Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #9 of Genesis, chapter 3 and we are continuing to look at Genesis 3:7-8:

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of JEHOVAH God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of JEHOVAH God amongst the trees of the garden.

We discussed the sewing together of the fig leaves and how it points to the “work” that man attempts to do to cover his sins. They made themselves “aprons” and this is a word that can be translated as “girdle” and relates to the armour of God, which in turn identifies with salvation and the Lord Jesus. It is a definite picture of Adam and Eve trying to take care of their sin problem and to fix the gigantic error they had just made. They believed the lie and they were deceived; they realized they were naked and they wanted to solve the problem without God. They wanted to take care of it themselves and this is the nature of fallen man. Mankind thinks he can develop another religion or another gospel that will appease an angry God and they try to get right with Him through their own works. It is not possible and the Bible does not allow for it.

Then it says in Genesis 3:8:

And they heard the voice of JEHOVAH God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…

We saw that this was unusual because it said they heard His voice walking in the garden. We know the voice of JEHOVAH has to do with the Law of God or the Word of God, the Bible. We went to several verses that showed that we are to walk in His commandments and to walk with Christ and to walk in the spirit, and so forth.

It says in Jeremiah 32:23:

And they came in, and possessed it; but they obeyed not thy voice, neither walked in thy law; they have done nothing of all that thou commandedst them to do: therefore thou hast caused all this evil to come upon them:

Here, it is speaking of the people of Judah and they obeyed not God’s voice and they walked not in His Law. So when the voice of God was walking in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were no longer walking with Him or with His voice. They are not walking in the spirit or walking in the truth any longer. God made a point to show they were not walking with Him by saying, “and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of JEHOVAH God amongst the trees of the garden.”

Then it goes on to say in Genesis 3:9-10:

And JEHOVAH God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

Adam heard the voice. He heard the commandment of God, but He was not walking in the voice and He was not walking in the Law of God any longer. Instead, Adam was hiding. It is a clear picture of what sin does to the relationship between God and man. In a right relationship man walks with God, as did Enoch and Noah. They walked with God because they had become saved and they had a right relationship restored with God. Before falling into sin, Adam and Eve walked with God. As God would walk in the garden in the cool of the day, they would have walked with Him, but not on this day. This time they are hiding among the trees of the garden and they are very definitely not walking with God in spirit.

However, God Himself continued to walk in the Spirit because He keeps His own commandments and He has magnified His Law above all His name. God submits Himself to His own commandments or His own Word. God is under the same Law as man and that means that God cannot command man to obey certain Laws and then not obey those Laws Himself. He cannot command us to obey the Laws of marriage and divorce and then declare Himself as not under those Laws. The Bible says that God has placed Himself in submission to His own Law.

When the Lord Jesus entered into the human race He was an illustration of that truth. In all things, He stated He was sent by the Father to accomplish the will of His Father in fulfilling all the Law and the prophets. Jesus submitted to the Law of God and was obedient in every point of the Law. Yes, Jesus is God, but He submitted Himself to the Law because the Law is magnified above all God’s name. He obeyed even unto death, the death of the cross, a shameful death. Christ demonstrated that God absolutely must obey His own Word.

So, we see that the voice of JEHOVAH God was walking in the garden, even when man no longer walked with Him. God will walk in His Word. Man can sin, but God will not sin. Man can lie, but God will not lie. He will walk in all His Word and He will keep all His commandments, no matter what man does in relationship to the Law of God.

It says in Galatians 5:16:

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Then it says in Galatians 5:25:

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

There is another verse in Romans that says something similar. It says in Romans 8:1:

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

God commands us to walk in the Spirit and He, too, walks in the Spirit. That is why it says that Noah walked with God. God was walking alongside Noah because they were both obedient to the Word of God. Noah was perfect in his soul existence in obeying all the Law of God. And God, as always, walks in His Word. He keeps His own Law perfectly. He is a Holy God. That is why He is a Holy God because there is no sin in Him. There is no iniquity of any kind because God keeps His own Law. God is perfect and God commands us, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” He has placed Himself under His own Law. Jesus entering into the human race was a beautiful picture of God placing Himself under His own Law and keeping His own Law perfectly in every point of the Law. Jesus was without sin.

Again, it says in Genesis 3:8:

And they heard the voice of JEHOVAH God walking in the garden…

Again, the garden is a representation of the outward kingdom of God on earth, so God walking in the Garden of Eden would be like God walking in national Israel in the days when Israel was His representatives. It would be like God walking in the midst of the candlesticks during the time when the New Testament churches and congregations were God’s representatives on the earth.

Here in Genesis, God is walking in the garden, the outward representation of His kingdom, and it says He was walking “walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” What does that mean? Does it mean that He was walking in the morning when the day was cooler? No, it does not. By God’s grace we are helped when we turn to the concordance or interlinear Bible and we see that the word “cool” is Strong’s #7307. It is a typical word that is translated as “spirit” or “breath” or “wind.” It is only translated as “cool” in this verse. This is the word that was used in Genesis 1:2:

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

The word “Spirit” is this same Hebrew word, Strong’s #7307, that was translated as “cool” in our verse.

It says in Genesis 7:22:

All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.

The word here is “breath” and it could be understood as “spirit” of life.

It says in Genesis 8:1:

And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;

Our word is the word translated here as “wind.” You can find this word translated many times as “spirit” or “wind” or “breath,” but I could not find anywhere else where it was translated as “cool.”

The reason the translators translated this word as “cool” is because of the word “day,” where it says, “And they heard the voice of JEHOVAH God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” Of course, they would have recognized how this word was translated elsewhere and, yet, they may have thought it fit better with the word “day.” If they had said, “in the spirit of the day,” it seemed a little awkward, so they settled on the word “cool.” God allowed them to do this because God allowed the translators to use words in many places in the Bible that did not convey the best meaning. Why would God do that? It is in order to hide truth.

In this case, I think the word “spirit” would have been the better translation: “And they heard the voice of JEHOVAH God walking in the garden in the spirit.” What have we been reading about the word “walking”? To walk in the commandments or to walk in the spirit means you are keeping the Law of God perfectly – you are in the spirit because God’s Holy Spirit is perfect and without error of any kind. God must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Walking in the commandments or walking in the truth or walking in the spirit are all synonymous meanings.

So, here we find what we had already noticed. The voice of JEHOVAH God was “walking in the spirit” and that fits very well with the information we saw earlier in the Bible where God has magnified His Word above all His name. Therefore, He walks in His own commandments or He walks in the spirit.

What about the addition of the phrase “of the day”? What does it mean that JEHOVAH God was walking in the garden in the spirit of the day? There are a couple of possibilities for the word “day.” When I looked up the words “spirit” and “day,” the only place I noticed that these two words were together is in Revelation 1:10:

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet…

Here, we see our words “Spirit,” “day” and “voice,” so that is a possibility.

Also, when we think of the word “day,” we think of the day of salvation. So this could be a reference to God walking in the garden (the outward representation of His kingdom), so it would like when God was still in the midst of national Israel or when His Spirit was still in the midst of the churches. When God’s Spirit is in the midst, there is salvation available. It is when God’s Spirit comes out of the midst that salvation is no longer available, like when God left national Israel or when He left the churches and congregations back in 1988.

But, there is another possibility in regard to the meaning of “day” and that is Christ Himself. It says in Psalm 118:24:

This is the day which JEHOVAH hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Here, the “day” is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ and it would better be translated: “This is the day which JEHOVAH hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in Him.” We have talked about this before. From the foundation of the world when Christ died and rose again to be declared the Son of God, He became the essence of the Gospel and the Light of the world and, therefore, He is the “day.” He began to be a picture of the day itself and that is why we talked about this in the creation account where God made the “day” first and then later on (day four) He created the sun, moon and stars as the light bearers. But the “day” already existed because God made salvation first. Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He performed His atoning work and guaranteed the salvation of all the elect that were chosen to receive it, so the “day of salvation” was made.

So, it seems to be the most likely solution to view the “day” as pointing to Christ. Then we have Adam and Eve hearing the voice of JEHOVAH God (God the Father) walking in the garden in the Spirit (God the Holy Spirit) “of the day” (God the Son). We have all three Persons of the Godhead represented here. Jesus was the essence of the day and the light of the world, as typified by the sun. Now we can see that the Trinity is in view.

Adam and Eve became separated from the Being of God. God is one God and, yet, three Persons. God reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and Adam and Eve lost connection with each Person of the Godhead. They were no longer walking with the fullness of God in His commandments. They were not walking with God the Father, God the Spirit or God the Son. I think this is the emphasis God makes here as we read this very interesting verse. It is really a statement that encapsulates the entire Godhead. We also see that the three Persons of the Trinity are still enjoying communion with one another, even though they are not walking with man that was made in their image: “Let us make man in our image.” Man broke that relationship, but the relationship within the Godhead is continuing, as God is one God and, yet, three Persons.