#DailyDevotion Why Are You Hiding From God?
Genesis 3:8–10 8At the time of day when there was a breeze, they heard the LORD God walking in the garden, and the man and his wife hid from the LORD God among the trees in the garden. 9The LORD God called the man. “Where are you?” He asked him. 10“I heard you in the garden,” he answered, “and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
How old are these people who are hiding from the LORD because they had done something wrong? Well that is a debate for the ages. But hey, if they’d only be a couple of days old, they didn’t have a lot of experience, right? Still they were made perfect but sin has a way of making your stupid. But we’ll discuss this a bit more in a moment.
What I’d like to point you to first is the name LORD. When we see LORD in all caps in the Old Testament, we know it is the personal divine name YHWH. The Jews for fear of misusing the name substituted Adonai when they read the Old Testament so they say LORD and spell it this way to indicate the divine name in the text. What is important here though is it is the personal name of God (El or Elohim, generic god). It is the name used in the Old Testament when God wants to get personal with us and us with him. It is the covenantal name in which God acts with his people in faithful love.
So we should immediately, when we see LORD, know then that God is talking and acting with his people in loving faithfulness. Such is the case here. Of course it’s only two people and one serpent (the devil) here he is dealing with.
When Adam and Eve heard the LORD walking in the garden they hid. They hid because they had disobeyed the LORD and they knew. The serpent was correct, they would know evil when they disobeyed God and ate the fruit. But they had ceased to truly know the LORD anymore. They had rejected his faithful lovingkindness. All they knew was his wrath now.
But the LORD still comes to them in loving kindness. He didn’t strike them down with a bolt of lightning when they sinned. He came, personally to them, and called for them, “Where are you?” They were hiding because they were naked. Some think they were naked because they had lost the divine glory they were clothed with before when they sinned. I tend to agree with this as we when we are raised from the dead we will be clothed with divine glory. Back to the point, the LORD came to them personally, in love.
They were perhaps thinking the LORD was coming to them in wrath. They had, through their sin, lost a right knowledge of God. We too, when we sin, try to hide from God. We often do this by not going to church when we know we have committed some sin. How do we overcome this? This very LORD in the Garden is the same LORD John speaks about, “If anyone sins, we have One to plead for us with the Father — Jesus Christ, Who is righteous. 2He is the payment for our sins, and not for ours only but for the whole world.” (1 John 1:1,3) We should then come before God with Christ Jesus the LORD, confess our sins and receive forgiveness. Then we will be clothed with the righteousness of Christ and his glory.
Heavenly Father, give us your Spirit to keep us from sinning, but if we do, may He help us to confess our sin and trust in Christ for forgiveness. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.