Commentary - Genesis 3:20-21

Bird's-eye view

In these two short verses, coming on the heels of God’s pronouncement of judgment, we find two of the most potent displays of gospel grace in all of Scripture. The rebellion was not even cold, the curses were still ringing in their ears, and yet we see here the first fruits of redemption. Adam, in an act of robust faith, names his wife based on the promise of life God had just given. And God, in an act of pure grace, covers their shameful nakedness with the skins of slain animals. Here, in the bloody aftermath of the fall, we see faith and grace embrace. Adam believes the promise, and God provides the covering. This is the gospel in miniature, the pattern for all of God’s dealings with His people from this point forward.

This passage is not a mere historical footnote about what happened after the snake, the woman, and the man were judged. It is the foundation of our hope. It demonstrates that God’s immediate response to sin is not just wrath, but also a determined, covenantal grace. Adam’s faith lays hold of the promise of the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), and God’s action provides a graphic illustration of what that promise would cost: the shedding of innocent blood to cover the guilty.

Outline

Context In Genesis

These verses must be read in the immediate context of what has just transpired. Adam and Eve have rebelled. They have listened to the serpent, disobeyed a direct command from God, and plunged the entire created order into sin and death. God has confronted them, and they have responded with cowardly blame-shifting. God has then pronounced a series of curses: on the serpent, on the woman, and on the man. The sentence of death is now upon them. Dust they are, and to dust they shall return.

But in the midst of this judgment, God embedded a promise. He told the serpent that He would put enmity between his seed and the seed of the woman, and that her seed would crush his head (Gen. 3:15). This is the protoevangelium, the first preaching of the gospel. Our passage, then, is the first human response to that gospel promise, and God's first tangible provision based upon it. It sets the stage for the great conflict of the ages, the war between the two seeds, and establishes the only way sinners can stand before a holy God: by faith, and covered by a righteousness not their own.

Key Issues

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 20 Now the man called his wife’s name Eve...

Here we have a staggering act of faith. Remember, God has just told Adam that he is going to die. "For dust you are, and to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:19). The specter of death now looms over everything. And what is Adam's response? It is not despair. It is not a sullen silence. He turns to his wife, the very one through whom the temptation came, and he gives her a name brimming with hope. This is not the first time he has named her; in the innocence of the garden, he called her "Woman" (Ishah), because she was taken out of Man (Ish) (Gen. 2:23). That was a name of origin. This is a name of destiny.

Adam's act of naming is an exercise of his headship, but it is a headship now being exercised in faith. He heard the promise of a coming seed, a seed that would come from the woman. And in the face of the death sentence, he chose to believe God. He is acting on the promise of Genesis 3:15. He is, in effect, preaching a sermon to himself, to his wife, and to all of us. He is saying, "God has promised life, and I believe Him."

v. 20 ...because she was the mother of all the living.

The name Adam chooses is Eve, or Chavvah in the Hebrew, which is related to the word for "life." The reason for the name is given right here: she was to be the mother of all the living. Now, at this point, she was the mother of no one. She was simply the mother of all the dying. She and Adam were the fountainhead of a race that was now under the curse of death. But Adam, by faith, looks past the curse to the promise. He sees her not for what she is in her sin, but for what she will be by God's grace. She will be the conduit through whom the promised seed, the life-giver, will come into the world. Every human being who would ever live would trace their lineage back to her, and that includes the Lord Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head. Adam is confessing his belief that God's promise of life will triumph over God's sentence of death.

v. 21 Then Yahweh God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife...

Adam responded to God's promise in faith, and now God responds to Adam's faith with grace. Notice the initiative here. Adam and Eve had tried to cover their own shame with a pathetic collection of fig leaves (Gen. 3:7). That was the first act of man-made religion, the first attempt at self-justification. And like all such attempts, it was flimsy, inadequate, and temporary. It could not stand up to the presence of God. So God steps in. He, Yahweh God, the covenant Lord, provides a covering for them.

And what is this covering? It is not more leaves. It is not something woven from the ground. It is garments of skin. For there to be skins, an animal, or animals, had to die. Here we have the first death recorded in Scripture, and it is not the death of the sinners. It is the death of an innocent substitute. Blood had to be shed. This is a graphic, visceral lesson. Sin is not a small thing that can be covered with vegetation. Sin brings death. And for the sinner to be covered, for their shame to be hidden from the eyes of a holy God, a life must be given. This is the principle of substitutionary atonement laid down right at the beginning. An innocent victim dies so that the guilty may be clothed.

v. 21 ...and He clothed them.

This final clause is filled with tender mercy. God does not simply toss the skins on the ground and tell them to figure it out. The text says that He clothed them. This is a personal, intimate act. The God against whom they had rebelled now condescends to dress them, to cover their nakedness. Their fig leaves were their own doing, a symbol of their attempt to hide. These garments of skin are God's doing, a symbol of His gracious provision. They are now clothed not in their own righteousness, which is as filthy rags, but in a righteousness provided by God, a righteousness that cost a life.

This act is a prophecy. It points forward down the centuries to another covering, another righteousness. It points to the Lamb of God who would be slain to take away the sin of the world. It points to the exhortation of the apostle Paul to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 13:14). God clothed Adam and Eve in the skins of a substitute, and He clothes us in the perfect righteousness of His Son. What began here in the garden with bloody skins finds its ultimate fulfillment at the cross of Calvary.

Application

The pattern established here in Genesis 3 is the pattern for the entire Christian life. We are confronted with the reality of our sin and the sentence of death that hangs over us. Like Adam, we are called to respond not with despair or with flimsy attempts to cover our own shame, but with faith. We must listen to the gospel promise, that the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, has crushed the serpent's head, and we must believe it.

Our faith, like Adam's, should be a robust and declarative faith. He named his wife "Life" in the face of death. We too are called to confess the lordship of Christ in a world that is passing away. We are to live as though God's promises are more real than our circumstances, because they are.

And as we live by faith, we must remember that our standing before God depends entirely on His gracious provision. We do not stand before him in the fig leaves of our own good works, our morality, or our religious efforts. We stand before Him clothed in the righteousness of another. God Himself has provided the covering, the perfect and sufficient sacrifice of His Son. He has not just made it available; He has personally clothed us in it. Our task is to wear this garment of salvation with gratitude and humility, and to walk in a manner worthy of the one who provided it at such a great cost.