What is The Curse?
A Lesson on God's Curse.
In the Bible, in the book of Genesis the 3rd chapter we see that God curses the Earth.
We need to clarify what this is and what it is not. Because there is a ton of truth that impacts our daily lives which stems from this event.
Let’s lay down some facts before we get to the curse, because you must understand some things in order to see what has happened.
First, God created everything good. Because God is love and God is good. This is a fact. We might not understand it, because we are fallen. We cannot understand God’s ways. But He is good and love. The definition of love in Gods eyes can be found throughout the Bible. I Corinthians chapter 13 is a good place to find it. Also, the fact that God left a beautiful heaven and came to terrible Earth Himself, to die an awful death to save people who hate Him. Is the paramount, vision of love.
You have to understand this in order to see what the scriptures are saying. Accepting that God is good and that He is love and that He loves us is very important. When Satan tempted Eve, he got her to doubt God’s goodness and love.
So, He created everything good. And because of love He gave us and the angels free will. In order to have free will you must have a choice. God could have created everything to love Him, but that’s not truth or real love. So, there must be free will. Forced love is not real love. There must be the option to choose something else.
The choice for humans was the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil placed in the garden with them. God warned them not to eat of it. They had everything they needed. That’s God. He takes care of His creation. There was nothing missing in the lives of Adam and Eve. They were also created good. In God’s good creation.
God warned them, “On the day you eat of it you shall surely die.” This shows that death existed, but was not in the world. There was no death at this time. Understand that nothing God creates can be destroyed. He is God. He is good. Death is not an end or destruction. It is a separation to a different place and a different form. Death is separation from God and from each other. (This is to stop the spread of Sin.) If we are made righteous by God, then we go to Paradise to be with Him. If not, then we are separated to the quarantine garbage dump of Hell or Hades. Then the Lake of Fire.
It needs to be said that time is different with God. And that time is not fully explained in the scriptures. God created everything in 6 days, then rested on the 7th. That’s a fact. But we do not know how long things sat after creation.
We know that Satan fell because he desired to be as the most high God. How long did that take? How long till he made that decision? This fact proves that angels and other spiritual being have free will the same as humans. Because they fell. Love requires free will.
Next, we see Adam and Eve in the Garden. How long were they there before the fall? We know that Adam had time to name all the animals before Eve was even created. How long did that take? Then, after Eve was created, how much time did they spend together until the fall?
We also do not know what affect death had on the Earth. Nothing died until death entered. Then, things started to die slowly. People lived for hundreds of years.
Which brings us back to the fall.
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So, Satan in the form of a Serpent/Dragon/Dinosaur came to Eve and got her to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The scriptures tell us exactly what happened. That is what happened.
We have heard all kinds of speculation on what happened and who was to blame and all of that. I’m not going to get into that.
What we can see is that Satan caused Eve to doubt God’s Goodness and Love. He got her to think that God was withholding something from her. That God was oppressing her in some way. He got her to doubt God’s Word. This is the foundation and the blue print for false teaching.
Eve responded by trying to be morally superior. She quoted God. “Do not eat of it” then added her own religion to it. “Or even touch it.”. we do not know if the addition was from her or if it’s what Adam told her, because she was not present when God gave the initial warning.
Anyway, we see false teaching and religion on display here.
So, she eats, and gives it to her husband to eat. Now we don’t know how this actually worked. We envision that they were together, when this happened, but Adam could have been somewhere else doing the job God called Him to do. We don’t know.
The Bible says that Eve was deceived by Satan but Adam was not deceived. This will be explained by God at the curse, despite all the accusations given by preachers over the years.
So, they both ate.
And their eyes were opened and they saw they were naked.
Now understand some things. Before they ate, they did not see a problem with the state they were in. They were happy. All their needs were met, they were in relationship with God and they did not see a problem.
But after eating they discovered they were naked, and were ashamed and covered their nakedness with leaves.
God created nakedness. There is nothing wrong with nakedness. The story is speaking of spiritual truth. It is a picture of our fallen state. We as humans see our problem. We see our failure, and we create rules and religions to cover it.
When they ate of the fruit they died spiritually and became separated from God in spirit. This is the state of all humanity. We are separated from God and the things of the Spirit realm beyond the veil. God removed them from the Garden. They and us no longer had access to Him or real spiritual things.
Remember, God said… “On The Day you eat of it you shall surely die.” But Adam did not die that day. He died 900+ years later. This is why Peter says that God’s days are a thousand years. (2 Pet. 3:8)
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So, God comes to find his children who have fallen. He knows they have fallen but He wants them to confess. This is very important, because our confession to Him and our admission of our state is part of our salvation. We must be real with God, and let Him take care of us.
So, God covers them with coats of skins. The Bible does not say where these skins came from or what they are. But it is a picture of God covering us with Christ. Not our man-made religions.
So, all of this was said to set us up to look at the curse. I’m going to post the verses here, then put commentary within.
First, realize that this is what the curse says. Death and Sin is not part of the curse. Disease is not part of the curse. Poverty is not part of the curse. God did not do that to us. Those things are the results of living in a world ruined by Death, Satan, The Plague of Sin and the Fallen world. Not the curse. The curse is very specific, and was designed by God to save us and bring us back to Him. This is important to see.
14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
Have you seen any dragons or dinosaurs lately? No. All you see are reptiles, that crawl mostly on their belly. Not massive proud beasts. Humans lived with dinosaurs in the garden and after, when we were run out of the Garden of God. Dinosaurs existed up to and a little after the Flood. This is the curse on the Serpent, or Hisser in Hebrew. The next part of the curse transitions from physical to spiritual to prophetic.
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
We see the physical aspect. There is a feeling of dread between reptiles and many women. This also goes on for generations. We see this and it’s truth of what God’s Word says. But it transitions into the spiritual. Because the Serpent is Satan, and the Woman is the Church. Or the believers made righteous in Christ by God. We are at war with the forces of the fallen angels. This war continues with every person who gets saved. The last part is a prophecy about Christ. He will crush the head of the enemy. This happened at the cross and will happen when he returns and ends it all. Remember, God is speaking to the Serpent and Satan here. The message is to him.
Next God speaks to the Woman.
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Now understand that we again transition from physical to spiritual. This is very important to catch. First, the physical is plainly speaking of a woman’s concern for the family and the things of the family. She is a nurturer and has a heart that strikes her differently. Remember she was created to be a help meet for Adam. (I realize that in this day and age we want to avoid saying “All Women” do this. But, yes, in this fallen world, things do get confused). Then, we see the pain in child birth and the suffering of motherhood and caring for children. The heart breakings that go with motherhood. The concern for the children. Then, we see that she will desire to help her husband, she is his help meet. But her sinful nature will cause her to desire to rule over him, and he instead will rule over her. It’s the battle of the sexes. Both men and women have corrupted natures that cause us to be prideful, angry and not listen to each other. Before the Fall it was not this way.
Ok, now we transition toward the spiritual, because why would God do this? He’s God. He is Good and Love. His nature doesn’t change. So, this is not punishment, as some like to believe. It serves a loving purpose.
This was designed by God to cause her to seek help. Help from who? Well, hopefully help from God. The woman’s desire to protect her children and family was designed to cause her to turn to God and be saved and pray for her children and to get them saved as well. And to try to minister to her husband. See? As it says in first Timothy chapter two; that she is saved through child rearing. (1 Timothy 2:15) We know that we are not saved by works (Eph 2) so, being saved through child bearing must imply that some aspect of raising and having children will draw the mother to God. In context this seems to be accurate.
Now we look at the spiritual, because the woman is the Church. We struggle in our battle between flesh and spirit and Satan. While we work to bring more people into salvation. We will try to create religion, to replace Christ. But He will still rule over us.
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Again, we will have a transition from physical to spirit. First, God plainly states what Adam did wrong. He listened to his wife instead of listening to God. God warned him not to eat of the fruit. But he chose to listen to his wife instead. Adam was not deceived, he willfully ignored God. This is why our corrupted nature and the plague of sin comes through Adam. This is why Jesus was born of a virgin in a pure womb without the works of man. Jesus was without Sin. He did not even have our corrupted nature. He was tempted like us, but succeeded, because there was nothing in Him to draw Him into sin. (James 1: 13-14)
Notice that God does not curse Adam. He curses the Ground. It’s my belief that when the Flood came, it washed away the perfect world, that existed at this time and left us in a world where the ground does not produce like it once did. It’s very possible that the former world was so fertile that you could plant one seed and gain a harvest, and eat one fruit and it would sustain you for a week or more. And nobody got fat. We could eat whatever we wanted and not get fat. Maybe?
But, because of the curse our world is now in competition with itself. Everything struggles for the meager resources available. Course, if we all lived within our means we would be fine. But, because we fear death and do not trust God or others, we struggle and strive to always have more than we need. This goes for all of creation. This a response to death and the fear of it.
Man will work and struggle to survive. He will fight to protect and provide for his family. While everything constantly decays and falls apart and must be repaired and replaced.
But, like the woman this curse was designed to get Adam to seek help. Help from who? To reach out to God for help. That is the reason for the Curse. It is designed to get us to turn to God and be saved by Him. We live in this world of death and evil, ruled by Satan, but if everything went well, we would never turn to God. We would just continue in our fallen state. But, the hardship of the curse causes us to wake up and realize we need help. Then God presents Himself as the help. He comes running when we call out to Him.
This is why the love of money and wealth causes problems with salvation. As Jesus said, “its easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven” (Matt. 19:24) Why? Not because of wealth. We are not saved by works. But because wealth insulates us from the problems of life designed to cause us to need God. If you can throw money at all your problems, you have less need to throw yourself on God for help.
From the physical we transition to the spiritual.
We as believers shall eat the bread of the Word of God as we struggle in our battle with the enemy and our flesh. Till we die physically and until we finally kill off the fleshly man and bring forth the new spiritual man. The old life, must pass away as we grow into the new in Christ.
20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
The woman is the Church. Christ declares that she is the
mother of all those who are saved. We are saved by hearing the Word from other
saved people, who follow the Spirit.
Notice in Genesis 2:20-23, right after she is created Adam names her Woman,
because she came out of man. There was no need for salvation at this time. She
was a living spirit. But, after the fall she is renamed and becomes; ‘Eve” the
mother of all living. Because now there’s a need for salvation after the fall.
She is a picture of the Bride of Christ, the second Adam; Jesus.
21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
We are hidden in Christ, and with Christ. We are washed in His blood and covered with His righteousness. This is the salvation of all those who are saved.
22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:
23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
Why?
First, remember that Adam was created from the dust of the Earth, then taken somewhere else to live and serve.
It’s my belief that the Garden was in the city of God. Adam saw God. He spoke with Him, he walked with Him in Paradise. He had a relationship with Him. But the Fall severed that relationship and made it to where Adam and Eve could no longer live in the Garden.
In their fallen state they had become more fleshly and of the world. Not Paradise. Their eyes were opened and they were no longer in a state of Goodness. They had fallen.
This fallen state would have been made permanent if we had eaten of the Tree of Life. If we had eaten of it then heaven and everything would be corrupted forever. God could not save us and bring us into His kingdom. We would be filled with evil and the plague of Sin and death forever.
The way of salvation is blocked. Unless we go through Christ. He is the Gate. Robbers and thieves try to come in another way. But the right way is through Christ.
So, that is the reason for the Curse, and what is going on in this world. Turn to Jesus and find life.
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Bio:Chris Bunton is a writer, poet and blogger from Southern Illinois. He has published in several magazines, and has written a poetry eBook called “Against the Man” and an Addiction Recovery eBook called “Made Free: Overcoming Addiction“ His newest book is called “The Future is Coming” and is a collection of dystopian short stories.
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