty as having come in, and those clothed with them
found shelter for themselves in the death of another, and that the one upon whom it had come
sinlessly through their own sin. How full of instruction this is as to how even today man’s spiritual
nakedness is covered and he is made fit for the presence of a righteous God! These skins were the
witness of how God had maintained the righteous sentence of death, while removing that which
was now his shame, and meeting the consequences of his sin. Our covering is far more, but it is
such a witness also. Our righteousness is still the witness of God’s righteousness_the once dead,
now living One, "who of God is made unto us … righteousness," and in whom also we are "made
the righteousness of God" (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21).

The antitype in every way transcends the type; yet very sweet and significant is the first testimony
of God to the Son. It is a double testimony, first to the seed of the woman, the Saviour, and
second, a testimony to that work of atonement whereby the righteousness of God is revealed in
good news to man.

Not till the hand of God has so interfered for them are Adam and his wife sent forth out of the
garden. If earth’s paradise has closed for them, heaven has already opened. The tree of life, denied
only as continuing the old creation, stretches forth for them its branches, loaded with its various
fruit, "in the midst of the paradise [no longer of men, but] of God" (Gen. 3:24; Rev. 2:7; 22:2).

(From Genesis in the Light of the New Testament.)