I recently was reading over the fall
of man, and how the devil deceived Eve into eating the forbidden fruit in the
garden. Now, Adam and Eve were already experiencing good. They received of the
goodness of God, but because they had no reference point, they did not know
that they were experiencing the goodness of God. The way it has been explained
to me, which I have found to be very helpful, is to compare it to a baby. When
a parent feeds, clothes, and takes care of an infant, the baby is experiencing
good, but does not understand that what he or she is experiencing is called
good because he/she has never experienced good before. The same principal can
be applied to evil. So, when Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit from "the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:17) they had an
awakening of the knowledge of good and evil. While reading about Adam and Eve I
saw some similarities between the hardships that they went through and that of
the hardships of a survivor of abuse. The things that I’m going to write about
can be applied to many areas of our lives, and is not limited to people who
have suffered through abuse. I’m relating this to the area of abuse due to the
experiences that I’ve had in my own life, and the things that I have learned
along the way. So, let’s dive right into it.
Here's how the fall of mankind happened:
First, God gave a commandment to
Adam 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 eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"
(Genesis 2:16, 17). Then in Genesis 2:18 Eve was created, “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I
will make him an help meet [aid] for
him”. Adam called her woman because
she was taken out of man, and was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh
(Genesis 2:23). So, Eve was created AFTER God gave the commandment to Adam
about not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is a
widely held assumption that Adam had to have told Eve about God’s commandment,
and we can only assume that there was some kind of miscommunication about what
God had said due to what seems like a slight misunderstanding of God’s
commandment that we will see here shortly.
Now, enters Satan in the form of a
serpent set out to deceive, and this is where it gets interesting. Genesis 3:1
says, “Now the serpent was more subtil
[cunning/crafty] than any beast of the
field which the Lord God had made. And he [the devil] said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”
Here we see the devil misquoting God and saying the complete opposite of what
God really said.
This is where Eve gets into some
trouble because this is where we see she has a misunderstanding of God's word.
Eve also miss-quotes God by saying in Genesis 3:2-3, "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 hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye
touch it, lest ye die". The miss-quote here is where Eve says they
are not even allowed to touch the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil without dying. This is where we see that there must have been some
kind of miscommunication between Adam and Eve. Perhaps in his zeal to convey to
Eve just how important it was to not eat the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil he told her to just leave it alone and to not even touch it.
The Bible does not record how that conversation went, so that is just a huge
guess on my part.
Now, Satan sees that he can exploit
and deceive Eve because of a weakness that he perceives in her understanding of
God's word. Hosea 4:6 tells us that God’s people are destroyed because of their
lack of knowledge. Satan comes back at Eve with this contradiction to God's
word, "Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the
day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil" (Genesis
3:4-5). So, Satan tells Eve that not only will she not die if she eats
this fruit, but that if she does eat it that she will become like God.
click here for Part 2
click here for Part 3
click here for Part 4
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