Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
If I didn’t take the Edenic scenario as literal, there would be no sense in Jesus coming to earth in human form to undo what satan and Adam did to the human race. (Rom 5:12) It has to be literal.
The “two trees” in the garden represent two choices......one was centered on obedience and it’s consequence, and the other on disobedience and it’s opposite consequence....so the two trees represented disobedience and death, verses obedience and life.....from this we see that obedience is all God has ever demanded from his intelligent creation, both in heaven and on earth. He wanted the humans to live forever on this earth with no knowledge of evil ever touching their lives (Gen 3:22-24).....he was the ultimate parent, only wanting good things for his children. But disobedience had dire consequences and his human children would ultimately benefit from a hard object lesson that has been running now since the fall.
You can read “two kings” into that scenario as it turned out, but originally the penalty of death was only to be applied if they disobeyed.....exercise of free will meant that a number of choices were available to all three rebels in Eden.
The angel who made himself satan the devil, had the choice in the beginning to pull himself up and realise that rebellion could only end badly, yet he chose it anyway. (James 1:14-15) He targeted the woman first, since she was the ‘newbie’ and the least experienced and educated of the two. It was premeditated and carefully calculated to approach her first, when Adam was not with her.
The woman reiterated God’s command to the serpent so she knew what God’s law was, yet she was tempted by the lies she was told, and disobeyed. He told her she would not die, and when she ate and did not die she offered the fruit to Adam. Little did she know that from that first bite, something cut her off from life.....she began to physically die, but her spiritual death meant immediate separation from her Creator.
Adam could have made a different choice as well.....and rejected the offer of the fruit, but it would have meant losing her, which was apparently unimaginable to him.....so he chose to join her, knowing that death was the penalty.....and as a consequence that he could not have imagined at the time, threw all his future children under the bus. The blame was laid squarely at the feet of Adam......and applying the laws of redemption, only the offering of an equivalent life could rescue them from the curse of sin and death.
It is apparent that Adam had existed for some time before a mate was created for him. His expression when the woman was brought to him indicated that he was delighted with her....now he too had a mate. So the guardian who was present in the garden as a “covering cherub” observed this and used her to get to him.
Adam was educated by God after his creation, and given the privilege of naming all the animals which would share life with them in paradise. If satan had approached Adam first, the odds are that his offer would have been rejected, and satan would have been dealt with behind the scenes......but using the woman as bait, the Bible says that she was “thoroughly deceived”....but Adam was not. His choice to join his wife was entirely selfish and wilful.......as was Eve’s desire for the fruit......and satan’s desire for worship.
Abuse of free will is at the base of all that is evil in this world.
If we could not learn the value of obedience, there was no point in God continuing on with his first purpose....to populate the earth with humankind, made in his image, and capable of using his cardinal qualities to further God’s purpose for the earth, (to be filled with righteous humans and spreading the borders of their paradise until the whole earth was like the garden of Eden).....and who knows what else is in God’s infinite plans? I am sure he did not create this vast universe for nothing.....
But this matter of free will had to be sorted first, so that no rebel in the future could ever take God’s purpose off track again. Satan did not challenge God’s power....he challenged his Sovereignty...his right to set the limits of the freedom he gave them. That challenged had to be addressed and to show where independence from God will lead us. The object lesson we have all been subjected to, difficult though it has been to endure at times, will benefit all redeemed mankind on into eternity....
