And they heard
the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from
the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden (Gen. 3:8).
COMMON GRACE ARGUMENT:
Sometimes this
text is quoted to support the idea that there is still some “good” in man after
the fall. The idea, here, is that when Adam and his wife “hid themselves” from
the presence of the Lord God, it was due to a sense of shame, on their part—and
yes you guessed it … surely this sense of shame was a fruit of common grace?! Surely
if man is totally depraved he would never display such an attitude to his sin …
but would be brazen, and fearless, and without shame or remorse …
(I)
Homer C. Hoeksema (1923-1989)
[Source:
Unfolding Covenant
History: An Exposition of the Old Testament, Volume 1: From Creation to
the Flood]
This so-called natural shame is not the expression of any remnant
of good that is left in man after the fall. It can hardly be said that in these
first reactions of Adam and Eve, in their attempt to cover themselves and to
hide from the presence of the Lord, there were signs of the operation of God’s
grace. There was fear, not sorrow and repentance, in these actions. It is
perfectly true that this fear and this natural shame presuppose a knowledge of
the wrongful character and the shamefulness of sin. This is a matter of mere
natural light, not a result of the operation of God’s grace. There is no true
godly sorrow evident in the actions of our first parents.
The fact is that unless the power of God’s grace takes hold of
sin, the natural man subverts even that natural light and holds it under in
unrighteousness. When, however, the power of God’s grace takes hold of that
same knowledge of the difference between good and evil and changes the
spiritual direction of the mind and will, then a man no longer subverts it in
unrighteousness, but he is led to true godly sorrow, to repentance, to
contrition, and to confession. This was the direction in which the Lord God
through all these events was leading Adam and Eve, even though at this point
they were not aware of God’s grace and did not evince any spiritual knowledge
of sin and any hearty confession. They first had to learn to know by experience
the vanity of their own foolish coverings of fig leaves, for sinful and foolish
those aprons of fig leaves certainly were, and utterly vain.
------------------------------------------------
(II)
Robert C Harbach
[Source:
Studies in the Book
of Genesis, p. 82]
The effect of the Lord’s voice was that they “hid
themselves,” not in humbleness as unworthy to come into His presence; nor in
modesty, but in a sense of guilt. It is clear that there is no sign of grace
operating in Adam and Eve at this point. They react, not under the influence of
grace, but in fear, and under the power of their sinful nature. Godly sorrow and
repentance are not evident. They are not under grace, but under condemnation.
The “common grace” philosophy, however, finds evidence of some good in man in
the fact that he had a sense of shame. Only utterly shameless men show no shred
of grace in them. So the theory runs. But their shame was not a good thing; it
was a horrible dawning upon their consciousness of their newly acquired
corruption. Their shame was no more “good” than was the “repentance” of Judas
(Matt. 27:3). There is a natural shame even in the vilest of criminals which
shows that even the incorrigible and totally depraved know what is right and
what is wrong. They know, that is, experience, the shamefulness of sin. This
shame is no remnant of good in fallen man. It is no form of godly sorrow, but
only another form of sin, namely, pride and desire to have some appearance of
respectability.
------------------------------------------------
(III)
More to come! (DV)
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