Things you can learn from Genesis Part 6

Did God actually Say?

Genesis 3:4-6

We are confused about the fall. We think somehow we are all punished for someone else’s mistake. Let’s be clear that well before age two every single one of us chooses sin. And lets be clear that if Adam and Eve had not sinned someone was going to at some point. So there is that. Now do we still have consequences because of the fall? Well there does seem to be truth in that. But that is next, not first. First we have to arrive at what went wrong. There are so many theories about this moment. There are so many ways to look at the moment where Eve and Adam chose death over life. Or more accurately choose to do what they want to do. Here is the deal though. While there are many theories there is only one truth. There is only one answer, only one way to understand what happened. The word of God makes clear what happened. Eve was not overwhelmed with desire for the forbidden fruit. She was not tempted at all. We have assigned temptation to sin. For some reason we are convinced that these two things go together. As if we just don’t naturally choose sin over righteousness. And let's just be clear the default is we choose sin. That is why we must be reset. The truth is that we fill our desire for fulfillment with things that are other than God. Pretty simple at the end of the day. And in this original sin moment it should be clear that there is no temptation. There is just not wanting what God wants. The eating from the tree is just the acting out of what was already occurring internally. This is the heart of sin. We so often think sin is an external action. And while sin is played out in an action it is always born internally. It always comes from our own disconnect from God and it results in our acting out in unrighteousness. So the sin action is eating from the tree but the sin itself is born out long before the moment of eating, long before the conversation with the crafty serpent.

In Genesis two God has a little sit down with Adam. He tells Adam, “You may surely eat of every tree of the Garden but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (2:16-17). Now here we have to ask ourselves why Adam didn’t press God for some specifics. Did Adam just get it; no worries. Or was he like all embarrassed that the obvious seemed confusing so he lets it go. He makes a mental note. “Just avoid that tree,” he tells himself. I mean we have no indication that Adam even gets the concept of life, let alone death. Also, God does not just bust out and say, “don’t eat of that tree over there. Avoid the one with the red fruit” (waxing poetic there) He literally tells Adam. “Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” The tree has a pretty ominous name. Now here I’m thinking Adam might just be wondering what good and evil is. (I think most people on earth still debate this topic) So we can go two ways here. Way number one Adam knows this stuff already so no further explanation is required.  Adam just knows evil is not good so it’s not desired. Way two:  Adam checks out at a critical moment. He misses an entire sentence. He has no clue what God is saying. He’s thinking about what he will name next. I have no clue here. But I do know that this is a massive miss because later we see Eve telling the serpent what God has told Adam. Remember, she does not exist when God and Adam have this talk so it must be Adam’s job to lead Eve, to let her know the rules of the place. So when Eve is having a little chat with the serpent he asks her, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” Whoa. This is where sin begins. (I literally mean stop and just feel that moment) The fall of man is moments away but it has already happened. (Side note: Adam is hanging out with Eve, doing nothing. Just kinda standing around. I can just see him all cool, head nod to the serpent. “What’s up?” Don't forget Adam and the serpent already know each other. Adam gave him the cool name.) It’s the same question that gets everyone of us. It is the same question that keeps my oldest daughter awake. It is the same question that makes her afraid that everything I tell her about Jesus might just not be true. “DID GOD ACTUALLY SAY?” And it is over right there because most of us just can’t live with the things God actually says or does. Which is why we gravitate to metaphor. It is why the whole world sits in darkness but a few. He is so other than, that we literally bog down because when we go to say what God says it is embarrassing because it does not sound like something some really smart guy would say. When we go to say what God says it just sounds so lame, so unlike what we can see around us. I just want to say what He says and be steady in it. I don’t care that it makes no sense or that it sounds all made up and counter intuitive. I want to say what God says the same way I say what John Maynard Keynes says. (Oh Economics) I want to say it like it is truth and all other ideas are a lie.  I want to say it the same way I say Keynesian school is the only proper school of Economic thought and Chicago school is just wrong.

So anyway, Eve goes and says what Adam told her that God said. And here is what she says to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden but God said, ‘you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” Hold on just one second. Ok so what just happened? Eve does not refer to the tree by name but by location. How did location replace the name? Why is that critical? It must be critical. At least I’m thinking it is. So did she and Adam go and check it out, have a little look-see. When did she figure out the location?  Is that when she and Adam had a chit-chat about what God said? Adam’s like, “Hey Eve, look at that amazing cool tree. Don’t eat it or touch it.” Also, super critical. God never said touching it was any kind of a deal, only eating it. So Eve get’s God wrong and this is where we go off the rails. We add to God or we take away. Either way it leads to death, not life. We create something new from the original truth. We make a photocopy that is not quite the same. It seems innocent enough. How could you go wrong by adding in an extra safe guard? What could possibly be wrong with a fail safe. God said don’t eat so we add don’t touch. It helps to keep us a step away from the eating problem. But you see where that leads? Pretty soon God said a day is however many years it takes to match scientific years. Pretty soon creation in the bible is just a metaphor for millions of different beginnings. Pretty soon Jesus is one way not the only way. (These are but three ridiculous ideas I hear and read, not from secular man, but from people who claim to know Jesus. Heck, I listened to crazier ideas while I was at Seminary.) Pretty soon we start helping God so much that nothing He did or said in the bible is the truth we teach. So when Eve adds in don’t touch, it is the first step towards the corruption of who God is and we all make this same mis-step and we need to retrace our steps and get back on His exact word and leave it at that.

 How we get from what God says to what Eve says God says we will never know. But we know they are absolutely different things and when we get what God has said wrong we get it all wrong. It is not good enough to kind of get the gist of what God means. That is what we all start to live with and pretty soon we are following a completely different God other than the Great I am, The Ancient of Days. Pretty soon we are just following some god named (insert your name here). And that right there is my biggest fear. I don’t want to follow the (insert your name here) god. So I want to say what He says and call it truth.

Notice the technique of the crafty serpent. He says did God really say you could not eat of any tree? (hyperbole)He is going big. Like he is blown away. God said you couldn’t eat from any trees? What will he take away next? (Hyperbole is always a good way to start when you want to make someone doubt his or her stance. Unsaved me had this perfected.) And Eve is all no-no He said we couldn’t eat of that tree in the middle. Everything else is all good.(Super paraphrase) And the serpent is all “oh ok but heck that whole dead thing can’t be true.” He’s like, “that doesn’t sound like God to me.” (totally made up. The serpent did not say that line. But we have heard this countless times from people who say they are Christian.) And as it turns out the serpent isn’t even lying when he gets down to the details. He tells her that “you will surely not die. . . your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  And we know that they don’t die (right then. Adam lives 930 years. Way longer than anyone I know) And here is where people argue it is the death of innocence. What? Now God is all into figurative language? This is the death of perfection not real death? It is easier to believe God is metaphorical and not literal? Hmmmm?  We know that the only thing that happens is that they now know the difference between good and evil. We know this knowledge leads to embarrassment and shame. We also know that after they eat of the fruit they are still breathing and their hearts are still beating.  We know that the consequence of that knowledge is that for whatever reason we choose evil over good nearly every single time.

So when people ask me well then what did God mean when He said death? I am going to go with, “I don’t know. Maybe He means separated?” But probably He means death. Like they were never going to die but now they are going to die someday. It’s like when I tell Judah she is going to get a spanking. When I don’t deliver it that moment but 10 transgressions later she is confused.  But I am not a liar. I meant it would happen when I felt it should happen. I also make it go away with hugs and kisses and reminders of my love. So I think that is what God is doing here. So His warning is true. They will die. The problem is they imagined it must be something right then. That’s not God’s bad, that is their bad. They should have asked about death at some point. At any rate God feels tenderness for us so He fixes the death problem by sending his Son. He makes a way because that’s what God does. So now we live forever again, problem solved.

Adam is standing right there, doing nothing. Just waiting to see what happens next and He and Eve eat of the fruit and they don’t die and they gain knowledge and they know everything is ruined. Oh how I know that feeling. I know that one for sure. I usually feel sick. I usually want to hide. That, my guess is, is the consequence of sin.

So here is something hyper interesting that literally came to me last night.(which is now like two weeks ago) The entire fall of man is borne out of truth, not a lie. We get so caught up in this thing that Satan came and lied to Adam and Eve and caused the downfall of mankind. Now to be clear, Satan was not there so back to some truth. We all tend to believe that the crafty serpent lied to Adam and Eve and caused the entire downfall of humanity. But again this is not true. In fact, the talking serpent did not tell one single lie that day. He told Adam and Eve that they would not die and they didn’t.  I am going to be all crazy and guess the crafty serpent didn’t know what death was either. At any rate I’m going with the serpent was not all knowing. That would be crazy that God made the serpent all knowing and didn’t make man that way. Anyway, I just think they didn’t get death. And here is another epiphany: I am going with most of all the earth does not get death. That is why they live in darkness. Simple really.

The serpent told them they would be like God and know good and evil and that is what happened. God says as much, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:22) So cool when God talks to himself/themselves. It is so insane that this moment is so matter of fact for most of us, casually taught in Sunday school or not. I mean this whole moment is actually pretty well known by all people, including those who have never been to church. It is so over-learned that it is never learned at all; just filed away somewhere in the “I got this” file. We hear the story and move on. (Hint: trying to connect us to Adam’s mistake) This is why the whole world is swept up in sin. Sin is born out of a truth that leads us from God. We see a tree and figure out how God probably was not talking about this tree; probably some other tree. Or we figure God probably is over that tree thing. After all, our world is more complicated and God could not imagine all the trees we have to deal with. Everyday we make these choices that don’t involve destruction or mayhem, lust or greed. They just don’t involve God.  I think God would call that sin. “Did God actually say?” Yes, yes he did.

Things you can learn from Genesis. Part 5

The Serpent

Here is my disclaimer. Maybe. I don’t know. Why is it that we want so badly to give Satan credit for the actions of the serpent when the word of God clearly says that God made the serpent crafty?(Genesis 3:1)

Such an interesting few moments in the garden. Adam and Eve are cruising around, presumably taking care of stuff, doing what they are supposed to be doing and they encounter a serpent. This moment is a forever moment, beyond the forever we ever imagine. Clearly, every single moment that we are in is a forever moment with forever ramifications. However, this moment will change everything for everyone. But here is the deal. Before we can ever tackle sin we need to know what is up with this serpent? Because I am beyond convinced that this moment is taught to us completely wrong and that the way we come to understand this moment is critical to how we will follow Jesus. There, I’ve said it. I want to know what the word of God says about the serpent. I am not interested in things syncing up and making sense with science or explanations that eliminate talking serpents. I just want to know what it says and then move on with that as truth.

I have come to the conclusion that the serpent is not Satan. Most people won’t agree with my conclusion here but I’m pretty ok with that. It’s just too easy to declare a serpent to be Satan just because Satan is referred to as a serpent and a dragon in Revelation. I have also seen these elaborate arguments that show that Jesus is referring back to Satan, in the Garden of Eden in John 8. It’s just too big a stretch to connect the “He was a murderer in the beginning” line to refer to the temptation of Adam and Eve. (Hint, the beginning for Satan comes long before our beginning.) Beyond that, when Jesus is speaking of Satan is verse 44 He says, “he has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  Interestingly enough the serpent never does lie to Adam and Eve. He literally tells them the truth every step of the way.  Read Genesis 3 and see. (More fully addressed in my look at the sin moment coming next entry)

I think the truth is that God’s creation goes off the rails because we choose something other than abiding in Him. It’s that simple. We want for there to be a supernatural excuse for the fall and the reality is that serpents and people make bad choices. End of story.

So that still leaves us with who this serpent is. We are told, “The serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.” Crazy talk. Stop right there and stay on that verse for as long as it takes for you to really hear that God made a crafty serpent. Crazier still: God made creatures and they fell on different scales of craftiness. Note: The serpent was the craftiest. Not the only crafty thing but the craftiest thing. (some people try to argue here that the serpent is not created by God, hence he is craftier than the things God made) We can all agree that God made all things (including Angels  and people who rebel) so arguments like that are for sure heresy or just plain naïve. Take your pick. So we can settle on the truth that the serpent was crafty compared to the other less crafty beast creations. Which is pretty crazy when you start to wonder what was God doing making things have different levels of craftiness. And when it comes to beasts (this excludes man in the debate) the serpent was super crafty. I think we can all agree Man takes the crafty prize. (except maybe in this initial serpent/man throw down)Now what we don’t know was whether or not there were a crew of crafty serpents or just one, but this particular serpent was crafty, that much is clear. Now even more interesting is that this crafty serpent, that God made, could talk. The talking serpent is why people argue that the serpent was Satan or possessed by Satan (good old fashioned demonic possession stuff). But since Satan was not in the serpent and since Satan is not omnipresent it seems pretty clear he had no clue what was unfolding on the day, in the garden. And while he can go where he wants, including the heavens, he cannot be everywhere at once. ( Way to complex and off track for my point here.) Anyway, my point is that this serpent could talk without the help of Satan. My point is that the serpent that Adam and Eve encounter is exactly as God made him, unaltered.

Here are two reasons why I am convinced that Satan was not in the serpent. Reason one is that the word of God indicates that the serpent is acting on his own. (See Genesis 3:1 he’s crafty). Reason two is the serpent gets punishment for what he did.  And in this case everyone who had a part in this moment gets punished but not Satan. It seems he was not part of the moment.

People seem to struggle with talking animals. I don’t really have a problem with Animals talking. It’s in the bible so I’m good there. This is the same struggle people have with talking dirt people. But here is the deal. The crazier it all seems the more it seems to me that God must be in the details. Of course, the serpent talked and of course he must have always talked because on this fine day there was not one second of freak out from Adam and Eve thank you very much.(Again I love the arguments that they were in some kind of trance vexed by a talking Satan serpent. This really would take away the whole free will sin decision of the moment) In fact, what we do see was a pretty seamless conversation between Adam, Eve and a serpent. And just a reminder, the word of God says the serpent was craftier than the other created things. (driving home the crafty aspect of the serpent)Not more mystical or strange on this day but crafty on a daily basis. So this implies thought process so hmmm. Weird but true. Who is this God?

So these theories that a presence entered the garden and took up residence in a hapless serpent to ruin all God’s plans seem to be just theories. (And while I could argue that Satan was in the garden using Revelation and John 8 I believe that argument is the incorrect argument based on the ramification of the fall and the necessity of the fall being a result of man’s sober choice to not choose God but rather to seek something apart from God.) In fact, verse one makes it clear that the serpent was crafty with no help at all from evil. God, for whatever reason, made the serpent crafty, end of story. I believe it is imperative that God’s creation on it’s own conspired with itself to abandon God’s plan and seek it’s own direction. I believe that this is a critical aspect of sin. We choose sin. We are not tricked into sin.

A crafty serpent is at the heart of the fall of man. Now the crafty serpent’s unrighteousness leads to the fall; not some supernatural demon possession. It is for real important that we understand that it is unrighteousness, not a supernatural glitch that leads to the destruction of man. Oh the serpent was serving Satan on this day. Just like the rest of us when we engage in unrighteous activity. (the stuff that separates us from God) And it led to some very big consequences. But the unrighteous are not possessed by Satan and they do not worship him. They just walk with him and do his bidding.  As I once told this super cool daughter-girl. The unrighteous are tools of Satan. Being a tool of Satan is not the same as being possessed by him.

It does not seem to matter whether or not they are people or serpents. It seems unrighteous is unrighteous in the eyes of God.  And this is super critical because the world and perhaps even many of us claiming to be set apart have this misconception that somehow someone who follows Satan does evil things to small animals and children. And while that may be true in some cases the real truth is that everyone who does not follow Jesus follows Satan. That is for sure truth. And that is the truth we better wrap our minds around and soon. Because if they are not redeemed they spend eternity separated from God. That’s going to be a shock for all of them; Even crafty, talking, serpents. Or not. Depending on the whole what happens to animals when they die thing. But I suppose a crafty serpent spends eternity in hell unless he is redeemed. This is me, still not freaking out.

So to my point as to why it matters how we view the serpent. If we believe that the fall is borne out of God’s creation (serpent, Adam, Eve) choosing to make a decision apart from God then we will walk closer to Him. We will hold more tightly His truth and seek to abide in Him, knowing one step away from Him is one step closer to destruction. If we see the fall as emanating from a supernatural deity tricking man then we will always be on the look out to not be fooled into sin by Satan. I believe the latter is the way most of the church functions, which is why we see a church, mired in compromise but convinced of its steadfast love because they are not looking evil. If we see the fall the first way then we are aware when we stray and we run back into His arms. If we see it the second way then we are all good as long as we don’t look evil. Not looking evil is not the same as walking with Jesus. Not looking evil is the same as eating from a tree we shouldn’t be eating from. We put on some clothes, go to church and call ourselves clean. We look pretty but our skin knows the truth. Even Adam and Eve understood that you can’t clean dirt. That’s what God does.