Blame Game

The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” (NLT) ~ Genesis 3:12


Blame Game

We all know this story. Adam and Eve ate the apple and we lost paradise. According to the rock singer Meatloaf, we regained paradise by the dashboard lights! Original Sin, no less paradise, has often been misrepresented as sexual in nature. To lust and fornicate is original sin in some people’s estimation. The band Aerosmith wrote in their song Adam’s Apple, “She ate it. Lordy, it was love at first bite. Well she ate it never knowing wrong from right.” Not an accurate retelling of the biblical story. The song minimizes the sin of eating forbidden fruit by sympathizing that all she wanted was “a little taste.”

The truth is that Adam and Eve listened to the serpent’s lie rather than God’s command. The serpent told them they would not die, but rather become like God with their eyes wide open. She wanted more than a little taste. She wanted it all. She and Adam wanted to be like God, unlimited in knowledge. The serpent made it sound like God didn’t want the man and woman to know what He knew. Perhaps Adam and Eve didn’t want to be out done by God.
Original Sin in this context is simply refusing to take God at His word. It is a lack of faith. All manner of sin springs from this filthy well. Fear drives the sinful mind. Where faith fails, fear’s near. Adam and Eve feared that God had something they didn’t, knowledge of evil. There seemed in their minds an injustice or an imbalance of power. To right this perceived wrong, they disobeyed God’s warning and ate of the tree and they became aware of their shame. So they hid.

Hiding from God is a ridiculous notion. The truth cannot be hidden indefinitely. And God knows our inmost thoughts. Hiding from God only shows our foolishness. Hiding our sin from our spouse is likewise foolish. “The truth will out,” as they say.

Adam answered God when he was called out. Instead of admitting his guilt, he passed the blame on to Eve. Eve, when confronted, passed the blame to the serpent. Evidently the serpent had no one to whom the blame could be passed. Instead they all bore the consequence of their sin.

Michele notes that in our marriage we’ve played the blame game lots of times, but she can’t remember a specific incident. In general when she senses I am mad at her, she gets defensive and wants to shift the blame. Is the reason that we can’t think of a specific incident of the blame game an indication that we’ve learned to forgive and forget? Or is it because we are hiding and ashamed? We can become experts at hiding our guilt from our own eyes so that we don’t have to take responsibility for our actions.

What about you? Are you able to be honest about your sin? At what times do you behave like you are God and not his obedient child? When have you felt the need to push the blame off on your spouse, or a child, or another person in your family, church or work? Talk with your spouse about how you each tend to hide in the bushes to keep from owning up to your failures and weaknesses.

Sin has character in the bible. God told Cain “sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it (Gen. 4:7).” The serpent crawls in the dust from which we came. In a sense sin crawls on us. God breathed his breath of life into the dust to bring us to life. But we are always in between our longing to be completely filled with the breath of life and united with God and the dust of the ground where the serpent feeds on our fear.