TEMPTATION AND FALL
You've played the game: Was it heredity or environment that made this person who they turned out to be? Which is more important. Well, here's a story that throws a monkey wrench in the big middle of that argument.
Adam and Eve had perfect heredity. Made by God Himself in His image. He even commented later, “It was very good.”
They had an ideal environment, created just for them. No nosy neighbors or pollution. Just the Lord and each other.
They had only one sin they could commit.
That apple.
That apple became their whole world. And its downfall.
Only one sin, and they went right to it.
Don't miss the truth.
If we had only one sin, if you had only one sin, we would go straight to it! Original sin means our nature is to sin, we are inclined to sin. Those sweet little babies we all love come into this world fighting to get their way. Feed me now, or I'll scream until you do. Change my diaper now, so I feel comfortable. As they get older they want what someone else has, and they want it now. We try to civilize them but with varying degrees of success. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Rom 3:23.
I like to tell the story of a couple who are house-sitting for a friend who is away on a trip out of the country. They've been told to use the house as they would their own, except for one thing. They are not to open the door to the attic. Everything else they can treat as if it were their own. Just stay out of the attic. If that were your situation, how long would it be before you stood looking at that door, wondering what was behind it?
There's a whole lot in this story, so let's press on. Note that evil was already in this newly created world, an evil that came independently of both the couple and the Lord. The serpent made mischief – and worse. The Bible doesn't really tell us where Satan came from. He just appears as a tempter. Some have created a story from Isaiah 14:12 which the KJV says “Lucifer” is fallen from heaven as meaning Satan is a fallen angel. However, if you bother to read the whole chapter, verse 12 is part of a taunt-song over the king of Babylon, who will fall before Persia and leave Israel free. What exactly was this “tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”
Amazing to me is the number of Bible students who claim this has to do with sex. Doesn't “forbidden fruit” always mean sex? Not here it doesn't. God told them to “go and multiply and fill the earth...” Sounds like sex to me? No one else was around to commit adultery or even lust with. Forget sex. (I don't mean permanently, I mean in this discussion.)
The key lies in the Biblical use of the verb “to know.” It's the same verb used a chapter later when the writer says “Adam KNEW his wife, and she conceived...” Chapter 4:1 does not mean that when Adam looked up one day and saw Eve approaching, he said, “I know you! You're that gal I married.” No. When the Bible says he knew his wife, it means he knew her by the experience of having sex with her.
VERY IMPORANT, so nail it down: In both the OT and the NT, when you see the word “know,” it almost always means knowledge by experience. My often used example is fixing cars. In one sense I understand cars well. I can describe in detail how they work and can explain it to you better than most mechanics. I know how a car works. But if you ever see me walking toward your vehicle with a wrench and a determined look in my eye, stop me. No way do you want me tinkering with your car. I understand cars intellectually, but I have done very little of it. My sons knew more in junior high when they got minicycles and proceeded to explore their engines.
The tree of Knowledge was not intellectual knowledge. They already knew it was wrong to disobey God. They had never done so. But immediately after their sin, they discovered guilt and shame. They knew by experience what good and evil are. All else that follows are unintended consequences of sin.
Note secondly that as soon as Eve ate, she became a missionary of sin. She became the temptress to Adam as Satan had tempted her. Once while working at a hospital, a nurse asked me to come talk to her while she took a break for smoking. When I regretfully declined, she decided not to smoke at that time. I wonder how often we lure ourselves into sin by going along with others or worse – promoting it!
Further, neither took responsibility for their sin at first. Eve blamed the serpent, and Adam blamed Eve. Incidentally, did you see Adam indirectly blamed God?
“The woman which YOU gave me...” Sin makes excuses, “After all, I'm only human.”
And sin divides. Adam blamed Eve and God. Eve blamed the snake. Both hid from God. Even as a child, when you knew you were guilty, you wanted to avoid your parents. Sin builds walls. Love tears them down, seeking intimacy. Sin separates from God. Forgiveness restores that trust.
Forgiveness lies through confession, taking responsibility. At the very last, Adam admitted, “I ate it.” I'm world class at rationalizing. I bet you know a little about it as well. Dodging responsibility. But we cannot get past our sin until we admit it, first to ourselves. If you have an alcoholic in your family, you know that everyone around them knows their condition, except them. Alcoholics Anonymous tells us that until you admit you are powerless to help yourself, no one can do anything for you. This concept is true of all sin and shortcomings. All have sinned. I have sinned. You have sin.
The Lord told them the punishment was death. So people ask why He let them live. Look back at the Tree of Life. If they ate from it, they would live forever and never die. In their fallen state they could not live eternally as sinners, so God took strong action: he booted them out, evicting His tenants.
Yet there is an element of salvation here. The first couple had covered their bodies with fig leaves to express their shame. God replaced those fig leaves with fur coats! And God revealed human destiny as being constantly tempted (bitten on the heel,) but finally humans will stomp on the head of the Evil One and destroy him.
Meanwhile, the Lord was on the spot. He knew, and He knows. “Where are you? What have you done? A question you and I would do well to ask at the beginning of every day.
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