Know the Holy Bible, defeat the liar, receive blessings
In Genesis 3:1, the snake said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’
This question itself was a lie and a trap. The LORD God said to Adam in Genesis 2:16, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden.’, followed by only one exception of the forbidden tree in Genesis 2:17.
The snake is acting as an agent of the Satan (or the Devil).
Here, we can see that the Satan tries to make us think ‘God’ as ‘God of restriction’.
What was the woman’s answer?
See Genesis 3:2-3.
2 The woman said to the snake, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” ’
Let us compare her answer to what God actually said. See Genesis 2:16-17.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’
The woman changed ‘are free to eat from any tree’ to ‘may eat fruit from the trees’. She removed ‘free to eat’ and ‘any tree’ and used ‘may eat’ and ‘the trees’. She changed ‘the freedom’ to ‘some permission in a whole lot of restriction’.
She also said, ‘the tree that is in the middle of the garden’ instead of ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. There was the tree of life in the middle of the garden as well according to Genesis 3:9. In this way, she increased the restriction.
Also, she added ‘you must not touch it’, which God didn’t say. She added more restriction.
Also, she omitted ‘certainly’ and just said ‘you will die’. She removed the certainty of the consequence of the Sin.
The woman knew what God said but she didn’t know it accurately. The Satan can easily deceive people who don’t know the written Word of God (the Holy Bible). It is like holding no weapon to fight, and, of course, they are captivated by the enemy. But many people know the Holy Bible but do not know accurately, as the woman did. This is like holding a sword with dull edges. When the Satan comes with a sharpened sword of lies, they are easily defeated. We need to scrutinize the written Word of God. Then, it would be like holding a sharpened sword! Jesus also defeated the tempter (or the Devil) by quoting the written Word of God as shown in Matthew 4:1-11.
When the woman showed that she did not know the Word of God accurately, the snake said a convinced lie in Genesis 3:4.
4 ‘You will not certainly die,’ the snake said to the woman.
The snake reversed the truth (will certainly die -> will not certainly die). We can see that the Satan is a liar and wants us to believe as if there would be no consequence of the Sin.
The snake tried to make the woman doubt about God’s love in Genesis 3:5.
5 ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’
The lesson we can learn from this is that
- We should thank God and enjoy the freedom God gave us.
- We shouldn’t focus on the very thing forbidden by God.
- We should trust that God loves us.
- We should bear in mind the consequence of the Sin is certain.
The Satan wants us to believe God of restriction so that we may suspect His love and focus on what is forbidden rather than enjoying the freedom. As the Satan wants us to believe there would be no consequence of the Sin, let us never omit ‘certainly’ as the woman did. Let us fear God.
We need to study the Word of God and when we study it, we’d better study carefully.
The more we read the Holy Bible, the more freedom we find.
The Holy Bible tells us what God forbids
If we know what is forbidden, we can know that all others are freely available to us. But if we don’t know what is forbidden, we can’t know how great freedom God gave us.
The Holy Bible shows us what God allows us (including what we may not expect God allows)
If we don’t expect something, and we also didn’t read what God actually allowed it in the Holy Bible, we may think for the rest of our lives that it may be forbidden. So, it is important to read/study the Holy Bible.
Genesis 3:14-24 shows the consequence of the Sin. Each party (the snake, the woman, the man) was cursed by God, followed by the expulsion from the Eden Garden and no more access to the tree of life.
Here, we can see that God didn’t stop their sinning even though He so disliked the Sin, but they were left to make decision according to their free will, and then cursed for their disobedience. Therefore, God may not stop us now, but what we do can bring either curses or blessings.
The fact that we were capable or left to do something does not mean that everything might be OK. Instead, it may either bring curses or blessings. Therefore let us fear God. Let us study the Holy Bible.
