Why is Adam blamed for the fall of humanity when Eve sinned first?

Genesis 3 brings us into the presence of the great catastrophe. The source of it is uncovered — the serpent; but in the serpent we discern the devil who is called Satan, for he had evidently entered into the serpent, then a far finer creature than now, to carry out his evil design. The woman, Eve, becomes the medium of it. Approached by the serpent, she listened, and then taking the lead, which was not her place, she acted and disobeyed. Adam, however, was the responsible transgressor. It is always Adam's sin of which Scripture speaks, and 1 Timothy 2:14 supplies us with the reason. Eve was deceived but Adam was not. His eating of the forbidden tree was therefore an act of pure defiance of God. It was undiluted lawlessness, and that is the very essence of sin.

Eve gave of the forbidden fruit to Adam; and he, not being deceived, was all the more culpable as head to the woman, and thus shared in the fall.

Was then Adam's guilt attenuated by his wife's sin? Far from it! On the contrary, the very thing he alleges as an excuse ("the woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat,") God pronounces to be the reason for Adam's judgment, "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy" [not for her]" sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it thou wast taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

Thus we see, that the responsibility of the man's guilt, instead of being shifted on the woman, or, at the least shared by her, because of her having taken the initiative, only falls with its full, yea, redoubled weight upon Adam, because he had permitted her to do so. If the man Adam failed to maintain his place as the head of the woman, which he was from a creatural reason, (comp. 1 Cor. 11) even before sin had come in, this only increased his guilt, as said already, instead of attenuating it. ("Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife," etc.) The commandment, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, had not been given to the woman, but to the man, before the woman had come into existence. Therefore the full weight of responsibility rested upon Adam in every sense. The brighter and higher his position had been, as head of the lower creation, and as head of the woman, the darker was his sin, and the deeper his fall. "Because thou" (not you) "hast eaten of the tree," and "Cursed is the ground for thy sake," etc. (Comp. Rom. 5:12-19.)

Far otherwise was it as yet with our first parents. "And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat" (vers. 11, 12). What glaring disrespect and ingratitude to God! What utter lack of affection and compassionate care for his wife, whom he ought to have led and shielded if he could from evil, instead of following her into it! What unworthy and impudent reflection on Him Who gave the woman as a helpmeet for his good, not as an excuse for disobeying God! To hear Him was his first and known duty, even before she was made. Both the man and the woman knew the prohibition of the LORD God; both were fully aware of the penalty of disobeying; and both consciously rebelled, though separately, she quite deceived, he not so yet persuaded by her, preferring the creature to the Creator Who had set them blessed in responsibility to Himself.

15 et seq: blessing, responsibility, purpose of union, conferred intelligent dominion; then his partner, but his own position was with God first. And though the woman was first transgression, yet the Lord says "Thou," and speaks to dam of the disobedience; for temptation never justifies departure from God.

Adam is addressed, and speaks alone; he is the responsible man. So the woman here takes her place again, sad as the excuse was, "to be with me."

Having constituted Adam as the responsible head, the Lord God dealt directly with him, and challenged him as to his disobedience. Adam admitted it, and what he said in verse 12 was true, but stated so as to cast the blame on Eve, and even in an indirect manner upon God Himself. "The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me" led me into this disobedience; the inference being that if God had not presented Eve to him all would have been well. Man's deep-seated sinful instincts are at once revealed. If he cannot deny his guilt he will blame somebody else, and if possible blame God.

In turning to the woman the Lord God asked a second question as to what she had done. The first had raised the question of man's state; now the second challenges his acts. Eve admitted she had eaten of the tree but blamed the serpent. As with Adam so again here, what she said was true, for the serpent did beguile her, but her effort clearly was to shift the onus of the act from herself. In this connection Romans 2:15 is very illuminating, though we have to add that apart from the working of the Spirit of God in the conscience the invariable tendency of sinful men is to indulge in the "accusing" of others and the "excusing" of themselves. So it was at the outset, but the truth was now out, as to the man, and the woman, and the serpent.

The apostle adds another reason, "Adam was not deceived; but the woman quite deceived is involved in transgression." The man may have been in a certain sense worse. He followed the woman in wrong against God, where he ought to have led her in obedience; and he did it knowingly. She was beguiled outright; he was not. Her weakness therefore, and its dangerous effect on man, are urged as an additional plea, why she should be in quietness, neither teaching nor ruling; let her own sphere be at home (1 Tim. 5:24).

This is emphasized too by the fact that Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, was in the trans­gression. The woman did have a safeguard if only she had remembered the woman's place. When Satan tempted her, she could simply have referred the matter to Adam; for here was a case of the tempter ignoring her head, and coming to the weaker vessel. Adam was not deceived, but sinned with his eyes wide open, no doubt out of affection for his wife. Certainly he is no less responsible: it is guilt in both cases; but this still illustrates the fact that man, being characterized particularly by intelligent and deliberating judgment, is fitted for the public place; and woman, more rightly marked by her feelings and intuition, is fitted for the more quiet place of subjection.

Transgression then, is the fruit of passing by, and then of despising the explicit commandment of God. It is in fact the wilful infraction of a known rule of conduct. Such was the form of the sin of Adam and Eve (Rom. 5:14; I Tim. 2:14). Our first parents violated the single restriction laid upon them in the garden of Eden, Adam not being deceived, but partaking of the forbidden fruit with his eyes open to the fact of the disobedience involved in the act.