Posted on 07/17/2012 12:35:09 PM PDT by Thermopylae
Genesis 3:1-15 "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?' The woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'' 'You will not surely die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and that you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'....So the Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, 'Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.'"
I would be interested to hear anyones opinion of the nature of the serpent. Was the serpent an actual animal or was the serpent simply a disguise for the devil? I have been told growing up that the serpent was really the devil. If that was true, then why does God punsh the serpent (the animal) and not the devil in verse 14 and 15? We are told in Numbers 22:28-30 that the Lord opened the mouth of Balaam's donkey. Is it possible that before the fall, Adam and Eve could speak to animals freely and understand what the animals were saying back to them?
everything in the garden has a real-life correlation today
but how does a fruit “contain knowlege of good and evil”?
I dont know of any modern fruit that acts that way
When my kids were young they loved cookies and I would bake them. But I didn't set them on the table in front of them and tell them not to eat. Especailly not to eat or you will surely die (or worse, get a spanking)
I would stick them on top the fridge until it was time to eat cookies.
(I really am trying to be serious here)
So.. why make a “tree of knowledge” and then stick it right in front of them, and tell them not to eat it.
And what kind of tree contains knowledge?
My understanding was the Devil was in the snake. Satan will be punished after the tribulation when he will be thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity.
Yes, initially, you don't give the kid a choice. But you don't protect them from every wrong choice forever. Eventually, you let them start making their own choices and suffer the consequences for better or worse.
The tree is somewhere in the garden, not necessarily right in front of them like a plate of cookies.
And we can only speculate about what kind of tree contains knowledge. The tree is obviously closed to us at this point. It's not something the Lord apparently wants us to study.
To remind them that they weren't God.
They could do just about everything, but God wanted something to be a constant reminder that they were less than Him. Taking from the tree was something in life was the one thing they were NOT allowed to do. The reminder was to illustrate to them the principle of authority...that they were lesser beings.
I heard a person teach once that the tree didn't actually contain knowledge...but in eating the fruit (disobeying) they finally experienced the knowledge (and difference) of both good and evil because they had now sinned.
“If the fruit was the knowledge of good and evil, then how was Eve to know that what she was doing was wrong, (evil), BEFORE she ate it? That has always bugged me.”
The Bible said that God had told them they could eat everything but the fruit of that tree. So, she knew God did not want her to do that.
But, my guess is there are many other things that your kids are confronted with on a daily basis that you have no control over or that you do let them around that are tempting. Do you tell your kids not to slam the doors or to shut the Fridge door or to flush the john, etc? Why let them go to the bathroom by themselves if they have the free will to not flush the john?
Again, the only way man has free will and can show he loves God is let him be able to make the choice for himself. If the choice is not there, there is no free will.
The above is quoted from The Tree of Life vs. The Tree of Knowledge — provided for context here.
It seems to me the "serpent" that seduced Eve could not literally be an "animal." It was a spirit clothed, or appearing to the senses in animal form — that is, in a material body that Eve could perceive by action of natural sensory perception.
God warned Adam and Eve away from touching or eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; but was silent on any eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life.
God created man with free will. That is, man is completely free to obey or disobey the Word of God. But what this story tells is that if man disobeys — i.e., makes a choice against the order that God established in the Beginning — then man dies spiritually in the act. At that point, the Tree of Life becomes forever inaccessible to him.
Is God saying here that man places a higher premium on knowledge per se than he places on Life, including his own Life "more abundantly" in Christ Jesus? Judging from contemporary experience, I'd have to say this would be a completely truthful representation of the matter in terms of human language.
God's injunction against eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil recognizes that if man himself becomes the judge of Good and Evil (because he would have critical knowledge of the distinction involved by eating of the Tree), then man makes himself the "judge" of the created order. Anytime a man does that, he falls away from God and His created Order, and in that process — initiated by man himself — he falls away from his own Life in God, and thereby separates himself from the Source of his own being.
Of course, this is exactly the result that Lucifer — here in serpent's garb — is seeking: the utter destruction of Man as God created him and, through that act of destruction, the obliteration of the Creation God made in the Beginning.
Lucifer — Satan — is the original Nihilist. He so hates God and God's creation — especially Man — that he wants to reduce it all literally to Nothing.
The Tree of Life is also placed in Revelation — where it finally bears fruit through the sacrificial action, redemption, and Judgement of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Just some thoughts. Which I believe are eternally, fundamentally relevant to issues of the human condition, now and always.
FWIW.
Thanks so very much for posting, dear Thermopylae!
You cannot make a statment like that as if it was fact. You THINK God put it there to remind them they were not God- The Bible does not SAY "God put the tree there to remind them they were not God"
Your entire post is like that, even saying the tree is NOT what the Bible says it is
Why do some finite humans continue to believe they can apprehend the thoughts of an infinite God?
If you wish to amuse God, tell him of your plans.
What I find interesting about the passage is that Eve does not seem surprised at all that an animal talked to her.
She just answered it and carried on a conversation with it.
That would lend itself to conclude that animals talking in the garden was not uncommon.
Of course, there are animals even today which can “talk”. The parrot comes to mind.
I’m guessing then that whatever creature it was had the ability to vocalize or mimic a human voice, and was either possessed by Satan or allowed Satan to use it, which might be more likely the case since God punished the serpent.
Eve knew it was wrong for the same reason she explained to the serpent; God told her.
God knew exactly where Adam and Eve were when he said, "Where art thou". What God was asking was "Where are your heads"; what were you thinking?
The “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” was only ONE tree - among many trees available from which to find fruit to eat. God was looking for obediance - not sacrifice.
However, it was the devil who tempted Eve with the words, “Hath GOD said” ..??; in other words - trying to get Eve to question God’s authority and judge for herself if God had really said that she could not eat the fruit from ONE tree.
Then .. a curious thing happened - after Eve took a bite of the fruit - NOTHING HAPPENED TO HER ..???? Why not ..???? It was only when Adam saw that Eve had eaten from the forbidden fruit and nothing happened that he decided it was really safe to eat - and VOILA! Adam and Eve became spiritually dead - not physically, just spiritually.
The answer to the riddle was that when a couple are married, it is the husband who God had placed in spiritual authority - thus Eve could eat the fruit without penalty (for the moment) - and it could not pass to Adam (for the moment) - but IT WAS UP TO ADAM TO TAKE THE FRUIT FROM EVE - TOSS IT TO THE GROUND AND RUN QUICKLY WITH EVE TO THE SOLICE OF GOD’S PROTECTION - where, after their confession of what they had done, God would have forgiven them and restored them back to Him.
However, Adam did not do that. He also made a wrong choice and it condemned them both to spiritual death (because God had appointed Adam to be the spiritual head of the family).
Thus - this opened the door for GOD to provide another avenue for mankind to be restored unto God: Jesus
Because they didn't eat from the Tree of Life. That's a different tree from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
And that's why God kicked them out of the garden and blocked the way to the Tree of Life with an angel with a flaming sword, so they wouldn't eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in a sinful state.
God did not tell Adam he couldn't touch it, only to not eat it.
Yes, How was Eve to know! First off, how can one believe that if God knew the end of time from the beginning, is all-knowing, and in sovereign control of His creation (except our will)(he can be very persuasive to change that tho) how could he not know exactly what would happen? And yes... tell someone ‘no’ and that’s what they did. (This is a biblical, God’s Word principal in Romans where law and grace are explained... and that the law is used by God for a purpose... to show us we cannot keep the law... and now we start realizing apart from the Grace of God in Christ we are unable to BE sinless... Anyway... what I wanted to say... yes, something about Eve being off the hook. Read Gen.2-3 carefully and you’ll see Eve was not created when God GAVE ADAM the rules about the garden. I’m sure this changes theology a little...
Genesis is parable.
We also know that creation was corrupted and is even described as accursed due to the sin of the original breeding pair of human beings, who were cast out of the garden, circling back to the created order of God not being a totality, further narrowed to not encompassing the entire world as it then existed.
Along with corruption came not just disease, aging and death for all His creatures, but diminishment as well. Does this mean that an ability to communicate directly and clearly with mankind then existed broadly among the so-called lesser creatures? Perhaps.
We do have scriptural examples of creatures other than man speaking. We have an example of the language of mankind being confounded to the point that men could not understand one another. Language confounded, diminished capacity as a result of the fall of man, it isn't at all implausible.
Maybe, like the cookies, that tree was for later. Maybe as they matured, but not yet. Or, maybe, it had certain medicinal uses but was not to be used for recreation.
So the problem wasn't merely that they took from the tree, but they did it prematurely (God hadn't yet given them the green light) and they did it in alliance with the dragon.
If the tree is symbolic, then again, the problem is that they got ahead of God and they did it in alliance with Lucifer making him the source of the knowledge, in effect, and giving him authority in the Garden. If God had the tree of "knowledge" right there in the Garden, I have to assume it is because he intended, as they grew and matured, to share it with them. But when Lucifer was able to usurp God's fatherly apprenticeship he went to Plan B.
As others said, its likely that had they immediately sought God and asked forgiveness, the damage could have been repaired without having to leave the garden. Its the fact that they hid their alliance with the dragon that required a more dramatic remedy.
I think a lot of us are living Plan B (or C or D). God is a master of Plan B. But God's Plan A would have been better had we trusted him sooner.
Well then, I stand corrected.
Thank you for your observation, dear sister in Christ!
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