We also hear this voice through religion. LIBERAL THEOLOGY: "What happens here is not a 'Fall,' but an awakening."Having accepted Satan's suspicion about God's love and trustworthiness, Eve now looks to creation instead of the Creator for fulfillment of her finite personhood (read 3:6a). What before she viewed as a clear rejection of God's loving authority, she now sees with different eyes: "I need something I do not now have in order to be fulfilled."
She now sees the tree and its fruit through the grid of its power to enable her own self-actualization (read 2:9). Good things (aesthetic beauty, physical needs, wisdom) now become replacements for God. This is the beginning of idolatry.
Satan continues to seduce us from life with God through this same strategy. He focuses us on using God's good creation for the wrong ends – to make us wise, significant, fulfilled, etc. (read 1 Jn. 2:15,16). In this way, he seeks to distract us from the only One who can truly make us wise, give us true significance, and truly fulfill us.
Eve has already revolted at this point – before she ate the fruit. All revolt begins in the thought-world, through our choice to mistrust and reject God's Word – and then manifests itself in our words and actions. Do you try to fight temptation in your actions alone – or in your thoughts/beliefs about God's wisdom and goodness?
The Aftermath
Read 3:6b. This passage (and the rest of the biblical record) make it clear that both Adam and Eve were responsible for this revolt. Adam had already heard directly from God on this, and he may have been present throughout this whole conversationIRONY: They got the opposite of what they expected. In seeking to take a step upward, they "fell" downward. Instead of becoming more like God, they became far less like God than He wanted them to be (the image of God remains, but it is badly distorted). Instead of gaining life, they forfeited life and began to experience death (2:17b) in a series of alienations:
Instead of being in relationship with God, they become alienated from and suspicious of God (read 3:8-10), and turned in upon self.Instead of being "naked and not ashamed," they become full of negative self-awareness and shame (read 3:7). This is psychological alienation.
Instead of living in harmony with one another, they begin to hide from and blame one another (read 3:11,12). This is sociological alienation.
Instead of having benevolent dominion over nature, nature is now resistant to them and antagonistic to them – even to the point of ultimately killing them (read 3:17-19). This is ecological alienation.
TRAGEDY: This fall has affected every one of us and the world we live in. We have become infected with these alienations because we descend from Adam and Eve, and because we sin in the same way they did (read Rom. 5:12).
Can you not relate to each of these alienations? Do you not experience them to significant degrees every single day? I surely do!
From now on, humanity retains something of God's image – but that image is broken and distorted. This is why we see such contradictory polarities in humanity: nobility and cruelty, loyalty and prejudice, generosity and greed, etc. – not just between groups of people, but also within our own hearts.HOPE: God allows us to reap the consequences of our revolt against Him – but He has not abandoned us. No sooner did Adam and Eve revolt than God initiated with them (3:8), and spoke the first word about His rescue plan (3:14,15), and gave them a beautiful picture of it (3:21). We're going to take a close look at this hope in two weeks, but it's great to know that there is a way back.
What's our part? Our part is simply to humble ourselves and cast ourselves on God's mercy (quote Lk. 18:13,14). This choice is painful (because it wounds our pride), but it is simple – and it results in immediate reconciliation with God and eventual healing of all of the effects of the Fall. Have you ever made this choice? Why not make it today?
Conclusion
NEXT WEEK: Jared Mustacchio, Ephesians 4:17-24 (which further unpacks the effects of the Fall)
RECOMMENDED READING: C. S. Lewis, Perelandra