The Ultimate Cause of Our Difficulties
Christianity has typically assigned what is now the most popular meaning of Genesis 3:1-11, which ostensibly explains the overarching reason for the problems humanity has faced. Namely, that when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were making the decision for self-rule rather than God-rule. Sometimes put another way, they were going to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong.
Let me get straight to the point. I am going to suggest strongly that this is a wrong conclusion about what happened. That’s not to say that we (humanity) don’t make up our own definitions of right and wrong. We certainly do, and sometimes our processes for doing so are objective, sometimes subjective, sometimes arbitrary, and sometimes self-serving. At our worst times we have even said that ideas of right and wrong are simply social constructs of society at certain times and in certain cultures, and therefore there is really no objective truth or legitimate definitions we can use for right and wrong. This thinking could be called a lawless one.
However, I suggest these decisions we make about right and wrong, good and evil, are just more effects of another overarching cause that can be more accurately defined in the Genesis 3 account. Something bigger, more fundamental took place in the heart and mind of humanity as it began its history on this planet. And I believe the overall Bible narrative supports this other explanation much better than the typical explanation that has been used. It is important we understand what really happened in Genesis 3 because otherwise we will not see the real solution to our many and varied difficulties. We will never have peace on earth until and unless we reverse the direction we took at the start. The future Kingdom of God WILL have that peace because those in it will have decided to make this reversal, this repentance.
So let’s start in Genesis 2. The Creator had directed the first human couple to go ahead and eat of the tree of life, but not of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lest they die. The chapter concludes with the positive statement that “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed”. To understand what that statement means, we need to get into what follows in Genesis 3.
In Genesis 3 Satan convinces Eve that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is actually a good thing because then they will be like God, knowing good and evil. I don’t see any reason to believe that Satan didn’t mean exactly what he said. It’s not that they would be taking a God-prerogative to decide what is good and evil (in essence becoming gods), but rather that they would actually know the good and evil as God knows it. But what Satan did not tell them was that just knowing good and evil would not be the method by which they would then do the good and reject the evil. That would take something else more profound to the human condition. What they still would have to have was a desire to rightly implement that information. And having that desire would take something else they did not have, and was not obtainable via the “bad” tree. But let’s get on with the account in Genesis 3.
So as we know, Eve ate and gave to Adam to also eat, which he did. Immediately they both knew they were naked and covered themselves, and even hid from God because of the nakedness (vs. 7-10). Remember in chapter two they were naked and not ashamed; but after eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were ashamed. Yet in verse 11 God says, “who told you that you were naked?” In other words, God wasn’t the one who led them to be ashamed of their condition, so who did? Ah yes, it was the tree that changed their own perception of themselves, not God.
This shame they now had, caused them even to hide from God, their Creator and their Father. They became estranged from their Father due to the governing system that this tree represented. It was a system that defined God as Law (knowing and defining good and evil), not a God of Love and Promise. Under this system they no longer perceived themselves to be within a relational Parent/child system that provided room for both knowledge and grace in a process of growth. Their understanding of God, their relationship with Him and with each other was now skewed…defined strictly by knowledge of good and evil alone. And Adam and Eve subsequently perceived, just as we do, that they fell short in their own eyes and in the sight of God based on such a standard. It’s like being told by a rigid law-wielding parent that you “don’t have what it takes and are not worthy.” What other conclusion can a child come to under such a system?
Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with the laws of God…they are holy, just, and good, as the apostle Paul said in Romans 7. But he was also very clear…we can’t abide by them without something else. And that something else is found within a whole different system called the New Covenant which is driven by the holy spirit of son-ship. It is a system of “knowing Him” (John 17:3; Jeremiah 31:33-34). We know Him, of course, through His interaction with mankind and through His words.
Paul explained this dilemma of knowing good things yet not being able to do them on a reliably consistent basis. First, he reminds us that we can’t be justified by the law because by it comes the knowledge of sin, that’s it. You either keep the law and receive a reward, or you break the law and are punished. There is no third option of grace for growth. And we’ve all sinned regardless of knowing right from wrong. (Romans 3) Why? Because we lack something under this kind of system... the spirit of Christ, which is the spirit of a son (Romans 7 & 8)! We simply were not designed (by God) to succeed in any other way. It is in understanding, appreciating, admiring, and respecting our Father and His words that we then grow internally to emulate Him…to truly be like God. Adam and Eve were not given all the pertinent information by the devil. They (and we) should have trusted and believed God. The tree of life provided what they truly needed…a system that provides the relational processes for growth. But the two trees, the two systems, are mutually exclusive. Even as Paul said, “the Law is not of faith” (Gal. 3:12). You cannot eat of both trees simultaneously.
God raised up an entire nation, Israel, and through Moses gave it a Law to govern them. But they did not keep it (Acts 7:53 and all OT). This was a major lesson for all mankind and for all ages. It was not just the subject of a regional debate between Jews and Christians in the first century. We can have all the information about right and wrong we need, yet by itself this is not enough to bring us to the spiritual condition in which God intends for us to be. He wants us to have the faith of Jesus, to trust that the New Covenant system of governance is the foundation of the Kingdom of God that He promised His children. The Gospel of God has two main aspects to it: 1) God will have children who admire, love, and respect Him, and therefore seek to emulate Him, and, 2) He promises those children immortality and possession of this Earth as their future inheritance for all ages to come. Jesus believed this Gospel and preached it faithfully as he was sent to do (Luke 4:43; Mark 1:14-15).
So what do we need to repent of…individual sins? Yes, but God desires much more than that. Those who want forgiveness and to be in the Kingdom of God will need to repent of not believing or living according to the Gospel of God…the Kingdom of God/New Covenant message. We need to be Father-focused like Jesus…like a son should be. Thousands of years of pain, misery, death, and destruction are, and will always be, the proof that anything short of this does not work. Popular and predominate teachings about the meaning of Genesis 3 are misleading in that they direct us away from the root cause of our difficulties and the way out of them.
