The Anatomy of an Excuse Text: Genesis 3:8-13
Introduction: The First Hide and Seek
The first two chapters of Genesis show us a world of glorious, unhindered fellowship. Man walked with God. There was no shame, no fear, no hiding. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed, which is to say, they were utterly transparent before God and one another. Their relationship with their Creator was as easy and natural as breathing the garden air.
But in Genesis 3, the great catastrophe occurs. Sin enters the world, not as an invading army, but as a whispered suggestion. And with that one act of disobedience, everything changes. The light goes out. The fellowship is shattered. The transparency is replaced by a desperate need to cover up. And so begins the first, and most tragic, game of hide and seek in human history. Adam and Eve, who were made for God's presence, now flee from it. They hide from the only one who can help them.
This is not just an ancient story about two people in a garden. This is the diagnostic manual for the human condition. Every one of us, every son of Adam and daughter of Eve, has reenacted this scene countless times. We sin, and our first instinct is to hide. We hide from God, we hide from others, and we even try to hide from ourselves. We sew together flimsy fig leaves of self-justification and excuse-making, and we duck behind the trees of distraction and denial. But the central lesson of this passage is that you cannot hide from an omniscient God. He knows where you are. The real question is whether you know where you are.
In this passage, God comes walking in the garden, not as a wrathful judge initially, but as a tender physician, a prosecuting attorney who already knows the verdict but asks questions for the sake of the guilty. He comes to diagnose the disease of sin and to draw out a confession. And in the fumbling, pathetic, blame-shifting responses of Adam and Eve, we see the anatomy of every excuse we have ever made. We see the DNA of our own rebellion. But we also see the first glimmers of a grace that pursues rebels and seeks out hiders.
The Text
Then they heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God in the midst of the trees of the garden.
Yahweh God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
And he said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
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 You gave to be with me, she gave to me from the tree, and I ate.”
Then Yahweh God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
(Genesis 3:8-13 LSB)
The Sound of Approaching Grace (v. 8)
We begin with the immediate aftermath of their sin:
"Then they heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God in the midst of the trees of the garden." (Genesis 3:8)
Before the fall, the sound of God approaching would have been the greatest delight of their existence. It would have meant fellowship, conversation, and blessing. But now, sin has turned their greatest joy into their greatest terror. The same presence that once meant life now feels like death. This is what sin does; it inverts everything. It turns love into fear.
Notice their response. They hid themselves. This is the primal instinct of guilt. And it is utterly irrational. Where do you go to hide from the God who made the very trees you are hiding behind? To hide from God is to try to hide from the atmosphere. It is a fool's errand. But sin makes us fools. Their attempt to hide is a perfect picture of fallen man's spiritual condition. We are fugitives, on the run from the law, but the law is written on our hearts, and the Judge is the one in whom we live and move and have our being.
They hid "from the presence of Yahweh God." The Hebrew for "presence" is literally "face." They could no longer bear to look upon the face of God, because their sin had made them hideous to themselves. Shame is the consciousness of being exposed, and they felt exposed to the core. Their fig leaves were a pathetic attempt to cover their physical nakedness, but how do you cover a naked soul? You cannot. And so they run to the trees, hoping the creation will hide them from the Creator.
The Question of Covenantal Confrontation (v. 9-11)
God, of course, knows precisely where they are. But He comes with questions, initiating a covenantal lawsuit.
"Yahweh God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”" (Genesis 3:9-11)
First, notice who God calls. He calls to the man. Adam was the head. He was the covenantal representative. God had given the command to him before Eve was even created. Though Eve sinned first, God goes to the head of the household. He holds the man responsible. This establishes the principle of federal headship from the very beginning. Authority and responsibility are inextricably linked. Adam had the authority, and therefore he had the responsibility. His failure was not just in eating, but in failing to lead, failing to protect his wife, and failing to crush the serpent's head then and there.
God's question, "Where are you?" is not a question of geography. It is a question of spiritual location. It is the most profound question a man can be asked. "Adam, look at your condition. Look at what you have become. You were made for my presence, and you are hiding in the bushes. You were made for dominion, and you are now a slave to fear. Where are you?" It is a question designed to provoke self-examination and lead to repentance.
Adam's answer is a masterpiece of evasion. "I heard... I was afraid... I was naked... so I hid." He confesses the symptoms, but not the disease. He speaks of his fear and his nakedness, but he does not speak of his rebellion. He is like a patient telling the doctor about his cough and his fever, but refusing to mention the poison he just drank. He is confessing his shame, but not his sin.
So God presses in with a second, more pointed question. "Who told you that you were naked?" This is a brilliant cross-examination. God is saying, "The last time we spoke, you were naked and it was 'very good.' Now you are naked and you are ashamed. Someone has been giving you a different definition of reality. Someone has been teaching you a new vocabulary. Who has been your teacher, Adam? Me, or the serpent?" And then He goes for the jugular: "Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" There is no more room to hide. The specific charge has been laid.
The Blame Game (v. 12-13)
Cornered, Adam and Eve reveal the next stage of sin's corruption: blame-shifting. Their responses are the archetype of all human excuse-making.
"And the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave to me from the tree, and I ate.” Then Yahweh God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”" (Genesis 3:12-13)
Adam's response is breathtaking in its treachery. He does not just blame the woman. He implicates God in the process. "The woman whom You gave to be with me..." Do you see the poison in that? He is saying, "This is not my fault. This is her fault. And really, God, it is your fault. You are the one who gave me this... defective gift. If you had not given me the woman, I would not be in this mess." He is trying to deflect responsibility by pointing his finger not only at his wife, but at his Creator.
This is the native language of the sinful heart. We want freedom from maturity, freedom from responsibility, and most of all, freedom from the consequences of our actions. Adam is saying that what God had declared to be his greatest blessing, a helper fit for him, was in fact the source of his ruin. He throws his own wife under the wheels of the divine bus, and then tries to blame the driver.
Then God turns to the woman. "What is this you have done?" And she, having learned well from her husband, continues the chain of blame. "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Now, her statement contains a truth. The serpent did deceive her, as the Apostle Paul confirms (1 Tim. 2:14). But a partial truth used to evade full responsibility is a whole lie. She presents herself as a passive victim. She omits her active participation, her desire, her unbelief, and her rebellion. She is saying, "I was tricked." It is the oldest excuse in the book, second only to "she made me do it."
And so the buck is passed from the man to the woman, and from the woman to the serpent. But there it stops. When God confronts the serpent, He does not ask him any questions. He does not ask, "What is this you have done?" God does not enter into a dialogue with the devil. He simply crushes him. He pronounces a curse. And in that curse, He gives the first promise of the gospel.
The Gospel in the Bushes
This whole sorry spectacle of hiding and blaming is a picture of us. We are all hiding in the bushes, clutching our pathetic fig leaves, terrified of the sound of God's approach. When confronted, our instinct is to say, "The culture you put me in... the family you gave me... the temptations you allowed... they made me do it." We are experts at evading responsibility.
But the good news is that God does not leave us in the bushes. Just as He sought out Adam, He seeks us out. He came in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, the second Adam. And where the first Adam hid, the second Adam stood out in the open. Where the first Adam was naked and ashamed, the second Adam was stripped naked on a cross and bore our shame. Where the first Adam blamed God, the second Adam trusted God, saying, "Not my will, but yours, be done."
God's question still echoes down through history to each one of us: "Where are you?" Are you hiding in the bushes of your own self-righteousness? Are you trying to cover your shame with the fig leaves of your own good works? Are you blaming your circumstances, your spouse, your past, or even God for your sin?
The gospel is the call to come out of the bushes. It is the call to stop making excuses and to start making confession. It is the call to cast aside our filthy rags of self-justification and to be clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, which God Himself provides. God did not accept Adam's fig leaves; He clothed him with skins, which required the shedding of blood. And He does not accept our excuses; He clothes us in the righteousness of His Son, which required the shedding of His precious blood.
So when you hear the sound of God walking in the garden of your life, do not run. Do not hide. Do not blame. Instead, run to Him. Confess your sin, and you will find that the one you were hiding from in terror is the only one who can embrace you in grace.