Walking With Christ

Genesis 2:16-17
(16)And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, (17)but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”(ESV)

There are times when you read the bible and a single word changes the interpretation of things. There are other times when a simple question that you never thought to ask before leads you in a new direction. In this case, I asked a new question despite having read these passages so many times in the past. I’ll get to the question in just a minute. First, some setup.

In Genesis 2:7, we read that God created Adam from the dust of the ground. In verse 8, we read that God made the garden of Eden and then moved Adam to the garden. This means that Adam was not created in the garden, but Eve was since she was created after Adam was moved.

Genesis 3:1-3
(1)Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (2)And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, (3)but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”(ESV)

Genesis 3:22-23
(22)Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” (23)therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.(ESV)

Did you catch it? Read these passages again. In fact, I would encourage everyone to read chapters two and three completely for reference.

Reading these passages tells us quite a few things that happened. It also tells us a few things that did not happen. People so often focus on the given details that they miss key points. In Genesis 3, the serpent asks Eve if they really weren’t allowed to eat from “any” tree. In Genesis 2, we see that God said “every tree except” one. The serpent asked Eve a misdirecting question to disarm her so that he could bait her into wanting the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.

The question that started this was, “Why didn’t the serpent try to get the fruit for himself if eating said fruit would make the eater like God? Said differently, if the fruit was so good, why didn’t the serpent want it?” Ok, follow me for a bit and see if this makes sense.

The serpent did not need to eat the fruit. He already had the knowledge of good and evil.

We read in Genesis 3:22 that mankind had access to the tree of life in the garden and that was why we had to be kicked out. The fruit of the tree of life was not forbidden until after we ate the forbidden fruit. If Eve had eaten from the tree of life first and then eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, imagine the complications. Here’s the interesting thing, there was no need to eat from the tree of life since Adam and Eve were effectively immortal until the forbidden fruit introduced decay. The fruit from the tree of life would have had no effect on Adam and Eve. The serpent was crafty, but not that crafty. If he had convinced Eve to eat both the forbidden fruit and then from the tree of life, he might have achieved his goal. Since he wasn’t that crafty, Jesus made a way for us to be cleansed and brought back into the house of God forever.