Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you? So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ 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?’ Then the man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.’ And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ Genesis 3:9-13
When we get ourselves into trouble, we often like to pass the blame to someone else. It is easy to see why people have this tendency. After all, no one wants to face the negative consequences of his/her own bad decisions. Even if we cannot avoid the consequences, we seem to think convincing ourselves that someone else is the root of our problems may somehow lessen the burden of guilt we feel in our hearts. Such passing of blame has been part of the human way since the fall in the garden.
When Adam and Eve heard the Lord walking through the garden in the cool of the day after they had yielded to Satan’s temptations, they first tried to hide themselves (Genesis 3:8). Unable to escape the Lord’s presence, they knew they were caught. Nonetheless, they did not want to face the consequences of their sin. When it was clear God knew what they had done, they began pointing the finger to avoid bearing the responsibility for the decisions they made. When God asked Adam if he had eaten of the forbidden tree, he pointed the finger at both Eve and God saying, “The woman You gave to be with me…” (Genesis 3:9-12). Afterwards, when God questioned Eve, she blamed it on the serpent who deceived her (Genesis 3:13). Neither desired to own the personal decision made.
Fast forward to the Exodus of Israel from Egyptian slavery. Moses had been on Mount Sinai for an extended time receiving the law from God, and the people got restless. They came to Aaron and convinced him to make gods to go before them (Exodus 32:1-4). Seeing the golden calf he had made, Aaron fashioned an altar and began the practice of idol worship (Exodus 32:5-6). When God sent Moses to deal with the issue, Aaron tried to skirt his responsibility by blaming the people for their propensity to sin and claiming that all he did was throw their gold in the fire and out came the calf (Exodus 32:21-24). Wow, a magic idol maker was responsible for the golden calf, not Aaron!
If these people lived today, they might simply throw up their hands and say, “Everything happens for a reason,” “Everybody sins, so my sin is no worse than anybody else’s,” or my personal favorite, “I have to learn from my own mistakes.” These are modern ways of claiming our choices are really beyond our control as someone else (namely God) set things in motion in such a way that we are helpless victims of circumstance when we choose to sin, rather than free moral agents acting from impure motives. Let’s be clear, it is true that everything does happen for a reason, and our choices are the ultimate reason that these things happen (Genesis 3:14-19). It is also true that everyone’s sins are equally sinful, but this will not remove my guilt for the sins I choose to commit. And, while we certainly can and must learn lessons from the wrongs we do, does wisdom not cry out for us to learn from the wrongs of others and avoid the snare into which they fell?
When all is said and done, these excuses will hold no more water than the excuses offered up by the characters above. We too will have to own our choices in the end. Why not go ahead and own them now, so we can make the right adjustments to our attitudes and actions and remain in the light of God’s word?