HE SAID, SHE SAID

 

KEY VERSES COMPARISON:

¹⁶ The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: ¹⁷ But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen 2:16-17)

² The woman said unto the serpent, “’We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: ³ 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.” (Gen 3:2-3) 

  Those two passages are chronological; hence, they were at two different times. Chapter two precedes three, and at that time Eve had not been created. Therefore, God said nothing to her. Only Adam knew the exact words of the command, and it is implied that Adam revealed the only “shalt not” to Eve. He either added to it or she did. Eve got it half right, but God had not said, “Neither shall ye touch it.”

  Eve had to touch the tree to eat of it, did she not? Is touching the tree really a second violation? Perhaps not. First check for precision of translation. Context must be considered. Indeed, one translation is “touch.” However, there is another one as well — and that is, “to be smitten.” “Touch” would be an action by Eve, but “smitten” would be an action by another. The question is, who touches whom?

  The logical answer (in context) is that the Serpent smote Eve even though she did touch the tree to eat. In context, “lest ye (Eve) die.” The outcome of eating is more likely that the tree would cause Eve to die, not for touching but for eating. She understood that the consequence for disobedience is that the fruit of the tree would kill her. In other words, perhaps she was not tricked as she excused herself, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat” (Gen 2:13). Inn fact, she beguiled God with that rationale.

  Also, Eve got it wrong on another point. The fruit of the tree would not make her die, but she herself would!

  Before proceeding, death has two meanings in scripture: (1) the death of the body, and (2) the death of the soul. Theretofore, perhaps the body had been immortal, and then it began to wither, and undetectably so. She ate and nothing seemed to happen, so Adam ate as well. Neither understood that the death of the flesh occurred at that moment as their cells began to die. Hence, time is not a measure of life but the duration of dying. Dying is enduring the world until the flesh perishes. That is mortality of the body.

  However, the soul is immortal. In the beginning the soul did not exist. It was there, “Before the foundation of the world” (Ephes 1:4). However, before the beginning, all that existed was God. Somewhere between the beginning and either “day one” or “day two” souls of mankind were created. Sacred literature places the supernatural as one of the waters in “day two.” So, with that, angels and human souls would be created on “day two” before the foundation of the earth in and below the firmament.

  It is believed that the “firmament” is the celestial dome outside of which God resides in the Tenth Heaven (Secrets of Enoch). Hence, the First Heaven was on one side of the celestial dome and all the others in the celestial sphere. For God, time is meaningless, and the cosmos, is a mere curtain to cross independent of time.

  The souls of mankind would have been “born” in the First Heaven before material things. What that would mean is that there are living souls in our midst, waiting election by God to be embodied. Since souls are not matter, and only matter decays, the soul never dies. It does, however, translates from Heaven to Heaven. Specifically, from the First Heaven to the Third Heaven for Christians, or if sinners, from the First Heaven to the Second where they are held “prisoner” until Judgment Day (ibid). Thereafter, righteous souls live for eternity in paradise, and unrighteous souls eternally die in Hell outside Paradise (ibid) separated by a great gulf (Luke 16:26).

  Hence, the soul never dies, but is either rewarded or punished. Eve seemed to understand that she would be punished, and so did Adam. They tried to fix their guilt by covering themselves partially with aprons of fig leaves, by the works of their own hands. That failed then, and so it does now!

  Eve was not truly beguiled! She felt guilt in the presence of herself, Adam, and then God. She had wronged herself, Adam, and God. Rather than cover her pudenda, she should have revealed her heart!

  If Eve had touched the tree, perhaps she made a mistake. Maybe her excuse was this, “As I reached for the fruit, I may have accidentally touched the tree, and I would not be guilty because Adam said nothing about touching it!” In other words, Eve could have planned her excuse before consuming the forbidden fruit. Henceforth, that is the nature of all people. Sin always has a plan to exonerate just as criminals fabricate excuses beforehand in case they are caught.

  However, rather than an excuse, it could have been truth. She feared that she indeed would be smitten but proceeded to eat anyway. That would not be wrong information, but a Freudian slip — that she feared God would indeed be right; that she would really be smitten! Who would smite her? The fruit or the Serpent? It appears that Eve thought the fruit might poison her.

  That is reasonable now that she had knowledge of both good and evil. The Serpent, at that point, had not deceived her. She deceived herself as the Serpent was smiling at the ease of it all! After all, he is cunning! Sinners forget that they are dumber than a fifth-rated Snake. Why so? The Serpent was not what he appeared to be? Inside he is a “lion” (in character) ready to devour all who would approach him (1 Pet 5:8).

  Eve may have thought that the fruit would poison her. Perhaps she tasted just a bit, it was good, and nothing seemed to happen. I submit that the fruit of the tree was indeed tasty and healthy.

  Based on the source of the fig leaves for their aprons, surely the fruit they ate was figs. Some believe it was a tree of many fruits. That is correct for they are named: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such (Gal 5:19-21). Just as Satan was invisible inside the Serpent, those horrible “fruits” were invisible in Satan. Satan beguiled Eve by requitting her fears; “Ye shall not surely die” (Gen 3:4). She had already planned her consumption, and Satan allayed her fears. After all, she ate and did not seem to die.

  That is the way of the law of sin. Each time people sin, it seems as if nothing has changed. However, each sin is further isolation from God until the heart is so calloused that the sword of God (the Word) cannot penetrate the heart for “circumcision,” to wit: “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God” (1 Cor 7:19). Eve’s heart had hardened, and her soul began to die. It too would wither from atrophy. The Word must be read and willingly kept for spiritual health.

  Did the fruit of the tree smite Eve or was it the Serpent? What should Eve have done? What Paul recommended long after, “Taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked” (Ephes 6:16).

  The Serpent with Satan in it, shot fiery darts at Eve, unbeknownst to her. Like Eve, all her children fail to see the fiery darts coming at them from the “fiery flying serpent” that Isaiah saw as a “cockatrice” (Isa 14:29). The Serpent, perhaps, did not have legs for motivation, but wings, or perhaps both legs and wings. It was not a Serpent at all, but a type of seraph (Strong’s Dictionary).

  Eve, perhaps, feared that she would be smitten, and she was. She felt smitten, and she was. Guilt overcame her and Adam, and they endeavored to cover their crime against God. Because they felt anxiety about their misdeeds, and tried to correct what they had done, God had mercy on them. He then made them coats of skin, indubitably from a lamb… one lamb making two coats that covered all their flesh which had offended God.

  Rather than mask their “pie holes” to keep them from eating forbidden stuff anymore, God covered their entire flesh with His “whole armor,” because of the numerous sensations (Gal 5), to protect them from the fiery darts of the Wicked One.

  The aprons were meshes made from fig leaves, and very penetrable. On the other hand, the skin of a lamb is more protective from fiery darts. That would do until the Perfect “Lamb of God” — Jesus — would come to fend off all the fiery darts of the Cockatrice. What was the “skin” of the Lamb of God? The Flesh of God who died instead of sinners who deserve death.

  The Body of Christ is in the Third Heaven. And the Holy Ghost is the bodily shape (Luke 3:22) of Jesus who remains with Christians to protect them from the Cockatrice until he is cast into the fiery furnace. The “Skin” of the Lamb that covers Christians entirely is the whole armor of God that is worn until the body of Christians have imperishable flesh in the Third Heaven.

  It is a shame, I believe, that “touch” was rendered in the translation of Genesis 3:4 when the context more deserves “smitten,” because smitten is what occurred! As the mother of all, all people are smitten each time a forbidden fruit is held out in the hand of someone acting on the behalf of Satan. He still uses others to deceive. However, he can do that without being in us because his seed is in us.

  God is the “Farmer” that planted entirely “good” seed in the Garden Paradise. Satan is the “Poser Farmer” who plants bad seed in the world. God did the planting himself, and then used Adam and Eve to grow the Garden. Instead, as the mother and father of all, we are their seeds, and often plant evil seeds wherever we go. “Born again” is understanding the evil that dominates us because of inherited sin… all because of Adam and Eve. We are called to go out unto the world and plant good seeds to overcome the crop of evil growing there.

  The crop must be tended by Christians because the Cockatrice remains on Earth firing his fiery darts that only the glorified Flesh of Jesus can protect us from!

(picture credit: Times; "The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve" by Stephen Greenblat)