“Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” (Genesis 3:4-7).
One of the fundamentals to marching is to start on the correct foot. “Getting off on the right foot” is as essential in a high school band as it is in a platoon of Marines. The same is also true when studying God’s word.
Because of John Calvin’s noxious T.U.L.I.P., many a Bible student “gets off on the wrong foot”. From Genesis 3 onward, God’s word repeatedly contradicts the heresy of Total Hereditary Depravity. As considered in yesterday’s blog, Adam’s spiritual legacy includes the following: An imagination/mind which will land you in sin in the days of your youth (Genesis 8:21). If this propensity goes unchecked, it can and will enslave you to the point where every intent of the thoughts of your heart is only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). Like Noah and Abel, you can live righteously before God. Like Cain, you can choose to live wickedly.
Like a cunning snake, Satan is most dangerous when he uses camouflage. His words to Eve are a masterful poison of two deadly half-truths:
“You will not surely die” is a half-truth because Eve did not experience physical death immediately after disobeying God. What she was not told was that her actions would ensure her physical death someday (Genesis 3:22-24). The sad truth he camouflaged was her immediate death spiritually—i.e., she was alienated/separated from God and afraid of Him (Genesis 3:8).
“Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” is a half-truth. Her eyes were opened to know good and evil; she and Adam knew they were naked and felt a sense of shame. What Satan camouflaged was that their knowledge of good and evil would not be omniscient and holy like God’s.
When Adam, Eve, or any of their offspring trust their own imperfect knowledge of good and evil instead of God’s pristine and comprehensive knowledge, they will sin. By faith in his own knowledge of good and evil, Cain offered a sacrifice to God which He did not respect, and Cain was very angry at God for His rejection; by faith in God’s knowledge of good and evil, Abel offered a sacrifice which God respected (Genesis 4:4-5).
Because of Adam’s sin, “it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23), because “there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12). Therefore, from Adam onward, a person sins because when he is tempted and enticed, he chooses to distrust God’s word, doubt God’s love, and then disobey God’s commands.
The seeds of humanism were planted in the Garden of Eden. This is Adam’s sad, spiritual legacy.
Don’t let John Calvin tell you otherwise.
