Who God Is

Genesis 3 often is seen as a story of our failure – the great Fall of Humanity. We tend to see this chapter as tragic. But I don’t really think that’s the point of the story. Genesis 3 shows us such a beautiful picture of Who God Is.

When you consider Genesis 1 and 2, you see God speaking all the universe into existence, but, when God creates us, God stoops to the earth, getting hands dirty, and fashions us fearfully and wonderfully into the perfect sons and daughters of an Almighty God, creating us in God’s image and intimately breathing God’s very life into us. God invites us into co-creating as Adam is asked to name all the animals and Adam and Eve are asked to steward well the garden God personally planted for them.

God Pursues Us

God gives us great freedom in this story and only asks us not to try to know good and evil for ourselves; rather, we are asked to trust God’s judgment. There is only one thing prohibited. Yet, we quickly do this one thing, choosing not to trust God’s word to us, and choose to hide from God in our shame. Rather than destroying us or letting us bear our shame alone, God reveals God’s true character by looking for us, covering our shame, and revealing the plan to bear all our sins one day. God never stops stooping to our level to meet us where we are. God never forsakes us, no matter our shame or guilt. God keeps pursuing us and loving us even in our darkest days. This is Who God Is – our loving parent who will do whatever it takes to see us be who we were created to be, even come to earth and die on a Cross.