Deception

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. – Genesis 3.1-5

We don’t have any idea how long it took before the incident we read about happened. But one day Eve was walking through the garden when Satan appeared to her. Here is the first appearance of evil on the earth.

The whole scene raises great theological questions. Where did evil come from is God is really good? Why did God give man a choice? Why didn’t He stop Eve?

I wish I had all the answers – but I think central to it all is that it is ‘good’ that man has a free will. We don’t read about the creation on angels, but it is obvious that angels have a free will as well. I don’t totally get it, but it does make sense that as part of God’s creation His created beings would have the free will to accept or reject Him and His ways. We should have a choice in whether we love or reject Him. What could would acceptance and love be if they were forced?

But I’ll leave any further discussion to the theologians.

But here we see the approach that Satan took when he came to Eve. The first thing he did was to cause Eve to question the word of God and God’s authority.

‘Did God not tell you that you can’t eat from any of the trees in the garden?’

‘God said we can eat from any tree, except the tree at the centre of the garden? We can’t even touch it or will will die.’

‘You won’t die. God knows that if you eat it you will be like Him.’

Satan had Eve misquoting God. God never said ‘don’t eat it.’ Either she or Adam had made that addition.

When she started changing, or even misremembering God’s word, she was beaten. She was already deceived – and that is going to lead to defeat.