God’s Law
God’s law in Genesis 2: 16-17 is all about obedience.
Too many disciples, though, think that loving God is good enough. Nothing else is needed for salvation.
But there is something else. We have to choose to obey God daily. That is how we show God we love Him.
Our love for God should be an even bigger deterrent for sin. We love Him so much we want to do what He says.
Was it a good thing that God gave humankind this one law? If God knew that the man and woman would disobey Him, did God set them up for failure?
Yes, it was and no, God didn’t. He provided them with grace to strengthen them to be obedient. God gives us grace to strengthen us to make the right decision, but God does not force us to choose Him.
The command in Genesis 2: 17 clearly lists the consequence of sin — death. But if death is some sort of nebulous concept out there, is it really a deterrent? Maybe. Maybe not.
The knowledge that there would be a punishment if the woman did eat the fruit should have been some deterrent. We don’t have to understand all the consequences to know that something bad is going to happen when God point blank tells us what to do.
God doesn’t have to spell out every consequence fully. All He should need to say is, “Obey Me.” Yeah, God can say, “Because I said so.”
We will only be strong enough to not sin when we have been perfected. We won’t be perfected until we are called home or the end of the age.
The breaking of the law of God is sin. It is a practice — a decision.
Sin
On the surface, the original sin doesn’t look like it is much of a sin at all. What is the big deal about eating a piece of fruit?
The first sin was about obedience to God. Are we going to listen to what He says or disobey Him? That is a big deal.
Sin is a moral disease that brings many devastating consequences. Even if God did not create sin, He created the opportunity for us to choose not to obey Him — which is a sin.
God alone determines what is a punishable offense – what is a sin. Subsequently, He is the One to establish the punishment. It is our choice to follow the law or break it — and suffer the consequences when we break it.
Two moral forces battle for control of this world. One is the worldview led by Satan, and the other is the Godview. These are polar opposites.
If the root of our worldview moral feelings is not cut out of us, we will not be obedient to God. It addresses the motivations and character, not just the actions.
There is an order to sin.
- We have to doubt that God is good.
- We have to disbelieve that He wants our relationships restored.
- We have to reject His holiness.
Satan tempts us in many ways.
- Satan tries to catch us by surprise.
- Satan tries to convince us that restrictions on our lives are too impulsive, unequal, unkind or unnecessary – leaning in on his concern for us.
- Satan tries to convince us that God’s character should not be respected, lowering our gratitude towards Him.
- Satan tries to cast doubt on God and our faith in Him.
- Satan tries to coach our disobedience out of our unbelief.
- Satan tries to convince us that we should have that which we lust after.
- Satan will flat out lie to us about consequences of disobedience.
Sin is a hereditary disease as it entered into the world when the couple sinned. Every man, woman, and child from every nation, culture, socioeconomic status – everyone – has a sinful nature.
That means every person who ever was born or ever will be born comes into this world spiritually dead and separated from God. On top of that, we know that every single person since the couple committed the original sin has also sinned.
Still, we are responsible for our own sins. Each and every one of us is going to have to deal with our sin.
We cannot quit sin on our own. That may be why sin is so prevalent. We think we can come and go into a sinful situation on our own, never realizing it is beyond our abilities.
It is not a sin to be tempted. It is a sin for us to tempt someone else. If I know someone has a weakness to sin in a certain area, it is a sin if I put that person in circumstances that create that certain area.
By allowing us to stumble and fall, stumble and fall, God is showing us how much He loves us. By sending His Son to die and be the sacrifice for us, He is showing us there is nothing He wouldn’t do in His power to show us that love.
Sin does have to be tangible – if not visible. How else do we know if its existence? And Satan sure does want us to know of its existence!
God wants us to know what happens when we disobey Him. Think if the couple hadn’t sinned – and no one from that time until now had either. If no one had ever sinned, we would not know the value of obedience or the true cost of disobedience.
Satan
Satan’s fall from God’s grace would have already happened, although we aren’t told about it in Genesis. We don’t know where he went after he got kicked out of Heaven.
All we read in God’s Word is Satan was kicked out of Heaven. We are not told if or how his appearance changed. We assume he had wings, which he may or may not have lost.
Satan convinced supposedly one-third of the angels to believe he was a god, turn into demons, and leave with him (Rev. 12: 4).
Satan’s sin came from himself. It certainly wasn’t from God. Satan didn’t have any external nudging, pushing, or prodding.
In a recent sermon, Pastor Steve said, “Satan’s sin was wanting to be like God and take over Heaven.” Satan wanted to be God.
The enemy of God knew about our world. He has been known to roam earth.
Satan may have hated humankind because he was kicked out of Heaven while humans were given this beautiful garden in which to live. Not only that, but they were also very happy in their lives.
Have we ever considered why Satan tried to tempt mankind to sin in the first place? Was he only trying to steal us away from God? Or was he trying to get us to ally with him against God?
We almost have to wonder if Satan had presented himself to the humans before. I mean, why did the woman just automatically believe someone she had never met before over Someone who had created her and had provided for her?
It can be argued, if God created humans because of Satan’s revolt, that would escalate his hatred of us.
On the other hand, Satan may have been trying to extract revenge. If he knew how greatly God valued humankind, he may have been jealous of our relationship with Him.
This is especially true if Satan knew of God’s Plan of Salvation before the promise in Genesis 3: 15. He knew mankind would be restored where he and the other demons wouldn’t.
The Serpent and His Punishment
Satan was disguised as a serpent when he went to tempt the woman.
Most of us have queasy stomachs when we think about serpents – or snakes, as many of us call them. But back in the Garden of Eden, I don’t think there was any fear among the different species.
It is hard for us to visualize the snake doing anything but slithering on the ground. But that brings us back to the question of whether it was a snake or a serpent.
There may have been serpents prior to this who had crawled on their bellies. That does not mean this serpent did.
Either way, we can read this animal used to walk upright. After the judgment, it couldn’t.
We don’t really know what the animal looked like. We will need to put that in the UNR book – understanding not required. Along with that, we would have to include how the serpent talked with the humans. They understood, but we sure don’t at this point.
The serpent was told his punishment first, which is logical. The serpent was the root of sin.
Basically, the snake was going to slither on the ground and not be liked. God cursed the serpent/snake on that day, the punishment to begin that very minute.
It is easy to look at the passage and say the serpent/snake was tricked just as much as Adam and Eve were. Or maybe we like to think that he was just taken over by Satan, like he took over demoniacs.
Didn’t matter. The serpent was punished regardless of how it was taken over. It was punished because it was taken over. “… Because you have done this …” (Gen. 3: 14 NLT).
It was perfectly within God’s authority as Creator of the serpent/snake to punish it. We shouldn’t argue against that any more than we should argue that He has no authority over us.
If it wasn’t the physical serpent being punished to crawl on his belly, it would be Satan himself as the object of this punishment. Remember, Satan had been an angel before he rebelled. Do we visualize Satan as crawling on his belly? No, so it was the serpent/snake that received punishment.
If Satan uses us as an instrument to cause someone else to sin, we share in the blame. We will be punished.
We think sin only affects us, but it doesn’t. Sin spreads to others and contaminates relationships and integrity.
Satan and His Punishment
But the serpent wasn’t the one calling the shots – Satan was.
Satan was the real tempter in this occurrence. He enticed the couple to disobey God, not the serpent/snake.
The punishment in Genesis 3: 14 could be directed to the serpent, but it is also directed toward Satan. It not only shows the opposition, but it also identifies the victor. Good will strike evil’s head – our moral feelings.
We shouldn’t gloss over the fact that Satan can only reach the heel. What power Satan has over us is what we give him.
Ooo, baby. That would bite. Satan was trying for a complete overthrow of God, and all he was going to accomplish was a swat at the heel.
No, there will be a new — and more definitive — judgment.
The important thing is that Satan tempted the couple to disobey God, and they did.
Satan’s insistence that what God has presented as good is really evil is heartbreaking. Portraying God as Someone Who can’t follow through on His promises or flat out promising something He has no intention of supplying is so totally out of God’s character.
Satan succeeded in separating us from God. He was trying to set up His own kingdom on earth. But he failed in that he did not win our full-blown allegiance. God stepped in so that allegiance didn’t happen, His first act of grace.
God didn’t want Satan and humankind to expand their newly formed relationship, so He established a hostility between us. God did not want to make it easy for us to sin.
If Satan was an adversary with God, He wanted him to be an adversary with us. In fact, the word Satan means adversary in Hebrew.
Satan’s goal is to manipulate us so that we will sin. Though he is good at disguising himself so that his true character is concealed from us, he hides in plain sight.
Satan is not one to back down from a challenge when we resist him. He may finally back down, but not before he has tried the most daring, reckless, foulest temptations.
Even more than the hostility, God gives us power to overcome Satan’s temptations when we ask. He wants us to succeed in withstanding sin.
Satan’s Question
Satan didn’t accuse God of being mean or selfish. He didn’t outright attack God. Satan didn’t really say that God shouldn’t give humankind laws.
What he did know was the woman had a good relationship with her Creator. He didn’t want to trash Him outright.
Satan gave Eve a lie that was shaded with the truth. It was a leading question because he knew that God had not said that. He knew good and well that God had not put all the trees off limits. In fact, Satan knew that God had given the humans permission to eat freely of all the trees — except the one, which they were supposed to leave alone.
To Satan, the point wasn’t how many trees on which God placed restrictions. The point was God had put something off limits.
What Satan was doing was questioning the severity of the law. He wanted to show the restriction as not in humankind’s best interest.
There was nothing wrong with the fruit, such as it being poisonous. God told the humans that they couldn’t eat the fruit just because.
Satan wanted Adam and Eve to doubt God’s Word. If we don’t know exactly what God said in His Word when Satan starts tempting us, we might fall for his lies as the woman did.
We have to be doubly careful when we start to debate God’s Truth. The problem is we want to have options. We’ve got that little thing called free will.
Instead, we should want to make the right decision.
The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil were both in the Garden of Eden. The man and the woman were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge. There was no restriction on eating from the tree of life — until they ate from the tree of knowledge.
At the beginning stage of the Garden, God would have had no problem with them eating that fruit. They were made in God’s image. They would have been fine living for eternity.
Satan’s Response to the Woman
Of course, Satan had a comeback to Eve’s response to his question— another misdirect.
We can look at Satan’s response in two ways. The first way was, instead of correcting the woman’s error, Satan lied. He misrepresented the meaning of the words to make it look like God didn’t love them.
Satan had to know the law that God gave them, or he wouldn’t be tempting her if this didn’t lead to a sin.
Satan tried to use the fact that God will correct us through love to get us to fear and disobey Him. He knows we like to do things our own way without any consequences.
Doesn’t the delay of our punishment of death show how much He does love us? He is postponing it to allow us to repent of our sins.
Oh, Satan knew he was talking physical death while God was talking spiritual death. Did Satan even have a clue what physical death was? It had never happened before, and he isn’t all-knowing as God is.
God may have explained the concept of physical death, but it may have seemed that He was talking a different language. We don’t always understand until we experience something.
I think we tend to forget Satan had been at this juncture before. He had a choice whether to obey God or not.
Satan chose not, but he was still alive and kicking. He just had a change of address.
While he didn’t physically die, Satan knew exactly what spiritual death meant.
So, Satan lied about the consequences of disobeying God. But, then, he is a liar.
Satan likes telling us that we can do whatever we want, and God won’t do anything — even if He said He would. He switches off from telling us, “You can’t depend on what He says” to “God just won’t require that of you.”
Satan had lied when he offered the woman promises. They sure didn’t get what they were promised. In fact, they got the opposite: alienation and terror.
They allowed Satan to seduce them into sin and steal their innocence.
The second way we can look at this is that Satan was encouraging the woman to want to be a god. “Eat this, and you will be like Him.”
Maybe the woman thought — since the name of the tree was the tree of knowledge of good and evil — it would make her smarter.
But more than likely, the woman did want to be like God. She wanted to make her own choices. She didn’t want Anyone to have control over her.
In other words, Satan wanted our sin to mirror his sin. The only way he could get that to happen was to convince the woman to think as he did. But he had no real facts to back up his lies.
The woman, if she already was doubting God, was a sitting duck.
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