Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Pretty much all the honest
truth-telling there is in the world is done by children." This does not
mean, however, that their truth telling is always pleasant. Especially
if you have guests, or if you are like the Sunday School teacher who
asked too many questions. One Sunday she told the story of the Good
Samaritan, and she made it very vivid so the children could realize
clearly what had happened. Then she asked, "If you saw a person
lying on the roadside all wounded and bleeding what would you do?"
A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence and said, "I think I'd
throw up."
The truth is not only not always pleasant, but it can even be used
to promote evil. William Blake wrote, "A truth that's told with bad
intent beats all the lies you can invent." Satan is the father of lies, but
he reveals right from the start that he recognizes that truth can often
be even more effective than lies in accomplishing his purpose. If you
think the devil never tells the truth, then you have not read Gen. 3
very closely. In verse 5 the subtle serpent tells Eve that when she eats
of the forbidden fruit her eyes will be opened, and she will be like God
knowing good and evil. No one can call this statement a lie without
also accusing God, for in verse 22 God says the serpent's prophecy
was literally fulfilled, and man did become like God knowing good and
evil. Satan is not fussy. If the truth can be used to get men to disobey
God, why bother inventing lies?
Truth is never an adequate reason to justify disobedience to God's
revealed will. Satan will use the truth and nothing but the truth, and
he will offer you the very best if he can persuade you to get it by
disobeying God. Just because something is new does not mean that it
is right, or that it is God's will. Adam and Eve assumed that if they
could become more like God by disobeying God it must be the right
thing to do. They got a good thing, but they paid too great a price,
when by obedience they would have gotten not only the knowledge of
good and evil, but eternal life as well. There is no doubt that God
intended Adam and Eve to eat of both the tree of life and the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, but it was to be only in His good time.
This seems clear if we look closely at God's words in verse 22. These
are really quite startling words, and they have led to some very
radical developments in the history of theology.
God says, "Behold the man has become like one of us, knowing
good and evil." Many have looked at these words and said that it
doesn't sound like a fall, but rather a rise. Man's first sin made him
more like God than he was when he was innocent. That is an
improvement, and it made man greater than he was before. Fallen
man is more divine than innocent man, and so the fall must have been
good. Many conclude that God intended man to fall just because it was
the way for Him to become more godlike. They do not see
tragedy in man's fall, but rather the beginning of the struggle of man
to climb to the heights of perfection. What they are failing to see,
however, is the fact that man got this good by disobedience, and so fell
from a perfect relationship to God. It is true that eating of the
forbidden fruit made them more godlike, and that is why it is
reasonable to believe that God would have let them eat of it eventually
after they had proven their loyalty to Him.
When God finished creation He said that all was good. That
included the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree was not
evil, nor was it bad to have the knowledge of good and evil. God has
it, and no one can be like God without it. Animals do not have it, and
so they are not moral beings. Man does have this knowledge and is a
moral being, and is responsible for choosing good and avoiding evil.
The Bible refers to the knowledge of good and evil as a precious gift.
God admits here that it is a quality of His own nature, and so to have
it is to partake of the divine nature. In I Kings 3:9 Solomon prays,
"Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind to govern thy
people, that I may discern between good and evil." In II Sam. 14:17 it
is said of David, "...my lord the king is like the angel of God to discern
good and evil."
If it was a good thing to have it, and if it made man like the angels
of heaven and like God himself, why then did God not want them to
live forever, and, therefore, put them out of the garden? The answer
is really quite obvious. If man lives forever with the knowledge of
good and evil, but with a will that is not committed to good and loyalty
to God, he will be an eternal rebel. God already has eternal rebels in
Satan and his fallen angels. He does not intend to allow man to
become like them, and so His act of expelling them from the garden is
an act of great mercy. If He allowed them to stay and eat and live
forever, He would be condemning them to eternal separation from
himself. But if He cast them out to die as mortal, He can provide a
way of redeeming them and bringing them back into fellowship with
himself. This way He can give them eternal life and win an ultimate
victory over Satan.
God's plan is not to have men who are living forever, but to have
men who are living forever in fellowship with Him. A Christ like
person can have the knowledge of good and evil, but chose to follow
the good. If we were Adam like for all eternity, there would be
guarantee that we wouldn't sometime chose evil and fall all over again.
In order to achieve the best God had to prevent man from eating of
the tree of life until after he was made completely like Christ. When
we become like Him in eternity there will be no more chance of our
disobeying God than there was of Christ disobeying. He had the
knowledge of good and evil, but He always chose the good.
Death with the hope of eternal blessedness is certainly a better
plan than eternal life with a sinful nature. Satan is an example of
everlasting evilness. If God had not prevented it Adam could have
become another Satan. Physical death was a blessing in comparison to
eternal spiritual death of separation from God. What we have here
then is God's grace in action. It may look cruel, but it is pure grace.
Man was losing Eden so that God could redeem him and restore him
to an even greater paradise. The devil can never die, but he is
doomed forever. We can die, but we can also be delivered and live
with God forever. Death was not the worst fate man could have had.
The worst fate would be eternal life with a sinful nature.
Thank God for forcing man out of Eden. This was the greatest
eviction that ever took place, and because of it we all can have the
hope of returning to paradise through Jesus Christ. God did not
destroy the tree of life. He just made sure that sinful man could not
partake of it. In verse 23 we see God sending them out to labor in the
ground from which they were taken, and to which they would return.
They were driven out to die, for only those who can die can be
resurrected and restored to perfection. When the angels fell God cast
them into hell to await the judgment, but man is not put in a place of
torment, but in a place of toil, and with a promise of deliverance.
Verse 24 uses stronger language and says that God drove them
out. As tragic as the lost was men read too much into it. Some poet
wrote,
One morning of the first sad fall,
Poor Adam and his bride
Sat in the shade of Eden's wall,
But on the outer side.
This was true, and the lost was real, but to add to this that they lost
their relationship and fellowship with God is not true, for the next
chapter goes on to show that they worshipped God and thank Him for
blessings, and they offered sacrifice to Him. There is no comparison
between the fall of angels and the fall of man. They fell from within,
but men fell because of outside pressure, and so there was a radical
difference in the nature of their fall, and in the nature of their
judgment.
God shut the gate of paradise to Adam, but the Second Adam
opened it again on the cross, and the very day of His death He
promised a sinner that He would enter with Him into paradise. The
closed gate with the flaming sword of the angel guarding it is no longer
the true picture. Now Jesus stands at the gate inviting all to trust Him
and enter in. It was a terrifying experience for Adam and Eve, for the
cherubim were frightening looking creatures. They were not cute
little baby angels as the artist portray them, but they were great and
dreadful creatures that would frighten anyone. Adam would have
tried climbing over the gate at night to get a bite of that life-giving
fruit if he was not scared to death of that cherubim. There is no way
back to eternal life unless God takes away this awesome guard.
The New Testament Gospel is the good news that this guard is
gone. Jesus now stands before the tree of life, and He now offers man
the chance to freely partake of the tree and live forever. They need
simply to yield to His Lordship and accept His atonement for the
cleansing of their sin. Christians need to let the world know that the
gate to paradise and eternal life is now open.
