‘”We live,” writes Lev Shestov, “surrounded by an endless multitude of mysteries. But no matter how enigmatic may be the mysteries which surround being, what is most enigmatic and disturbing is that mystery in general exists and that we are somehow definitely and forever cut off from the sources and beginnings of life.”’
The Christian faith deals with just this mystery at its core, but at the core is the belief that we are not definitely and forever cut off from the sources and beginnings of life. The story begins in Genesis and the account moves forward to Jesus as central to the reconnection with eternal life in relationship with the triune God that we are particularly remembering today. Eternal life was meant to be essential to the being of humans from the very beginning.
To say ‘yes’ to God requires a choice. Before Adam and Eve disobeyed God, there was only one choice – to obey Him or not, in just that one area of life in the garden – whether to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or not. Life was simple – and life was very good. I don’t suppose it had even entered their mind that there was a choice – that they could say anything but ‘yes’ to God. After Adam and Eve disobeyed – what has come to be known as the ‘Fall’ - life became a multitude of choices, each one more complex than the one before, and the difficulty of discerning God’s will – in order to say ‘yes’ to Him if that is what we desire – became ever more difficult.
The serpent was the first to complicate Adam and Eve’s thinking.
Exaggeration – ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden.”?’ Makes God out to be meaner than he really is.
Second hand information – The serpent speaks to Eve, though God had told Adam in the first place. He wants to sow doubt in her mind. Eve did remember exactly what God had told Adam, which had been faithfully passed on to her.
BUT…she embroiders the information and makes God sound meaner than he is (she is already being affected by the serpent!). She adds, ‘…and you must not touch it, or you will die.’
Saying ‘yes’ to God means saying ‘no’ to other things!
And sometimes that may be something essentially good – but it may not be God’s will for our lives. Paul says, after a catalogue of all his earthly standing and achievements:
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him…
In the Bible I had when I first became a Christian, I wrote ‘piano’ next to this verse. At the time, I was practicing up to 6 hours a day – and enjoying it! I can safely say that I have no regrets that my life took a different turn.
Shame
Being made aware of themselves, so that they realised that they were naked, took Adam’s and Eve’s focus away from God and on to themselves. And they were ashamed and hid. When we become egocentric, we do not become more free, we become bound up with ourselves and what others think of us – we become painfully aware and self-conscious. God wants us to be free of that! To focus on Him, so that His glory is all that we are aware of.
Every culture has things that cause its people shame. I don’t agree that there are only some cultures that are ‘shame’ culture. It’s just that some – Japan, for example – are more obvious. It’s worth asking what causes you shame.
E.g. Marriage course conversation – more shame in calling off a marriage than in getting divorced later! (But which is really preferable in the long run?)
Shame is relational – what will others think? It is not a nice feeling. And true freedom, in part, means not having anything to be ashamed of. Adam and Eve were no longer free, because they were ashamed.
Before and After
Before disobeying God Adam and Eve could live forever, but not be like God in knowledge of good and evil.
Now they (and we) have the knowledge of good and evil, but we cannot live forever [unless God does something on our behalf to mitigate the disobedience – this is what the serpent could know nothing about].
To live forever is dependent on our relationship with God being right – so the ‘yes’ to God should have been:
I trust you God, above all others
I will listen to you, because you alone are truth
But after the initial choice, there would be consistent choices – each one a ‘no’ or a ‘yes’ to God. Life would not be so simple.
You will not surely die
When the serpent contradicted God’s assertion that human beings would surely die, it was a half truth followed by a non sequitor.
The half truth
What is life all about anyway – is it about functioning, or is it about living life to the full in Jesus? The serpent would have us live a half life, believing in his half truth. So what did it mean when God said that they would surely die?
Genesis 2.17 makes it clear that God did now want people to die! Death was the consequence, the end result of another action.
The non sequitor
And how could anyone be like God? And yet, Adam and Eve were already like God – they were created in His image, we are told in Genesis 1.26. The serpent was tempting them to be like God in the knowledge of good and evil, when they were already like Him in something much greater – in image! That is, in their very being and essence – through and through. The serpent was deceiving them into stooping to something lower. [Interesting that Jewish interpretation focuses on the ‘Fall’ as a stooping down from what God originally had for human beings – becoming less than they are meant to be.]
How does it follow that you won’t die, because you will be like God in knowledge of good and evil – does this knowledge give us life? No! With a knowledge of good and evil we can dispense with relationship with God (which is what gives us life). Knowing God is the knowledge that gives human beings life, and this knowledge Adam and Eve already had. The knowledge of good and evil is why everyone has a moral sense, and a system of their own for judging right and wrong – whether they relate to God or not. It is what most encourages people to remain autonomous – they can make up their own minds about what is right and wrong. But only God can successfully hold the two together – life and the knowledge of good and evil - without becoming proud. The serpent was trying to hurt God, because he knew God’s character to be loving and compassionate, and he knew that God could do something about man’s disobedience, should He desire to. The serpent didn’t care two hoots about human beings, but he did want to hurt God Almighty! He wanted to rob God and human beings of a loving relationship with each other.
There is much more that could be said about Adam and Eve – their failure to take responsibility for their own actions for example, which is rife today as ever. But today we are reflecting on Adam and Eve’s ‘yes’ to God.
Adam’s ‘yes’ – Eve=’living’
After God pronounces his curses on the serpent and the ground, and tells Adam and Eve what the consequences of their actions will be, somehow Adam is filled with hope – things are not as bad as they could be. Up until now, he has not named the woman God formed to be his help meet. In Genesis 3.20 we see that he names her ‘Eve’, which means ‘living’…’because she would become the mother of all the living.’ There is much left unsaid, but we get the sense that Adam is filled with courage and awareness of God’s grace. This naming is a challenge in the face of the serpent’s lies.
This ‘yes’ to life is a thread that runs through the whole Bible. Deuteronomy 30.19 clarifies that it is the result of a choice to be in obedient relationship with God who loves us and wants the very best for us:
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Eve’s ‘yes’ – dependence on God
Eve’s ‘yes’ to God is connected with the consequences God names in Genesis 3.16 - ‘ I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.’ When she does give birth, to Cain, her response is (Genesis 4.1), ‘With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.’ Her ‘yes’ is to dependence on God. Dependence is a relational word. None of us is truly independent, nor are we meant to be! Dependence opens the way for God to do something for us, and more importantly in us – it is saying, ‘I need you!’ This is true humility, because it is being ‘grounded’, like the humus that the word humility comes from. It is seeing ourselves for who we truly are, especially in our need of relationship with God to truly live, to truly be free, to truly love and be loved. Humility is an attribute ‘without which no human being will see God’. It acknowledges God’s grace that meets our need and assures us that ‘all things work together for good to them that love God’.
Eve’s ‘yes’ to dependence was no longer natural to relationship with God as it was before the ‘Fall’ – it now required a choice for each human being to make. But the important thing is that she made that choice – she chose dependence on God in true humility. Are we humble enough to do that today – to reaffirm our dependence on the God who loves us?