Maybe you’ve had that unfortunate experience of switching on a light in a room in your house, and as you do, you suddenly see some little creatures scurrying to get away, out of the light, such as cockroaches, or worse, mice or rats. Some creatures are actually repelled by light, others are nocturnal and just prefer it. But then you find when the light is on, other creatures are drawn to the light, like moths and mosquitoes. Some creatures love light, and do their hunting and foraging in the day.
The nature of the creature determines its approach to light. Some flowers open in the day and follow the sun and close at night. Others actually open at night and close when they feel the morning dew.
Physical light is a picture for us of truth, of goodness, of the knowledge of God’s presence. Just like physical light shows us our surroundings, God’s presence, God’s Word, exposes our inner nature to us, shows us who we are, shows us what we’re like.
So, if God’s presence is like light, when exposed to it, are human beings more like nocturnal creatures, or more like diurnal creatures? Do humans open to the light, move to the light, follow the light of truth, or shrink from it, scurry away from it, avoid it?
Well, consider your experience. How do most people react to the idea of going to church? How do most people react when you speak about the Bible? Do their eyes glow with interest? Do they eagerly ask when they can come? How do people respond to truth about holiness? One of the mantras of the modern world has become “Don’t judge me” which sounds like someone asking you to switch off the light. It seems, when it comes to discussing goodness, morality, God, eternity, humans appear to be nocturnal, preferring the cover of darkness.
Why is that? Why would people dislike the light of God’s presence? And how did that happen? Why might you find that very response inside yourself?
Genesis 3 gives us the answer. Genesis 3 describes how mankind went from being a creature of light, to a creature of darkness. We went from being creatures that welcomed the presence of God, to creatures that flee from the presence of God.
That distaste people have for discussing religion, or God, or ethics or eternity is not always what they say it is. They will tell you that religious people are hypocrites, or organised religion is phony and fake. But often, the problem is not really with religion, or religious people, or disappointing experiences in church. Often the problem is much deeper, and much more fundamental: people want to avoid an encounter with God. They run, they hide, they avoid God, and especially those people and places where He is likely to be seen.
But running from God is like a fish in a fishbowl trying to swim away from you. It is like a bird trying to outfly the sun in the sky. It is futile. Worse, it is biting the hand that is trying to help us.
Genesis 3:7-13 will show us Adam and Eve hiding from God. In their responses, we will see three ways that all of us hide from God. We will also see the ways a good and gracious God comes looking for us, and how we can be found and be changed from nocturnal to diurnal when it comes to light.
- Humans Hide From God Through Concealing Their Sin
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. (Genesis 3:7)
In verse 6 we read of the fateful moment when Adam and Eve followed the serpent’s counsel and disobeyed God. The first result they experienced was knowledge: opened eyes. But it wasn’t the opened eyes that Satan promised: godlike, autonomous knowledge of all good and evil. It was the knowledge on the other side of losing innocence. It is the knowledge of guilt, the knowledge of feeling defiled, guilty. What’s strange is that they had been naked all along, nothing had changed in terms of their appearance. Back in 2:25, we read And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:25). So what has changed?
They feel guilt. They know they have broken God’s commands. But this is the first time they’ve ever felt this. The feeling of guilt is to feel exposed, revealed, shamed. And for the first time, they are deeply self-centred whereas previously they had been entirely other-centred. Maybe they remembered the command to be fruitful and multiply, and knowing that their descendants would now be corrupted, their guilt centred on their sexuality.
So their instinct is to cover, to conceal, to mask. They find one of the largest leafed-trees in the Garden, and begin constructing coverings for themselves. That’s not how God originally made them, but now their shame is too much to bear such open fellowship, and no longer can they look on each other with innocence. They don’t call on God, they don’t go to Him, they begin making their own remedy, literally stitching together a concealment. Job speaks of what they did in 31:33: If I have covered my transgressions as Adam, By hiding my iniquity in my bosom”
When people hide from God, they conceal what they have done. But they usually cover up what they think is the evidence of their sin, not dealing with the sin itself. And they cover up in clumsy, artificial ways. When God finds them, they will be wearing leaves on their bodies, a self-constructed, and ridiculous covering for something that wasn’t a problem in the first place.
Achan hid his sinfully gained treasure in his tent. Cain hid the body of Abel after he murdered him. David tried to hide Bathsheba’s pregnancy by having Uriah killed.
The primary way that people try to conceal their sin from God is with the covering of their own works. This is the real origin of false religion. Religion is a humanly-devised artificial construction of rules and customs, practices and traditions which is supposed to conceal and make up for our guilt.
When people tell you that they are really good people, they are saying that the fig-leaves of their own morality makes up and conceals all the bad they have done. When people tell you that in their philosophy, you don’t need God or the Bible, they are showing you the leafy intellectual shorts and skirts that they use to conceal their guilt. Any time you avoid what God has actually said, the standard He has verbally given, and the ways He has given to deal with guilt, and substitute your own works, your own worship, your own sincerity, you’re sowing fig leaves to conceal your guilt.
It reminds me of when small children break something valuable or important, and then try to fix it. They broke that precious vase, and they recently learnt how to use sticky tape, so they tape it, and hope Mom or Dad won’t notice. Our own efforts to fix what we have broken look like that to Heaven. Isaiah 64:6 says that all our righteousness is like filthy rags to God.
He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)
We can conceal, or we can confess. Our own stitched-religion and righteousness, or going to God for His.
Unfortunately, Adam and Eve chose to continue to hide from God.
- Humans Hide From God By Avoiding Him
And they heard the sound 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 among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:8–10)
Not only are Adam and Eve now walking around with leaf-concealment, the next thing they do is try to conceal themselves altogether. Here in Paradise, in a Garden with no threats, no dangers, nothing to be careful of, they go into hiding. They hear the sound of the Lord walking in the garden.
Evidently, this was a regular occurrence, something that perhaps happened every day, something they immediately recognised. It seems that this is what we call a theophany; God taking a human form so as to commune with man, as He did with Abraham, or when He appeared to Jacob, or others. We believe this is the Word of God, the eternal Son, manifesting Himself to Adam and Eve. Apparently, for the short time before they fell, He would come to them in the early evening and walk and talk, instruct and teach.
But here the main action of Adam and Eve in verse 8, is that they hid. Irrationally, insanely, they thought that some bush, some large trunked tree, some grove of trees could conceal them from God, that the all-seeing, all-knowing, omnipresent God would not be able to locate them, and would give up the search.
Think of how ridiculous it is to hide from God. When we see Jonah fleeing from Nineveh, and trying to go as far west as possible, we know before we have read further how this story is going to end. And when the storm and the great fish prevent him from going any further, we shrug and say, wasn’t that inevitable? Psalm 139 lays it out for us in detail: if you could go to the extreme height or depths of creation, the extreme ends, the deepest darkness, still God knows you and sees you equally well. David says, even when I was in that darkest and most unseen place, the womb, you saw me and knew me, and formed me. God confronts this craziness for us in Jeremiah “Am I a God near at hand,” says the Lord, “And not a God afar off? 24 Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?” says the Lord; “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:23–24)
Now consider what it means that God is walking in the Garden. Notice who is avoiding whom. Who goes looking for whom? Is God already aware that they have broken fellowship? Why does He not send an earthquake to swallow them? Why does He not send angels to simply expel them and banish them? God’s grace goes looking for His fallen children.
In fact, throughout Genesis, it is God looking for man, not man looking for God. After Cain sins, it is God who goes looking for Cain. When the whole earth is becoming irredeemably wicked, it is God who favours Noah and rescues the race. When man conspires to avoid God together at the Tower of Babel, it is God who initiates a gracious dispersion, and then initiates a covenant with a pagan Mesopotamian named Abram, bringing him to faith, and making him the father of the messianic people.
In the rest of the Bible, most of God’s covenants with man are unilateral, unconditional, initiated by God for man.
The story of the Bible is not man seeking God. It is man avoiding God and God seeking man. Jesus said of His own mission, “for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10)
Think of those Scriptures which speak of how we were headed in the opposite direction of God, and God came and fetched us.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), (Ephesians 2:4–5)
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)
And if we may say it, God’s sabbath rest has now been broken by man. God ceased from his work, and began the rejoicing in His works until this moment. God must give that up and come looking for His lost creature.
So, what does that seeking look like here? Verse 9: Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
This is not a request for information. It is a query. Why are you not out in the open? Why are you not meeting me as usual? Why are you avoiding me?
How does someone today evade God? Well, they avoid the places and times they are likely to encounter Him. They avoid the Bible. They avoid answering the inner voice of conscience. They avoid Christians, church services, and especially pastors. They avoid conversations about dying, about eternity, about Heaven or Hell, about God’s existence. They even avoid music that reminds them of what is sacred and holy. They avoid places that seem to shout of God’s glory. And they especially avoid silence and solitude, which is where the Spirit of God calls to them in a still, small voice. Distraction and diversion, amusement and busyness.
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him… (The Hound Of Heaven, Francis Thompson,1890)
C. S. Lewis said, “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.
God’s call to you, as to every human, is where are you? Not meaning, I can’t find you, but, why are you avoiding me? What have you got to hide? I already know everything about you. You can never outrun Me. How can your hiding from Me possibly work out in your favour?
But Adam and Eve have become spiritually nocturnal. Watch now how they hide, even in the very presence of God.
- Humans Hide From God Through Excusing Their Sin
So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” 11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” 12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” 13 And the Lord God said to the woman, “What isthis you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:10–13)
“Where are you, Adam?” Scripture doesn’t tell us, but we have to assume the Lord either lifted the tree branch where they were hiding, or maybe stood waiting until they came out with their fig-leaf uniform. Adam realises he cannot successfully hide from God. Adam has to explain the change in his behaviour, because it is not God who has changed the schedule, or changed His manner, or changed anything. So Adam hides again, in his answer. In the rest of the conversation, it is peppered with excuses. “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.
Adam claims the problem is his nakedness. He acts as if his hiding is justified, as if this was now some kind of indecent exposure. This had never been a problem before. By mentioning his nakedness, he was exposing his disobedience. God asks, Who told you that you were naked? Would a fish suddenly exclaim, I’m all wet? Would a bear complain that it felt so furry? No, this kind of self-focus and self-awareness could only come if someone had interfered with their environment, if they had been listening to other voices.
God asks him the direct question, “have you eaten of the tree that I commanded you not to?” He is giving him the chance to confess and ask forgiveness.
But neither of them owned personal guilt. They kept hiding through excuses.
First, Adam says he only ate because Eve told him to. The woman which you gave me, she made me do it. So it is partly Eve’s fault, and partly God’s fault for making her and giving her to Adam. God does not accept that excuse. But this is like when little Timmy has thrown a stone through the window and he is asked if he did it. Yes, I did, but it was Sally’s idea! So God turns to the other blamed one and asks her what she has done.
She says, the serpent tricked me. I was blindsided, I thought I was doing good!
Excuses. The Bible is full of excuses. Abraham says he lied about Sarah being his sister because he was afraid; Isaac says the same thing. When Aaron makes a golden calf, Moses asks him how he could have done that, and he said, I put the gold into the fire and out came this calf. He blamed the fire. When Saul sacrificed when he was not supposed to, he told Samuel, you were late, and the people were scattering, so I forced myself. Two chapters later, he fails to obey the command to eradicate the animals and people of the Amalekites. When confronted he says, the people didn’t want to, and besides we decided it would be better to come and offer these sacrifices to God instead.
Excuses always say, I did not really do evil. Because of my other motive, because of that extenuating circumstance, because of what someone else did, I might have done the wrong thing, but I am good, well-meaning person. I did not disobey on purpose. When my children were very little, one of their favourite excuses was “I didn’t try!” as if sin is only evil if you smile and laugh an evil grin if you do it. Excuses ultimately blame God. It’s my personality, which you gave me. It’s the difficult circumstances, which You’ve put me in. It’s that other person, that You made.
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.(James 1:13). Blaming God is futile, because He is never the source of evil.
Excuses are more hiding, more masks, more veiling. It is more delaying the encounter with God. And excuses never persuade God. In a court of law, you can say that you meant well, that you are good person, that other people made you do it, that you had no choice, but if it is proved that you murdered, then you will be found guilty and sentenced. In God’s court, excuses do not persuade Him at all.
John describes the dead end of making excuses.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:8–10)
Excuses are lies we tell ourselves, and excuses make God into a liar. We are saying, God, you are wrong about me, wrong about me being a sinner. You’re not truthful, not accurate. I am good and do good.
But then he describes the opposite of hiding
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
To confess our sins is to come to God and to claim ownership of the evil. It is saying, “that was wrong, and I did it.” We do not add the words but, however, yet. No qualifications. We say it the way God would say it. We render judgement on our sin the way God would. Adam needed to say, “You told us not to eat of the tree. Eve chose the serpent’s word over yours, and I did not stop her, but went along with it.”
David apparently fled from conviction of his sins for years. He says in Psalm 32:
When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer…I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” And You forgave the iniquity of my sin (Psalm 32:3-5)
Here’s how he did that in Psalm 51:
For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight— That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge. (Psalm 51:3–4)
You are right, I am wrong. I am guilty before the judgement seat. Pass sentence on me. People who try to cover up their own sin, will have it uncovered by God on the day of judgement. People who uncover their sin to God in open confession and repentance will have God cover it for them through His payment.
Adam and Eve hid by covering up their sin with their own works. They hid by avoiding God. They hid by excusing their sin. All along there was a gracious God who comes looking for them. He’ll clothe them in skins from a sacrifice, not with more fig leaves. When they’re avoiding Him, He’s walking towards them. And when they’re making excuses, He is pushing them towards honesty and confession. Because He is grace.
So what are you more like, when it comes to God’s presence? A spiritual sunflower, or a cockroach? Embracing, or avoiding?
The great tragedy of hiding from God is that you may end up being successful on one level. But sadly, it will be on the wrong level. If you avoid God, you will not avoid him like a criminal avoiding the police, or a fugitive avoiding the law. No, eventually, everyone will be gathered up into a final judgement, and no one will escape that. Instead, if you do avoid him now, then you are a injured man avoiding the ambulance, you are a starving man avoiding a food supply, you are a poisoned man avoiding a cure. To be successful in that avoidance is no victory; it is your own destruction.
The sooner we give up the logical insanity of avoiding a God who is everywhere, and the moral insanity of avoiding a God who made us and loves us, the better. Jesus continues to say, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)