Vanity and the hope to be as God, knowing everything and being able to do everything, man made the wrong choice, going in against the Will of God, disobeying His mitzvot not to touch or eat of the tree of knowledge of good and bad.
The Divine Creator is a God of order, clarity, Who does not tell lies (= always telling the truth) and does not create chaos or confusion. (1 Corinthians 14:33) Man should have known that God always told the truth. But by letting his thoughts wander about, he was caught by his own bad thoughts that God would keep something hidden from him or did not want to give him what he also should own.
As He had promised they would get to know life and death, He cursed them to the hard labour which they previously never had to do. And having made out of dust, God told them they would return to it, becoming dust again, meaning to die and then to decay. (Genesis 3:19)
(Genesis 3:19 ASV): “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
In the previous chapters we discussed that what happened to Adam and Eve still happens to us every day. Temptation today still follows the same pattern with us as it did with Eve in the Garden of Eden. Always there is first the arousing of desire; then the mind, seizing upon that desire, rationalizes it to make it seem reasonable, proper, and profitable. Then the will acts — and often immediately confusion, guilt, blame, and a sense of limitation follows without fail. The process is absolutely relentless.
Adam and Eve thought, like we often do, that we can hide ourselves. We may think that we have hidden things we did from the eyes of man, and oftentimes many of us are deluded into thinking that because no human being knows about our guilt, nothing has happened.
Yet within us, whenever we yield to evil, a darkness falls and death tightens its grip upon our throat. {Ray C. Stedman}
When addressing the evil God shows His understanding and shows His willingness to provide help in their hopeless situation. It is not that man shall be able to escape for what they have done. No, there is the curse for the woman and for the man. and to the evil or the adversary of Him, Jehovah says
Genesis 3:15 NHEBJE I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
The evil or satan shall become subject of a war to the “death”. The thoughts Eve had, would now also come to her children, dwelling in them they shall be troubled by desires, vanity, and other bad things, bringing them into captivity to the law of sin which is in their members
Romans 7:18-23 NHEBJE For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. (19) For the good which I desire, I do not do; but the evil which I do not desire, that I practice. (20) But if what I do not desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. (21) I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present. (22) For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, (23) but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.
For those who have that incapacity to be fully correct or without fault, God did not want that they would not have to face total destruction. Speaking out His judgement over Adam and Eve the Divine Creator spoke about a future saviour. Some one who would be able to break the curse of death. Between the bad thoughts and the way of righteousness shall be a battle. Those who would like to follow their own self-love and what made Eve from this world shall find tribulation and lots of problems in this world, not strong enough to fight them. Though others who not want to be of that world shall be able to be stronger and find their way out, though the world may hate them.
John 15:19 NHEBJE If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
John 16:33 NHEBJE I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have oppression; but cheer up! I have overcome the world.”
Yes, there will be one coming, by the promise of the Most High, who can call himself the only begotten son of God. Though the mind of the flesh may be hostile to God (Romans 8:6-7) this provider foreseen by God in the Garden of Eden, after the fall of man, long before Abraham, is the one we all have to look for and have to find. In him we shall have to put our faith to come away under the curse of death. He is the only man who succeeded to be without fault. He always managed to do God His Will. Though he was tempted many times (in the desert, in the square of the village and in the town, in the temple, in the garden of Gethsemane) he never gave in to the temptation, always wanting to do God His will instead of his own will.
Luke 22:41-42 NHEBJE He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and he knelt down and prayed, (42) saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
The writer of Bereshith notates God’s declaration that there shall be a separating of the serpent (the evil, the temptation) from the woman, and tells about the provision of a solution, which we shall hear about in later books as well. In the third chapter of Genesis we find the basis for the first promise of redemption which must be interpreted allegorically. In that light, the serpent stood for what it proclaimed:
“Ye shall not surely die” (v. 4).
This error was an emanation of the thinking of the flesh called “the carnal mind” by the apostle Paul, which, he declared
“is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7).
Moses lets us understand that there in the Garden of Eden was the base of our problems. There the first man and woman doubting God and His honesty, they becoming adversaries or enemies of God. Eve her thoughts are represented as the creeping animal, a serpent which became “the father of lies“, and all who endorse or proclaim error are considered as its seed, or children.
John 8:44 NHEBJE You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father.
Accordingly, in the allegorical signification of this statement, the serpent represents the spirit of error and deceit as it emanates from the carnal mind. It is frequently used for those who oppose the Truth (Psalms 58:4; 140:3; Matthew 23:33; Revelation 12:9), manifesting themselves as adversaries of the righteous. Its error stemmed from its presumption in reasoning upon Divine law from the standpoint of the flesh. This philosophy caused Eve to view the forbidden tree anew, and its attractive appearance aroused in her the latent propensities of the flesh which then became active and demanding.
“The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”
which John teaches is
“not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16)
were inflamed, and became “the word of the serpent” made flesh in her.
Adam and Eve wanted so much to have that knowledge of good and evil. Their aspiration to own that knowledge was fed by their lust for more. Paul calls such ‘wants’ “lusts” and gives them the title of sin in the flesh (Romans 8:3), or “sin that dwelleth in me” (Romans 7:20).
Romans 8:3 NHEBJE For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh;
The sending of that son is God’s solution for mankind. Though evil shall do everything to try to destroy him, it shall not succeed.
By the offspring of the woman the world shall come to see a Virgin Birth where “It” (AV), a singular seed, shall “bruise” (AV), or “Shuwph” = to crush (Job 9:17). This enmity which had come into existence, between man and God, is seeking the destruction of the higher interests of man. While it will inflict injury, this enmity is subject to the ultimate conquest of man.
The sorrow of woman consequent upon the Fall brings God now having a woman bringing life to a man, but this time not without pain. Also the seed God provides shall bring lots of pain to his mother and generations shall look up at that miserable pain this son of hers had to endure.
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Preceding articles
Necessity of a revelation of creation 1 Works of God and works of man
Necessity of a revelation of creation 4 Getting understanding by Word of God 2
Genesis – Story of creation 6 Genesis 3:13-24 Enmity and curse
Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 1
Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 2
Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 3
What others think about the tree of knowledge of good and evil
A multifold of elements in creation and a bad choice made
Not trying to make the heathen live like Jews #1
Not trying to make the heathen live like Jews #2
First mention of a solution against death 1 To divine, serpent, opposition, satan and adversary
First mention of a solution against death 2 Harm or no harm and naked truth
First mention of a solution against death 3 Tempter Satan and man’s problems
Necessary to be known all over the earth
Next: First mention of a solution against death 5 Evil its law of death
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Additional reading
- Challenging claim 4 Inspired by God 3 Self-consistent Word of God
- Creator and Blogger God 3 Lesson and solution
- Possibility to live
- Dying or not
- A learning process for each of us
- Together tasting a great promise
- The Devil Not A Personal Super-Natural Being
- Satan the evil within
- Satan or the devil
- Lucifer
- Redemption # 1Biblical doctrine of salvation
- The Song of The Lamb #3 Daniel and Revelation
- Story of Jesus’ birth begins long before the New Testament
- Marriage of Jesus 10 Old and New Covenant
- God Our Refuge
- On the Edge of Believing
- What is life?
- Dying or not
- Mortal Soul and Mortal Psyche #6 Summary
- People Seeking for God 5 Bread of life
- When believing in God’s existence and His son, possessing a divine legislation
- The redemption of man by Christ Jesus
- Suffering redemptive because Jesus redeemed us from sin
- Looking for a primary cause and a goal that can not offer philosophers existing beliefs
- 1 Corinthians 15 Hope in action
- How we think shows through in how we act
- Not staying alone in your search for truth
- Doing the works of God
- Being fit to take care of a garden
- Be holy
- We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace
- Aim High: Examples of Godly Characters to follow
- Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #10 Prayer #8 Condition
- Mortal Soul and Mortal Psyche #2 Psyche, the word
- Departed Souls Await Judgment
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Further reading
- Daily Reading: 29 March – The Fall – Genesis 3 ~ paradise lost
- The Original Sin
- Were We Ever Cursed?
- The fall of “The Fall” Part 2
- Genesis 3 – would you Adam and Eve it?
- Why We Sin…and the Truth That Sets Us Free
- Death, Life, and Trees
- Fear & Loathing In… God?
- Significance of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns?
- Christ’s Sacrificial Love
- Children of the Free
- How Great The Fall
- Practising Ministry 5: It All Went Wrong
- Pastor Wrinkles: Unintended Consequences Pt. 5
- Pastor Wrinkles: Unintended Consequences Pt. 6
- Tradition or the Bible – your choice.
- The Answer for Pain
- More Grace Needed Here!
- A Tale of Two Skywalkers
- Redemption and Restoration
- The Poetry of George Herbert: “The Sacrifice” (Pt. 2)
- Rejoicing in Christ
- In A Perfect World…
- Reasons not to compromise with theological compromisers
- No Longer Slaves!
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- Further reading
- Is Eve Responsible?
- To The Weary…
- Ripped from the headlines: Bring on the so-called “Catholic” guilt
- Empathy and Guilt
- 5 Steps: Overcoming Guilt
- Guilt and Regrets
- The Voice of Guilt
- Guilty of Being Human
- Living With Guilt
- Guilt, Shame & the Atonement: A Foreword
- Daily Obstruction: Religious Obstructions
- No More Guilt
- Guilt Free
- Condemnation Never Comes from God
- It’s On You, It Always Has Been
- Here’s to You: Your are Right in His Sight
- Who is evaluating you?
- The Offerings in Leviticus (1 of 2)
- The Offerings in Leviticus (2 of 2)
- Perfectly Imperfect
- The Path to your Potential
- No short cuts to heaven..!
- The Purpose in it All
- Not For The Faint Of Heart
- Redemption
- Deliverance
- What Lie We Often Fall For
- Why does God allow deception?
- The Father of Tall Tales
- The Father of Lies
- Satan, Who? Is Satan Real?
- Dear Father of Lies
- Look at the Lamb (Day 8)
- The Importance of Biblical Discernment
- God Is and We Aren’t
- Jesus Free Man From Sin
- Are people willing to die for something they know is a lie?
- Liars & Murderers – God Says They Are The Same!
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Messiah For All 