This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 27, 1992.

For those who are reading from Genesis 3, beginning with verse 8. Listen to the word of God. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the spirit of the day. and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field.

On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life, and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. To the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband. and he shall rule over you. Then to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now, lest he stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim, and flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way of the tree of life.

Help us, our Father, in our understanding of things. May we consider how far man has fallen, and yet, Lord, how far you would raise man, that out of your love and grace. And Lord, may we also consider the extent of your mercies, so as not to leave us alone. Yes, your presence with us, and also the presence of others of like precious faith in communion and fellowship with us too. We thank you, our God, that in this fellowship we might learn the lessons in which, then, Lord, we would become more and more like you. For you have not forgotten us, neither will we forget one another. We pray that your word would have its perfect fruit in us, that we might then, Lord, show ourselves sons and daughters of the King. We pray it in Jesus’ name. Amen. We have said that the section that presents us with the fall is an extensive section indeed.

It runs from the fourth verse of that second chapter in Genesis clear to the end of the fourth chapter of Genesis. So Genesis 2 verse 4 through Genesis 4 verse 26. We have also stressed again and again that the theme of this section is not specifically the fall, but the consequence of the fall. Placed in that light, then, the emphasis falls upon fellowship and the communion that was experienced by our first parents with God, the forfeiture that then came with respect to as our first parents fell.

Now we are looking at the fall itself in chapter three. We have considered the transgression, the sin in the first seven verses, and now we look at the consequent judgment of God, a judgment which also brings in its trail the grace of our Lord. verses 8 through 24 is that section to which we now turn our attention. This evening we are focusing upon verse 8. Verse 8, in a sense, reintroduces us to the person of God.

It reminds us of the state of things that were, in effect, prior to the fall and now sets before us well the consequences that are borne out as a result of the transgression of our first parents. God now comes back onto the scene. He had been present, of course, all along. the matter of God’s omnipresence. We have commented on that before. He is present even as our parents, our first parents, transgress, even as they consider sin and fall into it. But even though he is present, as he is always present, yet he is not seen. So now God approaches, he approaches the earth, he approaches the garden, he approaches our first parents in that medium in which he had approached them previously.

For there had been previous comings and goings of God in a special sense. We have then this fact, God always present, but yet approaching and being present in a specific sense. It is this arrangement that especially tests man with regard to his faithfulness. One might think that it would be quite difficult for man and his wife to transgress against God’s command when God himself is standing there, apparent, clearly. No question about it. There he is. But God recedes. He recedes into invisibility. He goes, he departs, he leaves. And so he is not apparently there. He is not visibly present for our first parents.

So this arrangement tests the faithfulness of our first parents. How will they behave? How will they respond when God isn’t apparently present, isn’t visibly there? The nature of the test continues, does it not, even though we are not in the garden? God is, to be sure, present. He is present though invisible. He is omnipresent. He is everywhere present, yet we do not see him. The question is, how do we act? How do we conduct ourselves even though we do not see him now?

But this arrangement also focuses the hope of our first parents. Yes, our first parents had a hope. They looked forward to something. Surely, as God departed, our first parents would look forward to his return, when he would be once more visibly with them. when their fellowship would take on that special feature and character of his presence with them. It focuses then, this arrangement, their hope so that they would anticipate a time in which that fellowship and communion with God would be constant, perpetual, without interruption. We are impressed, then, in this arrangement of things. With respect to these periodic visits by God, we are impressed with the fact that God, in coming to our first parents and in receding from them, was visible to them in some way or other.

The whole arrangement demands an appearance by God. Somehow, he makes himself known to them. He comes to them in some visible manner and impresses himself upon them. These then visible manifestations of God and anticipation of God’s visitation in His Son, when He would be then upon the earth in the form of human flesh.

You might well ask if these appearances to our first parents were not a pre-incarnate manifestation of the Son of God Himself. The arrangement, then, that is brought in view by that eighth verse of the third chapter in Genesis, an arrangement that tests man’s faithfulness, an arrangement that focuses his hope, an arrangement that sets before man the truth concerning God’s own revelation of Himself, that God will condescend to man’s need, he will appear to man, make himself visible in some form or other, because the ultimate hope with regard to man is that man would not merely simply be with God perpetually, but that he would actually see God.

It’s the hope that is expressed by Job, you may recall. In the nineteenth chapter of Job, Job speaks of that hope, realizing his own frailty, the fact that he is confronted with the threat of death, yet even beyond the dissolution of his body, he has the hope of the resurrection and the confidence that he in his flesh will see God. The psalmist expresses the same confidence. Psalm 17, where his hope, having been dragged through the threat of death, is expressed in terms of viewing the face of God in righteousness. This promise is repeated by Jesus Christ in the Beatitudes. He speaks about the pure in heart, who are told that they shall see God. The hope you see then is not merely to be with God, but to see Him. and the frequent occasional visits by God in the garden were to the end of preparing man for that eventual glorious end.

Verse 8, while reflective of the condition that existed prior to the fall, also brings us face to face with the conditions that now exist as a result of the fall. What is the manner of God’s coming now? There was no threat of judgment prior to the fall as God came. It is only that open-hearted, that open-faced communion and fellowship between God and his creatures is love. That now God approaches the fall being a fact.

There have been two approaches or interpretations with respect to God’s coming in verse 8. The traditional one is that God’s coming in verse 8 was quite casual and ordinary, as if he was still in the dark with respect to what had transpired, coming in fact to be surprised as to what had taken place. God’s approach then, possibly, was with regard to a schedule prearranged. God’s visits previously being regular, and God now just making one of his regular visits, checking in on his creatures, checking in on Adam and Eve.

Ordinarily he would come, announce his presence by speaking his word, in fact, going before him. The mention of his voice, then, is not out of place in verse 8. The sound of his coming, calling out to his creature, announcing his approach so that his creature would meet him. as he himself came to meet his creature. His presence indicated by the wrestling of the leaves in the trees, his presence indicated by a breeze, by a wind in the cool of the day. everything usual and ordinary, except on this visit by God, according to the prearranged regular schedule, God himself is surprised to find that man isn’t there. He is not responding to his call. Therefore, he calls even more insistently, demanding that man reveal himself. to him.

That’s the ordinary approach to the passage, the traditional approach to the passage. However, there is another interpretation that God’s approach here is anything but ordinary, that it is prompted by the transgression, the fall itself. On this interpretation, the voice of the Lord, as the King James has it, the voice of the Lord, God, is anything but an innocent call of inquiry. Rather, it is much more the trumpet blast that precedes God as he approaches in judgment a trumpet blast comparable to that which was heard at Sinai when God descended upon that mountain in his theophonic glory. It’s more like the sound of God on the march, as if he has an entire army of angels in train. as if in battle array, the sound of him heard as he moves through the tops of the trees, making his approach upon his sinful fallen creature.

If this is the proper approach to this text, then we must do a little bit of work. on that phrase that is interpreted traditionally, the cool of the day. We must re-examine that statement. Here also there will be testimony to the fact that God’s approach is anything but ordinary. You might have noted that as I have read that text, I have not read it in keeping with the traditional reading. I have not read it in the cool of the day. I have read it, rather, in the spirit of the day.

That’s what the Hebrew says, the Hebrew word for spirit there, the spirit of the day. If this is the correct rendering, which I believe it is, it means that The spirit spoken of here becomes a reference to the manner in which God appears, carrying through the idea that was already articulated or the reality that was already spoken of in the first chapter of Genesis, the second verse, where we are told about the spirit of God moving upon the face of the water.

Spirit then comes in a manner appropriate to the appearance of God. God’s appearance then conditioned itself by what has transpired, namely the fall and the reality of transgression now in the world. spirit of the day then brings into view that day, that specific day, the day of judgment passes before our eyes. So the picture is not of God, sort of innocently wandering into the garden in search of man, Man then hiding from God, and God searching him out. The picture is one of God’s deliberate approach in the spirit of the day of judgment.

The sound then heard by Adam and Eve was awesome. We can even go further, that the sound has been sometimes described as that of the beating of wings. But the wings are not those of geese. The wings are those of the seraphim and God’s angelic hosts as they approach. The sound, therefore, heard by Adam and Eve is one that is awesome, one that terrifies them.

They are in retreat before the sound of God’s approach. They flee, they conceal themselves, because they are terrified at the sound which they This means further that God’s question in verse 9, where he says to Adam, where are you, is not a request for information about some point of geography.

It is a rhetorical question intended to force Adam to consider his position spiritually, in light of the fact that the day of the Lord has come. Adam then, by his sin, has fallen into the hands of the Lord in the spirit of the Day of Judgment. But as we look through the remainder of this chapter, it will become apparent to us how remarkable that day is, and how here, at the very foundation of human history, there is raised up a testimony that there are always two dimensions that one must consider as one looks at God’s coming day.

Yes, on the one hand, the unmistakable testimony with regard to judgment, the fact that sin is so utterly serious and payment will be extracted, that justice, justice will be rendered. God himself will be vindicated. His wrath will be satisfied. But on the other hand, there is the marvelous, inexplicable testimony to his continuing, abiding grace.

And what further testimony do we need as to the character of grace? Is it not completely unmerited? Can anyone say, looking at the fall, that there is anything in our first parents that merits God’s response in love, grace, and mercy? There is absolutely nothing in them that would merit any such thing.

It is this testimony of grace and to it that flies directly in the face of Satan. It is not immediately apparent that Satan’s design, of course, is to destroy the world that God made and to destroy God’s creature, man. Yet God courts Satan. Satan’s design to bring the world down, to bring man down with him, that the world and man then might be permanently, thoroughly, completely lost and irretrievable. They consigned with him in the abyss. Satan’s plans, proving yet again that Satan fails to understand God truly and really.

God then, coming here in this prototypical day of the Lord, is telegraphing the outcome of the final day of the war, when in fact justice will be rendered, judgment will be extracted, but there will be the monument to God’s grace in Jesus Christ, through whom that lost fellowship is restored, by whom all God’s chosen ones saved by grace will see God.

Our Father, who art warned, are we not even from the garden, with respect to the day, the day of the Lord. We would not trifle with these things, and we would not presume upon you to think that we can escape your judgment. But Father, in faith, such faith as you have given to us, we will persevere in the certainty that your grace triumphs, triumphs in the case of your people. And we will glory in you because we know that your love to us is unmerited, it is undeserved. And we ourselves, Lord, will become trophies of your mercy and a testimony to the failure of Satan and his designs. as we are brought into your kingdom finally and fully, to enjoy that completed fellowship with you, and to delight as those who dwell before our God, privileged to see his face. Lord, we thank you.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.