SIN – Original Sin. Let’s talk about the relationship of man and woman. Let’s talk about the relationship of a husband and wife to God.
Let us look back to the creation of mankind before sin and the consequence beyond.
The Creation of Man and Woman
7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (soul).
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of 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.”
One Commandment. Do not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Why would you want to know that? God will tell you what is good. You have no need to know of evil. (Surely the angel Satan plots evil against God. Satan has already fallen from heaven as far as the earth, though this is yet paradise before sin.) “You will know good from evil, like God. Choose whatever you want. You do not have to obey God.”
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
It is NOT good that a man should be alone, nor is it good that a woman should be alone. God creates a special intimate relationship. The KJV states: ‘ I will make him an help meet for him.’ That is: one who helps the man.
21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
The woman is NOT made from the dust of the earth, but from part of the man. She is near to him – part of him. And she is his helper.
Note now that the Bible calls the woman his wife. They were naked and were not ashamed. (It was not evil to be naked.) They were naked before God, in whose image they were made.
Enter Satan and evil (of which Adam and Eve had no knowledge). One commandment from God: Do NOT eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Simple. No other rules. Paradise! Obey God’s one rule and that’s it. The man and his wife had complete blessing from God and they knew nothing else.
The Fall
3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
Obedience does not require knowledge, only discernment to obey.
The tempter will always question God. “Did God really say…?” The tempter will always seek your disobedience to God’s will by causing you to question God’s motives.
Thy will be done? Yes but, MY will be done first! The sin of disobedience.
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
The tree looked to be good for food. The fruit was a delight to the eyes. No, Eve was not blind prior to this, nor was Adam. They beheld the glory and beauty of each other. They beheld the glory of paradise, of all of the garden of God’s creation which they tended as gardeners or caretakers – God’s garden, with man the caretaker. Yet the only commandment of their Lord they willingly disobeyed: original sin.
And now, consequence.
Adam and Eve now know that their disobedience is evil. In fact, they see and know all good and all evil. They were naked and ashamed (perhaps not of the desirable site of each other, but certainly of being looked on by God their Lord and Maker).
They make excuses to God for their sin. (Sound familiar?) Then God pronounces judgment.
16 To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire
(We are talking ‘sexual desire here.)
shall be for your husband,
(Perfectly natural: a woman for her husband and a man for his wife.)
But now, more than being his ‘help mate,’ the punishment of authority (since she did not accept God’s authority).
and he shall rule over you.”
17 And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
(rather than obeyed the voice of God)
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you…
This is the first use of cursed in the Bible in relation to man. The very first use was in the condemnation of the serpent. Good and evil; blessing and curse. We must hear much more of these in the Law, now that we have knowledge of good and evil. We must discern what is good to obey God and discern what is evil to avoid further sin.
Adam and Eve knew that they had sinned. Now mankind would learn the consequences of knowing good and knowing evil.
To be continued…
