When considering the startling exchange between the serpent and Adam’s wife (Gen.3:1-7), questions multiply. How is it that something from the animal kingdom, a serpent, speaks? How does this serpent have such command of knowledge, reasoning, and persuasion? Why isn’t this surprising serpent aligned with the Creator’s command to this couple (cf. Gen.2:16-17)? How is this animal being allowed to deceptively lure the woman toward disobedience?

Progressive revelation via Moses and the Jewish prophets provides the backstory. Previous to his garden sales-pitch, a brilliant, beautiful angel — privileged to serve in the presence of God — chose pride and rebellion. “I will set my throne on high,” he determined. “I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:13-14). This son of the dawn’s (i.e., Lucifer) rebellion failed to achieve his aim. Cast from heaven, confirmed in sin (14:15), with perhaps a third of the angelic host, God’s enemy still seeks to become “like God” through sinning. Inhabiting a created animal (i.e., a serpent), the angel-turned-devil offers Eve his own twisted passion. “Disobey...and you can become like God” (Gen.3:5).

Shrewdly, the serpent mixes lie with truth as Eve, convinced with a strangely cooperative Adam at her side, chooses to take and eat. In a moment, they plunge themselves, their offspring, and the world (for which they were responsible) into the aggressive cancer of sin, fallen-ness, hurt and tragedy. Tough stuff. The author of sin appears to have won, until...

Until God himself confronts His enemy with a Promise: THE offspring of the woman (noted!), though himself crippled by the cursed- serpent’s strike, will nonetheless crush the serpent’s head. Make no mistake. The Son of God came for a reason -- to destroy the works of the devil (cf. 1 John 3:8).

The opening three chapters of Genesis provide both history and mystery. Their descriptions of creation’s days and design, the origins of humanity and marriage, and the marring of all the “very good” the Creator provided — all of it should fascinate the imagination while generating endless questions.

Yet there is revealing clarity throughout. We live on a unique planet of life situated in a universe designed to declare 24-7 the glory of God (Psalm 19:1) to us. Humans too are uniquely created in the very image of God (Gen.1:26-27), created in righteousness for relationships with the LORD GOD and with one another (Gen.2:15- 18). Willing obedience could have endlessly opened every door of delight and discovery to Adam and Eve.

The endowment of consequential choice, however, was misused. Eve and Adam chose to believe that disobedience to God’s word offered more of life than even God had promised. When they ate together, the parasitic knowledge of evil imbedded itself within, and began to destroy their world. Experiencing sin, the couple immediately felt naked, ashamed, and needing to hide from their eager-for-fellowship Creator.

And yet, the LORD GOD came seeking, fully aware of what happened and what needed to happen. “Where are you?” He calls. Not seeking information but signaling intention, an initiative for redemption, a renewed relationship, a restoration. Loving, seeking us before we love and seek Him. In love, in the garden, God seeks to save that which was lost.

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

John Sculley, an American executive for both PepsiCo and Apple, is credited with saying, “Timing in life is everything.” Perhaps an exaggeration, timing nonetheless can be both critical and meaningful. Such is true in Genesis 2.

Note WHEN God states that Adam’s aloneness is not good. It follows God’s moral command to an alone–Adam to eat from all the trees except one. Eat from the one, and invite the intrusion of death into the vibrancy of life. Obeying God in these things was critical. One imagines Adam mulling God’s words over in his heart. Yet it is THEN God says, “Adam’s aloneness is not good. I will make him a helper corresponding for him.” A helper for what?

We might instinctively think that Adam cannot reproduce by himself (which he couldn’t). Or perhaps that he needed another worker– a hand with the development of Eden’s beauty and fruitfulness (which, again, he did). But the timing of God’s statement immediately follows the moral command—the command requiring a moral choice each day to obey God by eating what was provided and not eating what was prohibited.

While not every female is called into marriage, those who are do well to understand the call of God in being a husband’s helper. She is given to help her husband live obediently and eagerly in the moral will of God. How important for them, daily, to help one another stay aligned with their Creator’s revelation?