Week of September 20, 2026

This Week in Sacred Scripture

Genesis chapters 2 and 3 – Eden, The Fall, and The Promise of Redemption

The Bishop’s Teaching

Last week, we began where Sacred Scripture begins: “In the beginning God created heaven, and earth” (Genesis 1:1). We saw that everything apart from God receives its existence from Him. We heard God say, “Let us make man to our image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26). And at the conclusion of the sixth day, we were told: “God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good” (Genesis 1:31).

 

We were told to hold onto those words. Today we will need them.

 

Genesis 2 draws us more deeply into the mystery of man and woman, the garden, the command of God, and the covenant of marriage. Genesis 3 then shows us the entrance of sin into human history. What God made good becomes wounded. Communion gives way to fear. Innocence gives way to shame. Man hides from the God for whom he was created.

 

But sin will not have the final word.

 

Before Adam and Eve are driven from the garden, God speaks a promise. In the very hour of man’s fall, He announces the beginning of the serpent’s defeat. The rest of Sacred Scripture will unfold the fulfillment of that promise until, in the fullness of time, the Son of God is born of a Woman.

 

So let us begin.

 

1. READ

 

This week, I ask you to read Genesis 2 and 3 slowly. Read both chapters together. Genesis 2 shows us what God intended; Genesis 3 shows us what sin wounds. We must see the goodness of the beginning if we are to understand the tragedy of the Fall – and the greatness of redemption.

 

Genesis 2 first brings the work of creation to its completion. God rests on the seventh day and blesses it. His rest is not the rest of weariness. God does not grow tired. It is the rest of divine delight, the completion toward which creation is ordered. From the beginning, therefore, human life is ordered not only toward labor but toward worship, communion, and rest in God.

 

Then the account turns toward man. “The Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).

 

Man is formed from the earth, yet he receives life from God. He is bodily, yet spiritual. He belongs to the visible creation, yet he is called into personal communion with his Creator. His body is not an evil prison. His soul is not a fragment of God. Man is one creature composed of body and soul, entirely dependent upon the God who made him.

 

God plants a paradise of pleasure and places man within it “to dress it, and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Work, therefore, belongs to man’s original vocation. It exists before sin. The painful toil that will follow the Fall is not the same thing as work itself. In the beginning, man’s labor participates peacefully in God’s ordering of creation.

 

God gives man a command: “Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death” (Genesis 2:16-17).

 

The command is not the act of a jealous God withholding happiness. Everything man possesses has already come from God. The command teaches man to live as a creature – free, beloved, and obedient. Man is not the author of good and evil. He must receive the truth from God.

 

Then God says: “It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself” (Genesis 2:18). The animals are brought before Adam, and he names them, but among them “there was not found a helper like himself” (Genesis 2:20).

 

Adam cannot find among the animals the personal communion for which he was made. Then God casts him into a deep sleep, takes from his side, and forms the woman. When Adam sees her, he exclaims: “This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23).

 

At last, Adam beholds another human person – equal in dignity, sharing his nature, yet truly distinct from him. Sacred Scripture then gives us the foundation of marriage: “Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

 

Chapter 2 concludes: “And they were both naked: to wit, Adam and his wife: and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25). There is no lust, exploitation, fear, or hiding. Their bodies reveal the gift of their persons. They stand before God and before one another in innocence.

 

Then the serpent enters.

 

His first words are intended to make the woman doubt the goodness of God. “Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?” (Genesis 3:1). The serpent exaggerates the prohibition. He draws attention away from everything God has given and fixes it upon the single command.

 

When the woman answers, the serpent contradicts God directly: “No, you shall not die the death” (Genesis 3:4). He suggests that God is withholding something good: “You shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).

 

Here is the ancient temptation: not merely to disobey one command, but to reject creaturely dependence and seize the right to determine good and evil for oneself.

 

The woman takes the fruit and eats. She gives it to her husband, who eats. Immediately their eyes are opened, but not as the serpent promised. They see their nakedness. They sew fig leaves together. When they hear God in the garden, they hide.

 

Then comes one of the most sorrowful questions in Sacred Scripture: “Adam, where art thou?” (Genesis 3:9).

 

God does not ask because He has lost sight of Adam. The question reveals what sin has done. Adam has become lost to himself. The man who was made for communion with God now hides from Him.

 

And sin divides what God had joined. Adam blames the woman – and, indirectly, God Himself: “The woman, whom thou gavest me to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat” (Genesis 3:12). The woman blames the serpent. Neither simply confesses, “I have sinned.”

 

Judgment follows. The harmony between man and woman is wounded. Childbearing will be marked by pain. Work will become toil. The earth will bring forth thorns. Man will return to the dust from which he was formed.

 

Yet before God speaks of exile, He speaks a promise to the serpent: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” (Genesis 3:15).

 

This is the first announcement of the Gospel – the Protoevangelium. The serpent will not triumph forever. A Woman and her offspring will stand in enmity against him. His head will be crushed.

 

Genesis 3 ends with man banished from Eden and the way to the tree of life guarded. But man leaves the garden carrying a promise.

 

2. WHAT THE CHURCH TEACHES

 

Genesis 2 and 3 reveal truths at the foundation of the Catholic understanding of the human person, marriage, sin, and salvation.

 

Man is a unity of body and soul. God forms man from the earth and breathes into him the breath of life. The Church teaches that the human person is not a soul temporarily trapped inside a body. The body belongs to the person. Our bodily life, our sexual differences as male and female, and our place within the visible creation belong to God’s good design.

 

The spiritual soul is created immediately by God. It is not produced by the parents, and it does not perish when separated from the body at death. Yet Christian hope is not merely the survival of the soul. We profess in the Creed the resurrection of the body.

 

Man was created in a state of original holiness and justice. Adam and Eve were created in friendship with God. Their interior life possessed a harmony that we no longer experience. Reason was not darkened. The will was not weakened. The passions were rightly ordered. Man and woman lived without shame because neither looked upon the other as an object to be used.

 

Their harmony extended outward: harmony with God, within themselves, with one another, and with creation. Suffering and death did not rule over man as they do after the Fall. These gifts did not belong to human nature as something owed to it: they were gifts of grace.

 

Marriage comes from God. “They shall be two in one flesh.” Marriage is not invented by the state, by society, or by the Church. God is its Author. He created man male and female and established the covenant in which one man and one woman give themselves to one another in a faithful, lifelong, and fruitful union.

 

Man and woman possess equal personal dignity because both are created in the image of God. Their difference does not make one more human than the other. Nor does equality erase their difference. The woman is formed as “a help like unto himself”: not a servant, not a possession, but one who corresponds to him and with whom he can enter a communion of persons.

 

When Our Lord is questioned about divorce, He directs His hearers back to these very chapters: “From the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark 10:6-9).

 

Christ does not treat the account of the beginning as irrelevant. He reveals in it God’s enduring plan for marriage.

 

The Fall was a real act of disobedience committed by our first parents. The serpent is more than an image of vague evil. Sacred Scripture and the Church identity behind him Satan, a fallen angel who opposes God and envies man. He cannot force Adam and Eve to sin. He tempts: they freely choose disobedience.

 

At the heart of the first sin is distrust. The serpent persuades them to see God not as the generous Father from whom every good thing comes, but as a rival who restricts their freedom. They desire to be “as Gods,” determining good and evil apart from Him.

 

Every sin repeats something of that ancient refusal: I will not receive good and evil from God. I will decide for myself. I will seek happiness apart from the One who made me.

 

Original sin is transmitted to the whole human race. Adam received original holiness and justice not for himself alone but for human nature. By his disobedience, he lost that gift for himself and for his descendants. What is handed on to us is a fallen human nature, deprived of original holiness and justice and wounded in its powers.

 

Original sin in us is not a personal act that we committed. It is a state into which we are born. Human nature remains good because God created it, but it is wounded. The intellect is darkened. The will is weakened. The passions are disordered. We experience an inclination toward sin that the Church calls concupiscence. Suffering and death enter human history.

 

This is not a doctrine of despair. It tells the truth about the wound so that we may understand the Redeemer. We do not save ourselves by education, technology, politics, or moral effort alone. We need grace. We need a Savior.

 

God seeks fallen man. After Adam sins, he hides. But God calls: “Where art thou?” This question resounds through the history of salvation. God seeks Abraham. He calls Israel out of bondage. He sends the prophets. At last, the Son of Man comes “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

 

Even the garments God makes for Adam and Eve reveal His continued care. They have disobeyed Him, but He does not cease to provide for them. Justice is real. Exile is real. Death is real. But mercy has already begun to move toward them.

 

3. SCRIPTURE ILLUMINATES SCRIPTURE

 

Genesis tells us that the serpent deceives the woman. The Apocalypse identifies him: “That old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world” (Apocalypse 12:9).

 

Genesis tells us that through man’s disobedience sin and death enter human history. St. Paul explains: “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men” (Romans 5:12).

 

But St. Paul does not stop with Adam. He places Adam beside Christ: “For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners: so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just” (Romans 5:19).

 

Adam stands at the beginning of fallen humanity. Christ comes as the New Adam, the Head of a redeemed humanity. Where Adam disobeys in a garden, Christ obeys in a garden. In Gethsemane, facing suffering and death, He prays to the Father: “Not my will, but thine be done” (Luke 22:42).

 

The first Adam reaches for what is forbidden. The New Adam “humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8).

 

From Adam’s sin comes death. From Christ’s obedience comes life: “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive” (I Corinthians 15:22).

 

Genesis also tells us that Eve is called “the mother of the living” (Genesis 3:20). At Calvary, as the New Adam accomplishes redemption, He speaks to His mother: “Woman, behold thy son” (John 19:26). Then He says to the beloved disciple: “Behold thy mother” (John 19:27).

 

The title “Woman” carries us back to Genesis 3:15 and forward to the Woman clothed with the sun in Apocalypse 12. Mary stands in complete enmity with the serpent because she belongs entirely to God. By a singular grace flowing from the merits of Christ, she is preserved from original sin. She is not a rival to the Savior. She is the first and most perfect fruit of His redemption.

 

The tree also runs through Sacred Scripture. In Eden, man’s disobedience at the tree leads to death. On Calvary, Christ’s obedience upon the wood of the Cross brings life. St. Peter writes that Christ “his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree: that we, being dead to sins, should live to justice” (I Peter 2:24).

 

And the story returns at last to what was lost. Genesis closes the garden and guards the way to the tree of life. The Apocalypse reveals the heavenly Jerusalem, where the tree of life stands again and the servants of God see His face (see Apocalypse 22:2-4).

 

What man lost through sin, God restores and surpasses through Jesus Christ.

 

4. THE FATHERS

 

The Fathers of the Church read Genesis 2 and 3 as history, doctrine, moral instruction, and prophecy. They saw the beginning of creation already filled with signs pointing toward Christ and His Church.

 

St. Irenaeus of Lyons contemplated the contrast between Eve and Mary. Eve, while yet a virgin, listens to the word of the serpent and disobeys. Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth, receives the word announced by the angel and answers in faith: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). Through Eve’s disobedience comes the knot of sin; through Mary’s obedience that knot begins to be untied – not independently of Christ, but through her faith-filled consent to the coming of the Redeemer.

 

St. Irenaeus also sets Adam beside Christ. The Son of God retraces the path of fallen man and gathers humanity into Himself. Christ obeys where Adam disobeyed. He conquers the tempter, heals our nature, and restores us to communion with God.

 

St. Augustine defended the Church’s teaching on original sin and the absolute necessity of grace. Man’s wound is too deep for self-repair. Our will remains real, but it is weakened. We require the grace of Christ not merely to make salvation easier, but to be delivered from sin and brought into supernatural life.

 

The Fathers also saw a profound mystery in Adam’s sleep and the formation of Eve from his side. As the first woman comes from the side of the sleeping Adam, the Church is manifested from the pierced side of Christ as He sleeps the sleep of death upon the Cross. St. John tells us that blood and water flow from the Savior’s side (John 19:34). The Fathers recognized in these signs the sacramental life of the Church, especially Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.

 

St. Paul himself prepares this reading. After repeating that a man shall cleave to his wife and the two shall be one flesh, he writes: “This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the church” (Ephesians 5:32).

 

Christian marriage therefore does not merely recall Adam and Eve. The marriage of the baptized is taken up into the mystery of Christ’s faithful, fruitful, and indissoluble love for His Church.

 

This is how the Fathers teach us to read. Genesis is not sealed off from the Gospel. Adam points toward Christ. Eve points toward Mary. The union of man and woman points toward Christ and His Church. The tree in the garden points toward the tree of the Cross. The promise spoken after the Fall begins its fulfillment at Nazareth and reaches its victory at Calvary and the empty tomb.

 

5. FULFILLED IN CHRIST

 

Now we come to the heart of our teaching. What do Genesis 2 and 3 have to do with Jesus Christ?

 

Everything.

 

Without Genesis 3, we cannot understand why the Son of God came. Without the Fall, we cannot understand the Cross. Without Adam, we cannot understand why St. Paul proclaims Christ as the New Adam. Without the serpent’s apparent victory, we cannot understand the promise that his head will be crushed.

 

Jesus Christ enters the wounded world described by Genesis 3. He assumes from the Blessed Virgin Mary the same human nature that had fallen in Adam, yet He is without sin. He experiences hunger, weariness, sorrow, suffering, and death. But He never turns away from the Father.

 

At the beginning of His public ministry, Christ confronts the tempter. The serpent had tempted Adam and Eve amid the abundance of Eden; Christ is tempted after forty days of fasting in the wilderness. Where our first parents distrust God’s word, Christ answers every temptation with the word of God. Where Adam grasps at equality with God, the eternal Son humbles Himself.

 

Then He enters another garden.

 

In Gethsemane, Christ sees before Him the full cost of obedience. He will bear the curse of sin. Thorns appeared after the Fall; thorns will be pressed upon His sacred head. Man was condemned to return to the dust. Christ will descend into death and the tomb. Adam hid among the trees; Christ will be stripped and exposed upon the tree of the Cross. Adam blamed his bride; Christ gave Himself for His Bride, the Church.

 

He does not answer the Father with Adam’s refusal. He says: “Not my will, but thine be done.”

 

On Calvary, the New Adam is faithful unto death. Beside Him stands the New Eve, His Mother. The Woman and her Seed stand together in enmity against the serpent. Christ alone is the Redeemer. His sacrifice alone conquers sin and merits salvation. Yet Mary is united to Him by faith, obedience, and maternal sorrow, consenting to the sacrifice of the Son whom she once received at the Annunciation.

 

The serpent wounds the heel, but his head is crushed. Death takes Christ, but cannot hold Him. On the third day, He rises.

 

The gates of Eden were closed, but Christ opens Paradise. To the repentant thief crucified beside Him, He says: “This day thou shalt be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

 

What begins in Genesis as a promise becomes victory in Jesus Christ.

 

Through Baptism, we are delivered from original sin and incorporated into Christ. Sanctifying grace is restored. We become adopted sons and daughters of God. The wounds of fallen nature remain, and concupiscence still summons us to battle, but sin no longer possesses an absolute claim over us. In Christ, we are given grace to resist, to repent when we fall, and to grow in holiness.

 

Christ does more than return us to Adam’s first condition. He draws us into His own divine life. He makes us members of His Body. He feeds us not with the fruit of an earthly tree but with His own Body and Blood, the pledge of eternal life.

 

The history that moves from Eden to exile now moves through Calvary toward the heavenly Jerusalem. There, the curse will be no more. There, the tree of life will stand. There, God will dwell with His people. There, His servants “shall see his face” (Apocalypse 22:4).

 

Read

FOR THIS WEEK

 

Read Genesis chapters 2 and 3

 

Read alongside it:

 

• Romans 5:12-21
• I Corinthians 15:20-28, 45-49
• Ephesians 5:21-33
• Luke 1:26-38
• John 19:25-37
• Apocalypse 12:1-17

 

CARRY THESE WORDS WITH YOU

 

“I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” (Genesis 3:15).

 

REMEMBER

 

The God from whom man hid is the God who came to seek and save him.

 

Reflect

Genesis 2 and 3 do not merely explain what happened at the beginning. They reveal the drama taking place within every human heart. The serpent still attempts to distort God’s word. He still suggests that obedience is slavery, that God is withholding happiness, and that freedom means deciding good and evil for ourselves. He still directs our attention away from every gift we have received and toward whatever we believe God has denied us.

 

And when we sin, we still reach for fig leaves. We excuse ourselves. We blame circumstances. We blame other people. We sometimes blame God. We hide from the One who alone can heal us. But God still asks: “Where art thou?”

 

So this week, I invite you to bring these questions into prayer:

• Do I receive God’s commandments as the loving wisdom of my Father, or do I suspect that He is withholding something good from me?
• Where am I tempted to decide good and evil for myself rather than receive the truth from God and His Church?
• When I sin, do I confess honestly, or do I hide, excuse myself, and place the blame upon others?
• Do I recognize my body and the bodies of others as part of God’s good creation, possessing dignity and never to be used as objects?
• Do I uphold God’s plan for marriage as the faithful, lifelong, and fruitful union of one man and one woman?
• Have I become discouraged by the wounds of fallen human nature, forgetting the power of grace given to me in Christ?
• Do I call upon the Blessed Virgin Mary in my struggle against temptation, asking the New Eve to lead me more perfectly to her Son?
• Do I bring my sins out of hiding through sincere repentance and the Sacrament of Penance?

 

And finally:

• When God asks me, “Where art thou?” what is the truthful answer I must give Him today?

 

Do not answer that final question in the abstract. Allow God’s word to search your heart. Stand before Him without excuses and without hiding. The One who calls you is not seeking your destruction. He is the Father who sent His Son to seek and save the lost.

Pray

Almighty and eternal Father,

 

You created man in Your image and likeness. You formed us from the earth and breathed into us the breath of life. You created us for communion with You and with one another.

 

You established marriage from the beginning and made man and woman to become one flesh. You placed our first parents in the garden and surrounded them with Your gifts. Yet through the deception of the serpent and the disobedience of man, sin entered the world, and through sin, death.

 

We confess that the wound of Adam is present within us. Our minds are darkened. Our wills are weakened. Our desires are disordered. Too often, we distrust Your goodness, reject Your commands, hide our sins, and blame others.

 

Father, do not permit us to hide from Your voice. When You ask, “Where art thou?” give us the grace to come forth in humility, repentance, and trust.

 

We thank You for the promise spoken in Eden. We thank You for the Woman who stood in enmity against the serpent. We thank You for her Seed, Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son. He is the New Adam whose obedience repairs Adam’s disobedience. He is the Savior who sought us when we were lost.

 

He bore the thorns of the curse. He accepted death upon the tree. He opened Paradise through His Cross. He rose from the tomb and conquered death.

 

Through the grace of our Baptism, keep us united to Him. Strengthen us against temptation. Bring our hidden sins into the light. Lead us frequently to the Sacrament of Penance.

 

Teach husbands and wives to reveal the faithful love of Christ and His Church. Give us reverence for the dignity of the human body and the holiness of Your design for man and woman.

 

And when the serpent accuses us, place us beneath the mantle of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the New Eve and Mother of all who live in Christ. May she lead us always to her Son. May His grace heal what sin has wounded. May His obedience overcome our disobedience. May His life conquer our death. And may He bring us at last to the true Paradise, where the tree of life stands and Your servants behold Your face.

 

Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

 

Next Week

Genesis chapters 4 and 5

The Two Ways: The Spread of Sin and the Preservation of the Promise