Introduction
Review the setting. Humans were created in the image of God—enjoying
God’s presence, in benevolent rulership over nature and capable of
unity and diversity in relationship. All of this hinged on their free
choice to trust God’s loving authority as expressed through his propositional
communication.
This choice was made clear and concrete for them through the two trees
in the garden. Read 2:16,17.
There was nothing intrinsically significant about the fact that they
were trees. God could just as easily have said, “Don’t cross
that stream” or “Don’t go past that mountain range.”
The point was that they were given a clear choice to obey God.
Neither did their fruits contain any magical or chemical properties.
The tree of life is so called because the choice to trust and obey God
results in fullness of life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil
is so called because the choice to disobey God is to arrogate to oneself
the authority to define good and evil, instead of trusting God to define
good and evil for us.
So the choice was clear. God gave them ample reason to trust him (personal
fellowship and perfect environment), he gave them a very simple choice,
and he spelled out the consequences that would flow from this choice.
We do not know how long they lived in harmony with God, but at a certain
point another influence came into the picture . . .
Enter the Serpent
Read 1:1a. Who is “the serpent?” Is this simply Satan, or is
it Satan indwelling a snake? Christians disagree on their answer, but
I think the former.
The definite article indicates a very specific serpent. Satan is elsewhere
(Rev. 12:9; 2 Cor. 11:3) identified as this serpent without
any reference to a host animal. The language in 1:1 seems to purposefully
differentiate him from all other beasts. And, as we’ll see in two
weeks, God’s judgment is directed only against Satan.
At any rate, Satan enters the garden. We learn here that there has already
been a revolt against God. (Satan means “adversary.”) This raises
a whole host of questions: How long before this was he created? When did
he become God’s adversary, and what were the specifics of the conflict?
Why was he allowed into the garden? We have only a little information
on this because the main them of the Bible is humanity and God’s
rescue plan for us—not angelology. The little that is revealed, however,
harmonizes with the rest of scripture and is consistent with what we would
rationally deduce.
Ezek. 28:11-19 tells us that Satan was a great angelic being (“the
anointed cherub who covers”) who was originally perfect. At some
point, he became so focused on his own wisdom and beauty that he decided
that he should not have to live under God’s authority.
Rev. 12:9 tells that approximately one-third of the angelic beings
chose to follow him in his revolt against God. These rebellious angels
are called “demons” in the Bible.
There is some scriptural evidence that the earth was his domain before
his revolt, and that he took it with him so that it became “the
silent planet” (C. S. Lewis). If this is the case, it would seem
that God created humans (in part) to re-establish his authority over
the earth (see 1:28 “subdue” versus “rule;” see
2:15 “guard”). God’s plan seems to have been for Adam
and Eve and their descendents to gradually increase God’s rule
from the garden outward throughout the whole earth (1:28). But before
this could happen, Adam and Eve had to make a clear choice on whose
voice they would follow—the true God or the “ruler of this
world.”
The Voice of Satan
As we listen to Satan’s message to Eve, we should realize that we
continue to hear his voice today. Read Jn. 8:44. His approach is
not through intimidation (HOLLYWOOD); rather, he murders souls through
deception.
First, he distorts God’s Word by exaggerating its restrictiveness
(read 3:1b). The Hebrew should be translated: “Indeed! To think
that God said you are not to eat of any tree of the garden!”
Read 3:2,3. Eve’s response corrects this distortion, but then
she adds an exaggeration of her own! God never forbade them to touch
the tree—he just told them not to eat its fruit. This may seem
like a small thing, but it is the first step away from simple trust
in God’s authority.
The Church has a rich legacy of adding ethical imperatives to God’s
Word (SEX IS EVIL vs. SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE; NO DRINKING vs. NO
DRUNKENNESS OR DEPENDENCE; COMMUNION TO BE FORGIVEN vs. COMMUNION
BECAUSE FORGIVEN, etc.). This has the effect of eroding the authority
of God’s Word, and of portraying him as more restrictive than
he is. How many of you have been alienated by God through this tactic?
Then he denies God’s Word (3:4), suggesting that Eve is a gullible
fool for believing it. “He told you you would die if you ate that?
You’ve got to be kidding me! Do I look like I’m dead? No way
will you die! You can’t be stupid enough to believe that!”
This is the way Satan has undercut the credibility of the Bible in
our culture. Not by providing conclusive proof that it makes mistakes
or contradicts itself (“COMMON OBJECTIONS #4), but by simply
dogmatically asserting that it’s just a human book and that only
the naïve and uneducated believe it. You get this in the classroom,
through the media, and you hear it in your own mind (especially as
a Christian).
This raises the obvious question of why God would give them
false information. Satan answers the question he has raised by slandering
God’s character. “Devil” comes from the Greek diaballos,
which means “to cast against” or “to slander.” The
slander that was implicit in 3:1b,4 now becomes explicit in 3:5 (read).
He claims that God is deliberately keeping them in the dark through
this prohibition (“your eyes will be opened”). He implies
that God’s definition of good and evil is evil!
This is a message that resonates deeply within our hearts—the
suspicion that God is holding out on me, that he will burn me if I
entrust myself to him and his direction.
If they can’t trust God to tell them what is good and evil, where
should they turn for this direction? Satan’s answer is “Look
to yourself.” What a flattering suggestion! They don’t need
God’s moral direction—they can become their own gods by defining
for themselves what is good and evil. This is the path of enlightenment
and freedom, and we have heard it ever since.
We hear this voice through secular philosophy.
IMMANUEL KANT: “(Genesis 3 is the account of the) transition
from an uncultured, merely animal condition to the state of humanity,
from bondage to instinct to rational control—in a word, from
the tutelage of nature to the state of freedom.”
HUMANIST MANIFESTO: “Away with special revelation, away with
the heavenly law. We will decide for ourselves what is right and
what is wrong.”
We also hear this voice through religion.
LIBERAL THEOLOGY: “What happens here is not a ‘Fall,’
but an awakening.”
EASTERN MYSTICISM (VIDEO CLIP OF JOSEPH CAMBELL’S “THE
POWER OF MYTH”): What is the message here?
Jesus wasn’t God in any unique sense. He is our example
in realizing his innate divinity (quote is from pseudepigraphical
Gospel of Thomas)
We need to realize that we are God.
We have to go past biblical doctrine because it is an obstacle
to God.
We have to reject the biblical emphasis on God’s ethical
authority.
We have to find the Word in ourselves.
Having accepted suspicion about God’s love and trustworthiness,
Eve now looks to God’s creation rather than to God himself
for fulfillment of her personhood (read 3:6a). What before she
viewed as a clear rejection of God’s loving authority, she now
sees with different eyes: “I need something I do not now have
in order to be happy.”
She now sees the sensual pleasure of the fruit, its beauty, and
the power it possesses as the keys to her own self-actualization.
(Indeed, she has already revolted at this point. All revolt and
obedience begin in the thought-world, and are then manifested in
our words and actions.)
Note the similarity between the phrase “she saw that the
tree was good . . .” and statement “ . . . and
God saw that it was good . . .” (1:21). Eve
has arrogated to herself the authority to decide what is good.
Satan continues to seduce us from life with God through these same
means which the Bible calls the “world-system” (1 Jn. 2:15,16).
Hedonism, materialism and egotism do a great job of distracting
people from the only One who can truly fulfill them.
Do you recognize the voice of Satan? Is it more discernible to you now?
The Aftermath
Read 3:6b. This passage (and the rest of the biblical record) make it
clear that both Adam and Eve were responsible for this revolt.
Adam may have been present throughout this whole conversation (the “you”s
throughout are plural; “ . . . she gave also
to her husband with her . . .”—which makes
him just as culpable because he should have spoken up. She initiates;
he acquiesces (“Whatever . . . “), choosing
companionship with his wife over fellowship with God.
IRONY: Adam and Eve were already “like God” because they were
created in God’s image. In seeking to become more than what God designed
them to be, they became far less than what God wanted them to be. In seeking
to take a step upward, they fell downward. They gained nothing and lost
everything.
TRAGEDY: And this fall has affected all humanity and the world we live
in. From now on, humanity retains something of God’s image—but
that image is broken and distorted. This is why we see such contradictory
polarities in humanity: nobility and cruelty, power and impotence, etc.
“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what
a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! A judge of
all things, feeble worm of the earth, depository of truth; cloaca of
uncertainty and error. The glory and the shame of the universe.”
Only the Bible both describes humans accurately in this area and explains
why we are this way. We will take a close look at this next week.
HOPE: God allows us to reap the consequences of our revolt against him,
but he has not abandoned us. No sooner did Adam and Eve revolt than God
spoke the first word about his rescue plan. We’re going to take a
close look at this in two weeks, but let’s end with one insight on
it.
Adam and Eve were created in a state of “life”—fellowship
with God. They were to maintain this by following God’s instructions
about good and evil. We are now born into a state of “death”—separation
from God, which renders us incapable of fully following God’s moral
instructions. Because of this fact, God now prioritizes “life and
death” over “good and evil.”
We tend to seek reconciliation with God through doing the good and
avoiding the evil (WORKS). This is why people who have “been
good” think they have the inside track on heaven. This is why
people who have done evil assume God won’t accept them—at
least not until they clean themselves up first.
But God reverses this (GRACE). It’s that he’s indifferent
to good and evil—it’s that he knows we need life before
there can be any lasting moral change. So he offers us life through
Jesus Christ as a free gift—and then he works in our lives for
good and against evil.
Therefore, as God confronts you today, his primary question is not
“How evil have you been? Do you promise to be good?” but rather
“Do you want life?” Read 1 Jn. 5:11,12. This is
your choice today . . .
Footnotes
Copyright 1998 Gary DeLashmutt