Before we discuss what happened in the Garden of Eden, let me give you a scenario and ask you a question about the circumstance I am going to describe. Let’s say a married couple had stashed away part of their income all through their working lives and had a nice nest egg in the bank for their retirement. Then, one day, a nice-looking young man contacted them and met with them in an outdoor cafe. As they sat talking, this young man pulled out a portfolio filled with impressive figures, graphs, and pictures. He told the couple that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest their money in his company. Now, the couple had been very conservative with their money and knew little about investing. However, the young man was knowledgeable and his portfolio seemed to be impeccable, so the couple agreed to invest most of their savings in his company. The next day they wrote him a check, and he promised to send them a statement in three months. Well, to make a long story short, the couple never received a statement and the young man disappeared. The authorities found out that this young man had the habit of scamming people who were close to retirement. My question is, “Who will the authorities seek to punish, the young man or the couple?”

    When we think about what happened in the Garden of Eden as written in Genesis 3, we need to keep this story in mind. Through the years I’ve walked with God, I have heard how horrible Adam and Eve were when they disobeyed God. I want to look at this from a different perspective that will help shed light on why our world is the way it is.

     As we talked about Creation in my last two posts, we found out that God went to the kingdom of evil to create good and that Satan had to watch the good come into being. I don’t think we would miss the boat if we inferred that Satan was hopping mad about the circumstance. In fact, when God gave Adam and Eve authority over the living creatures He had created in the earth, Satan probably experienced a jealous rage, and he started planning the downfall of all that was good. And, Satan knew where to start because he knew God would present Adam and Eve with an alternative to Himself. Sure enough, God spoke to Adam to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because if the couple ate of the fruit, they would die.

     Let’s look at what God was really saying. First, God gave Adam and Eve an alternative to Himself because He is love.  And, at that point, the couple only had knowledge of good–they had no experience with evil and they had never heard a lie. If you notice, neither Adam nor Eve ate of the fruit on their own, so what happened did not originate within themselves. The only way they would eat the fruit is if evil came to them and because God had created our world in the kingdom of evil, He could not stop evil from coming. So, God did what He was suppose to do–He warned the couple to not eat the fruit. If they allowed evil to come between Him and themselves, evil would be able to destroy their physical lives. God spoke the truth because He did not want the couple to die, so He said don’t eat the fruit.

     Now, we’re going to tackle motive, God’s motive, in particular. Let’s see if we can get our minds around a difficult concept–in order to give the human race a true choice, God had to and has to conceal Himself because if He didn’t, there would be no choice. His love is so powerful that if it was fully revealed, it would obliterate our freedom of choice. Because we don’t see the fullness of God’s love, it would easy for us to believe God set Adam and Eve up for defeat. But, when we really look at the circumstances, the only way He could have stopped what was going to happen was to just not create our world. (I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to be here.)

     Let’s get back to Satan. As I said before, Satan hated the good that had invaded his kingdom and he wanted to get rid of it. He heard God give Adam and Eve the choice and he began watching and planning. One day, he found Eve alone and he put his plan into action. He hooked Eve with a question that she could answer and once she did, Satan began his spiel and he lied. Satan told her the couple would not die and they would be like God, knowing good and evil. (By the way God does not “know” evil–He has nothing to do with evil.) I don’t know what Eve understood Satan to say, but her response indicates she picked up that the fruit was good for food, that it was desirable, and that it would make her wise. Remember all she had experienced and “knew” was good–she had no idea what evil was. Eve was a sitting duck and Satan attempted to destroy her.

     When Eve ate the fruit and gave it to Adam, Satan accomplished what he had set out to do. Since God had told the couple they would die if they ate the fruit, imagine Satan’s surprise when they kept on living. Then, when God came on the scene, imagine Satan’s consternation when God first explained to him what his punishment was going to be. The one who wanted to be like God and rule over his peers was going to end up crawling in dirt. And, even though Satan would succeed in bringing loss, death, and destruction to the human race, in the end, the human race would crush his head. As far as Adam, Eve, and their descendants were concerned, they would face a constant battle with evil and they would physically die. Notice this, the curse that came upon the human race was physical death–God did not mention hell, period! Think about this.

     Going back to the scenario I started out this post with, let’s put Adam and Eve in the couple’s place and Satan in the young man’s place. Who is the criminal and who will be punished? Even though we like to blame Adam and Eve, God didn’t because He knew who the real culprit was. As Jesus Christ said himself in John 8:44 (NKJV):

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

As we go on to think about the story the Bible tells, let’s remember these two underlying concepts–God came to the kingdom of evil (aka the Wrath of God) to create our world and Satan set out to destroy God’s creation. In my next post, we are going to look at the circumstances surrounding the Great Flood.

     Please feel free to comment, but remember any comment that is disrespectful to anyone will be deleted.

 

     ©2009 by Patricia Zell. All rights reserved.