Their Eyes Were Opened: What Adam and Eve Saw

Genesis 3:7-13 ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The immediate result of disobedience was that their eyes were opened; they knew they were naked. This guilt started a chain reaction:

They attempted to provide their own garment out of fig leaves. Then they tried to hide when they heard God calling. Then they cringed with fear and insecurity before God. And then they blamed each other and the serpent for their own sin.

We do all of these things when we sin today. We put on good works to keep people from knowing we’re really sinners. We hide from God by turning our back on the church or stop spending time with Him, we feel very insecure because we’re always afraid we’re going to get caught, and we blame everyone else: the government, our parents and the way we were raised, the school system, etc.

This is the exact opposite of what we do when we become believers. Then we accept responsibility of our sin. We respond trustfully to God’s call. We come into His presence looking forward to spending time with Him. We don’t try to cover ourselves, but put on His robe of righteousness and we feel peace because we are His.