Eve and the Serpent at the Tree in EdenBible World
3:4Genesis 3:4
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Satan speaking through the serpent directly contradicted God's warning, denying that disobedience and eating the forbidden fruit would bring death in order to lead to transgression and ruin. Joined to that denial was the promise that eating would open the eyes and make them as gods knowing good and evil, with greater wisdom and exaltation, implying God had not meant His warning and was selfishly withholding good to restrict liberty. The denial is the first lie and first lesson on natural immortality, teaching that humans cannot die and sinners live on. That immortality lie founds Spiritualism and pretended communion with the dead, and from it came eternal torment and purgatory that falsely make God a cruel tyrant whose threatenings need not be taken literally. By contrast the verse warns that sin brings death, God means what He says and requires strict obedience, while Christ came not to abolish the law Adam transgressed but to mediate and restore obedience.
Speaker, Denial and Setting
The denial is Satan himself speaking, directly contradicting God's warning that disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit would bring death. He assured Eve that she and Adam would not die, meaning that God did not mean what He said and that His warning would not actually be fulfilled but was meant only to frighten them. The denial was joined to the promise of greater wisdom, knowledge, power, nobler development, greater happiness, exaltation and a higher, broader existence through breaking the law. By it he made God's word seem untrue in order to encourage distrust of the Creator as restricting liberty, to lead into transgression and ruin, and to lay the groundwork for deceiving the world down to the last remnant of time when all except those kept through faith in God's Word are swept into fatal security to be awakened only by wrath.
He spoke not openly but through the serpent as his medium, working in concealment under its form and disguise. As father of lies he put his direct contradiction of the expressed word of God into the serpent's mouth, so that Eve heard the denial from a creature rather than recognizing the fallen foe. Angels had cautioned her not to separate from her husband in daily labor because with him she would be in less danger than alone, yet absorbed in her pleasing task she unconsciously wandered from his side, felt apprehension at being alone, then dismissed fear deciding she had sufficient wisdom and strength to discern evil and withstand it. Having no thought that the fascinating serpent could be the medium of the fallen foe whose address by an angel-like being would have excited her fears, she lingered instead of fleeing.
The serpent was then a creature of fascinating appearance, beautiful, bright like burnished gold, winged and moving through the air while eating fruit. Gazing with mingled curiosity and admiration on the forbidden tree and its beautiful fruit, Eve questioned why God had withheld it, giving the tempter his opportunity to address her as if discerning her thoughts. He spoke in a musical, seductive voice with subtle praise of her loveliness, using flattery, envy, distrust, questioning and unbelief to make disobedience desirable. She wrongly regarded him as a friend concerned for her welfare, and was drawn by the flattering hope of gaining higher knowledge when seeking her husband and bringing his words to their Maker would have delivered them.
The denial reveals Satan as the author of evil, charging God with his own false character and giving the impression God does not mean what He says. The same deception that tempted Adam and Eve still tempts people today, sounding from generation to generation so that men and women keep falling into the snare despite Adam's disobedience and its fearful consequences. The lie concealed itself beneath apparent truth, presenting forbidden knowledge as a blessing while hiding that transgression had made him an outcast from heaven, and it led Eve to distrust God's wisdom and cast away faith. The evil offered as knowledge proved to be disobedience itself, whose promised opening brought only sight of shame and ruin, loss of the covering of heavenly light, nakedness, hiding from the Creator's voice, and expectation of condemnation never known before.
It was spoken in a garden at a dense, leafy, fruit-bearing tree where a man and a woman stood on either side reaching toward its branches.
Promises and Accusations Against God
Joined to the denial that disobedience would bring death is the promise that eating will open the eyes and make the eaters as gods knowing good and evil. The promise offers lifting to a more exalted sphere of existence with a broader field of knowledge, wisdom, power, nobler development, greater happiness, equality with God Himself, great light and freedom, enlightened, expanded and ennobled understanding, and a higher state of knowledge and existence. It presents transgression of the law as the way to greater wisdom and exaltation, to freedom from restriction of liberty, to exalting man and placing him where God should be, and it is joined to flattering inducement and questioning of the words of God to lead into disobedience and transgression and to make truth of no effect and prevent oneness in doing God's will. The same temptation employed in Eden is the temptation employed still, with Satan as the alpha and omega of so-called higher science theories. The denial rests on the claim that humans were created immortal and that God withheld the fruit to keep them from gaining knowledge and becoming like Him.
The verse accuses God of untruth by making His word seem untrue and leading Eve and then Adam to believe He did not mean what He said about death. It accuses Him of selfish jealousy in withholding the fruit lest they be exalted to equality with Himself, of unkindness in withholding great good, of arbitrary restriction of liberty, and of using warning only to frighten, glossing truth with falsehood to make transgression appear a real blessing. It works by wily insinuations and false assertion against the character of God, and accepting it was the beginning of disobedience and transgression that gave the knowledge of guilt God did not want, opened the floodgates of woe upon the world, and is continued vigilantly to lead men to accept Satan's assertions as proof against God and against the restoration of God's image.
The verse presents God's prohibition as never to be carried out but meant only to frighten Adam and Eve and keep them in subordination without knowledge or power. It charges God with forbidding the most desirable tree for its delicious flavor and exhilarating influence in order to withhold knowledge which is power and to prevent equality with Himself. Because Eve showed no immediate sign of death, Adam entertained the denial and ate also. The same denial that God's threatenings to punish transgression are only to frighten was repeated by great, worldly, honored and wise men in Noah's generation against the warning of the flood, insisting the Maker would never destroy His creatures, bidding the people be at peace and fear not while mocking Noah and continuing as though God had not spoken.
Tempter Method and Fall
To back the denial the tempter claimed he himself had eaten the forbidden fruit and thereby gained the power of speech, argued that eating could no more bring death than merely touching, and argued death was impossible because they had already eaten of the tree of life. He presented the divine warning as an empty threat meant only to frighten and keep them from greater knowledge, power and happiness, and offered his own speech and experience as supposed proof the fruit was harmless. Eve felt no immediate sign of displeasure, but that did not make the claim true.
Eve erred first in wandering from her husband and being alone when angels had cautioned her not to separate in daily labor, for with him she would be in less danger; absorbed in her pleasing task she unconsciously left his side, felt apprehension, then dismissed fear deciding she had wisdom and strength enough to discern evil and withstand it. Lingering around the forbidden tree, gazing with mingled curiosity and admiration on its beautiful fruit, questioning why it was withheld, listening to the tempter's musical voice and subtle praise of her loveliness, and entering into controversy instead of fleeing, she gave him his opportunity. She had no thought the fascinating serpent could be the medium of the fallen foe, wrongly regarded him as a friend concerned for her welfare, and dared to doubt whether the word about death meant just as spoken. In answering she even added a prohibition against touching which had not been given.
She would have been safe had she refused to argue and parley, defended the truth, sought her husband, and turned to her Maker for help. Resistance would have brought help, driven the accuser away, and preserved integrity, for the test was mild and she had no need of that tree. The same pattern is still repeated when people doubt and argue about requirements and accept human theories that disguise the same devices.
Willing to listen, she first doubted the word, then received the lying sophistry as very wise, coveted what was forbidden above all others, longed for independence to be a law to herself with no restraint, mistrusted goodness despite abundance of life, garden, beauty and pleasant employment, forgot great love, and deemed God selfish, unkind, unjust and unnecessarily restricting liberty and advancement. The denial glossed truth with falsehood to make transgression appear a real blessing, charging that the most desirable tree was forbidden for its delicious flavor and exhilarating influence to keep them in subordination and withhold knowledge which is power. Curiosity was excited to pry into unsearchable plans and reason about the cause of the restriction, the very course that had ruined the rebel himself.
Believing, she put forth her hand, took and ate finding it pleasing to the eye and pleasant to the taste, expressed astonishment at the serpent's speech, told Adam all that had been said, and gave to him. Adam was not deceived as she was, but being tempted by his wife, moved by love and seeing her apparently unchanged, he also ate and both disobeyed and fell. Through her influence he accepted the claim that what was said about death was not meant, and together they distrusted their Creator, forfeited favor, and opened the floodgates of woe, ruin, expulsion, curse and guilt upon the world.
No immediate harm appeared; Eve felt a pleasurable exhilaration and no ill effect, and Adam saw her unchanged, so experience seemed to confirm the lie and proved stronger in their minds than the express word. Because she showed no immediate sign of death Adam entertained the denial, allowed himself to be led by that experience, and ate too. Yet consequences still follow though judgment is delayed.
There was nothing harmful or poisonous in the fruit itself; the danger was in listening and venturing to break the single test of loyalty, obedience, faith and love. The tree stood near the tree of life in the midst of the garden as the indispensable condition of existence, with free permission to eat of every other tree and prohibition of this one on pain of death, with promise that endurance under exposure to temptation would place them finally beyond the tempter's power in perpetual favor. Even violating one seemingly small command was grave sin, though resistance was possible.
The method was subtle cunning and deceit rather than force, making a lie appear a very desirable fact by denial joined to promise, bearing false witness against the Creator while exalting self. Its instruments were flattery, envy, distrust, questioning and unbelief, offering forbidden speculative knowledge as improvement of condition though gaining it required disobedience. The same subtle argument still deceives.
Shut out of heaven with no return to favor, the adversary deliberately planned destruction by leading them to disobedience, consulting with his angels, taking another form and feigning interest in man. He could take no happiness nor exercise power while they obeyed, so they had to be made to forfeit favor, incur the frown, and come under his direct influence and jurisdiction that he might gain supremacy over the race and carry on earth the rebellion begun in heaven by declaring the law could not be obeyed. To that end he struck at truthfulness by creating doubt whether what was said about death was meant, then excited curious reasoning.
Having overcome the first parents by shaking confidence, doubting wisdom and justice, and shifting his own cruelty upon the Father, he exulted in the ruin wrought. He lures from allegiance by contrasting bondage under stern decrees with liberty under his own mild sway, still seeking today to tempt to sin and then destroy if he can.
Results and False Covering
The promised opening of the eyes proved true only in bringing discernment of folly, guilt, shame and ruin, knowledge of evil and bitter taste of transgression, loss of innocence and of the garments of light and presence that had enveloped them, nakedness, hiding from the Creator's voice in the garden, and expectation of condemnation never known before. Believing the denial that disobedience would not bring death led both to eat and to gain a knowledge they would never have had in obedience, an experience in disobedience and disloyalty in which they knew they were naked because innocence and surrounding light from God had departed. Adam afterward learned that death meant return to the ground whence he was taken as dust, exposing as false the claim that God did not mean what He said.
Their sewing of fig leaves into aprons represents the arguments transgressors of God's law have used ever since to cover the nakedness caused by sin, a covering still made whenever truth calls attention to disobedience in order to hide the nakedness of the soul. Believing the words put Adam and Eve on Satan's side, for the denial that disobedience would bring death appealed to pride by promising exaltation and escape from death apart from the way pointed out in the Scriptures. That pride shows itself in unwillingness to be accounted as nothing and to recognize Christ as the only One who can save to the uttermost all who accept Him, seeking salvation and a way other than God devised.
The verse belongs to temptation to seek forbidden knowledge, presenting disobedience as a blessing that would bring wisdom, power, greater happiness and a higher existence, while hiding that transgression had made the tempter an outcast from heaven. The lie concealed itself beneath apparent truth, offering a supposed improvement of condition through speculative knowledge whose gaining required disobedience, and leading to distrust of God's wisdom and casting away of faith. Instead of gaining knowledge that brings lasting joy they gained only acquaintance with sin and its results, disloyalty, estrangement of humanity from God and separation of earth from heaven, loss of Eden, and knowledge God never intended them to have which ends in eternal death. Obeying God's requirements in Jesus' strength keeps people from that knowledge.
Speaking through the serpent the verse lied against God and bore false witness about the Creator while exalting the tempter in preference to God, with a seductive voice that allured the mind. Although Adam had walked and talked with God and God in foreknowledge and providence could have kept and directed them if they had heeded the warning against evil, they allowed themselves to be beguiled and believed the false statements. Their minds, though divinely created and sinless, came under the working of another power and were so fully seduced that they could no longer discern the power leading them into apostasy, showing that the same seducing power still works human minds into apostasy and loss of discernment. Choosing the deceiver instead of God, who is truth, brought loss, confused the mind, weakened mental and spiritual powers, and made people unable to appreciate God's gifts.
Their listening and disobedience brought a curse upon nature, so the created world thereafter testified imperfectly about its Creator and could not reveal His character in perfection. Evil, sin and death did not come from God but resulted from disobedience, with the knowledge of evil entering the world through that deception.
Immortality Lie Refuted
“Ye shall not surely die” was the first lie ever uttered, Satan’s direct contradiction of God’s warning spoken to Eve through the serpent, assuring her she was created immortal and could not die even in disobedience. It was his first lesson on natural immortality, teaching that humans cannot die and that sinners live on, resting on the claim that God had withheld the fruit to keep them from gaining knowledge and becoming as gods knowing good and evil. Eve received that sophistry as very wise, longing for the fruit above all others and finding no immediate harm in touching and eating, then giving also to her husband and trading happiness in ignorance of sin for degradation, sin and guilt. That temptation opened the floodgates to the world, so that all deceptions, prevarications and misrepresentations are comprised in it, and yielding even in little things entraps as birds in the snare of the fowler.
After eating they would have become immortal sinners by eating also of the tree of life, so God drove them from Eden and guarded its way lest they perpetuate life in sin. The flaming sword placed around the tree of life, which alone could perpetuate immortality, proves the denial false, for not one of Adam’s family has passed that sword and eaten. There is therefore not an immortal sinner in existence, and the teaching contradicts God’s declaration that the sinner dies. The soul that sins dies an everlasting death that lasts forever with no hope of resurrection, and then the wrath of God is appeased. Immortality is an attribute of God alone, and the word of God nowhere teaches that the human soul is immortal, though popular ministers reiterate the lie from the pulpit and the people receive it as pure Bible truth.
From that immortality lie came belief that the sinner will live in eternal misery, the teaching of an eternally burning hell and the invention of purgatory. Satan commanded his angels to make special effort to spread the deception that man is immortal, and once received it prepares the way to hold up God as a revengeful tyrant who plunges all who do not please Him into hell to ever feel His wrath while they writhe in eternal flames and He looks down with satisfaction. These teachings falsify the character of God to make Him appear severe, revengeful, arbitrary and unforgiving, clothing Him with Satan’s own cruelty, hiding Satan’s agency, depriving humanity of divine strength and making people dupes and subjects of satanic agencies. They cause God to be hated by many instead of loved and admired, and lead many to believe the threatenings of His word will not be literally fulfilled because to plunge created beings into eternal torments would be against His benevolence and love, when God is love and all He created was pure, holy and lovely until sin was brought in by the first great rebel.
The denial of death laid the groundwork for Spiritualism as Satan’s masterpiece of deception, developed little by little through history toward full accomplishment in the last remnant of time. That long-prepared final effort will sweep the whole world except those kept by the power of God through faith in His Word into delusion, lulling them to a fatal security to be awakened only by the outpouring of the wrath of God, until God lays judgment to the line and sweeps away the refuge of lies. The lie is perpetuated in the last days bound up in corrupt harmony under a corrupt leader with the fallen churches that rejected light, the papal man of sin presenting a rival sabbath, and the apostate Protestant power with two horns like a lamb speaking as a dragon, all blessed by Satan personating Christ, while the only hope is the remnant who keep the word of Christ’s patience and refuse to worship the beast and his image. The same lie is the foundation of pretended communion with the dead and of ancient worship of the dead, but familiar spirits are not the spirits of dead people but evil angels, the messengers of Satan continuing the same deception, so that supposed worship of dead men and fellowship with them is in reality worship of demons and fellowship with devils.
Law Sabbath and Judgment
The same denial that divine threatenings only frighten was repeated by great, worldly, honored and wise men, men of science and philosophy, in Noah's generation against the warning of the Flood. It taught that God's threatenings of punishment for transgression are only to intimidate and will never be carried out, so there is no need to be alarmed or to fear. Applied to the Flood it taught that the God who made the world would never destroy the world by water and never punish the beings He created, because that is not in accordance with science and philosophy, but that people should be at peace and fear not. While the world was arrayed against God's justice and laws, Noah was mocked as crazy and a wild fanatic, and people continued in disobedience and wickedness as though God had not spoken.
The same deceiving power that tempted Eve tempts people today to set aside God's holy seventh-day Sabbath hallowed at creation, sustained by the manna, and placed in the bosom of the Decalogue, and to substitute Sunday as a spurious first-day sabbath exalted by the man of sin to lead the world into rebellion and obliterate God's distinguishing sign. The lie presents God as too kind to punish disobedience and gives a false excuse to break His law while claiming to be sinless, and Eve's response warns against trusting that excuse, since genuine sanctification comes only through obedience to God's truth and commandments. Satan has kept up the same deceptive work upon human minds from that day to this, gaining control of every mind that receives his lies, leading people to refuse God's Word as it reads and choose his lies rather than a Thus saith the Lord, and urging them by religious teaching into disregard and decided transgression of the fourth commandment. That same lie that transgressing God's law will not bring death but will make transgressors as gods knowing good and evil is voiced by ministers who disregard God's claim and uphold the first day as the Sabbath, teaching by influence and example that God's law can be broken and causing a lie to be received as truth.
Adam and Eve's venturing to take the forbidden fruit seemed simple and unworthy of notice yet brought bitter experience with awful consequences: the fall, expulsion from Eden and loss of Eden, and the opening of the floodgates of woe to the world. Their punishment shows God as severe and exacting against disobedience, not merciful in the sense of excusing sin, and proves mercy does not cover or lessen guilt while sin is continued. Justice and mercy go hand in hand, mercy covering guilt only after sin is repented of and forsaken, and God's gift of His Son to die to pay the debt of transgression and save the fallen race exalts the sacred character of God's law instead of excusing its breach. Sinners still practice iniquity because they flatter themselves that the sword of justice will never be raised against them and ease their consciences into carnal security, when in truth God is a God of justice who will visit workers of iniquity with retributive judgments.
By contrast the verse warns that sin brings death, that God's justice does not fail, and that He means what He says and requires strict obedience to His commandments. The denial bred distrust of the Creator as restricting liberty and imagined that transgression would bring great light and freedom and entrance into a more exalted state, but the claim proved false. Adam learned after sin that death meant return to the ground whence he was taken as dust, and the promised opening of eyes proved true only in opening eyes to discern folly, to know evil, to taste the bitter fruit of transgression, to see shame and ruin, to know nakedness as the result of transgression with the covering of heavenly light gone, to hide from the voice of the Creator in the garden, and to expect divine condemnation never known before. Despite the example of Adam's disobedience and its results bringing woe upon the world, that same denial has sounded from generation to generation, tempting people today as it tempted Adam and Eve, so that men and women fall into the snare and by thought and act spread the impression that God does not mean what He says.
The same temptation Satan employed in Eden, questioning God's words joined to the flattering inducement that eyes shall be opened and men shall be as gods, exalting man and placing him where God should be, is the temptation he employs today as the alpha and omega of so-called higher science theories to lead into disobedience and make truth of no effect and prevent oneness with Christ in doing God's will. The lie is perpetuated in the last days bound up in corrupt harmony under a corrupt leader with the fallen churches that rejected light, the papal man of sin presenting a rival sabbath, and the apostate Protestant power with two horns like a lamb speaking as a dragon, all blessed by Satan personating Christ, while the only hope is the remnant who keep the word of Christ's patience and refuse to worship the beast and his image. It was the great original lie and first sermon ever preached on the immortality of the soul, teaching that sin would not bring death and man is naturally immortal, crowned with success with terrible results, and minds have been brought to receive that sermon as truth while ministers preach it, sing it, and pray it. The word of God nowhere teaches that the human soul is immortal, for immortality is an attribute of God alone, yet what popular ministers reiterate from the pulpit is received as pure Bible truth, and because they have trampled truth underfoot and preferred fables they have nothing to shield their flocks from the baleful influence of Spiritualism founded on that lie.
The lie denies that sin brings death and sets Satan's word against God's word that the soul that sins shall die, making sin agreeable, keeping souls from coming back to allegiance in keeping His commandments, and leading the impenitent transgressor to choose continued sin rather than obedience. It gives the false assurance that sin is harmless and that God will accept disobedience, and it is believed because the natural perverted heart loves the lie more than the truth. The verse is thus used to mean disobedience is safe and carries no penalty, a lie voiced by ministers who disregard God's claim and uphold the first day of the week as the Sabbath.
Christ Appetite and Obedience
The fall through indulgence of appetite proves that the only hope of regaining Eden is through firm denial of appetite and passion. Eve had every fruit freely given to make her happy, yet the forbidden fruit appeared more desirable, she was intemperate in desire, she ate and through her influence her husband ate also, and a curse rested upon them both and upon the earth because of their sin. The same beguiling has continued since the fall, with the human family following Eve in disobedience, letting appetite control reason, disregarding prohibitions, violating the laws of health and running to excess in almost everything, so that disease has steadily increased as effect follows cause. That decline from a high, holy and happy condition came through human choices and violations of law, not through Providence. Abstemiousness in diet and control of all the passions preserves the intellect and gives mental and moral vigor, bringing the propensities under control of the higher powers so men can discern between right and wrong, the sacred and the common. Christ left His home in heaven to come to this world to show by His own life how man can resist temptation, and all who truly sense that sacrifice will cheerfully deny self and choose to be partakers with Him of His sufferings.
The same enticement still fastens perverted appetite on men through tobacco. Satan exults in tempting appetite because tobacco paralyzes the sensitive nerves of the brain, palsies the brain and confuses the judgment so that sacred things are not discerned. Once the narcotic appetite is formed it takes firm hold of the mind and will, bringing bondage in which Satan controls the will, eternal realities are eclipsed, man cannot stand forth in his God-given manhood but is a slave to perverted appetite, and his steps tend toward perdition and not heavenward. Accepting the denial that disobedience brings death was the beginning of disobedience and transgression in this world, disobedience to express command that gave a knowledge of guilt not intended for man and opened the floodgates of woe upon the world. It is questioning of the divine word joined to flattering inducement that eyes shall be opened and men shall be as gods, exalting man and placing him where God should be. By that lie sin is made agreeable, truth is made of no effect, souls are kept from coming back to allegiance in keeping the commandments and from oneness in doing the divine will, and the impenitent transgressor is led to choose continued sin rather than obedience, because the perverted natural heart loves the lie more than the truth.
Satan has continued the work commenced in Eden, working vigilantly to lead men to accept his assertions as proof against God, working against Christ in His effort to restore the image of God in man and imprint the divine similitude in his soul, even through so-called higher science theories of which he is alpha and omega. There was nothing harmful in the fruit itself; the danger was in listening to Satan and venturing to break the single mild test of loyalty and obedience, leaving the choice of whom to believe, God who declares death as the penalty or Satan who denies it. Christ did not come to abolish the law Adam transgressed, and He could not simply change one precept to meet fallen man; His leaving heaven and becoming poor to give man another test of loyalty was not made to let sin live forever. Through the alluring flattery to rise above the sphere of humanity instead of obeying as men within their humanity, man lost the original mind given in Eden, showing disobedience contrary to the nature given in Eden, while Christ restores obedience by becoming man and mediating between man and God. Adam's transgression brought sin into the world and serves as a warning against disobeying God, yet people continue to violate the commands and repeat the fall through their own choices.
Satan speaking through the serpent directly contradicted God's warning, denying that disobedience and eating the forbidden fruit would bring death in order to lead to transgression and ruin. Joined to that denial was the promise that eating would open the eyes and make them as gods knowing good and evil, with greater wisdom and exaltation, implying God had not meant His warning and was selfishly withholding good to restrict liberty. The denial is the first lie and first lesson on natural immortality, teaching that humans cannot die and sinners live on. That immortality lie founds Spiritualism and pretended communion with the dead, and from it came eternal torment and purgatory that falsely make God a cruel tyrant whose threatenings need not be taken literally. By contrast the verse warns that sin brings death, God means what He says and requires strict obedience, while Christ came not to abolish the law Adam transgressed but to mediate and restore obedience.
Speaker, Denial and Setting
The denial is Satan himself speaking, directly contradicting God's warning that disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit would bring death. He assured Eve that she and Adam would not die, meaning that God did not mean what He said and that His warning would not actually be fulfilled but was meant only to frighten them. The denial was joined to the promise of greater wisdom, knowledge, power, nobler development, greater happiness, exaltation and a higher, broader existence through breaking the law. By it he made God's word seem untrue in order to encourage distrust of the Creator as restricting liberty, to lead into transgression and ruin, and to lay the groundwork for deceiving the world down to the last remnant of time when all except those kept through faith in God's Word are swept into fatal security to be awakened only by wrath.
He spoke not openly but through the serpent as his medium, working in concealment under its form and disguise. As father of lies he put his direct contradiction of the expressed word of God into the serpent's mouth, so that Eve heard the denial from a creature rather than recognizing the fallen foe. Angels had cautioned her not to separate from her husband in daily labor because with him she would be in less danger than alone, yet absorbed in her pleasing task she unconsciously wandered from his side, felt apprehension at being alone, then dismissed fear deciding she had sufficient wisdom and strength to discern evil and withstand it. Having no thought that the fascinating serpent could be the medium of the fallen foe whose address by an angel-like being would have excited her fears, she lingered instead of fleeing.
The serpent was then a creature of fascinating appearance, beautiful, bright like burnished gold, winged and moving through the air while eating fruit. Gazing with mingled curiosity and admiration on the forbidden tree and its beautiful fruit, Eve questioned why God had withheld it, giving the tempter his opportunity to address her as if discerning her thoughts. He spoke in a musical, seductive voice with subtle praise of her loveliness, using flattery, envy, distrust, questioning and unbelief to make disobedience desirable. She wrongly regarded him as a friend concerned for her welfare, and was drawn by the flattering hope of gaining higher knowledge when seeking her husband and bringing his words to their Maker would have delivered them.
The denial reveals Satan as the author of evil, charging God with his own false character and giving the impression God does not mean what He says. The same deception that tempted Adam and Eve still tempts people today, sounding from generation to generation so that men and women keep falling into the snare despite Adam's disobedience and its fearful consequences. The lie concealed itself beneath apparent truth, presenting forbidden knowledge as a blessing while hiding that transgression had made him an outcast from heaven, and it led Eve to distrust God's wisdom and cast away faith. The evil offered as knowledge proved to be disobedience itself, whose promised opening brought only sight of shame and ruin, loss of the covering of heavenly light, nakedness, hiding from the Creator's voice, and expectation of condemnation never known before.
It was spoken in a garden at a dense, leafy, fruit-bearing tree where a man and a woman stood on either side reaching toward its branches.
Promises and Accusations Against God
Joined to the denial that disobedience would bring death is the promise that eating will open the eyes and make the eaters as gods knowing good and evil. The promise offers lifting to a more exalted sphere of existence with a broader field of knowledge, wisdom, power, nobler development, greater happiness, equality with God Himself, great light and freedom, enlightened, expanded and ennobled understanding, and a higher state of knowledge and existence. It presents transgression of the law as the way to greater wisdom and exaltation, to freedom from restriction of liberty, to exalting man and placing him where God should be, and it is joined to flattering inducement and questioning of the words of God to lead into disobedience and transgression and to make truth of no effect and prevent oneness in doing God's will. The same temptation employed in Eden is the temptation employed still, with Satan as the alpha and omega of so-called higher science theories. The denial rests on the claim that humans were created immortal and that God withheld the fruit to keep them from gaining knowledge and becoming like Him.
The verse accuses God of untruth by making His word seem untrue and leading Eve and then Adam to believe He did not mean what He said about death. It accuses Him of selfish jealousy in withholding the fruit lest they be exalted to equality with Himself, of unkindness in withholding great good, of arbitrary restriction of liberty, and of using warning only to frighten, glossing truth with falsehood to make transgression appear a real blessing. It works by wily insinuations and false assertion against the character of God, and accepting it was the beginning of disobedience and transgression that gave the knowledge of guilt God did not want, opened the floodgates of woe upon the world, and is continued vigilantly to lead men to accept Satan's assertions as proof against God and against the restoration of God's image.
The verse presents God's prohibition as never to be carried out but meant only to frighten Adam and Eve and keep them in subordination without knowledge or power. It charges God with forbidding the most desirable tree for its delicious flavor and exhilarating influence in order to withhold knowledge which is power and to prevent equality with Himself. Because Eve showed no immediate sign of death, Adam entertained the denial and ate also. The same denial that God's threatenings to punish transgression are only to frighten was repeated by great, worldly, honored and wise men in Noah's generation against the warning of the flood, insisting the Maker would never destroy His creatures, bidding the people be at peace and fear not while mocking Noah and continuing as though God had not spoken.
Tempter Method and Fall
To back the denial the tempter claimed he himself had eaten the forbidden fruit and thereby gained the power of speech, argued that eating could no more bring death than merely touching, and argued death was impossible because they had already eaten of the tree of life. He presented the divine warning as an empty threat meant only to frighten and keep them from greater knowledge, power and happiness, and offered his own speech and experience as supposed proof the fruit was harmless. Eve felt no immediate sign of displeasure, but that did not make the claim true.
Eve erred first in wandering from her husband and being alone when angels had cautioned her not to separate in daily labor, for with him she would be in less danger; absorbed in her pleasing task she unconsciously left his side, felt apprehension, then dismissed fear deciding she had wisdom and strength enough to discern evil and withstand it. Lingering around the forbidden tree, gazing with mingled curiosity and admiration on its beautiful fruit, questioning why it was withheld, listening to the tempter's musical voice and subtle praise of her loveliness, and entering into controversy instead of fleeing, she gave him his opportunity. She had no thought the fascinating serpent could be the medium of the fallen foe, wrongly regarded him as a friend concerned for her welfare, and dared to doubt whether the word about death meant just as spoken. In answering she even added a prohibition against touching which had not been given.
She would have been safe had she refused to argue and parley, defended the truth, sought her husband, and turned to her Maker for help. Resistance would have brought help, driven the accuser away, and preserved integrity, for the test was mild and she had no need of that tree. The same pattern is still repeated when people doubt and argue about requirements and accept human theories that disguise the same devices.
Willing to listen, she first doubted the word, then received the lying sophistry as very wise, coveted what was forbidden above all others, longed for independence to be a law to herself with no restraint, mistrusted goodness despite abundance of life, garden, beauty and pleasant employment, forgot great love, and deemed God selfish, unkind, unjust and unnecessarily restricting liberty and advancement. The denial glossed truth with falsehood to make transgression appear a real blessing, charging that the most desirable tree was forbidden for its delicious flavor and exhilarating influence to keep them in subordination and withhold knowledge which is power. Curiosity was excited to pry into unsearchable plans and reason about the cause of the restriction, the very course that had ruined the rebel himself.
Believing, she put forth her hand, took and ate finding it pleasing to the eye and pleasant to the taste, expressed astonishment at the serpent's speech, told Adam all that had been said, and gave to him. Adam was not deceived as she was, but being tempted by his wife, moved by love and seeing her apparently unchanged, he also ate and both disobeyed and fell. Through her influence he accepted the claim that what was said about death was not meant, and together they distrusted their Creator, forfeited favor, and opened the floodgates of woe, ruin, expulsion, curse and guilt upon the world.
No immediate harm appeared; Eve felt a pleasurable exhilaration and no ill effect, and Adam saw her unchanged, so experience seemed to confirm the lie and proved stronger in their minds than the express word. Because she showed no immediate sign of death Adam entertained the denial, allowed himself to be led by that experience, and ate too. Yet consequences still follow though judgment is delayed.
There was nothing harmful or poisonous in the fruit itself; the danger was in listening and venturing to break the single test of loyalty, obedience, faith and love. The tree stood near the tree of life in the midst of the garden as the indispensable condition of existence, with free permission to eat of every other tree and prohibition of this one on pain of death, with promise that endurance under exposure to temptation would place them finally beyond the tempter's power in perpetual favor. Even violating one seemingly small command was grave sin, though resistance was possible.
The method was subtle cunning and deceit rather than force, making a lie appear a very desirable fact by denial joined to promise, bearing false witness against the Creator while exalting self. Its instruments were flattery, envy, distrust, questioning and unbelief, offering forbidden speculative knowledge as improvement of condition though gaining it required disobedience. The same subtle argument still deceives.
Shut out of heaven with no return to favor, the adversary deliberately planned destruction by leading them to disobedience, consulting with his angels, taking another form and feigning interest in man. He could take no happiness nor exercise power while they obeyed, so they had to be made to forfeit favor, incur the frown, and come under his direct influence and jurisdiction that he might gain supremacy over the race and carry on earth the rebellion begun in heaven by declaring the law could not be obeyed. To that end he struck at truthfulness by creating doubt whether what was said about death was meant, then excited curious reasoning.
Having overcome the first parents by shaking confidence, doubting wisdom and justice, and shifting his own cruelty upon the Father, he exulted in the ruin wrought. He lures from allegiance by contrasting bondage under stern decrees with liberty under his own mild sway, still seeking today to tempt to sin and then destroy if he can.
Results and False Covering
The promised opening of the eyes proved true only in bringing discernment of folly, guilt, shame and ruin, knowledge of evil and bitter taste of transgression, loss of innocence and of the garments of light and presence that had enveloped them, nakedness, hiding from the Creator's voice in the garden, and expectation of condemnation never known before. Believing the denial that disobedience would not bring death led both to eat and to gain a knowledge they would never have had in obedience, an experience in disobedience and disloyalty in which they knew they were naked because innocence and surrounding light from God had departed. Adam afterward learned that death meant return to the ground whence he was taken as dust, exposing as false the claim that God did not mean what He said.
Their sewing of fig leaves into aprons represents the arguments transgressors of God's law have used ever since to cover the nakedness caused by sin, a covering still made whenever truth calls attention to disobedience in order to hide the nakedness of the soul. Believing the words put Adam and Eve on Satan's side, for the denial that disobedience would bring death appealed to pride by promising exaltation and escape from death apart from the way pointed out in the Scriptures. That pride shows itself in unwillingness to be accounted as nothing and to recognize Christ as the only One who can save to the uttermost all who accept Him, seeking salvation and a way other than God devised.
The verse belongs to temptation to seek forbidden knowledge, presenting disobedience as a blessing that would bring wisdom, power, greater happiness and a higher existence, while hiding that transgression had made the tempter an outcast from heaven. The lie concealed itself beneath apparent truth, offering a supposed improvement of condition through speculative knowledge whose gaining required disobedience, and leading to distrust of God's wisdom and casting away of faith. Instead of gaining knowledge that brings lasting joy they gained only acquaintance with sin and its results, disloyalty, estrangement of humanity from God and separation of earth from heaven, loss of Eden, and knowledge God never intended them to have which ends in eternal death. Obeying God's requirements in Jesus' strength keeps people from that knowledge.
Speaking through the serpent the verse lied against God and bore false witness about the Creator while exalting the tempter in preference to God, with a seductive voice that allured the mind. Although Adam had walked and talked with God and God in foreknowledge and providence could have kept and directed them if they had heeded the warning against evil, they allowed themselves to be beguiled and believed the false statements. Their minds, though divinely created and sinless, came under the working of another power and were so fully seduced that they could no longer discern the power leading them into apostasy, showing that the same seducing power still works human minds into apostasy and loss of discernment. Choosing the deceiver instead of God, who is truth, brought loss, confused the mind, weakened mental and spiritual powers, and made people unable to appreciate God's gifts.
Their listening and disobedience brought a curse upon nature, so the created world thereafter testified imperfectly about its Creator and could not reveal His character in perfection. Evil, sin and death did not come from God but resulted from disobedience, with the knowledge of evil entering the world through that deception.
Immortality Lie Refuted
“Ye shall not surely die” was the first lie ever uttered, Satan’s direct contradiction of God’s warning spoken to Eve through the serpent, assuring her she was created immortal and could not die even in disobedience. It was his first lesson on natural immortality, teaching that humans cannot die and that sinners live on, resting on the claim that God had withheld the fruit to keep them from gaining knowledge and becoming as gods knowing good and evil. Eve received that sophistry as very wise, longing for the fruit above all others and finding no immediate harm in touching and eating, then giving also to her husband and trading happiness in ignorance of sin for degradation, sin and guilt. That temptation opened the floodgates to the world, so that all deceptions, prevarications and misrepresentations are comprised in it, and yielding even in little things entraps as birds in the snare of the fowler.
After eating they would have become immortal sinners by eating also of the tree of life, so God drove them from Eden and guarded its way lest they perpetuate life in sin. The flaming sword placed around the tree of life, which alone could perpetuate immortality, proves the denial false, for not one of Adam’s family has passed that sword and eaten. There is therefore not an immortal sinner in existence, and the teaching contradicts God’s declaration that the sinner dies. The soul that sins dies an everlasting death that lasts forever with no hope of resurrection, and then the wrath of God is appeased. Immortality is an attribute of God alone, and the word of God nowhere teaches that the human soul is immortal, though popular ministers reiterate the lie from the pulpit and the people receive it as pure Bible truth.
From that immortality lie came belief that the sinner will live in eternal misery, the teaching of an eternally burning hell and the invention of purgatory. Satan commanded his angels to make special effort to spread the deception that man is immortal, and once received it prepares the way to hold up God as a revengeful tyrant who plunges all who do not please Him into hell to ever feel His wrath while they writhe in eternal flames and He looks down with satisfaction. These teachings falsify the character of God to make Him appear severe, revengeful, arbitrary and unforgiving, clothing Him with Satan’s own cruelty, hiding Satan’s agency, depriving humanity of divine strength and making people dupes and subjects of satanic agencies. They cause God to be hated by many instead of loved and admired, and lead many to believe the threatenings of His word will not be literally fulfilled because to plunge created beings into eternal torments would be against His benevolence and love, when God is love and all He created was pure, holy and lovely until sin was brought in by the first great rebel.
The denial of death laid the groundwork for Spiritualism as Satan’s masterpiece of deception, developed little by little through history toward full accomplishment in the last remnant of time. That long-prepared final effort will sweep the whole world except those kept by the power of God through faith in His Word into delusion, lulling them to a fatal security to be awakened only by the outpouring of the wrath of God, until God lays judgment to the line and sweeps away the refuge of lies. The lie is perpetuated in the last days bound up in corrupt harmony under a corrupt leader with the fallen churches that rejected light, the papal man of sin presenting a rival sabbath, and the apostate Protestant power with two horns like a lamb speaking as a dragon, all blessed by Satan personating Christ, while the only hope is the remnant who keep the word of Christ’s patience and refuse to worship the beast and his image. The same lie is the foundation of pretended communion with the dead and of ancient worship of the dead, but familiar spirits are not the spirits of dead people but evil angels, the messengers of Satan continuing the same deception, so that supposed worship of dead men and fellowship with them is in reality worship of demons and fellowship with devils.
Law Sabbath and Judgment
The same denial that divine threatenings only frighten was repeated by great, worldly, honored and wise men, men of science and philosophy, in Noah's generation against the warning of the Flood. It taught that God's threatenings of punishment for transgression are only to intimidate and will never be carried out, so there is no need to be alarmed or to fear. Applied to the Flood it taught that the God who made the world would never destroy the world by water and never punish the beings He created, because that is not in accordance with science and philosophy, but that people should be at peace and fear not. While the world was arrayed against God's justice and laws, Noah was mocked as crazy and a wild fanatic, and people continued in disobedience and wickedness as though God had not spoken.
The same deceiving power that tempted Eve tempts people today to set aside God's holy seventh-day Sabbath hallowed at creation, sustained by the manna, and placed in the bosom of the Decalogue, and to substitute Sunday as a spurious first-day sabbath exalted by the man of sin to lead the world into rebellion and obliterate God's distinguishing sign. The lie presents God as too kind to punish disobedience and gives a false excuse to break His law while claiming to be sinless, and Eve's response warns against trusting that excuse, since genuine sanctification comes only through obedience to God's truth and commandments. Satan has kept up the same deceptive work upon human minds from that day to this, gaining control of every mind that receives his lies, leading people to refuse God's Word as it reads and choose his lies rather than a Thus saith the Lord, and urging them by religious teaching into disregard and decided transgression of the fourth commandment. That same lie that transgressing God's law will not bring death but will make transgressors as gods knowing good and evil is voiced by ministers who disregard God's claim and uphold the first day as the Sabbath, teaching by influence and example that God's law can be broken and causing a lie to be received as truth.
Adam and Eve's venturing to take the forbidden fruit seemed simple and unworthy of notice yet brought bitter experience with awful consequences: the fall, expulsion from Eden and loss of Eden, and the opening of the floodgates of woe to the world. Their punishment shows God as severe and exacting against disobedience, not merciful in the sense of excusing sin, and proves mercy does not cover or lessen guilt while sin is continued. Justice and mercy go hand in hand, mercy covering guilt only after sin is repented of and forsaken, and God's gift of His Son to die to pay the debt of transgression and save the fallen race exalts the sacred character of God's law instead of excusing its breach. Sinners still practice iniquity because they flatter themselves that the sword of justice will never be raised against them and ease their consciences into carnal security, when in truth God is a God of justice who will visit workers of iniquity with retributive judgments.
By contrast the verse warns that sin brings death, that God's justice does not fail, and that He means what He says and requires strict obedience to His commandments. The denial bred distrust of the Creator as restricting liberty and imagined that transgression would bring great light and freedom and entrance into a more exalted state, but the claim proved false. Adam learned after sin that death meant return to the ground whence he was taken as dust, and the promised opening of eyes proved true only in opening eyes to discern folly, to know evil, to taste the bitter fruit of transgression, to see shame and ruin, to know nakedness as the result of transgression with the covering of heavenly light gone, to hide from the voice of the Creator in the garden, and to expect divine condemnation never known before. Despite the example of Adam's disobedience and its results bringing woe upon the world, that same denial has sounded from generation to generation, tempting people today as it tempted Adam and Eve, so that men and women fall into the snare and by thought and act spread the impression that God does not mean what He says.
The same temptation Satan employed in Eden, questioning God's words joined to the flattering inducement that eyes shall be opened and men shall be as gods, exalting man and placing him where God should be, is the temptation he employs today as the alpha and omega of so-called higher science theories to lead into disobedience and make truth of no effect and prevent oneness with Christ in doing God's will. The lie is perpetuated in the last days bound up in corrupt harmony under a corrupt leader with the fallen churches that rejected light, the papal man of sin presenting a rival sabbath, and the apostate Protestant power with two horns like a lamb speaking as a dragon, all blessed by Satan personating Christ, while the only hope is the remnant who keep the word of Christ's patience and refuse to worship the beast and his image. It was the great original lie and first sermon ever preached on the immortality of the soul, teaching that sin would not bring death and man is naturally immortal, crowned with success with terrible results, and minds have been brought to receive that sermon as truth while ministers preach it, sing it, and pray it. The word of God nowhere teaches that the human soul is immortal, for immortality is an attribute of God alone, yet what popular ministers reiterate from the pulpit is received as pure Bible truth, and because they have trampled truth underfoot and preferred fables they have nothing to shield their flocks from the baleful influence of Spiritualism founded on that lie.
The lie denies that sin brings death and sets Satan's word against God's word that the soul that sins shall die, making sin agreeable, keeping souls from coming back to allegiance in keeping His commandments, and leading the impenitent transgressor to choose continued sin rather than obedience. It gives the false assurance that sin is harmless and that God will accept disobedience, and it is believed because the natural perverted heart loves the lie more than the truth. The verse is thus used to mean disobedience is safe and carries no penalty, a lie voiced by ministers who disregard God's claim and uphold the first day of the week as the Sabbath.
Christ Appetite and Obedience
The fall through indulgence of appetite proves that the only hope of regaining Eden is through firm denial of appetite and passion. Eve had every fruit freely given to make her happy, yet the forbidden fruit appeared more desirable, she was intemperate in desire, she ate and through her influence her husband ate also, and a curse rested upon them both and upon the earth because of their sin. The same beguiling has continued since the fall, with the human family following Eve in disobedience, letting appetite control reason, disregarding prohibitions, violating the laws of health and running to excess in almost everything, so that disease has steadily increased as effect follows cause. That decline from a high, holy and happy condition came through human choices and violations of law, not through Providence. Abstemiousness in diet and control of all the passions preserves the intellect and gives mental and moral vigor, bringing the propensities under control of the higher powers so men can discern between right and wrong, the sacred and the common. Christ left His home in heaven to come to this world to show by His own life how man can resist temptation, and all who truly sense that sacrifice will cheerfully deny self and choose to be partakers with Him of His sufferings.
The same enticement still fastens perverted appetite on men through tobacco. Satan exults in tempting appetite because tobacco paralyzes the sensitive nerves of the brain, palsies the brain and confuses the judgment so that sacred things are not discerned. Once the narcotic appetite is formed it takes firm hold of the mind and will, bringing bondage in which Satan controls the will, eternal realities are eclipsed, man cannot stand forth in his God-given manhood but is a slave to perverted appetite, and his steps tend toward perdition and not heavenward. Accepting the denial that disobedience brings death was the beginning of disobedience and transgression in this world, disobedience to express command that gave a knowledge of guilt not intended for man and opened the floodgates of woe upon the world. It is questioning of the divine word joined to flattering inducement that eyes shall be opened and men shall be as gods, exalting man and placing him where God should be. By that lie sin is made agreeable, truth is made of no effect, souls are kept from coming back to allegiance in keeping the commandments and from oneness in doing the divine will, and the impenitent transgressor is led to choose continued sin rather than obedience, because the perverted natural heart loves the lie more than the truth.
Satan has continued the work commenced in Eden, working vigilantly to lead men to accept his assertions as proof against God, working against Christ in His effort to restore the image of God in man and imprint the divine similitude in his soul, even through so-called higher science theories of which he is alpha and omega. There was nothing harmful in the fruit itself; the danger was in listening to Satan and venturing to break the single mild test of loyalty and obedience, leaving the choice of whom to believe, God who declares death as the penalty or Satan who denies it. Christ did not come to abolish the law Adam transgressed, and He could not simply change one precept to meet fallen man; His leaving heaven and becoming poor to give man another test of loyalty was not made to let sin live forever. Through the alluring flattery to rise above the sphere of humanity instead of obeying as men within their humanity, man lost the original mind given in Eden, showing disobedience contrary to the nature given in Eden, while Christ restores obedience by becoming man and mediating between man and God. Adam's transgression brought sin into the world and serves as a warning against disobeying God, yet people continue to violate the commands and repeat the fall through their own choices.