Beginning with Moses and the Prophets
The Book of Grace
Part VII(c) - East of Eden
Genesis 2: 25 - 3:7
Introduction
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. (John Steinbeck, East of Eden, chapter 13).
As we finished last week, the biggest temptation for all of us today, well, it has been always, to establish our wisdom apart from God’s word; centering all authority in the autonomous self.
The choice still remains, it’s going to be there - the tree of life or the tree of knowledge of good & evil.
As the second chapter of Genesis comes to a close & we come to the third chapter of Genesis, Eve has been created & we see Adam & Eve living in what has to be unparalleled splendor; there can’t be anything anywhere on the earth today that can compare, or even come close. There they were amidst the crystal clear waters and the green forests of Eden in delight concert with each other and with the animals God had placed in the garden. Just think, you pet lovers would be in seventh heaven.
The couple shared the same bone, the same flesh. She was at once his daughter (she came out of him), his sister, (she had the same creator father), & his “one flesh” wife. This one-flesh relationship reflected the eternal intimacy & order of the Holy Trinity & foreshadowed the intimacy & order of Christ & His bride, the church. (Ephesians 5: 31, 32) - For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
Their intimacy was fundamental glory to God as a reflection of what always was & a glimpse of what was to come.
In the order of the husband & wife relationship as to Adam’s authority, this was part of the creation before sin & the fall entered into the picture.
This is evident because, as Paul makes this central in his argument for maintaining the creation order in 1 Tim. 2: 13, 1) Adam was created first; 2) Eve was taken out of man, as noted in 1 Corinthians 11: 8-9; Ee was designated Adam’s helper, (Gen. 2:18).
A note here on the word, the term, helper - One can’t imagine the term “helper” is a diminishing or serville term -
It has to be understood that it is the same name used to describe God as a helper of Israel, (Ex. 18:4; Deuteronomy 33:7; 1 Samuel 7:12).
The authority structure of Genesis 2 - 3 rest on the order of God, man, woman, & the animal (serpent). And all this was turned upside down & reversed by the fall. Kenneth Matthews, old Testament scholar and professor of Divinity, points out that the woman listens to the serpent, the man listens to the woman, & no one listens to God. The usurpation of authority God addresses right after the fall in His successive judgment speeches to the serpent, the woman, & to the man.
As it is, before the fall, Adam & Eve listen only to God - The sinless pair ride the zenith of innocence & openness - 2:25 says, the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. This detail, notes Umberto Cassuto, prepares us for 3: 7, and they knew that they were naked.
For now, they were spiritually naked before God. The Lord God came first in their love & their thoughts as C. S. Lewis says, without any painful effort.
There wasn’t any need to set aside time for daily devotionals - I mean, all of life was devotion. Loving God was as natural as eating peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, really as natural as breathing.
Domestically they were naked with one another. There was nothing to hide or protect - Neither was the center of his or her own life. God and each other were their centers. - All that they were was simply there for the other to see & love -
Eve was Adam’s constant soul she could be counted on and trusted - As Lorenzo speaks of Jessica in the Merchant of Venice - God, I’m crazy about her. She’s wise if I’m judging her right. She’s beautiful if my eyes can see. And she’s loyal, as she has proven. And as long as she’s herself—wise, beautiful, and faithful—she’ll always have a place in my heart.
2: 25 & 3: 7 enclose a unit because both verses focus on the nakedness of the couple but in profound variance - v.25 picture Adam & Eve at the apex of innocence & intimacy - v7 describes them in the pit of guilt & estrangement.
The couples fall from innocence to guilt describes what has happened countless times down through the ages. It’s universal & wise people de well to listen.
The Old Serpent
The six days of creation was complete, everything in the world was “very good”. Nothing was out of order; no pain, no suffering, no struggle for existence, no disharmony, no disease, & above all - no death. But we are going to see things that are not “very good”....
Verses 1 to 5 we have a dialogue that leads to the descent of Adam - further in verses 6 & 7 there is described the couples actual descent into the pit -
The surprising thing here is that the one that initiates this dialogue is a talking snake - It wasn’t a bad snake, look, everything that God created He called good - It’s not a good snake gone bad either; sin hasn’t entered into the world at this point.
The snake is described as “crafty & shrewd” but this doesn’t imply evil. The word has the idea of being wary & knowing when dangers lurk.
Scripture encourages us to cultivate a like attitude, Proverbs 1: 1- 4, The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction, To discern the sayings of understanding, To receive instruction in wise behavior, Righteousness, justice, and equity; To give prudence to the naive, To the youth knowledge and discretion, -
But if we misuse it becomes guile, Job 5:12 as one example - He frustrates the plotting of the shrewd, So that their hands cannot attain success.
This serpent, snake is a naturally shrewd creature, but seems to be under the control now of Satan & a natural tool - The New Testament ID’s this serpent as the Devil referring to this particular scene, (Rev. 12:9; 20:2), the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; . . . he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
God’s Word Attacked
Did this snake just happen to tumble down from a tree? Did it extend itself upright so it could address Eve, “Good morning fair maiden, mind if I just coil up here for a while and shoot the breeze with you? Did it hiss his voice, stick out its forked tongue, or did it speak with a voice sounding like her husband’s? We don’t know, and I don’t think anyone has the faintest idea. But we can be sure that through its voice, however it was done, Satan attacked God’s word.
Remember that God’s word was responsible for everything that Eve enjoyed - day & night, the sun, the moon, the blue sky, the exotic garden, the flowers, the singing birds, all the adoring creatures, her Adam - all of it came from God’s good word, the word which Satan now attacks. Maybe you’d think that Satan’s attack wouldn’t stand a chance. But appearances sometimes are deceiving.
The Question
Have you ever watched the Senate & House hearings, or been interrogated by investigators? They always begin with a leading question to make you reply in the direction they want you to go. For the police, it’s the “good cop, bad cop” technic. An employer an attorney, they all follow the same procedure. Here and in other countries, there are absolutely no differences. Where did this technic come from? As far as I’m concerned, right here in the garden.
Eve, did God really say, note that he makes it as if he is quoting God, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden”? So subtle is the prosecutor that he doesn’t directly deny God’s word, but he introduces the assumption that God’s word is subject to our judgment.
As we saw earlier last week, Satan avoids using God’s covenant name, “The Lord God”, in chapter 1 Elohim signifying God as creator was used in every instance, then in Chapters 2 - 4 the title YAHWEH-ELOHIM (combining His Creator Covenant-Redeemer name) is employed everywhere except here in this deadly dialogue in 3:1-5. Satan is careful not to mention God’s personal covenant name but stuck to Elohim, the more remote designation. And Eve followed his lead by only using Elohim in their dialogue.
I believe that we along with the secular world do the same. We talk of God with the remote designation, not realizing that we are in a sense just throwing the name around without truly honoring His name. We can say God in English, we can say Dios in Spanish, we can say Allah in Arabic, we can say Deus in Portuguese, but just saying God, one is taking away His majesty, who He is …. The same can be said of the name Jesus. It is a common name in the Latin community. I gave flight instructions to Jesus Alvarado in Panama. But how many will say The Lord Jesus Christ?
Satan’s incredulous tone & his conscious disuse of God’s personal name set up his studied distortion of God’s word. If you look back to 2:16, the Lord commanded generously, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; Now Satan asks, Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?
Did y’all catch the distortion? God’s generosity was perverted by Satan’s question to suggest some sort of divine stinginess.
A good many of us do the same, use the same method to get someone to begin to distrust another, to put doubt in the minds of others. Some are as subtle as Satan who got Eve to not even suspect that God’s word was being attacked. Geez oh man, it was just an innocent question.
. . Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world; Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; (1 John 4:1; 2:17)
Revision’s By Eve
The leading distorted question by Mr. Snake provided Eve a chance to set him straight. But unfortunately, our mom failed. And, as the transcript shows, as provided by Moses, she ended up giving her own revisions of God’s word. Not just once, three times. She diminished God’s word, then added to it, and then she ended up softening it, His word.
God had said that they may eat of every tree of the garden, but now Eve leaves out “every” and instead says, “we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden” (3:2). What she is doing is minimizing the provision of the Lord. It seems as an unenthusiastic rendition of God’s word. Something was happening in her heart. Hey Paul, didn’t your dad say you can’t have any car? No, he said I could have a car but not a Ford . . .
Her subtle shift in the heart was now further revealed in her addition to God’s word: “But God [Elohim] said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it.
Is that what the Lord God said? First, how many trees and which ones were in the midst of the garden? Look back at 2:9 - the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
She doesn’t say which one of the two, and she adds the neither shall you touch it. She magnified the restriction, “touch the fruit and zap! - you’re dead - She makes it out that God was so darn strict that an inadvertent slip would bring instant death.
You tell your daughter or son who has a friend over and they are being much too noisy and so you say that their friend has to go home. The son or daughter then goes crying to mom and says, “dad just told me that I can’t have any friends over anymore!
Or, your boss calls you into the office because you have been late several time and says nicely to you, “I think you need to give attention to this, you don’t want to get into the habit of being tardy all the time, it isn’t fair to you, and to the other employees.” The employee walks out of the office and says to his coworkers, “Know what that stuffed shirt said to me? If I’m late one more time, I’m fired!” When we don’t like a prohibition or a warning, we magnify its strictness. Suggesting that our superior is unjust lessens our culpability. Then if we don’t perform, we think we have a morally superior way out.
And last, Eve in a self-contradictory way softened God’s word by saying “lest” you die instead of “surely”. The certitude of death was removed.
I posted a comment on the term RIP, Rest In Peace. Asking if it is said because one knows for a fact that the one who died is born again, a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Or is it just being polite; wishful thinking? A personal friend replied saying that some of us don't believe any of it and say it out of respect for the families belief.
So Eve in a breath, diminished, added to and softened God’s word. Her approach to the holy word of God put her in harm’s way. Many do the very same thing and likewise, today are put in harm’s way.
The Contradiction by Satan
But you’re not going to surely die, was the embolden blasphemous contradiction by the snake, (v4). This was nothing but an ‘in-your-face-God’. The Hebrew places the word lo (not) in front of God’s declaration. “Not-you shall surely die”; take that God! It’s now the serpent's word against God’s word - absurd juxtaposition -
Note, that the doctrine of divine judgment is the very first thing to be denied. From the very beginning, Satan attacks it. Satan is the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that was, and is to this day at work in the sons of disobedience - paraphrased from Ephesians 2:2. Modern culture’s loathing for the doctrine of divine judgment comes straight from Satan. Attack it all you want, deny it all you want, divine judgment has fallen & will fall as surely as did for Adam & Eve.
Look at the dialogue. Satan offers a question on the perversion of God’s word. Eve then begins to question it herself; you see that by her own revisions of God’s word. Then Satan is free to declare God’s word as wrong. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
One would have thought that Eve should have recoiled in horror & run off - streaking through the garden to Adam. Adam should have stepped forward to uphold the word of God. God talked to him directly. But no, Eve was buying into it. She was entranced by the serpent & anticipation consumed her.
The Goodness of God was Attacked
It looks like Satan was now encouraged by the responses Eve gave with her revisions, and now he goes after God himself, attacking His goodness. God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be [just like Him] God, knowing both good and evil.” (3: 5).
Satan, through the serpent, cast God in an ugly light making out what God said into nothing but an idle threat, more scare tactic than anything else to keep Adam & Eve in their place. It’s obvious that God was jealous that the couple would ascend too high.
This is really something, think about; what an attack in light of the fact that the thousand goods of creation, not to mention the gift of each other along with their rulership of the earth, all came from God. This is nothing but an undisguised, glaring, flagrant slur on the character of God.
What more can you expect from the one who rebelled against His creator and stated - ‘I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars. I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.’ (Isaiah 14: 12-14).
But unfortunately Eve was buying it, she was believing it. If you’re going to lie, might as well make a big one, so big to totally reinterpret life.
. . . in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; . . . It would never come into their heads [those listening] to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. (Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X).
In the garden, the lie bore the lure of divinity for Eve. - “you can be like God”. I’m going to step out for a second on a limb. Vince Whelan, if I can get him back over here, is very well versed on the Mormons. One of the “neet” things about them is that you one day can be like God.
Satan says to Eve, “you will be like God!” Sin, a sin, failure hamartia holds a spiritual lure, a golden promise. Eve could just hold out her hand take hold of the fruit, take a bite, and whala, divinity was hers.
It also holds a lure for moral autonomy - “You will be like God, knowing good & evil”. Notice one thing that Satan doesn’t say ‘you can which leaves some possibility of not being like God. Satan says you ‘will’ be like God, leaving no doubt whatsoever.
So by taking the fruit, she’s going to become wise, equal with God, she will be able to autonomously decide what was right & what was wrong. Today she says, “It’s my body I can do what I want, I decide what is right and what is wrong.”
Men you aren’t off the hook. Adam also ate.
The sequence of events - “she took of the fruit and ate, and gave some to her husband who was with her”. That’s a shocker, looks like Adam was privy to the conversation between Eve & the snake. It says he was with her. Okay, that in itself doesn’t prove he was with her during the temptation. But what is decisive is that during the temptation, (verse 1-5), Satan addresses Eve in the plural “you,” which does imply Adam's presence. Adam watched everything passively.
Adam wasn’t deceived by the snake. He had his powers of discernment honed by naming all the animals; that was a rigorous intellectual ordeal, a process that probed the essence of each animal. Adam wasn’t some ignorant backwoods country redneck like many modern-day patronizing intellectuals like to image. St. Augustine surmised, “His mental powers surpassed those of the most brilliant philosophers as much as the speed of the bird surpasses the tortoise. Milton insisted that Adam had insight into the mysteries of the soul. Paul was insistent that Adam wasn’t deceived, but the woman was, (1 Timothy 2:14).
In Romans 5: 12, When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.
Verses 12-19, or the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. . . Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, . . . Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners.
Adam sinned willfully, with his eyes wide-open, no hesitation whatsoever. He watched Eve take the fruit, and nothing happened to her. He willfully sinned, assuming that there wasn’t going to be any consequences. Everything turned upside-down. Eve followed the snake, Adam followed Eve, nobody followed God.
She gave him of that fair enticing fruit With liberal hand: he scrupled not to eat, Against his better knowledge; not deceived, But fondly overcome with female charm. Earth trembled from her entrails, as again In pangs; and Nature gave a second groan; Sky loured; and, muttering thunder, some sad drops Wept at completing of the mortal sin Original: while Adam took no thought, Eating his fill;
The Pit
Adam & Eve had fallen from the apex of innocence & intimacy into the pit of guilt & estrangement: “Their eyes were both opened, & they knew they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together & made themselves loincloths. (v7)
How about that! What Satan had told them was true; well, half true. But a half-truth is still a full lie. Anyway, no they didn’t die right away, as they supposed they might. Adam lived for 930 years. Then he died. Their constant communion with God underwent death. They both would go to earthly graves. They would need a savior.
They got what they wanted, but they went about it the wrong way. Their eyes were opened. They got the knowledge they sought. They saw evil. They saw themselves; they realized they were naked & desperately tried to cover up. Their innocence vanished; guilt & fear gripped them, their hearts. Now they would have to labor to love God & each other.
2 Corinthians 2:11 encourages us to be aware of the schemes of Satan. so that Satan will not outsmart us. For we are familiar with his evil schemes. 1 Peter 5:8 also warns us of his schemes, Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
Genesis is packed with primary wisdom in this regard. We must learn from Adam & Eve’s sin that sin takes hold when we begin to doubt God’s word & His goodness.
Growing doubt about the word of God just naturally breeds biblical revisionism, both conscious & unconscious. We have the tendency to minimize Scripture promises. We, without color, spout out blanch renditions of God’s glorious promises from their polychrome wonders to a dull monochrome “Ho hum . . .”
Not only do we minimize His word, but we end up exaggerating what we don’t like by adding to his word. His commands become unreasonable, illogical grotesquely exaggerated representations that no one can be expected to obey. Becoming very much pharisaic, sanctimonious, self-righteous pious. Our adding & minimizing to His word leaves one free to subtract from His word.
This free fall is intensified, made worse by doubts about God’s goodness. “How can God be good & not give me the person, thing, position that I know is essential for my happiness. How can God be good and allow so much evil in the world?”
Sound familiar?
Moses was passionate about the need of God’s people being people of God’s word. He called his people to put God’s word at the center of their existence. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 6:6-9 - These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
At the end of Deuteronomy, Moses sings his song and ends with the following words - “Take to your heart all the words with which I am warning you today, which you shall command your sons to observe carefully, even all the words of this law. For it is not an idle word for you; indeed it is your life. (Deuteronomy 32:46-47a)
Your very life became the standard for all the Old Testament. The Psalter opens with, How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law, he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2)
When we come to the New Testament, Jesus, the second Adam, is the man of the Word “par excellence”. When Jesus was tempted, He, unlike the first Adam, threw himself on God’s Word, defeating Satan with three skillful, masterful quotations from Deuteronomy. How astonishing!! The eternal Word of God resisted temptation by turning to the written Word of God!
Moses, the earthly savior of Israel who delivered them from slavery in Egypt, said the word of God is our life. Jesus the eternal Savior said it must be our food. The Word must be our life & Food.
Jesus, through massive dependence on God’s Word, triumphed over the tempter, living a perfect life, & died victoriously with the cry, “it is finished.”Jesus rested everything on God’s good word & on the good God of the Word.
He did it for His creation so that you would believe and have the stain of sin removed and share in the eternal life for which you were truly made……….
Come to Him, just as you are.
