Introduction
Let us open to the book of Genesis, chapter 3, and study from verse 10 through verse 14. The themes we will cover tonight are built on what we already saw last week in First Corinthians 15:48-49, where the apostle Paul explains to us the image of the earthly man. That teaching showed us that the earthly man is, precisely, Adam and Eve — but not Adam and Eve before the fall, but Adam and Eve after the fall.
This is important for us to understand, because although they were still in the garden, they had already fallen, and therefore a deformation arose: a physical deformation, a spiritual deformation, and a deformation we may call angelic. Last week we studied everything related to the physical deformation — that is, the personality, the character, and the way of conducting oneself that has to do with the physical part of the fallen human being. In today’s teaching we will study the spiritual deformation, because not everything is physical: there is also a deformation that directly affects the spirit.
The purpose of this teaching, as we established last week, is that each one of us may identify the image of fallen Adam and the image of fallen Eve, in order to gradually remove them from our lives. The reason is simple: if we do not remove those images, what comes next is expulsion from the garden. Neither Adam nor Eve had a true repentance after the fall. The first thing they did was hide, flee from the presence of God; and after that, instead of taking responsibility, they began to shift responsibility onto one another. Neither of them owned what his or her part had been in the fall. That is why, according to the account in Genesis 3, what followed was exactly the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
In prophetic terms, this tells us that if we do not take responsibility to remove from our lives the parts that were damaged by the fall, what comes next is an expulsion: we leave the presence of God. We all know what happened with Saul. Saul was chosen by God, he was anointed, he was prepared, and he had God’s favor; but a moment came when God Himself said that He was grieved that He had made Saul king (1 Samuel 15:11). The same pattern repeats itself: if we, men and women who have come to know the Lord, do not remove the fallen image — whether because the nation in which we live has established it in us, or because the genealogy from which we come has instilled it — then what comes next is the loss of the presence of God.
This is extremely important, brothers and sisters, because — as we have seen on other occasions — it is not simply a matter of committing a specific sin and, because of that, drawing away from the presence of God. A man may not have necessarily sinned at a given moment and yet feel distant from the presence of God: he feels that God does not hear him, that he has no communion with Him, that things are not moving as they should. And it is precisely because, at the moment when it was our responsibility to remove the image of the earthly man — the fallen image — we did not do it, and that is why the separation comes.
“Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.” (Psalm 24:3-5, NKJV)
This passage sums up what we are looking at: where are we when we hide? We are in the Garden of Eden, fallen and hiding. We cannot hide ourselves; we must go to the LORD so that He may straighten our steps.
A Personal and Non-Transferable Work
Last week we began to see that there is a series of deformations in the fallen nature: those that have to do with character and personality. How many times have we heard — and surely you have too — people say, “I don’t know why I acted this way; I don’t want to, but I end up doing what I don’t want to do.” The apostle Paul himself expresses this in his letter to the Romans: the evil that I do not want, that I do. Why? Because there is a physical deformation. But the problem is that, if we do not work on those deformations, they will not resolve themselves on their own.
Many think, “If the Lord has chosen me, if the Lord has called me, let Him be the One who does it; I will simply ask the Lord to change me, to transform me.” But God does not work that way, brothers and sisters. That is why the Scripture we quoted last week commands us to put off the old man and to put on the new:
“that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22-24, NKJV)
This is a personal, particular, individual work — and, listen well, non-transferable. No one can do it for us: not the husband, not the wife, not the father, not the son, not the daughter; not even the pastor can do it for us. That is why the Lord warned:
“Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.” (Matthew 24:40-41, NKJV)
Even if two people are in a relationship as close and intimate as sharing the same field of labor, each one answers individually before God. It is a personal and non-transferable responsibility; we cannot expect anyone else to do what belongs to us. Last week, as we recall, we studied nine images of fallen Adam. Remember: they were still in the garden, but already fallen, and what would come next was expulsion.
Tonight, beginning at verse 10, we are going to look at the spiritual deformations, because there are also spiritual images, and all of them come from the kingdom of darkness. I want to quote a text we all know:
“Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (2 Corinthians 7:1, NKJV)
There are the two sources: one source of the flesh — that is, physical and material — which has to do with earthly existence, with the character, the personality, and the way of thinking of each person; and a source of the spirit. And here we should pause, because even the way of understanding things is distorted by the fall. We can be part of the same family, even identical twins, and yet understand things in completely different ways, because it is all part of the distortion we inherited from Adam.
First Spiritual Image: Fear
Let us go to verse 10 of Genesis 3:
“So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”” (Genesis 3:10, NKJV)
In this single verse alone we find three images of fallen Adam and fallen Eve. Although it is Adam who speaks, both of them are at work in this passage. The first image is fear. Fear is not from God; fear is an image of fallen Adam, an image of fallen Eve. The apostle Paul, by the Spirit of God, confirms this:
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7, NKJV)
God has not given us a spirit of fear; He has given us a spirit of courage through the Holy Spirit. We see this image clearly in the parable of the talents, where one man was given five talents, another two, and another one. The one who received a single talent confessed at the end, “I was afraid” (Matthew 25:14-30). Fear does not come from God; because of it, that servant did not face what he had to face. He was afraid of what others would say about him, afraid of change, and so he did nothing. Fear paralyzes, brothers and sisters; fear paralyzes, and it is an image of fallen Adam, an image of fallen Eve.
If you begin to review your life and your past, you will realize that at a certain point your spiritual life came to a stop. I am not speaking of dreams, illusions, or projects — although those are involved too — but of spiritual growth and development. Though by now we ought to be teachers:
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God.” (Hebrews 5:12, NKJV)
Fear has stopped many people. I remember a word the Lord gave us right after we returned from a trip to Colombia, when we celebrated the Lord’s Supper with the whole group: of the six hundred thousand men who left Egypt, not all of them crossed the Jordan; many remained in the wilderness. For a span of forty years they carried Joseph’s coffin — and very likely those of the other patriarchs as well — because Jacob had already been buried before they left Egypt. Forty years carrying the dead. How many times are we carrying the guilt of our father, the sin of our mother, or things we should not be carrying, simply because we were afraid? No one wants to face things, brothers and sisters. Many of us suffer what we suffer in our lands because no one has dared to believe God or to speak up about the condition of a people who have abandoned God, leaving each one to resolve his own situation.
This is the same fear that often keeps us from seeing the blessings God has promised to those who obey Him:
“And it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you.” (Deuteronomy 28:1-2, NKJV (paraphrased))
Around fear an entire family of demons develops: dread, anguish, panic. How many of us have not had a panic attack? “I don’t think I can do it, I don’t think it’s possible.” This, brothers and sisters, is an image of fallen Adam. Either we cut it off, or we will be expelled; and when we see the results of God’s blessing in the lives of others, we will know what it means to weep and gnash our teeth: “I could have been there; I was a candidate; God told me that was for me, but I am not there, because I was afraid.”
In the book of Acts we read that, when they arrived and gathered the church together, the apostles reported all that God had done with them, and how He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles (Acts 14:27). Faith has a door, and it is the Lord who opens it. Now, when we turn to Revelation, we read something that should shake us:
“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8, NKJV)
When we read this list carefully, we are struck to see the cowardly listed alongside murderers, sorcerers, and idolaters. How can a cowardly person be compared to a sorcerer? Because fear eliminates faith. Fear does not let you enter the presence of God; it separates you, and when you embrace fear you are discarding faith. This is a very serious matter. Fear is a spirit that must be rebuked and discarded, because it does not allow entrance into the revelation of the kingdom, nor does it allow one to remain joined to the body of Christ. God has not given us a spirit of fear or of cowardice, but of a sound mind; something that seems simple is, in reality, extremely serious.
The way to confront darkness is not merely to rebuke it; it is to establish obedience in the regions where we are placed. The Word speaks of justice, judgment, and mercy. Faith is an expression of righteousness, and when we abandon faith we cannot advance to higher levels of spiritual warfare, because faith is necessary for spiritual warfare, for taking territory, and for establishing the kingdom of heaven. It is not a matter of standing and declaring and decreeing; spiritual warfare consists of establishing the truth of Christ in the places where the Lord has placed us, and for that, the first thing that must be established is faith.
A person who walks in fear walks against faith: “I’m afraid of being alone; I’m afraid of what I’m going to do financially; how am I going to support myself?” All of this is contrary to faith. If the Lord gave us a word, a calling, or an instruction, we must follow it, trusting that He will back up what He has promised. But when we become afraid, we cannot move forward to the next step, and then one of two things can happen: the Lord may return us to our original state — not as a punishment, but to prune us again and to deposit faith in us so that we can begin again — or, depending on the circumstance and the person, the door of faith may close permanently. That is why faith is fundamental, because without faith it is impossible to please God: faith is the work of the cross of Calvary, it is what the Lord came to awaken on the earth. The first step is to believe in the Lord Jesus the Christ, and the second is to believe that in Him is the answer and the salvation for every instruction He gives us. Fear is one of the weapons the enemy presents in order to disqualify someone, because the Word itself disqualifies the one who is afraid.
Second Spiritual Image: Nakedness and Shame
The second image that appears in verse 10 is “because I was naked.” Nakedness here does not refer to the physical, but to the spiritual: it means shame.
“Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.” (Revelation 16:15, NKJV)
“I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed.” (Revelation 3:18, NKJV)
In what sense is it being said that Adam was naked, that there was something that shamed him? Let us recall what we studied in the Sunday teachings:
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15, NKJV)
In other words: not naked, having nothing to be ashamed of. The image of fallen Adam and fallen Eve, then, has to do with something of which the person is ashamed: of one’s past, of one’s complexes, of something present in one’s life. At times this manifests itself in dreams: when a person sees himself naked in a dream, he often does not understand why, and what is being said to him is that there is something of which he is ashamed.
Now then, regarding the crucifixion there is something we must understand:
“Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” (Colossians 2:15, NKJV)
This passage reveals something many do not mention: Jesus was crucified naked; He was publicly exposed to shame. This is not spoken of, because the sacrifice of Jesus reached its fullest expression: there was nothing He held back in being humiliated completely. This is important for us to understand what this image of “I was naked” means for each one of us: there is an element that shames us, a situation that shames us, and no matter how hard the person tries to fight it, he cannot overcome it by his own strength, because it is a spiritual matter.
Shame brings with it deception and lies, in order to keep hidden whatever shames us. And when God calls us to confession and confrontation, we set a limit: “I cannot say this, I cannot say this.” That causes darkness to take on more authority over the situation. But the LORD is the One who clothes us; He is our refuge. We must go to the Lord so that He may clothe us, so that our shame will not be seen. He is the One who took skins and clothed Adam and Eve; He is the One who gives covering and refuge.
One of the reasons some people are never fully set free is precisely because they hide something: they do not want to bring into the light the situations that shame them, and this stops their spiritual growth. I remember the case of an elderly woman who came for me to pray for her. She had undergone surgery for a female condition related to the womb, and the operation was a success. However, about three months after the surgery — after she had been told everything was fine — she came down with another health condition she had not had before. When she told me about her situation, the Spirit of the Lord revealed to me that it had to do with something she was hiding. The woman began to weep and confessed, “I had sworn to go to the grave with this secret.” The secret was that she had been unfaithful to her husband, and one of her children was not his. Her husband had already passed away. She had to confess, in front of her own children, what she had sworn to take to the grave, and only then was she truly set free and saved.
When a man walks with the fallen image of Adam, when a woman walks with the fallen image of Eve, shame leads them to say, “I don’t want to bring it out, I don’t want to confess it.” And the person dries up spiritually. This is a spiritual image that, together with the others we are examining, is the cause of the deterioration of men and women — even of those who have a ministry — who never reach where the Lord has intended to take them.
Third Spiritual Image: Hiding
The next image in verse 10 is the consequence of the previous one: “and I hid myself.” Hiding is part of the Adamic nature, part of Eve’s nature: “I don’t want anyone to know.” I have seen cases, brothers and sisters, of people who even lose their memory because they do not want to face something from the past. There are families that live with hidden scandals that everyone knows about but that no one speaks of. To hide means, above all, to evade — to not want to confront something. It is not merely a matter of changing the subject to avoid a topic; it is a matter of evading, of not wanting to face, of not wanting to confront, because many times a word of correction hits us hard. Why? Because we do not want to confront things about ourselves. That is why many do not submit themselves to correction, or allow a situation to be examined: because something is confronting them and they do not want to face it.
“or if a person touches any unclean thing, whether it is the carcass of an unclean beast, or the carcass of unclean livestock, or the carcass of an unclean creeping thing, and he is unaware of it, he also shall be unclean and guilty. Or if he touches human uncleanness — whatever uncleanness with which a man may be defiled, and he is unaware of it — when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty.” (Leviticus 5:2-3, NKJV)
This passage teaches us that if we exposed ourselves to something that at the time we did not perceive as serious, or did not see that we were sinning against God, and later He opens our conscience and understanding so that we see that we did sin, then from that moment on we carry the guilt until we confront it. When someone lives in sin without repentance, the Lord leaves that person for the final judgment. But when God calls us into His presence and to serve Him, and we enter the process of conversion and water baptism, the Lord brings to our memory situations that we must reconcile. If we do not reconcile them, we will be guilty from that point on: illnesses begin to worsen, emotional situations become complicated, finances become strangled — because we have begun to walk with an unresolved guilt. The only way to resolve it is to come before the Lord and settle accounts with Him.
Fourth Spiritual Image: Deceptive Voices
Let us go to verse 11 of Genesis 3:
“And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”” (Genesis 3:11, NKJV)
This image has to do with open channels from darkness into people’s lives. We believe, brothers and sisters, that God speaks through dreams; the Word confirms this clearly. That is why, many times, when we are working in deliverance with a person, we almost always ask whether they have had any recurring dream, or any dream that feels like a nightmare, because many times, through dreams, what is spiritually operating in a person is revealed. But we must say clearly that not all dreams come from God: there are lying dreams, deceiving dreams, dreams whose purpose is to establish a false teaching in the person.
How is a lying dream recognized? When the person has it and does not share it with anyone; the person simply pays close attention to it, interprets it on his or her own, and begins to walk according to what that dream is saying. That is a clear sign that the person is not being led by the Spirit of God, but rather by whatever “told them they were naked.” We must be very careful about this. We believe in ministries and in the gifts, but we must be cautious: hearing a voice that whispers in our ear, even one accompanied by an apparent peace, does not guarantee that it is the Spirit of God speaking. It is not always so, brothers and sisters. There are people with genuine gifts and spiritual sensitivity given by God to hear His voice; but if that person does not communicate, does not consult, and simply lets himself be carried along by that whispering voice, someone is teaching that person something that does not come from God.
In the spiritual realm there are demonic assignments over people, meant to prepare them for what the enemy intends, and these are usually sensitive people — sensitive with a sensitivity God gave them in order to hear His voice. Balaam is an example of a “man of open eyes” who was nonetheless fallen, who heard the knowledge of the Most High and yet began to discern spiritual voices that tried to intervene to trip up his path. That is why the Lord sends us to walk under covering, to communicate things so that they may be weighed and discerned, and thus confirm whether or not they truly come from God. We cannot be shepherded by dreams or by loose voices.
Let us be very careful with voices that seem plausible, calm, and peaceful. Spiritual forces of high rank do not always shout, growl, or manifest violently, as we are accustomed to seeing in some deliverance cases; many of them, with high levels of authority, speak in a very calm manner. And when a spirit is using a person, that person tends to present himself with flattery. That is why we must be prudent both in discerning others and in not presenting ourselves that way to anyone.
Fifth Spiritual Image: Defamation and the Evasion of Responsibility
Let us continue at verse 12:
“Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”” (Genesis 3:12, NKJV)
Here another spiritual image appears: defamation. Adam presents the situation in a way that involves, on one hand, God (“the woman whom You gave me”) and, on the other, Eve (“she gave me”), as if he were simply the one affected in the middle of it all. That is defamation: shifting one’s own responsibility onto others.
It is very common to hear someone say, “That’s what I was taught at the other church.” But each person holds in his own hands the Word, from Genesis to Revelation, and the responsibility to read and know it is personal. If we have not read it, we cannot simply believe everything we are taught without examining it. When Jesus the Christ comes, each one of us will have to give an account for ourselves; we will not be able to say, “The pastor You gave me, Lord, is the one who taught me that.” All of us have the responsibility to study the Word, to ask when something is not understood, and not to leave a place simply saying, “That’s what I was taught before, that’s how they did it, that’s what I believed it to be.” That is, at once, an accusation against others and an evasion of responsibility, and that is why the judgment is so severe: because the person does not own his part.
When someone takes ownership of his responsibility, he proceeds in repentance, as David did: “I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned; it was I.” That moves God to act on that person’s behalf. But when we shift our responsibility onto someone else — “I didn’t know,” “I didn’t understand,” “they told me” — we are evading what belongs to us, because in Adam we are all represented: if I am represented in Adam, I must take the responsibility that falls to me for having been part of that lineage. We must own our responsibility.
The Curse and the Loss of the Image of God
We now come to verses 13 and 14:
“And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.”” (Genesis 3:13-14, NKJV)
In this passage we find three elements we must highlight: the curse above all beasts, going on the belly, and eating dust. The day Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they lost the image and likeness of God — they lost it completely, listen well, they did not keep a portion of it, not a third, not a fourth. There are those who say the image was merely distorted or blurred, but that is not so: it was lost completely, and in its place they adopted the image of the one they had chosen to obey, that is, the serpent.
This image did not remain only with the serpent: the curse passed on to the man and the woman. “On your belly you shall go” and “you shall eat dust” became images that they, too, received. In Revelation we read:
“His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.” (Revelation 12:3-4, NKJV)
Notice the first part: “his tail drew a third of the stars.” Here we find another image, related to dragging: people who are dragged into drug addiction, alcoholism, various vices and addictions, even sexual addiction, because addiction is not only to drugs. These are people who adopt the image of the earthly man for having obeyed the serpent, and who are dragged into a poverty so deep that they find no way out of it. This image can come through the nation to which the person belongs, or through the genealogy from which he comes, because it is often observed as something common in that nation or that family; but in either case, the person finds himself being dragged.
That is why we have always said that we must be very careful with people who beg for money on the streets: we cannot limit ourselves to doing social work, because many times there is a spirit of dragging operating in them, and that condition is not resolved by giving them a handout or a bit of food from time to time. A person cannot be set free unless it is done spiritually. This image is extremely strong, because almost always those who fall into these cases have been touched by a curse pronounced against them, and there is no way for them to come out of that state until that curse is dealt with directly: people addicted to alcohol, to drugs, to sex, or, in our day, to games — not only young people, but many adults as well are addicted to different games, including soccer — because behind it there is a spiritual force at work.
This image enters through a curse, and it can pass from generation to generation: at times it skips from the grandfather to the grandchild, without necessarily passing through the son, but something always remains latent within that lineage. The devil also uses this dragging force to move the masses: gossip, for example, drags a group of people who, without realizing it, begin to give their opinions and to take positions within a wave that engulfs them. There is the image of the earthly man: anything that drags us, anything before which we feel dragged along, is an image we must eliminate.
Conclusion
We have seen, brothers and sisters, that these images have different aspects. We have already mentioned this on several occasions: there is the physical aspect, which affects personality, character, and the way of seeing things — for example, people who feel that everything said is directed at them. Today we have seen the images of the earthly man that affect the spirit: fear, the shame of nakedness, hiding, deceptive voices, defamation, and the curse that drags. These spiritual images are rooted more deeply than those that affect only the personality, and that is why they are much stronger.
From all of this, brothers and sisters, we must seek total and complete deliverance. It is not enough to say “I rebuke it” or “the blood of Christ cleanses me,” because many of us have been there, and in that way we did not truly resolve anything; on the contrary, many times everything became more complicated. The Lord is calling us to complete deliverance, and He is showing us which images we have brought from the earthly man, so that we may begin to work with them decisively. The first thing we must do is identify them. We cannot go before the Lord and simply say, “Whatever evil is in me, I denounce it and rebuke it.” That resolves nothing. We must identify, one by one, by name, every fallen image, because nothing we fail to identify properly can we confront or resolve. It is hard work, but it is work we must do.
In our next teaching we will study the images that remain from verses 4 through 8 of this same chapter, which have to do neither with character nor with the spirit, but with angelic images: those that come from angelic spiritual beings.
Review Questions
1. Why is it so important to distinguish between the image of Adam and Eve before the fall and the image of Adam and Eve after the fall? What consequence does it bring for our lives if we fail to make that distinction?
2. Of the spiritual images studied in this chapter — fear, shame, hiding, deceptive voices, defamation, and the dragging curse — which do you recognize most clearly in your own life, and what concrete steps can you take to confront it before the Lord?
3. Why does this chapter insist that the work of putting off the old man is “personal and non-transferable”? How does this truth change the way you seek your own spiritual deliverance?
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