The first interaction, the first recorded words that God speaks to man, must surely colour
our understanding of who He is and what He is about. What do we know of God
from the way He has dealt with mankind? How do we see His demeanour and view
the tenor of this interaction? What is the purpose of this interaction? Is this
a loving God, or a God who is dispassionate toward his creation? Does His command
imply that He is a secure God, or a God that suffers insecurity?
And the LORD God formed man of
the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life;
and man became a living soul.
And the LORD God planted a garden
eastward in
and there he put the man whom he
had formed.
And out of the ground made the
LORD God to grow
every tree that is pleasant to the
sight, and good for food;
the tree of life also in the
midst of the garden,
and the tree of knowledge of good and
evil.
:
And the LORD God took the man,
and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
And the LORD God commanded the
man, saying,
Of every tree of the garden thou mayest
freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
Thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eat thereof
thou shalt surely die.
Genesis 2:7-17
As previously presented, we must understand
that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a special tree with a
special ability to give the power to discern the moral rightness or wrongness
of an issue. It is my assertion that this
is the only understanding that makes sense. It is also the most clear, uncomplicated, and simple perspective of the
events.
Before considering the command not to eat of
the tree, let us just deviate for a moment and consider all of the commandments
that God has given.
Moses writes;
Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments,
even as the LORD my God commanded me,
that you should do so in the land
whither you go to possess it.
Keep therefore and do them;
for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations,
which shall hear all these statutes, and say,
“Surely this great nation is a wise
and understanding people. “
For what nation is
there so great,
who has God so near to them,
as the LORD our God is
in all things
that we call upon him for?
And what nation is there so great,
that has statutes and judgments
so righteous as all this law,
which I set before you this day?
Deuteronomy
4:5–8
The law of the LORD is perfect,
converting the soul:
the testimony of the LORD is
sure, making wise the simple.
The statutes of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart:
the commandment of the LORD is
pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the LORD is clean,
enduring for ever:
the judgments of the LORD are true
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold:
sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is thy
servant warned:
and in keeping of them there is great reward.
Psalm 19:7-11
Wherefore the law is holy,
and the commandment holy,
and just, and good.
Romans 7:12
It is common sense that commands can be
classified according to their goodness. Some commands are good, and some are
bad.
What is it that separates good commands from
bad ones?
I would like to tender an opinion that unrighteous commands are those made
purely out of self interest and with no benefit to those constrained by them
or to any community under their governance.
In
Daniel 3:4-6 we read of the law of Nebuchadnezzar
Then a herald cried aloud,
To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages,
That at what time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute,
harp,
sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music,
you fall down and worship the golden image that
Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up:
And whoso falls not down and
worships
shall in the same hour be cast into the midst
of a burning fiery furnace.
This
was clearly not a good command despite the fact that Nebuchadnezzar
·
Was
the rightly appointed legal authority
·
Had
the legal right to pass whatever law he wished
·
Had
the support of his court and advisers.
When we look at the laws that God has made, we
can see in all of His commands that the underlying purpose is the good of
mankind.
All of
God’s laws are righteous - not just because
they were made by God – but because they are righteous in intent and content.
Let us move on and see how the righteousness of
God is revealed in the commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil by re-examining the first few verses of Genesis chapter three.
The
serpent was made by God to be more ‘subtle’ than any of the beasts of the
field.
This same
Hebrew word for subtlety is referred to in other passages as:
the prudence of a shameful man
or a knowledgeable man (Proverbs
12:16, 23)
And in the NT the serpent subtlety is also directly referred to in
(2
Corinthians 11:3)
The
Greek word used in this place is also used to refer to:
the wisdom of the world (1
Corinthians
the cunning craftiness of deceitful men (Ephesians
We should keep in mind that the serpent was an animal,
and, like all other amoral animals, the serpent could not sin. It only had
power to reason and to talk. In recent times this has been demonstrated in some
birds that have been shown to communicate verbally with simple logic and
understanding. We should be clear that the ability to talk does not imply an
ability to discern moral issues – the serpent, like all animals – was amoral.
The natural animal mind is not sinful of itself
but, since it is devoid of moral awareness, it is focused with animal intent on
interpreting the things that it perceives in such a way as to advance and
preserve self. It is much like the natural scientific mind, observing and
interpreting without moral influence. In trying to maintain objectivity by
excluding all that cannot be quantified, they express conclusions that are
arrived at by a purely empirical means – as much as they are able. But despite
giving lip service to such objectivity, we find that scientists all too often
lose objectivity where self interest is at stake. In the pursuit of science, it
is a principle that scientists take care to document carefully and to provide
evidence for their conclusions truthfully. The problem is that, while the facts
stated may be correct, the conclusions drawn may be no more than personal
opinions or extrapolations biased by self interest. A recent example of this
mindset was revealed by a group of scientists who spent their own money to take
out newspaper advertisements opposing the presentation of ‘intelligent design’
to school children. In so doing they revealed both their lack of independent
objectivity and a core insecurity. The difficulty facing scientists today is
that funding is generally provided more plentifully for projects that are in
accord with current theory. If a scientist were to go against this, he is more
likely to lose funding.
Was the serpent trying
to lie?
In order to answer this, let us take a closer
look at the scene played out for us in Genesis 3:1-6. Just imagine Eve and the
serpent standing there and looking closely at the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.
- setting the scene (voices
from behind closed curtains)
Eve: “Hmm – this appears good for food.”
Serpent: “Yes – it doesn’t appear to be toxic or poisonous at all -
And
it sure would be good to be like God
to
know good and evil.”
- Curtain opens - Eve and
the serpent standing by the tree
Serpent: “Didn’t God say you could eat of every
tree…”
Eve: (cuts
the serpent off)
“We
may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
but of the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the
garden,
God has said ‘You shall not eat of it;
neither
shall you touch it, lest you die. ‘”
(A pregnant pause as they look at the fruit again and
observe again that it is “good for food
and
capable of granting a knowledge of good and evil”)
Serpent: (asserts)
“You won’t surely die.”
(i.e.
This fruit won’t kill you)
(gives reason) “But God knows that
in the day you
eat of it your eyes shall be opened,
and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil.
“
Eve: (Looks and sees that the tree is good
for food, and that it is
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make her wise),
She takes the fruit and eats it.
The Hebrew expression ‘muth tmuth’ (translated
‘you will surely die’) is generally used for places where a judicial sentence
is proclaimed.
The Hebrew expression is an example of a figure
of speech known as Polyptoton – it simply emphasises
the verb that it is applied to by repeating it. It does not mean that God is
threatening a judicial sentence to Adam.
There are other examples of its use where this
is clearly not the case.
(For example, 2 Kings 8:10, Judges 13:22)
If Eve had believed that God had threatened her
with judicial death for eating from the tree, then the serpent would
have had no power to convince her otherwise because the judgement would
still stand.
This passage makes much more sense when
we understand that both the serpent and Eve knew that God was warning of a
danger in the fruit and was not threatening judicial death.
It was because Eve understood that the command
was a warning about the fruit, that the serpent was able to deceive her by inferring
that God was only acting out of self-interest in warning them not to eat it.
What the serpent said was supported by natural
observation and deduction. It could be seen as saying scientifically what was
observed from a natural perspective without understanding the spiritual impact
of what God had said.
Not having sufficient information, the serpent did
not anticipate the full outcome. The serpent tenders an alternative reason for
God’s command: “God knows that when you eat of it you will be like God – having
a superior moral awareness”.
The big lie that the serpent introduced into
The real serpent lie is
cunningly couched in the multi-faceted inference: -
That God does not love you.
That He is trying to keep you down.
That He is not working for you but against you.
That in moving to protect his position against you He declares Himself to be
insecure.
This is the lie that characterises the serpent
in Scripture, and it is the lie that comes from seeing God as a legal God to
Adam and all mankind instead of the loving Father that he is. It is the lie
that underpins the idea that God is in heaven waiting for us to do something
wrong so that we can be crossed out of the book of life. It is the lie that
says that “God wants obedience just for the sake of obedience – just to
maintain His authority and to make us acutely aware of our inferiority”.
It accuses God of making an unjust law in the
pursuit of self-interest.
It should be noted that the Genesis record
makes no suggestion that the behaviour of Adam and Eve became worse as a result
of taking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The only change in
their makeup was that they gained the ability to discern between good and evil.
We need to take another look at this command
given by God not to eat of the tree.
But of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
Do not
eat of it:
because in the day that you eat thereof you will surely die.
God knew that the tree was a special tree
which would have an effect on Adam and Eve, that, in maturity, their moral eyes
would be opened to see right from wrong. Because of this, it would have been
wrong of God if He had not issued a warning to them of the negative consequences
of eating from the tree - if he had allowed guilt to enter their lives unwittingly.
The metamorphosis that takes place at puberty, in essence, marks the death
of the child and the birth of the adult – much like the transition of
baptism marks the death of the ‘old man’ and the beginning of life as a ‘new
man’. God was warning Adam about the death of the childlike innocence in him,
in the only way that Adam could understand.
Because God’s commands are always
righteous commands, it would be wrong to think that He would issue a
pointless command that could serve no good purpose. If, as some suggest, the
tree was just any botanical tree that God had forbidden, then the command could
only have been a pointless test that could not serve to teach them anything
(they would be dead) nor from which He could learn anything. God already knew how
their minds worked. Even if God had no intention of exercising the judgement
that He had stated (this too would also paint Him in a deceitful light), the
only outcome, would be to make Adam and Eve feel inferior and inadequate, which
Eve already felt.
In fact, there is an ambiguity of tenor in the declaration of this command. We can
see God as posing a trivial test and setting a draconian punishment for failure,
or we can see God lovingly providing a warning of the consequence of eating the
tree.
If you were a guest of a ruler on an island
state somewhere, and invited to partake of his banquet and, on attendance at
this feast, the king stares at you and says, “If you eat the plum pudding I
will kill you”, the sense of unease would make you want to leave and not to be
around this awful fellow who has placed your worth at less than that of the
plum pudding.
If, on the other hand, he leaned over and
confided “Don’t eat the plum pudding or you will die”, you may understand from
his warning that it was not safe to eat, and wisdom would have you abstain from
it. In which case you would feel grateful for the advice and the confidence
afforded you by the king.
If a parent commands a child not to touch the
heater it is because they want the child to avoid the pain. All parents know
that one day their child will touch a hot surface but, while the lesson learned
by this act may be important, the thought of painful injury to their child
invariably prompts a warning.
If their child had touched the heater without
being warned, he may wonder why no warning was given. Their child may
consequently question the love of the parent putting them in danger without
first making it known to them.
If a child is warned and, despite the warning,
touches the heater, he learns not only that he should not touch the heater but
also that his parent is caring and trustworthy, that the commands of the parent
are just and good.
If a parent decided that a child needed to
learn this awful lesson and (God forbid) put the child’s hand on the heater, the
child may then know not to touch the heater, but they would not trust this parent
in future and may, from that day on, carry a deep-seated resentment toward them.
God could not have just put a Godly
knowledge of morality in the minds of natural creatures without being the
author of guilt and discord. The knowledge had to come at their own hands
against His advice in order for them to appreciate His goodness.
But parents have a heater in the house for good reason – why did God put this dangerous
tree in their path?
This was no plan B scenario. God knew that they
would take of the tree, and it was necessary for them to do so. Mankind had to gain
this ability to discern between good and evil - how else could they ever know
and do what was right? Without this understanding they could never have loved righteousness
nor loved God for His righteousness.
It was a good thing for Adam and Eve to gain the knowledge of good and evil, but mankind was not made with it – and a warning was given to prevent it - because of the pain of guilt that would inevitably follow. This was a lesson that Adam and Eve had to learn by their own hand. God could not have bestowed this knowledge on naturally minded mankind without giving just cause for mankind to hate him for doing so. It is a part of the process that God has set in train to create holy people from natural creatures
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