In order to arrive at a logical conclusion we must first start at the beginning…

 

   Do you remember how we played as children? It was often a form of role play, pretending to be something or someone greater than ourselves. We would fly in planes and cook one course gourmet meals and save humanity with our medical skills. We would walk on the moon and drive in cars and slay the dragon whose name was Fido.

   I don’t think we changed much as we got older. I’m sure there was a priority shift to things much more grounded but similar intent none the less. Career, spouse, children, other endeavors but still the same want for a more excellent rendition of ourselves.

   Not to mention all the stuff we have, those great gadgets and gizmos and the latest thing that just went out of date last month. The bigger house, the bigger car, the bigger collection, more speed, more memory, more power. Is it possible for us to be satisfied and was it any different for our greatest grandparents all the way back in Eden?

   The Bible says that God made everything “very good” indicating, I would think, as perfect as we can imagine. It’s real important not to miss that one detail. At the end of each day of creation God observed that what he had made was good and at the end of the last day, Genesis 1:31 says, “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

   In this world’s current state where death and disease and suffering are all too familiar it’s hard to imagine a place where God could uphold everything so perfectly that no one would even step on an ant. Adam and Eve were naked so the temperature would have been within a comfortable tolerance. He gave them water because a river flowed through Eden and food including vegetables from the plants and fruits from the trees.

   There would have been no biting flies or stinging bees because that would have caused suffering. There were no thistles under foot or thorns on the roses and a personal favorite of mine, no sunburn. No light pollution for star gazing and no distractions of any kind, except for just one thing…

   The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

   God gave them paradise and also one unique tree where He tells Adam, in Genesis 2:17, “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.” The Bible doesn’t tell us how long they lived in paradise but shortly after it says that Eve was tempted to eat the fruit.

   She was told that if she ate it she would be like God, knowing good and evil. Good and evil were unknown concepts at that time but she knew God because He brought her to Adam and He walked with them in the garden during, “the cool of the day.” (Genesis 3:8) We all want to be the rulers of our own lives, we want to make all the decisions and call all the shots and we think all the power should come from us in carving out the path we want to take.

   What they didn’t realize was that they already wielded something greater, the power to choose. God loves us so much that He lets us choose and they had the ability to choose God’s way over their way but instead chose themselves. The Bible says that Eve tasted the fruit first and then gave it to Adam who also ate it because he was there with her. Eve listened to the Serpent and Adam listened to his wife and neither of them heeded Gods command.

   In hindsight we could say that, if in their shoes, or actually their bare feet, we wouldn’t make that same mistake. They had paradise handed to them, no pain, no tears, no death but each of us in our own way cause pain and tears and death even if it’s mostly just to ourselves. I’m sure almost every person we can think of cause these things to happen and the others are just great at hiding it. It’s a very safe bet that if we were there, in the garden, faced with the same choice that we would have eaten the fruit too and when we eat something it becomes part of us and changes us for better or worse.

   While that succulent, uniquely sweet taste that only they, among all people, will remember was still sweet on their tongues, the whole of all creation was bitterly fractured and sin entered the world. They found themselves naked and hid from God because they were afraid. Nakedness is also a metaphor and shows us that we can’t hide anything from God. He sees all of us deep into our hearts where all of our thoughts originate.

   When God found them hiding in the trees because they knew what they had done He could have easily scolded them but He chose not too. Instead He performed a touching act of kindness by clothing them with animal skins. He saw what they did, He knew their shame but instead of beating them down He decided to cover them.

   Then He cursed every bit of creation.

   In general terms, men would forever struggle with their work, it defines them above all other things and they receive a great deal of their self worth from what they do. Women would bear children with intense pain and have a deep longing toward their husband. Women receive a great deal of their self worth from relationships.

   The curse put men and women at odds with each other and opened a rift between us and God and is why He seems so far away and silent. He did not want to leave us that way so He shared good news with Adam and Eve. In Genesis 3:15 as He cursed the cattle and, above all, the serpent He said, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” This is the first prediction of the Savior that would come from one of her descendants; in fact, “her Seed” describes the virgin birth because all others come from the seed of man.

   After being exiled from Eden, Adam was able to feed them because God had showed him how to work the land in the garden. When Eve had Cain she said, “I have acquired a man from the LORD.” (Genesis 4:1) It shows they expected that Cain could be the Savior and usher them back to paradise within one generation. Cain is a first born male which, we will later see, holds a great deal of significance.

   If all of these details seem a bit hard to swallow at this time, think of it this way… We had a perfect relationship with God but He gave one command which was quickly broken and offended Him. This offense caused a separation between God and us because we all inherited the same rebellious nature from our ancestors (Romans 5:12) but God also told us that He would send a Savior to bridge the gap and make things right again.

   Before we go any farther we need to make sure we’re on a solid foundation. All the quotes I’ve used might raise a question about the reliability of the Bible. Are the books the same as what the original authors wrote? Are they tainted with errors, mistranslated or even fairy tales? We will deal with these questions in the next chapter.