Sunday school summary: Satan tricks Eve, Adam and Eve eat the fruit, God comes, Adam blames Eve, Eve blames Satan, everybody gets cursed and kicked out of Eden.
Simple right? And yet…
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made.
So the serpent is Satan, and he’s all sneaky and crafty and everything. Or is he? Where does it say anything about Satan, the devil, Lucifer, or whatever you want to call him at all? Does the passage even mention an evil spirit of any kind? Not so much. So, was this creature the devil himself, just a random talking serpent, or the devil using the serpent as his instrument? And why do you think so? I’ll come back to this later, but for now I’m going to move on a little bit.
Whatever the serpent is, or represents, it obviously isn’t here to bring peace, but to stir up trouble. “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree…’ ” No. No God did not really say that. Not even close. Of course, while Eve is explaining that in fact, God said they could eat from any tree except the one in the middle, she also adds her own little spin on things with the “and you must not touch it, or you will die” clause at the end. So where did that come from? There’s been absolutely no talk of touching trees at all until this point. What’s going on in Eve’s head? I don’t know, but here is something to think about:
God gave these instructions before Eve was created. In fact, all that Eve’s life consists of so far is being created, being Adam’s wife, and then bam! Serpent. Technically, she doesn’t even have a name yet, but for the sake of easier writing, I’m just going to jump ahead with that. Anyways, I don’t know what kind of directions Eve got about anything. Maybe God repeated the same instructions as he gave to Adam, maybe it was Adam’s job to tell her, maybe since she was created from Adam, she just knew it from the beginning.
Anyways, when confronting the serpent, she adds on this extra bit about not touching. Whether this was her being somehow confused about the exact power of the tree, or simply her embellishing the story a little bit isn’t obvious. The serpent, of course, simply denies the claims of death, and tells how this tree actually would make her like God.
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. For review, the fruit was:
- good for food
- pleasing to the eye
- desirable for gaining wisdom
These aren’t bad things. The fruit wasn’t poisoned. It didn’t have a skull and crossbones painted on it. It wasn’t black and shriveled up. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong associated with it. It looked good. Except…God said not to. I’ll leave all the life applications of that up to you.
So, Eve eats the fruit. The first sin. Except it wasn’t. Not really. It was certainly a physical act that served to solidify what was going on, but it only happened because Eve was already doubting God and his plans. Why did Eve think the tree was good? Because she believed the serpent, and what her eyes saw over what God said. If she truly trusted God, then the tree would simply be a marker of death. No matter how it looked. Eating results in death. With this view, it would no longer look good for food, or desirable at all. It would look like death. It would appear exactly as what God said that it was. However, Eve has decided that God is really just holding out on her, and that she wants to be in charge. She can be like God. And so she eats.
She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
Now I don’t know long Adam has actually been there, or what he’s been doing. I don’t know if he’s been with Eve the whole time, observing the talk with the serpent, or if he just walked up. If he was there the whole time though, then he was either: staring at Eve oblivious to the world(I mean, she was the perfect woman…), or being a complete sissy and not punching the serpent in the face. Whatever the case, though, he’s here now, and Eve offers him the fruit. And in this instant of time, Eve has eaten, and Adam hasn’t. So, are the effects of the fruit instant? Is Eve knowingly bringing Adam into her new understanding, and shame? Does Adam realize what his wife has done, and decide to join in her fate instead of refusing and leaving her alone? Is it worth giving up everything for a woman? Maybe. Or maybe he’s also doubting God. Eve just ate, she’s still alive. Maybe God was holding out after all. I don’t know. But he eats.
And then they hide. And Adam blames Eve. Sort of. “The woman you put here with me…” The woman you put here. You did this God. You put her here. You set me up to fail. I never had a chance. And Eve blames the serpent. Sort of. “The serpent deceived me…” You didn’t make me smart enough. You put the serpent here. I never had a chance. And both of them have the same basic complaint: If I had been God, this wouldn’t have happened…
And now, I want to get back to the idea of the serpent for a second, and the thoughts about what exactly it was. Because now is the time when God starts handing out curses, and the serpent catches the first one. And I think it’s important to note that God curses the entire species. He actually physically alters the serpent to crawl along the ground. So what did it look like before? I have absolutely no idea. But there was a specific, noticeable, physical change in what a serpent looked like, and how it moved. So then we ask: if the serpent was really Satan himself, why did God curse the species? If it was an animal possessed by Satan, why curse the species? So was the serpent really Satan, and if so, what’s going on? Well, the devil is definitely referred to as a serpent multiple times in the Bible, especially in Revelation. In fact, in Revelation 12:9 there is a reference to “that serpent of old, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.” As an interesting thought: at this point, Adam and Eve ARE the whole world…Anyways, there is solid backing to think that the serpent could very well have been Satan or some possession. Also, if the serpent was merely an animal, the prophesy about heel-biting and head-crushing doesn’t seem to make that much sense. As for the species being cursed if it wasn’t really at fault, the Bible is full of animals being sacrificed because of human sin, and never being at fault. Also, God curses the ground because of Adam, although the ground certainly wasn’t at fault...
After the serpent receives its sentence, the woman gets hers. And again, there is some sort of physical change. I don’t know if her outward appearance changed at all, but something about her child-bearing capabilities certainly did. Also, she gets ‘demoted.’ She is no longer just Adam’s partner, but now he rules over her. As for Adam, his curse falls to the ground itself, and he is doomed to a life of hard work. I don’t know what “work” was like before this, or if there really was any at all. But it definitely just got a lot harder, and a lot less fun.
Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
Finally, the woman has a name. Of course, this makes me wonder about when Adam got his name, but I can’t really tell. It seems that God just created him with it. Anyways, remember how Adam got to name all the animals, because he ruled over them? And until this time, the woman with him he really didn’t have any authority over? But now, because of God’s judgment, he does have dominion over her, and just as he named the animals, he names his wife. He doesn’t name her Evil, or Temptress, or Demoness, though, he names her Eve. He’s apparently gotten over his earlier ‘the woman made me do it’ syndrome, and gives her a name of life. Of hope. In midst of hardships he takes the time to say: you are life. You are everything.
Likewise, God takes the time to make real garments for the couple, and clothes them. While the story is about sin, consequences, and punishment, it doesn’t end there. Grace comes right after. Forgiveness. Understanding. Caring. Life.
He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.
Ah, the tree of life again. Now, to me this passage sounds as if eating once of the tree would be enough to gain everlasting life. Which is, of course, different from my thoughts last time. Told you I didn’t know what I was doing. So if eating could grant life forever, how does it fit with the earlier observation that Adam(and Eve) could very well have been eating from it previous to the fall? Well, perhaps since at that time they were both still perfect creatures already with eternal life being sustained by God, the tree would just be another form of food, and then only after sin would it really have any effect. Or, since they were commanded to be fruitful and increase in number, but have yet to have any offspring, it’s likely that their stay in the garden wasn’t too terribly long. Maybe they just never ate at all, even though they could. Whatever the case with the tree, whether it would grant instant eternal life, or would simply provide everlasting life to anyone who continued to eat of it, God doesn’t leave either option open. Adam and Eve are banished from the garden, and a guardian is set up to block the way to the tree.
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