What can you learn from Genesis 3:1-7?

What can you learn from genesis 3:1-7?

   “Now the serpent was more subtil than any the beast of the field”

The other animals were ‘less subtil’ They also were tempting Eve but in a more open and blatant manner. It is likely they were simply eating the fruit and not dying. This was a temptation because she expected them to die. It was easy to resist this temptation since ‘they’ were animals, and she was ‘man’.

Now the serpent comes along and eats the fruit. His jaw unhinges and she suspects the fruit will lodge there and kill him. In amazement she watches at the shape of the fruit travels down the serpent body.

Paraphrasing: Eve, See, you won’t die. I was made by God in a marvelous way. If I see fruit and it looks good, I eat it. I glorify God by being what I am. Aren’t you an animal just like me? made by God just like me? Go ahead.. eat it.

Eve chose to be an animal. The consequence is that we have more lessons to teach us that we are more than animals:

We have clothing, animals don’t. God clothes us with his righteousness.

We set aside a Sabbath, animals don’t. God is God of time.

We say grace before a meal, animals eat instinctively. We acknowledge God as our provider.

We marry, animals procreate instinctively. We acknowledge that Christ has obtained his bride through his death. See Ge 2:21.

2. The serpent told 4 lies. You shall not die. Your eyes will be opened. You shall be as gods. You will know good and evil.

Too many people believe he told the truth. It would appear that Adam did not die for 900 years, that his eyes were opened. That they were like gods and that they knew good and evil. But Jesus says the serpent was a liar from the beginning.

Adam died spiritually that day; cast out of the garden and separated from God.

They became blind, deaf and dead. Other than that they were perfectly normal.

They became slaves to sin, not gods.

And they did not know good, but only evil all day long.

The word ‘know’ also means ‘declare’. When God said they had become like one of them knowing good and evil, he was saying that they were declaring good and evil for themselves… they were making their own rules.