Genesis 3 contains one of the most famous, or perhaps infamous, moments in the entirety of the Bible, the moment when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sin entered the world for the first time.
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Over the years I have heard numerous interpretations of this passage, and one of the most common questions that I see is who is to be blamed for the fall of humanity. Some interpreters place the blame on Eve since we are told that she is the one who first took the fruit from the tree and ate it. I’ve seen others put the blame on Adam for not saying or doing anything to stop Eve from eating the fruit. There are even those who put the blame on God for ordering things in such a way that Adam and Eve could fall to temptation to begin with.
My own interpretation that I would like to offer is that the blame does not rest squarely on one person. If any blame is to be placed, it should be placed with both Adam and Eve. The fact of the matter is that both of them ate the fruit when either one could have refused. To say that one or the other shoulders all the blame for the fall of humanity is simply incorrect. Yes, Eve should have recognized that what the serpent was saying wasn’t right, but Adam could also have stepped in and done something at any time.
In the end, the fact is that Adam and Eve both share responsibility for what happened then. However, neither one wanted to accept it. When asked by God if he had eaten from the tree that he was commanded not to eat from, Adam’s response is to blame Eve. He does admit to eating it, but it was because Eve gave it to him. Adam even reminds God that it was he who put Eve in the garden with him in the first place! God then asks Eve what it is she has done and Eve states that while she did eat, it was because the serpent deceived her.
While there are plenty of details here that could be discussed or debated over, one thing remains true no matter what: neither Adam or Eve were compelled to eat the fruit. Neither one was forced to disobey God. In the end, the responsibility still rests with them because it was a choice they both had to make. They disobeyed God of their own free will.
Responsibility is sometimes a tough thing to accept. This is especially true when what we need to take responsibility for is our mistakes. Oftentimes our knee-jerk reaction is to redirect blame to someone else as fast as we can just like Adam and Eve did. We may even be alright with saying that we did the bad thing, whatever it was, but we only did because someone else made us do it or tricked us into doing it. It’s where we get the saying “The Devil made me do it.” Who better to blame for something you did wrong than the Devil himself? What better way to get off the hook than that? We do this because we don’t want to look like the one who messed up if there’s going to be serious consequences as a result.
Yet owning up to mistakes and confessing them is exactly what Scripture calls on us to do. Proverbs 28:13 states “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” One of the core teachings of Christianity is that if we confess our sins and ask God for forgiveness through Jesus then we will be forgiven. This becomes extremely difficult to do, if not impossible, if we are unwilling to admit that our sins are indeed ours. Someone who is not willing to admit they’ve sinned will always be in danger of repeating that sin because they are refusing to deal with where sin originates from: within us. James 1:14-15 tells us “14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Sin begins with desire and desire begins within us.
Fortunately, if we are able to own up to our mistakes and acknowledge that we need help defeating them, then God is faithful to do exactly that. What is promised to us is that in Christ we become a new creation, one that is no longer bound to the power of sin and free to serve God willingly and joyfully. Taking responsibility for where we’ve gone wrong can be a painful process for sure, but the joy of being forgiven and being free to love and follow Jesus without anything holding us back makes the pain more than worth it.