Genesis 3 is one of the cornerstone chapters in Christianity and the foundation of its dogma. It’s hard to interpret.
Short story: Satan tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God and they ate the forbidden fruit, resulting in the broken relationship with God. Followed by consequences and promise to restore, they had to leave the garden.
I read the story with NT lens and tried to dig into the writer’s intention and predicted his metaphors, and here’s my personal notes:
1. Serpent was a symbol of Satan, the fallen angel.
2. The questioning technique that Satan used here step by step
– God makes things difficult for you, right?
– The woman refuted that – no, we can eat the fruit of the tree – but we cannot touch that one (Eve added already here, fell into the trap to create illusion that God was unreasonable with the request)
– Satan continued; You will not die but would be like God –> That’s a lie, God just scared you and lied to you, because He had hidden motive, to withhold goodness from you
— and once, the trust that God is good, is broken, that’s it.
Eve looked and her senses told her that God lied and her reasoning – what’s wrong to gain wisdom, amplifying that God is not good – in her mind.
What is knowledge of good and evil? I refer to Galatians, about the fruit of Spirit – 5:23, against such there is no law.
To know good and evil is to governed by law. You do X, because you are obliged to do it, because the “law” says it’s good. You don’t do Y, because it’s evil according to the (moral) law and you have punishment for doing it.
The fruit of spirit does not advocate lawlessness of course, but in the ideal state, when a being is filled with Spirit so fully and embrace with His Love, whatever that being does, it’s just reflecting perfect love. He would not do or do things out of moral obligation, guilt, fear of punishment, it is inherent in his nature just to do good. He does not even need to check the law code, what is allowed or not allowed, as all acts governed by perfect love.
No such human being. But there was that condition in the past without that moral law but perfect relationship with God.
I think the writer wrote the story of fruit and tree as a metaphor, and so was Paul when he wrote about the fruit of Spirit.
And all started because the trust to God was broken. As soon as you think God is evil…. that’s it!
After they ate, yes they did not die physically, right away. The death there meant the broken relationship with God.
They were still in the garden, and God called them, implying there was still a way to restore.
But they did not take the chance and play the blame game even blaming God – this is a broken relationship.
God cursed the serpent, aka Satan. Note that God did not curse the man and woman. He cursed the ground, not the man. Meaning the earth and our world fell on that day, till today. He read the consequences to them which is because they will be separated.
And on that moment, the first gospel was declared. God saw in love (and in pain) that He would have to sacrifice His own son to make the restoration. (if you are a father, you would never sacrifice your sons for other people).
The epilogue also explained that they were chased away from the presence of God from that moment, because of sin. And the inability to access the tree of life, means death to man.
Please note that in Hebraism, the way the story told is full of poetic ways, for example: “…and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” – it does not mean that suddenly God was irritated and sulking and he vented, ‘ah you don’t touch my thing again ah, you go away!’
Not like that – it was simply a poem to describe that the breach has caused them the inability to access to life and walked into death instead.
If we can see Pentateuch in the eye of ‘what’s matter’ – we can enjoy the genre and appreciate the poem.
One closing remark: And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.
In this act, God showed his love, like a father personally made a garment and wore it for his toddlers – the act also required a sacrifice of blood, a symbol of blood economy that our sins would have to be purchased by blood.
In this chapter, what’s matter is about:
trust and relationship broken, God’s pain, God’s promise, first gospel, live by the Spirit is the restoration way to be free from the tree of knowledge of good and evil
And as Sailhamer (one of the finest Pentateuch theologian in our lifetime, from Westminster) mentioned – the main theme of Pentateuch is FAITH.
Add Comment