Adam – Great Accuser of God

Adam – Great Accuser of God

By Joanie Stahl (June 2018)

This morning as I was doing devotions, I came across a verse I know I have read what feels like a million times.  Yet, in a moment of time as my eyes read it, what felt like a flash of light fell upon that verse and it was as if a great door in heaven was opened to me. By that light, I could see much deeper than ever before.  

Before I tell you what verse it was, I want to emphasize that in reading the Word it should be read slowly. I try to always read it like that.  

Job 34:3puts it well, “For the ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meat.” I cannot think of a better way to put it than the way this was expressed.  Just chew slowly and let the food release its hidden flavors and ingredients.

The word of God cannot be choked down like junk food. It has to be savored.

Now, with that being said, here is the verse I read.

“If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom.” ~ Job 31:33, KJV.

I purposely isolated this verse because the Holy Spirit, “The Teacher,” did so with me.  What I am about to reveal to you, I will do so as He revealed it to me.  It was one of those moments that I knew from experience He would enlarge and expand on as I spent time lingering over it.  

What stuck out to me was that Job poised a question to his accusers using Adam as a direct example to equate his point, shedding light on what I never saw before.  My focus is on how Job mentioned Adam’s transgressions in the plural.  

I will springboard from that focal point. In addition, I noticed that this is the only account I have read in the Word that says this about Adam.  That he “covered his transgressions, and hid his iniquity in his bosom”. That is what Job is saying directly.

I would say that for most of us that have read the account of Adam and Eve’s fall, we focus on mostly one thing alone.

They both partook of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Something God expressly, plainly, and firmly commanded them NOT to do.  Of other commandments, none is mentioned except this oneand onlything.  

I believe that most of us can take a bit more out of this event as we go along the road of Christian maturity in knowledge and understanding.  However, today was quite different.  

Today I saw that Job mentions the “transgressions andiniquity” of Adam as more than just one thing we are used to thinking about.  Meaning, the only action we see in his taking the forbidden fruit out of Eve’s hand and eating it. 

I would like to point out that iniquity has a different meaning than sin.  Iniquity means not just a single act of sin, but also the practice of it.  

I began to do some deeper thinking.

I thought that I would revisit this chapter in Genesis 3 again for further analysis.

“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.  And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?  And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not sure die.  For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.  And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make on wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

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.

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

And the Lord called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou?  And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.  And he said said, Who told thee thou was naked?  Has thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of tree and I did eat.” ~ Genesis 3:1-12, KJV.

Now, what I saw leap off the page were the first words that came out of Adam’s mouth to God.  He said, “the woman that THOU GAVESTto be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.”  This blatant, radical pride caused him to accuse God.  

Adam’s transgressions and iniquities are now to going unfold here from this point on.

Let me direct your attention to Adam’s excuse to God.  I saw it not as some shaking milquetoast answer that Adam gave, as I first read it.  I have to admit that I have always had this pathetic picture of his knees shaking, and his back bent forward in humiliating shame.  

Now I see this picture in a new light.  I saw that Adam accused God to His face, showing no remorse, but a brazen, finger pointing to his Creator.  He was tossing the blame on Him.

He hid his transgressions and iniquities in his bosom because he fell out of fellowship with God probably a long time ago, and took for granted what God had given to him.  This is a direct result of spiritual death.  

The epitome of abject rebellion worse than I had previously thought.  We know that when God had created Adam that he was made in “the image and likeness of God”.  After they were cast out of the garden, then were children born in the image and likeness of Adam. (Genesis 5:4).  

They were the only ones who knew what it was like to experience everything in the utmost perfect environment of God’s resplendent glory of His creation.  Something we will never know until the One Thousand Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ.

“And God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth.  So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created he Him, male and female, created He them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” ~ Genesis 1:26-28, KJV.

The whole inference here is that it is unimaginable to think of what kind of man Adam was and what it truly meant to be made in the direct “image and likeness of God”, to be given total dominion over the whole earth and seas, and to subdue them.  

The beauty here is God had said He gave them dominionBoth Adam and Eve were to enjoy partnership forever in that glorious, spectacular beauty.  I want to add that I believe that though the Garden of Eden was beyond any earthly beauty that we have ever seen, but that the beauty of that garden laid in the fact that God walked in that garden every morning.

Adam’s intelligence, abilities, and strength were beyond what any of us could ever imagine.  He was given total dominion over the whole earth, with the Godhead in authority over him.  As far as we know, only one command was given to them under the penalty of spiritual death if they disobeyed.  He and Eve received that one and only command in their perfection.

What happened?  What happened during that time between Adam and Eve being created and the subsequent fall?  We all focus solely on Eve, as you can read above regarding the Tempter tempting her in the garden.  

We have all surmised that this tempting by the enemy in the form of a serpent must have gone on for some period of time because it is evident in that she showed no fear or surprise that a Serpent talked to her. Instead, it seemed that she was used to it.

Also, I want to add that we all have arrived at some conclusion about Adam that he knew better and should have dealt with this issue long ago.  They were the only two people alive on earth at that time, which would suggest to me that when the Serpent was tempting her she had to have told Adam about it.  

She could have kept it hidden from him, but it does not seem so in that he just took the fruit from her hand and ate it easily.  This is suggestive to me that Satan was also at work on Adam simultaneously.

We see no shock, no expression of confusion or surprise. It looks like Eve became used to it and familiar with it.  We draw mostly all of our focus on her because she apparently was the one, the only one mentioned in the above verses as being tempted by the Satan … or so it seems.

Yet, when I read Adam’s first reply to God, it reveals a whole lot more.  After all, the Lord even says that “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaketh”. ~ Matthew 12:34.

This man Adam knew God in ways we can neverimagine.  He was made in the direct image and likeness of God.  As we have understood by theologians, he was able to use his entire brain, whereas, after the fall, we were all reduced to 11% of our brain’s usage.  He was a type of super-man, which makes it even worse because of his being so.  

Then I thought of these verses.

“For Adam was first formed, then Eve.  And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression”. ~ 1 Timothy 2:14, KJV.

I know that scripture does not contradict itself.  How can Paul say, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was?”  Were they not both deceived?  Not according to this verse.  Which makes it a worse crime against Adam!  Besides, when God confronts them, His questioning Adam shows us that Adam was responsible for Eve’s own fall, making him in large part responsible for her to a greater degree.

He sinned against God being UNDECEIVED.  He did it with his eyes wide open.  He clearly did not do this in his sleep. What happened to him?  What I think is that while Eve was being tempted by Satan, so was Adam over a long period of time.  Theybothseemed unaffected by the Serpent.

Three was definitely not a crowd in the Garden of Eden.

It is as if he dropped the ball along the way somewhere. His reply to God was ONLY something Satan would say to God’s face.  The first question from God to Adam was, “Who told thee that wast naked”? 

As far as I know, God does not play games with people’s lives.  He does nothing without purpose.  If He was asking “Who” it was that informed them they were both naked, He already knew “WHO” it was.  It says in the Word, “their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked”right?  So if they already knew that they were naked is not the issue.  God was asking “WHO” told them they were naked”.  

I further believe that it was God giving Adam a chance right off the bat to say it was the devil who told him he was naked, thereby offering both of them a chance to repent.  

According to 1 Timothy 2:13, it says that “Adam was first formed then Eve”. Adam’s nakedness resulted in Eve’s nakedness.  There was a breakdown somewhere with Adam.

After all, isn’t it always the way with the enemy to tempt us into ruin, then instantly turn to accuse and blame us before God?  Satan even told them that “the day they would eat of it, their eyes would be open and they would be as gods”.  Keep in mind though, that it was God first who told them those exact same words and Satan was only repeating it.  

That is what Satan does.  He takes the Word of God and twists it to pollute it. Then he uses it to tempt us to sin. That is why he is called the Liar.

Who else would it be to stand as the immediate accuser except the one who tempts you? I could just hear Satan saying to them, “Now look at what you have done!  You are both naked! You fell for it”! 

I am only surmising of course, but that is how I can imagine hearing that old serpent the Devil mocking them.  

What else was the serpent feeding Adam, the perfect man, appealing to his being given dominion over the entire earth, and welling him up with pride I suppose.  It is what the Serpent was telling Eve that would make me think that he was saying the same thing to Adam, but tailored to him being the man, the head over Eve.  Remember that Satan always works both sides.  

Think about it.  When Satan, known as Lucifer, was in heaven, we understand by scripture that he was the most beautifully created being ever made.

Let us take a look.

“Thou has been in Eden the garden of God: every precious stone wasthy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou was created. 

Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth:  and I have set thee so: thou wast upon thy holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.  Thou wastperfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created, till iniquity was found in thee.”  Ezekiel 28:13-15, KJV.   

The iniquity that he was charged with was pride.  He looked upon his own beauty, and declared that he would ascend unto the throne of God, and sit in His throne and become god.  Pride corrupted him, perverted him, and turned him into a devil.

For the sake of time, I will furnish you with the verses to look into on your own.

Ezekiel 28:16-18that describes his heinous crimes against God, and Isaiah 14:12-19describes his fall.

These are important to draw on to understand the mind of Satan.  It does say that he was in the garden of God.  Satan understood what it meant to be superior in power being that he was “the anointed cherub”.  

He understood what it meant to be created with spectacular beauty.  He understood what a special place he had before God because it says that he was “the anointed cherub whose wings covereth”.  Covered what? The very throne of God!  He was the only Angel we have read about that had this great honor and privilege.  If there are any others, they are not mentioned in scripture, though it is not in our range to believe there could be others that have this honor.

His being cast out into the earth is what we read about Genesis 1:2, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”  

In the Hebrew manuscripts, what I understand is that the darkness that is described in the verse above means the “powers of darkness”.  Satan’s being cast down to the earth caused it to become a dark, void, uninhabitable wasteland.  The creative week responds to the Lord’s creating man to have dominion over it and govern it.

“The heaven, eventhe heavens, are the LORD’S but the earth hath He given to the children of men.” ~ Psalm 115:16, KJV.

Do you see where I am getting at here?  Satan wanted the earth back that is plain to see; but what I am directing your attention to is that Eve could not be the only one who was being tempted. 

How long they were both in the garden no one knows. Regardless, Satan had to have been tempting Adam with the same sin of pride that his own heart was tempted with that eradicated him from heaven.  Satan knew the end result of pride and what it turns a person into, as he was the first one to be “lifted up in pride”.   

It is plain to see in play-by-play in Genesis 3:5.  He knew firsthand what would get them cast out of the garden because he himself was cast out of heaven.  He knew what worked well.  I would think that he had to break Adam down as he did to Eve, to try to convince Adam that he was given all the earth to rule over and that he could be his own god.  

I would imagine that the Serpent played on Adam’s beauty as well because I cannot imagine Adam to be anything but beautiful.  Satan’s pride and jealousy was the fuel force of his temptation, of not only Adam and Eve, but also later on with Jesus in his being tempted of the Devil for 40 days and 40 nights.  Look at what he offered the Lord in Matthew 4:8:

“Again, the devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them:  And saith unto Him, All these things will I give thee, If thou wilt fall down and worship me.”

The accusation answer Adam gave to God was worsethan anything because he“covered his transgressions and hid his iniquity in his bosom”.  In the pride and hardness of heart, he accused God by saying, “the woman YOU GAVE ME...”  In other words, this is the worst kind of egregious sin of pride sold by Satan and purchased by Adam.  At least that is how it seems to me.

Paul the Apostle said, “Adam was not deceived”,which I emphasize that there is nothing contradictory in scripture.  It plainly says he was NOT deceived!  Eve was deceived, and again this shows a breakdown somewhere in the headship regarding Adam. 

This event is not just the act of his wife handing him the forbidden fruit, it was what led up to it.  It was Satan being in the garden of God working on Adam in his own way, or Adam would never have said to God, “The woman YOU GAVEme…”

“But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”  James 1:17, KJV.

This scripture seems to fit what I am trying to convey.  That the sin Adam and Eve committed did not just happen overnight, but after a long period of time.  

Here is another example.

There was a husband and wife named Ananias and Sapphira.  You can read the entire account of their sad and terrifying fall in Acts 5:1-10.  Each of them were both fairly given the chance to come clean and tell the truth, but instead they condemned themselves in their answer to Peter.  

Listen to what Peter said to Sapphira.

“Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband areat the door, and shall carry thee out.  Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband”. ~ Acts 5:9-10, KJV.

The power of Satan’s temptation is revealed here in such magnitude and his practices are the same!  Was this the same kind of temptation that befell Adam and Eve?  That Satan understood that to get two people to agree to sin against God was the caveat to damnation?  

We know that the number two is the spiritual legal number of witness. Deuteronomy 17:2-6, Matthew 18:15-17, Numbers 35:30, 2 Corinthians 13:1, just to name a few to establish this fact.

Notice that it was Eve that was deceived, then tempted, then sinned.  Did Adam fall in a sense from within his heart long ago before her?  Was the work of temptation by the Serpent in a sense completed in Adam, that all he needed to do was finish the job in Eve? Notice also that Adam did not even put up a fight, or argument to stop Eve by at least, smacking the fruit out of her greedy hand and reprimand her?

It is as if he just silently “took it and ate it” likeit was nothing. Then when God Himself visited them in the morning, asking Adam what happened. He cold-heartedly turned around and accused God for it, showing no remorse, contrition, or horror.  

There was a horrible absence of the “fear of the Lord” and a deadness.  As I write this, my heart breaks and I feel my eyes watering with tears.

 

How could a man like Adam, a superman so-to-speak, just accept the fruit being “not deceived”? It sounds to me that somehow, Satan had filled his heart with pride that led to brazen, in God’s-face rebellion.  It was a magnitude loss of love for God echoes for all eternity like a death-knell.

Doesn’t his reply to God sound like something Satan would say?  Does it not have that same mocking ring to it?  It sounds so much like Satan’s answer to God in the first chapter of Job.  That smart-aleck, accusatory remark he makes to God after He asks Satan what he has been up to, and where he has been?

“Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?  Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side”? ~ Job 1:9-10, KJV.  

How about this remark, “And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.  But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to they face”. ~ Job 2:4, KJV.

One last one being, “Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker”? ~ Job 4:17, KJV.

Could it be that these are the same kind of words the Serpent spoke to Adam and Eve to slowly erode their love, trust, and affection for God?

Could it even be that perhapsSatan was speaking through Adam when he blamed God and accused Him?  Or, did Satan influence Adam to the degree that he would snap off an answer like that to God in such a quick way? What happened to the heart of Adam?  

This I know for sure having been born in this fallen nature, that even as a born again Christian, practicing my walk with God daily, that when I sin there is an instant reaction of deep grief and shame.  

Everything in me wants to race like a lightning bolt on my knees to apologize to God and to confess my sins against Him.  It is not the way of those that know God to say, “Well if YOUwould not have given me this person to marry”, or, “IfYOUhad not given me this family to be born into”, etc.  

There is a horror of sin in the hearts of those in love with Jesus Christ at the first atom-particle of sin!  What happened to Adam and Eve’s hearts?  They only hid among the trees that He gave to them. 

Godknew they would sin, for it says so in Genesis 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Adam and Even might have been innocent in every way, but their hearts were not pure.  There is a big difference between innocence and purity.  Their righteousness had to be tested I think.  

 You see, we cannot underestimate the tempting power of the enemy if he could tempt the perfect “first man Adam” and his wife to sin in the worst act of rebellion and pride against God to His face to the very sad degree of neither of them showing nothing.  They had zero minus zero remorse.  

I picture them standing there like convicted felons receiving the “due penalty for their sins”.

Here is what was sadly missing.

“For Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.  For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a Godly sort, yea, whatcarefulness it wrought in you, yea, whatclearing of yourselves, yea, whatindignation, yea, whatrevenge!  In all thingsye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter”. ~ 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, KJV.

There was novehement desire of clearing of themselves, only a knee-jerk rebuttal of accusation against God on Adam’s part and a total deafening silence on Eve’s part.  After which we never hear anything else about them except they had more children that were produced under a curse. 

God gave them immediate, ample opportunity to repent.  Yet, Adam’s pride did not allow him to ask God for forgiveness, but rather blamed Him.  This was during the time God walked in the garden and openly spoke to them every morning – Something that any of us could only dream of. Only by pride does a heart become hardened and unresponsive to conviction of sin in this sad drama. 

This gave me a completely new insight into the ravages of sin and its brazenness to look right into the face of the loving God, the Almighty, and accuse Him for our sins. If Adam can say this while still in the garden before being cast out, how much blacker does sin look now?  

How much worse does sin look after He has sent His only begotten Son into this wilderness called earth to die a horrific death?

Job’s words about Adam opened up this door of thought and light to reveal further to us how far sin can take people away from the One who created them, and deeply loved them.  I can only imagine the sadness and heart wrenching loss God felt in that moment.  It is incomprehensible to me.

In this light, it highlights to me that here is a grave reality in view here of taking our salvation, the blessings, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the friendship of God for granted.  We see it every day. We also see in this epic part of human history in origin how we can dangerously get used to lodging with the enemy and get used to him.  

How he serpentizes himself in everyone’s lives and is so subtle about it that it is almost impossible for anyone to catch onto.  Think about it.  He did it to two perfectspecimens of humanity, and they fell and launched the entire rest of humanity into a horrific curse.  

If Jesus Christ is convicting us of sin, let usrun to Him and throw ourselves down on His nail-scarred feet and cast dust upon our heads, wasting no time in confessing our sins … all of them to Him! Then let us choose to live honestly and uprightly before Him – Not because we are afraid of getting in trouble, but because of possessing the revelation of the love He has toward us through Jesus Christ His only begotten Son.  By becoming born again which is the new creative act of becoming “a new creation”.  

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he isa new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new”. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV. 

Let us keep short accounts with Jesus Christ, counting Him your greatest reward here and in the world to come, life everlasting.  If you are saved or not and you are reading this article, be informed that any sins you have committed are forgiven as long as you confess them from a sincere heart to Jesus Christ. He will forgive you, and if you like, ask Him for salvation.

“But as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name”. ~ John 1:12, KJV.

“But what saith it?  The Word is nigh thee,even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach.  That, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed”.  Romans 10:8-11, KJV.

Just do not wait too long or your hearts will become hardened and you do not want that to happen to you!  Make certain to “Hold fast your crown and let no man take it from you!”  

Shalom to you