Bible Difficulties (16 page)

In the case of the serpent, serving as Satan's mouthpiece, his previous uses of
'elohim
(3:1, 5 a) are unquestionably intended as a designation of the one true God; hence, it is altogether likely that it should be so used here. Therefore, the proper rendering of 3:5 b should be (as ASV, NASB, NIV, and even the Luther Bible): "You will be like God, 65

knowing good and evil," The last phrase acts as a qualifier; that is, "you will be like God in that you will have personal knowledge of the moral law, with the distinction that it draws between good and evil." No longer would they remain in a state of innocency, but they would have a (guilty) personal experience of evil and would be to that extent closer to God and His angels in the matter of full moral awareness.

Who, then, constitutes the "us" referred to in v.22? Conceivably the three persons of the Trinity might be involved here (as in Gen. 1:26), but more likely "us" refers to the angels surrounding God's throne in heaven (cf. 1 Kings 22:19; Isa. 6:1-3, etc.). There are a few passages in the Old Testament where the angels are referred to as
bene 'elohim
("sons of God, " e.g., Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:6; cf.
bene 'elim
--a shortened form of
'elohim
, Pss. 29:1; 89:6). In some cases, just as
bene Yisra'el
("sons of Israel") is shortened to
Yisra'el
alone (referring to the nation of Israel rather than to Jacob), so also
bene 'elohim
("sons of God"

in the sense of angels) is shortened to
'elohim
, as in Psalm 97:7.

It was certainly true of the angels of heaven that they too had acquired a knowledge of good and evil. Before the dawn of human history, there was apparently a revolt against God under the leadership of Satan or "Lucifer" (see Isa. 14:12-15, where Satan is addressed as the patron of the king of Babylon). This is probably alluded to in 2 Peter 2:4: "God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment." Therefore, those angels who remained true to the Lord were members of His heavenly court, having passed the tests of faithfulness and obedience in the face of temptation.

If it was not until after Adam and Eve had eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge
and were hiding their nakedness in the garden that God knew they had disobeyed
Him, how is this compatible with the belief that God is everywhere and knows what
is in man's heart and what man will do?

The inference that God did not foreknow that Adam and Eve would yield to temptation and fall into sin is not supported by Scripture. In John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus as the

"Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world" (cf. Rev. 13:8), then God certainly foreknew that our first parents would sin and fall before they were even created. Even so, Jesus foreknew--and foretold--Peter's triple denial of Him in the courtyard of the high priest, even though Peter asserted his willingness to die for his Master if need be (Matt.

26:33-35). It was after Peter had denied knowing Jesus for the third time that Jesus turned His gaze in Peter's direction and their eyes met (Luke 22:60-61).

When the Lord called out to Adam in the garden (Gen. 3:9), He knew perfectly well where Adam was hiding (cf. Ps. 139:2-3), what he had been thinking, and what he had done (cf. Prov. 15:3). But there was no other way He could deal with Adam and Eve concerning their sin than to question them about it: "Have you eaten from the tree?...What is this you have done?" (Gen. 3:11, 13). Parents normally use this approach when they apprehend their children in wrongdoing, even though they are well aware of their guilt. The use of a question leads to the necessary first step of confession: "Yes, Father, I broke it--by accident, of course."

66

Obviously, God was already aware of what Adam and Eve had done, and He had already decided how to deal with them in the light of their transgression (Gen. 3:14-19).

This is simply an example of the general principle set forth in Acts 15:18: "Known to God are all His works from the beginning of the world." See also Isaiah 41:26; Isa. 42:9, 23; Isa. 43:9, 12; Isa. 44:7-8--all of which lay the strongest stress on God's foreknowledge of the future and His ability to predict exactly what is going to happen, even to revealing these matters to His prophets centuries in advance of their occurrence.

Were Adam and Eve saved? When God clothed them with animal skins after the
Fall, did He also teach them about blood sacrifice and the atonement? Was Adam a
high priest for his family?

The first people to be forgiven of their sin were undoubtedly Adam and Eve. Their repentance and forgiveness are presupposed in Genesis 3:9-21, even though it is not explicitly spelled out. To be sure, the recorded remarks of both Adam and Eve included some evasion of personal responsibility for eating the forbidden fruit--Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent--but both admitted by implication that they had actually committed the very offense that they had promised never to do.

Even though no genuine, full admission of guilt and repentance for sin is recorded in this chapter, the disciplinary measures meted out by God--Eve is to have painful childbirth and be subordinate to her husband; Adam is to eke out a hard living from the soil, with the prospect of eventual death to his body--are governed by considerations of forgiveness and grace. God did not reject them and leave them to the punishment they deserved, but He put them under a chastening discipline out of motives of love. He showed His purpose to be a salutary reminder of their past unfaithfulness and of their need to put Him first in their lives.

Since Genesis 3:15 contains the first announcement of the coming of the Savior-- "He

[the Seed of the woman] shall bruise you on the head, and you [the satanic serpent] shall bruise him on the heel"--it seems logical to conclude that at the time God clothed the nakedness of Adam and Eve, He also instructed them in the significance of the atoning blood of the substitute sacrifice. Adam then doubtless passed on to his sons his understanding of the blood-sacrifice atonement; for it is clear that Abel, Adam's second son, was a true believer and was well instructed about substitutionary atonement, symbolized by his sacrifice of an innocent lamb on the altar (Gen. 4:4).

Cain and Abel seem to have approached their own altars directly, thus being personally responsible for their offerings, since there is no mention of Adam's serving them in a priestly capacity. Cain's vegetable offering would never have secured his father's approval, because Cain tried to approach God without atoning blood; and Adam would never have approved what God condemned (Gen .4:5).

67

We conclude, therefore, that Adam and Eve were the first humans to conceive of saving faith in the grace of God, though Abel was the first person to die in a state of salvation, having predeceased his father by more than eight hundred years (Gen. 5:3-5).

One final comment about drawing conclusions from silence needs to be made. The Gospels never speak of Jesus ever kissing His mother. But would it be safe to conclude that He never did? Even so it is unjustified to infer from the absence of Adam's words of self-condemnation and sorrow for sin that he never, in the 930 years of his earthly life, expressed his heartfelt repentance to the Lord.

What was there about Cain's offering that made it unacceptable to God? Was it the
offering itself, or was it Cain's attitude?

It would appear that Cain was at fault, both in his attitude and in the offering he presented to the Lord. Cain's sacrifice consisted of crops he had raised in his garden (Gen. 4:3), rather than a blood sacrifice, as his younger brother Abel had set before the Lord.

That Abel presented a blood sacrifice and did so in faith (cf. Heb. 11:4) strongly suggests that he was claiming a divine promise of grace as he laid his lamb on the altar--a promise he had learned from his parents. God therefore was pleased with Abel's offering (Gen. 4:4) and responded to him with approval, in contradistinction to His rejection of Cain's offering. It would seem that Cain had followed his own judgment in choosing a bloodless sacrifice, disregarding the importance of blood as explained by God to Adam and Eve, and disregarding the principle of substitutionary atonement that later found its complete fulfillment in the crucifixion of Christ.

Cain's willful substitution of the work of his own hands in place of atoning grace was followed by a savage jealousy and burning resentment toward his younger brother (Gen.

4:5). This eventuated in his murder of Abel out in the field, where Cain supposed no one could see him. His proud self-will led him to commit homicide, and his descendants carried on something of his man-centered, God-denying attitude for many generations to come (see Gen. 4:18-24; cf. "the daughters of men" in Gen. 6:2).

Two of the sons of Adam and Eve had wives. Where did their wives come from?

Genesis 5:4 tells us that during Adam's long lifetime of 930 years (800 after the birth of Seth), he had other sons and daughters. Since he and Eve had been ordered to produce a large family in order to populate the earth (Gen. 1:28), it is reasonable to assume that they continued to have children for a long period of time, under the then ideal conditions for longevity.

Without question it was necessary for the generation following Adam to pair off brothers and sisters to serve as parents for the ensuing generation; otherwise the human race would have died off. It was not until the course of subsequent generations that it became possible for cousins and more distant relations to choose each other as marriage 68

partners. There seems to be no definite word about the incestuous character of brother-sister marriage until the time of Abraham, who emphasized to the Egyptians that Sarah was his sister (cf. Gen. 20:12), thus implying to the Egyptians that if she was his sister, she could not be his wife (Gen. 12:13).

In Leviticus 20:17 the actual sanction against brother-sister marriage is spelled out. But as for Cain and Seth and all the other sons of Adam who married, they must have chosen their sisters as wives.

Why do people not live as long now as they did in early times (cf. Gen. 5:5; Ps.

90:10)? Was time calculated differently then?

At the time Adam and Eve were created, they were in an ideal environment for the preservation of human life. The Garden of Eden was ideally suited to maintaining their health and vigor unimpaired. Even after they were expelled from Eden, it would seem that conditions for longevity were still far more favorable than they later became after the Flood; and there may well have been a virtual absence of disease. When these conditions gradually changed for the worse, particularly after the terrible judgment of the Flood, the life expectancy of man became progressively shorter. By Moses' time a lifetime of seventy years was considered normal, and those who lived on the eighty or beyond were generally beset with discomforts and weaknesses of various sorts, until they finally passed off the scene (see Ps. 90:10, dating back to the time of Moses, around 1400 B.C.).

It seems that there was gradual working out of the cursed effects of sin on the physical well-being and stamina of the human race, even long after the Fall had taken place.

As for the suggestion that time may have been computed differently during the earlier history of mankind, this could only have been the case if the planet Earth revolved more rapidly around the sun then than it does now. By definition of a year is reckoned as the time necessary for the earth to revolve around the sun. According to Genesis 1:14, this revolution, as well as the daily rotation of the earth, was pretty well set and standardized right from the beginning. It is rather unlikely (though not absolutely impossible) that these planetary movements would have greatly altered since the creation of man.

Why is so much emphasis put on the antediluvian genealogy in the Bible? If the
whole world was destroyed with the Flood, wouldn't everybody be of the same
bloodline through Noah and his family? In other words, aren't we all related?

Yes, we are indeed all descendants of Noah, for all other families in the antediluvian human race were destroyed by the Flood (so Gen. 7:21: "And all flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts...and all mankind"). The reason for the genealogical listing in Genesis 5 was to give the family line of Noah himself, since his descent from Adam through the covenant line of true believers was a matter of prime importance. Likewise in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ, as given in Luke's gospel, these same antediluvian ancestors are listed (see Luke 3:36-38) to show that the Second Adam was descended from the first Adam. Furthermore, the godly walk of leaders like Seth, the son of Adam (Gen. 4:26), and his son Enosh was a matter of great 69

importance; so too was the close fellowship Enoch had with God before the Lord took him at the age of three hundred years to dwell with Him in heaven's glory.

Are there passages in the Old Testament indicating that the men and women of
ancient Israel entertained a heavenly hope?

It is a mistake to suppose that God's people had no heavenly hope in Old Testament times. Genesis 5:24 records that, after a godly life, Enoch was taken away (
laqah
) by God--with the clear implication that from that time on he was in God's presence (Hebrews 11:5 confirms this: "By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found because God took him up" [NASB]. Enoch therefore never died but went directly to God's presence.)

Despite his moods of deep discouragement, the patriarch Job still showed confidence when he said, "After my skin has been destroyed, yet in [from the vantage point of] my flesh I will see God [just previously referred to as Job's Redeemer (
go'el
) in Job 19:25]"

(Job 19:26). (The rendering "without my flesh I shall see" runs counter to the usage of the preposition
min
["from"] wherever else in the OT it is used with the verb "see," whether
hazah
, the one used here, or with the more common
ra'ah
. Everywhere else
min
refers to the vantage point from which the looking is done.)