Who told thee that thou wast naked?: God’s question here reminds us that, no matter how far we go from God, that built-in conscience will be there. Adam tried to play the blame game, but he had to admit to himself, anyway, that nobody had told him this. Nobody had to. It was a direct result of Adam’s disobedience that he knew this fact.
God continues to work in the consciences of lost people today, pleading with them to come to know Him before it’s eternally too late. Most eveil people still have some kind of code,w hen they sit down and think about it. However, it is their own, made up code, just as Adam tried to cover his nakedness on his own.
Hast thou eaten…?: God gives us a chance. He desires mercy, and not sacrifice, and it is His own desire to show mercy, too. It is His will that none perish, but that all come to repentance. This doesn’t mean that He’ll accept sin – sin is awful. But, a repentant heart is far preferable to one that is not.
Even if God takes the life of one who sins, as a direct consequence, that person’s soul might be spared. After all, nothing can separate us from His love. Not death, not life, not angels, principalities, or powers, not things present or things to come, not life, death, or any other creature. (Romans 8:38-39) We are creatures. We can’t even separate ourselves from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. This is one of the most powerful versus to show the eternal security of the Christian. It’s not a license to sin. It’s a license to be free from condemnation, as there is absolutely no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:1) Again, it’s that perfect love which casts out fear.
Here, God is giving Adam a chance to confess. What would have happened had he done so? Adam had already brought death into the world, and death by sin. The process of dying physically had also begun. Most likely, a prayer similar to David’s excellent prayer of repentance in Psalm 51 would have brought about the same response that God gave David. It would have been the same judgment, but God’s tone might have been kinder, and perhaps those torns and thistles wouldn’t have been as tough. It’s hard to say. Because, God knew that Adam would choose to play the blame game, as we see when we look at the following verse.
