Now
the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the Lord God had made.
The serpent asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of
the trees of the garden?” (Genesis
3:1a)
Yes, this serpent was cunning, and it is
shown in many ways.
He approaches the woman and asks “Did
God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” (Genesis
3:1b) She gives the correct answer: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the
garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that
God said ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’” (Genesis
3:2-3)
It is interesting to note that the woman
can restate this order even though she was not present when God issued it--she
had not yet been created when God gave this order to the man in Genesis
2:16-17. This divine instruction was presumably passed on to her from another,
her husband, not directly from the mouth of God. (She even misnames the tree--the
tree of life was the one in the middle of the garden--and adds a stipulation
that was not part of the original order: “or even touch it.”)
In response to the serpent’s question the
woman simply recites doctrine (more or less accurately) that has been passed on
to her, which anyone can do. Reciting learned doctrine is not the real test.
The real test is this: does the woman really believe the doctrine she
can so easily recite, or is there even a shade of doubt? And if she doubts, how
will she respond when she faces temptation?
The cunning serpent deliberately plants
doubt in her mind: “You certainly will not die! [i.e. God has lied to you.] No,
God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you
will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.” (Genesis 3:4-5)
The supreme irony here is that the
serpent believes the doctrine more than the woman. The serpent knows the man
and woman certainly will die
by eating from that tree--that’s the desired result! The serpent wants to
separate the man and the woman from the God whose doctrine it knows to be true.
Before we go any further, let’s review
from Part Three the meaning of this order God gave about the tree.
The
Lord God gave man this order: “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the
garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall
not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.” (Genesis 2:16-19)
We explored a false notion of freedom,
one that suggests freedom is the ability to do anything we want to do. That’s
an idea many children have (“It’s a free country!”) and one that too many carry
into adulthood. Let’s repeat our childhood example to dissect this false notion
of freedom.
I’m a child on the playground. Sally is
using the swing I want to use. I am free to choose either to wait patiently for
Sally to finish using the swing, or to bully her into getting off so I can use
it now. I choose the latter. Someone says “That’s mean, you shouldn’t do that,”
to which I reply: “It’s a free country!”
Here’s what’s wrong with that idea of
freedom. First, by bullying Sally to get off the swing, I’ve deprived her of
her “freedom” to do what she
wants to do--she wants to use the swing. Second, I’m not free at that moment to
be the kind, considerate person God made me to be, because I’ve allowed myself
to become a slave to the ungodly allure of selfishness, which imprisons me as a
sinner rather than frees me an a child and image of the loving God.
So freedom as an idea that everyone can
do whatever they want--that everyone can decide for themselves what is right
and wrong to do at any given moment--simply doesn’t work, because sooner or
later somebody’s “freedom” is going to be denied by another’s decision.
Free will is the God-given ability to decide what I am going to
do. Freedom is the God-willed destiny I achieve, for myself and for
others, when I consistently use my free will to choose the good, which I
learn by listening to God, who alone knows what is truly good and bad. I can’t
decide for myself what’s good and bad, for that’s the first wrecking ball swung
at true freedom. It’s Sally and the swing all over again.
God gave us free will because, as people
created in his image, we are called to love. We cannot love unless it is a free
choice. Nobody wants to be in a relationship with someone who really doesn’t
want to be in the relationship, if they’re only there because they think they
have to be, and don’t have a choice. That doesn’t mean anything.
Love only means something when a person
also has the choice to not love, or even to hate. In that case the choice to
love is meaningful, it’s real.
God cannot call man to love unless he is
also free to hate. That’s why God gave us free will, not so we can go hog wild
doing anything we please, but so we can choose to love in a way that is real.
And we learn what is good and bad by allowing God to tell us, not grasping at
the tree of that knowledge which is his alone to know in his divine
omniscience.
The warning of death for disobeying this
order is fairly simple. God is reminding man of his total dependence on God for
everything, and ultimately his life. If man chooses to be his own god by
deciding for himself what’s right and wrong he’ll separate himself from the
true God, the author and source of his life. If he chooses to separate himself
from the source of his life, the natural consequence is death. God does not say
“the moment you eat from it I will kill you.” God says “the moment you eat from
it you are surely doomed to die.”
