Last week I named the human desire to have God’s power as the primary impulse behind the Man and the Woman in the Garden of Eden disobeying the divine commandment to eat the “forbidden fruit.” Let’s see how that conjecture plays out as we look at what happens after the infraction.
The Serpent had assured the humans that God was lying when telling them they would die if they ate the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And the Man and Woman have not died – at least not yet!
But the first “knowledge” they receive is an awareness of shame about their nakedness and they seek to cover themselves with makeshift clothing. This is not quite what the Serpent sold them either.
Most interesting, however, is the humans’ response to God’s confrontation over their disobedience. If you thought the Serpent had a legitimate argument against God, wouldn’t you take that up as a line of defense when being called on the carpet? Instead, in recognizably human fashion, they passively admit wrongdoing by refusing to take any responsibility for their actions and reassign blame instead. The Man says it’s the Woman’s (and God’s) fault and the Woman says it’s the Serpent’s wrongdoing (Genesis 3:12-13).
God gave humans free will so that they could be in a relationship with the Lord and each other. But based on this episode it looks like a failed experiment. God gives humans an inch of freedom and they want it all.
But God doesn’t give us up. Let’s read on to see how God seeks to build a relationship with us in the face of human mistrust and disrespect.
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