Communication

It had never quite occurred to me what Adam was setting in motion in the 12th verse of Genesis chapter 3 when he deflected God’s penetrating and convicting questions to Eve his bride, perhaps thinking to himself, “wait a minute, this was her idea after all” in plaintive protest. What he said aloud was, “The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.” Not only was he attempting to deflect the accountability and respnsibility that weighed so heavily upon him to Eve, but also back to God who gave her to him. Think of the seeds of sarcasm and resentment that were being so deeply planted in Eve’s soul at that moment as she was no doubt thinking something like this to herself, “Gee, thanks Adam, thanks for the spotlight!” She would not soon forget that deflection on the part of Adam, she would have ample opportunity to return the “compliment.” Strife between man and woman was being birthed in that moment.
If only that was all that had been birthed then, but she didn’t stop there, she pointed immediately to the serpent saying, “the sepent deceived me and I ate” which in turn deflected the scrutiny and judgement to him. Were there thoughts in his own mind too then that ran something like this: “I’ll soon repay you for this, you will feel the full force of my fury!” She would have felt some of it anyway. The enmity and the bruising abuse had thus already begun, already been born. Indeed, the die was cast for centuries to come  But what a different kind of precedent the second and last Adam set in the fullness of time, rather than deflecting blame that was his to another, he did exactly the opposite, he assumed blame that the belonged to others upon himself, thus demonstrating for all time and for all people a higher way!