by Holbert Marie
PREFACE
This teaching was originally drafted as a ten page essay in 1996 in Kyoto Japan specifically for a gathering of ‘mainland Chinese’ that were mostly advanced, post graduate students in some sort of hi level biological sciences. Some of these students had never even heard of Jesus Christ, (耶稣基督Yesu Jidu), or knew that there was a Bible. Coming from a closed communist country, none had ever read this bible or had been taught who ‘God’ is let alone Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit, if they had heard of Him or knew about a bible. So, I spent a good amount of time laying some foundations for the study of the first three chapters of Genesis itself.
The whole purpose of this teaching was twofold, 1.) It was a supplemental follow up essay after a 10 week (20 hour) teaching I had done on the first 3 chapters of Genesis when we started this group. It was done at their request. 2.) Though there are many extensive teachings about these three critically important and foundational chapters by biblical scholars much smarter than me, I did not find anything that quite fit my purposes for this flock. I was not interested in getting into a protracted and detailed study that would have led to debate, which this group was prone to do! I just wanted to draw out the ‘basics’. The basics about God, and us, and His purposes for us and then to show where things went awry, where sin and rebellion came on to the stage!
One thing that it never was intended to be was an exhaustive intellectual or theological discourse over these three chapters or the ‘controversial’ interpretations of passages from them. You will find that I deal with such issues (like is a ‘night and day’ a literal 24 hour period of time or not) in a very simple but irrefutable way. I was not going to go down numerous speculative ‘rabbit trails’ that served no purpose to the intent of the study itself. This was really not hard, if we could not apply the basic “Scientific method”— observable and measurable with consistent and quantifiable evidence to back up the argument – it was quickly dismissed and correctly labeled as one’s speculative guess or opinion! We stuck to the fundamentals of science as well.
Basically, my goal was to simply lay some fundamental foundations about the Bible, God, our creation and introduce a proper way to approach the Scripture and hopefully introduce them to the God of that Bible — Father, Son and the Holy Spirit — in a way that was compatible to this extremely intelligent and highly educated in ‘critical thinking’ – who were steeped in evolutionary and humanistic logic – group. As the teaching itself was extremely effective – (the Chinese flock was established on it and many have come to and are remaining in, a saving knowledge and relationship with Jesus Christ) – and they themselves requested me to write up a document that they themselves translated into Chinese. I felt it is good to make this revised and updated edition available to others who maybe dealing with similar groups who have little or no foundations in the “God of the Bible’. However, in no way do I cover everything that was taught in the 10 weeks we spent on this and the many intense discussions and debates that were part of this process. That would take a book and ultimately would not be as effective in its intended purpose.
Introduction
Before we get started into the actual study of the first three chapters of Genesis, which literally means ‘beginning’, I would like to lay some foundations and make some comments about God and creation.
No matter what you think about God’s existence, or non-existence, you believe it by faith. What I mean by this is, faith is a believing or a trusting in something to be consistent or reliable. When you get in an airplane you do so using faith. Putting it simply, you believe that the airplane will work as it is designed and that the pilot is competent in his/her craft and that both the plane and pilot will get you safely to your intended destination. This is of course very simple faith, because in truth, you are having a lot of faith in a lot more people (mechanics, air traffic controllers, etc. as well as having faith in principles of physics and aerodynamics), then just the individual plane and pilot.
In the case of God, faith has a deeper meaning than just believing or trusting in something. It is a believing or trusting in something that we don’t truly understand or grasp, for God by his very being and nature, would exist outside of our natural/physical understanding and senses. You would be unable to prove the existence/nonexistence or nature of God through the natural observable world anymore then you could prove that you were the artist of a painting or the sculptor of a statue that is present at an art exhibition. Especially if you did not have either credible witnesses who witnessed you creating it or some physical evidence to prove that you yourself indeed are the artist. –
(Even if you are the artist and have a number of witnesses willing to declare that you are the artist; if someone does not want to believe you — or the witnesses — there is absolutely nothing you can really do to convince them otherwise or truly prove you are the artist. Even if you offer physical proof there are those who will refuse to believe it and again there is nothing you can do to make them believe you were the artist! Going further, their lack of belief in you being the artist does not nullify the truth, which is, you are the artist!)
— In any case, when it comes to creation, as far as from our world and dimension, there were no witnesses to back up God’s claim to have made the heavens and the earth, outside ‘Himself’ – (generic name for God who is a spirit/metaphysical being neither male or female) – and those from His dimension, there were no witnesses. Ultimately, God doesn’t have to prove Himself to us any more than the artist would have to prove himself to be the artist. Truth is not impacted by your opinion about it and surely neither is God, if there is one.
I have people tell me that “I don’t believe in God.” all the time. I encounter this often, especially when I travel and I get into a conversation with my fellow passenger about God or their belief in some type of God or superior being, life force, etc. When they say this, I pull out my phone and show them the picture of my family that is on it – (before phones I pulled out the picture I kept of my family in my wallet) – and I ‘testify’ to them about the fact, truth, that this is my wife and kids. I have never yet had anyone doubt me or accuse me of lying about this fact. However, the truth is I COULD BE LYING. I then proceed to tell them that how do they know I am not lying about this? The look is predictable! Just my mentioning this has now interjected doubt! I cannot prove to them that I am not lying, I cannot prove to them, at that moment at least, that this is my wife and children as they are not present. They must take me at my word or don’t believe me. There is no middle ground. They either have ‘faith’ in my word or they don’t. Still at the end of the matter, what they or you believe has no impact on the truth. It is my wife and family and the person can say to me that he doesn’t believe me, that too is a ‘faith’ statement by the way!
So, let me ask one final question concerning this scenario. If a person does not believe that the picture I have shown them is really my family, what sort of impact would that have on me personally!? Or my wife and kids? Would I then begin to waiver and doubt that I had a wife and family because some stranger doesn’t believe me? Of course not, what nonsense. I KNOW I have a wife and family because I KNOW them, we have relationship. I don’t care what sort of misplaced logical or “scientific” argument one came up with to try to convince me that my family is a figment of my imagination, ultimately my faith in the truth would not shake. I KNOW it’s the truth, it’s really no longer faith! Furthermore, would their doubt, or should I say misplaced ‘faith’ – (or belief) – have any impact on my wife or children’s existence or life at all? Again, the answer is obviously, NO! It has no impact on them at all and they would not know or care.
So ultimately it is with God, I have met God, who I KNOW, at least to some degree of discernible truth and experience, personally. I don’t know Him that well yet – (and won’t until I see Him in His place, dimension, kingdom) – but there is no way anyone could convince me that I have not met ‘God’ any more than they could convince me that I don’t have a wife and family. It’s experiential and most definitely more than once! I am a witness that God is both real and personal. I didn’t see him create the artwork of creation, but that is not necessary for me to believe that He truly is the ‘artist’ of all creation, because I do know Him and I have found Him to be not one to lie. He does not need to impress me, He has no need or reason to lie to do so!
Ultimately, if you don’t believe in God, you believe that God does not exist by faith. You really don’t know. Just because something exists outside of our realms of understanding – (like my wife and family being outside of my fellow passenger’s physical environment and therefore un-observable and cannot be ‘proved’) – does not mean it does not exist. We just don’t know about it. – Germs, bacteria and viruses existed and affected us for millenniums before we knew about them. – No one can give credible proof to back up their not believing in God simply because one has not recognized or observed ‘Him’ in their extremely finite and limited – both in time, space and experiential – point of view.
In fact, their faith is greater than mine, for the overwhelming amount of evidence that is observable, points to a God existing. The ‘artwork’ of creation is far, far greater than any masterpiece Rembrandt or Micheal Angelo created! Furthermore, whatever we believe about how creation was started, we believe it by faith. If you believe in the ‘theory’ of evolution, as an origin of species, you believe it by faith. – (D.M.S. Watson, a famous zoologist and evolutionist said this: “Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation – (a God), is clearly incredible.” – https://assets.answersresearchjournal.org/doc/articles/pdf-versions/arj/v14/quote_watson.pdf). We have no secular history, and other than the claims of the Bible, no eyewitness accounts other than God and other ‘supernatural/extra dimensional/meta physical beings’’ outside of our natural observable ‘5 senses’ world. We believe whatever we believe on this topic by Faith. It is different than “knowing” something. No one can offer concrete, undeniable scientific evidence of how man came into being. There is no “Law of creation” – (in reality, the “theory” of evolution does not come close to reaching the ‘scientific method’ standards clearly laid out in acceptable science to earn the title of ‘theory’, no where even close!) – like the ‘law’ of gravity’ because we cannot observe or measure what has already occurred in any consistent, measurable or totally reliable way. We can speculate and have an opinion on the subject, but let us be honest and call them speculations. These speculations are based on un-definable beliefs that are not supportable by consistent, observable or measurable evidence (science), in other words, it is a belief based on unsupportable faith.
The closest way I can come to defining faith, using, scientific terms, it is like having a premise that you came up with after some initial thought, study and observations. – (Even then there are certain known rules and procedures that one must follow to create a good premise or idea. You can’t just wish things were a certain way to develop a good premise!) – You feel something is right or will work but you cannot prove it. But the premise is what gets you moving to find out the information you need to discover if your premise is right or wrong. In ‘good’ science, we must be careful with our premises. If we begin with a belief or ‘hunch’, and the evidence we begin to uncover shows us that our premise is incorrect, we need to be willing to change our premise to conform to the evidence that we are uncovering.
(The best scientist; or any other profession for that matter, I have known about where ‘humble’ scientist, that is that they were willing to admit that they may not know everything, they could be wrong, there could be some unseen or unknown data point that changes everything, and they were open to change if evidence proved otherwise. Einstein was this way. We have had way too many bad, arrogant scientists with a predetermined agenda; too many who have tried to coerce the evidence to conform to the premise contrary to the truth — (this could be either narrow minded and stubborn or it could be worse, corrupt, evil and Machiavellian and they are too full of pride to admit they’re wrong, and/or it might cost them in reputation, position and thus monetarily – [they love money over truth] – even though in reality, the truth; they know the premise is faulty or unsupportable by presentable facts!).
What is even worse, we have had bad scientist try to apply a correct premise to the wrong application. This will always lead to major confusion and much valuable research will be lost until someone is able to go back through the evidence and prove the original premise wrong – (or the bad use of a good premise) – and some have paid with their life to do so in a number of different fields of study, not just about God! Only then can we go back and start heading down the right street. It sure is that way with math. When an error is made in math, everything is wrong and will remain wrong until we work the equation back and find out where the problem is and fix it. If we do not, then anything we do around that math formula will be faulty and unstable and in the case of engineering, dangerous and possibly life threatening or catastrophic! (designs based on faulty math or unknown factors, can be unforgiving, catastrophically so! The same could be said about one’s belief or faith in God!)
If the evidence that we uncover continues to prove our premise than somewhere our faith turns into knowing and that knowing creates productive confidence which produces ‘peace’ in the area where we have confidence and we rely on it. We may never be able to “scientifically or mathematically prove” our faith but we just know it is right and good by our continued experiences. —
[Science and math, at this time as far as we can know, is confined to our natural world, universe and its dimensions. We cannot dogmatically assume that a “spiritual” dimension would be conformed to the same physical attributes – (time, math, space, matter, physical laws) – as our universe. It could have an entirely different set of parameters and rules. You may not believe in a ‘spiritual’, or any other, dimensions outside of those observable and to some degree, measurable to us. However, that is a statement of faith and there is a lot of evidence of some sort of spiritual or ‘metaphysical dimension’ and as I said earlier, I have ‘experienced’ it.]
— It may never be able to be labeled a ‘law’ because it can never be completely quantified, as we don’t have the tools or means to do so, again, in our world and observable dimensions. But we just know it is real and reliable, we have experienced it and we have experienced it enough to make it ‘solid’, consistent.
In a simple way it’s like having and driving a car. You don’t have to know everything about how a car works to know that cars exist and what they are for. And you don’t have to know every detail about them to competently drive one. In fact, it is almost impossible for one person to know every little detail about all the science, math, engineering, concepts and systems that goes into making a car and having it work! However, when you do use the car you trust – have faith in, the makers, both designers and those who build it, and also in the car itself – with your life! Also, when you do use it, you had furthermore better follow certain rules and protocols, (laws!) that are put in place by government and you are again trusting other drivers – with your life – to do the same! Those laws are not in place to limit or steal our freedom. They are in place to make it so we can use our cars with some degree of safety, conformity and efficiency. Even then failures happen, crashes happen, and people are badly injured and die. You cannot live life at all without taking some measure of ‘risk’ and that level of risk is going to be based on your ‘faith’ – (trust/belief) – in both people and things that are entirely outside of your understanding or control! We exercise faith a lot, even if we are unaware of it. Almost everyday you leave your abode and either walk, drive or ride somewhere and when you do that you are exercising faith, you are trusting others to follow the rules of the road. You actually trust (have faith) in people with your life almost every day in one way or another! Simply put every person on this planet has faith in something and you exercise it every day in some way. The real question, the important one, is what do we put our faith in when it comes to God and our existence? It is a question of critical importance and how we answer that question has a massively huge impact on our attitudes and actions in this life.
At this beginning point in our study, the one thing we do know for certain, at least in physical terms, is that someway ‘creation’ occurred and we are here. For this we have undeniable concrete evidence. Our existence opens up an endless list of questions:
Where did we come from? Is there any purpose to our existence? Is there a God? If so what is “He” – (generic term for an intelligent person or being) – like? How did the physical universe come into existence? How did life start? Where did the ‘laws’ of science come from? Where did “right” and “wrong” come from or is it just something that we have created ourselves over the years? Do we have life after death? What is time? Our mere existence causes much speculation about a great many things.
As for myself, I have faith that the Bible is an accurate account of God’s dealings with man and that the God of this Bible is truly the only God. As I said before, I have had this faith for many years and what began with a premise has been confirmed, at least for my satisfaction, over and over again by overwhelming evidence to the point that my Faith has become a knowing, reliable confidence, and I have no reason to lie and I do not benefit one way or the other whether you believe me or not.
Let me make one final foundational point before we move into the text of Genesis. Our belief “faith” about God is a highly important thing, it is highly regarded in all cultures and many wars have been fought over the various types of beliefs in God. I will go as far to argue that our beliefs about God are the most important thing in our existence. If there is a God, He is bigger, smarter and more powerful than us. If He is not, then He is not God – (the definition of God in all cultures is something that is bigger and stronger than us. Someone or something to be feared or revered, appeased or pleased in some way!)
If this is the case, and it is, we need to find out about Him. Not just if ‘He’ exists, but what ‘He’ is like. The disagreements in religion aren’t about God’s existence nearly as much as it is about God’s nature and His attitude towards us. If a society believes God is big and powerful but has a somewhat nasty demeanor, it affects the whole nature of the culture. There will surely be no desire to get to know and willingly submit to and worship a God who we think is nasty and really hates us. We will either try to avoid him/it or appease him/it in some way or seek to do some good deed, offer up some sacrifice – (many ancient cultures would sacrifice a human life in an attempt to appease their supposedly angry god. This was also a good way to control a mass of people and keep ‘threats’ at bay as well with the ‘fear of the mean nasty God’!) – If the culture believes that their God is ‘The God‘ and prefers or cares for only them and those like them, then that cultural will have a competitive, hostile, arrogant approach to all others not like them. (Islam is an example of this and even cultish forms of Christianity). If the culture believes God is this non-personal “life force”, then that culture will have a view that God is unreachable or uncaring, not personal and that society will have no ‘fear of God’ or punishment or consequences for wrongs done. Such a culture, ultimately, has little value for individual human life other than their own and how one can use someone else for their own benefit without any consequences as stated by Aldous Huxley, the author of the humanistic, ‘utopian’, “Brave New World”.
“I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, – (spiritual world/dimension – fear of God or an afterlife judgement) – he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves.- (Machiavellian) … For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, SEXUAL AND POLITICAL.” (Psalm 2) – “Ends and Means“, 1937, pp. 270 ff.)
[Side note on Huxley, he died a drug addict shot up with LSD.]
This sort of ‘God view’, will lead towards an impoverished society with some extremely rich and many extremely poor. It leads to tribalism and everyone looking out for themselves. For in this ‘faith’, it really doesn’t matter if you do ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ because God really doesn’t care about that because there is no intelligent, purposeful God, so in reality, you can just do what you want and as long as you can get away with it – (or have the ‘power’ to dominate others – “might makes right”) – and if society does not frown upon it or punish such behavior, you have no concerns about answering to a ‘greater power or authority’, because ‘He’ either does not exist or does not care, or is weak or died, etc!
If a society believes God is totally merciful and has no real sense of justice and no meaningful consequences for wrongs done, this society will have little to no fear of doing ‘wrong’ things for their own gain, God just kind of turns away, if you do some sort of ‘penance’ – do some ‘good deed’ (which may be killing someone who you think is evil or does not believe in your God!) – everything will be alright. He only sees the good things you do no one is perfect right!? Some believe that God (a highly intelligent ordered mind) created our creation but either got bored with us or has died himself and we are now on our own.
Of course, these, and all, other opinions about God (religions) are all statements of faith and one must ask the question, “What if your wrong!?” What if a personal God does exist and is still very much alive and is very much interested in our world – (which He created) – and what is happening on this less than a ‘nano-particle’ of dust in our observable universe – but actually lives outside of our dimensions of matter, time and space? What if the God of the bible, is really God Most High and the one true ‘all powerful God’? What if He truly is a God of justice and very much cares about wrongs done to others? What if God is truly perfect and the only way to ever be acceptable before Him is to be ‘made clean/perfect, without ‘sin’ fault or imperfection?
Still others believe that they can simply pay God off with money given to the ‘disadvantaged’ or by ‘good deeds’ done to cancel out their ‘bad deeds’. Others think that if they care about all the hurting poor people out there and start a campaign to ‘help them’ — (Most never really doing anything or give anything that cost them anything of real personal value. They are good at giving away other people’s money or efforts and are willing to pass laws to force others to give away someone else’s money or efforts!) — that they are ‘virtuous’ and will have ‘earned’ God’s favor. Yet all of these attempts to do ‘good’ and either earn God’s favor or appease His anger, begs the question: If we acknowledge that there are bad deeds that we commit, if there is no greater moral authority — with a clear and enforceable moral code “laws” who has the power and authority to either dish out rewards or enforce consequences for the keeping or breaking of theses ‘right and wrong’ moral codes — how did some deeds or acts become to be deemed as bad and others good and then how can the doing of a ‘good deed’ cancel out the ‘bad deed?’ If there is no God, where did the concept of justice or injustice come from, that exist in some way in every known culture?
As self-centered as people normally are, there is still a strong sense in us of what is ‘right’ and what is ‘not right’, we have an innate understanding of justice and especially when we feel our ‘rights’ are being violated, no matter what you believe about God or which culture you come from! Why is there this line of thinking in me — And in the vast majority of ‘normal’ people no matter the culture — that somehow believes it is wrong to randomly take someone’s life away because he has something I want, or because I am jealous of something he does better than me!? Why would I think that if I did such a deed that I would even need to go out and try to do some good deed to make up for it and what good deed could be done to balance out the taking of someone else’s life unjustly? This is foolish, delusional thinking!
If I kill someone, because of anger or selfish desire, no amount of ‘good deeds’ will ever remove or cancel out that bad deed! I may be a ‘law abiding’ citizen 99+% of the time. However, If I am caught speeding and given a ticket for it, I cannot say, “Well, this ticket doesn’t count because I have done a lot of good deeds!” or “This is the only time I have ever sped, so I should not have to pay the fine!” It will not matter to the police officer, he may show mercy or he may not, but make no mistake, if he chooses to not give you a ticket it is an act of mercy, meaning that is not something you deserved or earned for being 99.9% of the time a law abiding citizen that did not speed before. The law is merciless; it is what it is. No, you would have to pay the fine or face the consequences of not paying the fine! Bottom line, no amount of ‘good deeds’ cancels out any wrongs done, or laws broken, nor does it make up for things that we should of done and did not do for, if we are being honest with ourselves, self-centered reasons. There is this nagging ‘I should do this’ for a person, friend, parent brother, etc., that hangs around in our thoughts, unless one has become totally calloused and completely self-centered. No one cares for a totally self-centered person and no sane or marginally raised child would think it is fair or right for a person to be 100% self-centered. We inherently know that to be totally absorbed with one’s own desires to exclusion or cost of anyone else is ‘wrong’. The question is why?
The truth is if we even think that we need to do good deeds to others, we are actually acknowledging that there may be a God who judges us and there is evidence in us that this God knows what ‘good’ is and isn’t and this thought also verifies that we also have some basic ‘moral’ understanding of what ‘good and evil’ is and every society has a set of similar laws about what is good and bad behavior! So, I must ask where did this line of thinking come from? For that matter, where did intelligence come from? How could such sophisticated and extremely advanced systems that every human body has as a living being, get here? Please spare me ‘evolution’, if evolution exist it is clearly an ‘after the fact’ apparatus that has much more to do with adaption to changes in environment then to origin or creation. Art does not create itself and it does not evolve. The artwork of the human body – far more advanced and wondrous then any man-made artwork – in and off itself proves there is a highly skilled, intelligent and sophisticated artist! Where does LIFE itself come from?
This reality raises a serious question, where does the universally accepted, across all cultures, code of basic ‘human’ rights, wrong and justice, come from? Whether you are from some ‘primitive’ native tribe that dwells in the jungles of the Amazon or are a high-level banker from Wall Street in New York, there are basic common values of what is right, wrong and justice that are universally held. Even the smallest of children all know when they have been ‘wronged’ in some way, and we are especially aware when one of these basic ‘rights’ has been ‘violated’ against ourselves. When we violate them, and everyone has, we may make excuses for it or justify it or blame shift our violating them off to something or someone else, but in truth we do know these basic moral values and hold them; without them no society or culture can exist with any contiguity at all, society will dissolve into pure utter selfish anarchy and demise when each one is looking entirely after their own interest. Truly the survival of the fittest or the ‘luckiest!’
Bottom line, all of us were born into a culture that has a belief about who God is or who he is not. No culture has the full complete picture of who God is. He is bigger than any culture. In reality the truth is our belief about God has no effect on His existence anymore than our feelings about the law of gravity has any effect on it. The Law of gravity is totally unaffected by anything we say, think, do or feel. If there is a God, it is the same. For God created the law of Gravity as well as the universe. Whoever ‘God’ is, His power is immense. I think it is time we stop putting our questions about God on ‘block’ or ‘ignore’ or ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ list and do some good, honest, open-hearted research to find out if one’s premises about ‘Him’ are correct. The truth is, our pursuit of the truth about God is not for His sake, but for ours. He is unchanged by our feelings and beliefs about him (Just like the artist is unaffected by whether or not you believe he is the artist.) I do not say that He is unconcerned about our thoughts toward Him, He just remains unchanged. The real question is this. Do we really want to know the truth about God? If so, it is in our best interest to accept that truth when it is revealed to us even if it goes against our ‘premise’ or cultural view point we were raised with and everything we have felt or been taught in the past! (This is especially true when one actually meets and knows the real God, that He is actually Good, loving, kind slow to anger and full of mercy and patience, but is also a Holy God of justice and righteousness, with infinite power, and will not simply ignore evil and will ULTIMATELY punish those who do wickedly, severely!)
Ex 34:6-7
And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” NKJV
On to the Bible
A quick word about the Bible before we begin, the Bible is NOT a science book or an academic history book. That is not its primary purpose. I believe that what few observations about the physical creation the Bible makes are accurate and these observations may prove useful for us, (there is even a verse that says God sits around the circle [sphere] of the world [Isaiah 40:22] long before this was accepted as fact.) but, that is not the ‘authors’ intent.
The historical accuracy of the Bible has been proven to be unsurpassed by any other known book concerning the time and locations in which it was written. However, this also is not its primary reason for existence. It is written by a good number of men, over several thousands of years and yet, the central focus of the book never changes. It expresses God’s nature, his love for us, his hurt over our rebellious, blind selfishness and His response to our condition. In a nutshell, it is a history of God’s ongoing relationship with man. Some call it ‘His Story’, History . It is a book written very much from God’s perspective. It is not a book about religion. I define religion as man’s – (or a group of men, tribe, society , culture) – opinions about God or man’s attempts to reach God. RELIGION IS MAN MADE! The Bible is about God’s reaching out to us and His efforts to have relationship with us (These efforts have been vast indeed!). Now, let’s get to it!
(Please note, this is not a complete theological exposé on the first three chapters of Genesis. That would lead to quite a book and ultimately distract us from the real intended purpose, which is to gain a fundamental understanding about the God of the Bible.)
It would be a good idea to get a Bible and then read the first three chapters, Genesis – means ‘beginning’, at this time. This will give you a base to begin our study from.
From Genesis 1:1 to chapter 2:4 is a quick view of the actual act of creation. There is much there to be gleaned from those verses, but that is not our purpose here. It is kind of like the big picture of creation. It is almost like God is brainstorming and then creating like a master sculptor artist. It mainly gives a basic overview of what is created and in what order but says little about how it was created. We need to understand something important before we begin: If we are mainly looking for the details of “how” God created we will miss the main point and will become distracted, frustrated and will miss out on the main points that are being made and more than likely reject the book as nonsense.
Who created the heavens and the earth? What is your definition of the word “create”?
Gen. 1:1– In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Obviously, from 1:1, God created the ‘heavens’ and the earth. No explanation or defense of this claim is given. The Bible is not written for that. It just states a fact. It doesn’t try to make any judgments about how God did it or why it just says, “God created the heavens and the earth”. Which simply means He created our entire known and unknown and observable and un-observable universe, which is explained in verses 2-25, by telling us what was created and in what order and in how many “days”. There is great difficulty that some people have believing the Genesis account of creation since Genesis seems to say that the whole universe and all living things were made in ‘6 days’. Many ascertain that this is not possible. And just to be oppositional, I say, that they were not there, and our accepted ‘scientific method’ cannot be applied to this debate categorically or irrefutably to either prove or disprove this statement. The only one who we know was there is the creator himself, God, and if he wanted to make everything in ‘six days’, he certainly had the capability to do so. If he did do it in six days, whether we accept it or not doesn’t change the truth. Our feelings and judgment have no affect on facts. So, it is both wrong and arrogant to say that ‘it was impossible that the universe could be made in six days’. You can say that you ‘don’t think it is probable that the earth was created in six days’, or that ‘in my opinion, from what is observable about nature, I don’t agree that the whole creation was made in six days.’ However, what ever we may say about this event we must admit it is a statement of faith and not a provable (at least with the instruments we have now at our disposal) beyond a shadow of doubt, fact. We must guard against arrogance and being led down rabbit trails that have no real value.
As for the “six days” for making everything, I can’t prove or disprove if the time periods mentioned as days are six equal periods of time or even if they involve time at all! However, this may help. It is good to remember that God himself is not contained in what we call time. He lives outside of the artwork, like most artist, of creation. We will discuss this concept further a little later on. Concerning time, time itself is part of creation. God himself is not confined to it He is not ‘in it’. Furthermore, the Scripture makes reference that God’s “days” are different from ours.
Psalms 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.
– (So here we see time is not a consistent value to God. A thousand years of our time, as we are in the art work of creation, can be as a day or a part of a day.)
Furthermore, when we look in to the Genesis account we do not see the actual appearance of the ‘lesser and greater lights one to rule the day and the other the night – i. e. the sun and the moon” – till day four! – (This also includes ‘angelic beings’ – spiritual beings -who are made of ‘light’ and are called ‘stars’ or ‘bright and shining ones.’) – So, we have three “days” of creation before we even have the specific mention of the placement of the objects, sun, moon and stars, which both ‘create’ our 24 hour day and also use to measure our time and seasons, etc. We also should notice that creation occurs from night to day, from disorder to order, or, as I like to put it; from planning “blue prints” to implementation by the “Spirit of God” who ‘hovered over the ‘nothingness or void’ – Gen 1:3. It could be that the whole of the creation in chapter one is a basic, step by step (day by day) two-part (night to day) general synopsis of the making of our universe, that goes from the nothingness, idea, planning and blueprint making phase – the night – to the physical implementation of those plans – the day. It could be that God the Father and Son create the plans and blueprints and then God the Holy Spirit, who are ONE, then implements them from the macro to the pinnacle of His masterpiece, Man, us!
This would be similar to God giving Moses very detailed plans for the making of the Tabernacle in Exodus 25 to 30 and then in Exodus 31 we see the Holy Spirit specifically filling Basalel and other skilled workers, with wisdom and understanding to take the plans that Moses had created and implement them to make the tabernacle. So, under this premise/supposition, each ‘day’ begins with night ‘blueprints’ and ends with day ‘implementation’. The blueprints and plans for creation begins in the mind of God and is then taken and implemented by the Holy Spirit – (who is also God/Elohim)!
Still, no matter what one believes about the length of the days of creation either way or ‘how’ the creation happened, I’m not too concerned about the actual time frame or method of implementation; it has little effect on my life or faith or belief that God was the author of creation. Let us not get caught up debating details that no one can prove conclusively, this will do nothing but serve as a distraction from the main point of this essay which is to learn some basics about the God of the Bible and our beginnings with Him.
The key word I want to look on here from Gen 1:1 is the word “created”. A proper definition here is important. The word ‘create’ means to form or carve out from nothing. It is like taking a formless block of clay and making a statue or usable object. This is a good, if limited, definition of creating. (The artist does not create the clay he uses, where as God made the “clay” and then made something from it.) We must be careful not to confuse this with the word “discover“. God did not “discover” the heavens and the earth. He made them! This is an obvious and important difference. The reason is simple. If I was an artist creating a sculpture, I am outside of it. I may form a statue that bares my likeness, but it is only an image, it is separate from me. I also have the ability to craft it into whatever I want it to be. It does not exist until I finish creating it. If I gave you my statue and you broke it intentionally, you will not be doing me any actual harm! I may be hurt emotionally if I found out what you did, but my actual existence would be unaffected. The point here is that God is, as alluded to in the previous discourses, ‘other’ than his creation, he existed before it and his creation does not contain him and if creation stopped existing, or was destroyed, God would not stop existing anymore then I would if a piece of artwork I created was destroyed.
This is different than discovery, whereas someone who discovers something may be a part of it, or heavily influenced by his discovery. When we discover something we are not creating it and in truth have absolutely nothing to do with its existence or nature and have no or limited control over it. We may be able to use a discovery, but we did not create or have any control over its existence (One exception to this is other life forms on earth which God gave us dominion over. We did not create them, but we do have the ability to control or effect their existence to a large degree even then, this authority or power was given over to us by God himself, the creator and is to the most part, limited! We will talk further on this subject later, it is very important.)
An understanding of this simple concept would eliminate many false conceptions we have about God. In reality a true search for God will lead us to a discovery of someone who has been there all a long. Man cannot ‘create’ a God, by the very nature of creation man would be the God and the “god” would be less powerful than the man. As created beings, we are contained and limited to our creation. Creation is like a box, a very glorious box created by a master artist, but it is still a box which has set and limited boundaries, dimensions and rules and there is boundless irrefutable measurable, consistent and observable proof to support this statement. We count on them every single day in many ways!
We are in the box and all that goes with that creation i.e., like time and our physical laws, is part of that box. As the creator/artist of the box, God lives outside of the box and is not confined by its limits. God may well live in the box, – and the main claim of Christianity says that at one appointed time, once and for all, God became a man like us and confined himself to the same box we are confined too, at both a specific and set point where He entered into and subjected Himself to our physical parameters which include time and space for a set period of time. However, the main difference here is that God may choose to confine himself to our box or subject himself to its parameters, rules and time. whereas we have no choice in this matter.
We live in a kind of an ‘ant farm’ [https://www.yourdictionary.com/ant-farm], as far as the ant is concerned the entirety of existence is confined to their box. The truth is there is much more outside of the ant farm then in it! The problem evolutionist have is that they are like ants, searching the ant farm looking for God and all they see is evidence of order and life within the box, but because they did not find a master or owner or creator in their box, they then – (with the limited perspective and intelligence of the ant) – declare with certainty that there is no God, or master artist/creator which is a statement of faith based on the belief that our physical world is all there is, when the truth is even our earth and even solar system is infinitesimal in our physically observable galaxy and universe! It’s like studying a grain of sand and saying elephants don’t exist!
One thing that any person, even those with ‘low intelligence’, would know is that when one sees a painting, they know there is a painter, an artist, a CREATOR. They also know the painter/artist is different and is not the artwork him/herself! No sane person would call an obviously man-made work of art – with its obvious and discernible order and detail – a random happen chance that some how came together and ordered itself on its own over billions of years with no intelligent or outside influence – (if one believes that a highly complex, clearly discernible work of art has come into existence by random chance over eons of time, with no influence from an artist, is a ‘special sort of FAITH’ that I have no words for other than to call it a special sort of stubborn delusional insanity that normal sane people would describe as ‘stupid’!) – I have never yet seen the most ardent atheist call an obvious man-made painting a “‘random collection of chance molecules” or “an unexplained ‘phenomena’ or a product of “evolved over eons of time” simply because they did not know the artist or watch him create it! They all clearly state that artwork has an artist because it is obvious and common sense!
One of our major difficulties as men, is to try to conform God to fit into our world “box” and confine him there which is just not possible and it is faulty and I would even call it foolish, delusional or even evil thinking. It is like trying to ‘create God in our image‘ or to make God into something that ‘He’ is not. When we stop doing this, many difficulties just disappear because we than can realize that there is much observable evidence that there are other dimensions and life outside of our own senses, understandings and experiences. It is OK to say, If God is primarily a ‘spiritual’ – “meta physical” – being, His primary ‘dwelling place’ and dimension exist outside of our ‘box’ and therefore outside of our observable field of knowledge and understanding. He is not confined to our limitations or, as mentioned before, physical laws, for He created them, the whole thing was His idea. He didn’t discover them!
For what purpose did God create us for and in whose image did he make us in? Was God’s intentions for us good? What did God say about his original creation, including man?
Gen. 1:25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, – (‘image’ and ‘likeness’ are two different words, one is more spiritual – (metaphysical) – the other is a physical model or representation. Neither word means an exact copy, it means similar with qualities of, but not the same. My children are not a clone of me, they are like me and have my DNA but also have their own unique DNA mix are not an exact copy of me or my wife!) – and let them rule (have benevolent authority or dominion) over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground–everything that has the breath of life in it–I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning–the sixth day.
Please note from Gen 1:25, that God made every animal unique, according to it’s own kind, each animal, creature, has its own specific and unique DNA and DNA code. We did not come from one single cell organism (How did that cell come into existence? Even the components of DNA are highly complex) as pre DNA evolutionary science tried to sell. The truth is we have overwhelming biological evidence confirming that each species was uniquely created. Dogs have dog DNA sequence and code, there is zero evidence of any crossover from another species.
In Gen 1:26 we see something leak out about God. God is an ‘us’. They are in agreement about this and have been collaborating. Other than a reference of “the Spirit of God hovering over the void” in 1:3, we have no indication of what this means other than there is more than one and ‘He’ has a “Spirit’ make up. We were made of the same substance of God (that is that we were, and are, created from his very being, similar to how our children are made up from our DNA.) However, John 4:24 tells us that God is Spirit! At this time, he had not ‘become flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1:14). So we know that God imparted into man His Spirit and attributes of his nature that no other part of His creation had up to that point. God did not have a physical body (at this time) and so therefore, this ‘image of God’ has nothing to do with physical appearance or physical attributes at all. At this time the ‘blueprints’ of man were decided and agreed upon, the implementation of the man (the ‘likeness’) is soon to follow. What we see here is that God created us to have relationship with Him as we are going to see God walk and talk with Man in the cool of the day. This was a much more intimate level of relationship then all the rest of the creation, including the angelic spiritual beings that he had created before man, that saw God in His glorified spiritual state in His real domain which is heaven outside the natural, physical artwork of creation!
I myself would find it hard to believe that God would go to such vast efforts to create this expansive ‘physical’ universe, pick out a specific small planet and craft it carefully for us to live in and then, after doing such, just wake up some day and say, “I think I feel like doing something else!”, and leaving it behind because he got bored like an impetuous child would a toy! We are not toys, we are ‘living beings’, with a soul and a life-giving spirit that He gives to us even now! God has purposes and ‘He’ –
(God is neither male or female and is not a ‘sexual being’, but the attributes and characteristics of the male and female come from God. Procreation, a physical act, was created by God for man and the PHYSICAL creation – animals, so therefore sexual relations did not exist before the creation of the ‘male and female’ of the physical creation. It was created specifically for our domain, the physical realm and specifically for each “after their own kind“. Angels, spiritual beings, were not created for this sort of physical interaction, they have no need to procreate. Simply put, physical intimacy that leads to procreation, is not their (angels/spiritual being) domain!)
– created us, you, each individual person, – (unique, but yet the same) – each of us born for a purpose and the main purpose was for us being created was to have a good, loving and close relationship with God and each other as family! As God himself is a relationship (At this time we will not deal with the “trinity” concept of God let’s walk before we run.) of perfect love and unity as shown by the words “our image” and “our likeness” in verse 26. He gave to us – (man with woman, the woman was ‘in’ the man’s body at the time of their creation) – a sphere of authority– the earth and all the creatures of it– and invited us into His relationship, it is what ‘He’ created us for. – (It is important to notice here that the Lord gives us (man) authority over the earth and its creatures, but not over each other!) – It is easy to see here that God’s intention for us were for our good, our benefit! He created us in a specific way and for a specific purpose and gave us a specific place and position as rulers/caretakers of the earth and all the living things in it! His real nature shows in all that he gave us and did for us. He loved us as children that came from Him. We also love our children and desire good things for them do we not? If we do not, would we not be considered twisted and broken and evil!? Well, there is that ‘morality’ issue again. Where did that idea come from?
When everything was done, God looked it over and after surmising the creation of man, He said it is very good! It is like a master artist who sees a masterpiece in the making. However, it is not yet complete. He is very pleased and satisfied — yes, it is a very good start.
Where did we start from? How did we get in the predicament we are in? In the beginning, what choices did man face? What choice did man make? Who is the offended party here?
Genesis 2:7-9
7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground–trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2:15-17
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work – (tend, serve, protect – this word is NOT hard labor or toil, that comes later.) – it and take care of it.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
As we go into chapter 2 — (it maybe good to remember that originally the Bible was not divided into chapters and verses, this is a much later addition, long after it was compiled. This was done to make it easier to make specific references.) — we see a major shift. We now go from the general macro aspects of creation to more specific application and implementation. There is now a specific accounting of the individual man and he (male) (and she*, (female) for the woman is in the man,) is placed into a specific location, the garden of Eden. We see the animals and other creatures brought before the man/woman and named.
*[Man and woman were created at the same time! We see one physical body created in Gen 2:7 with both the male and female in that one body. Then we see God himself say it is not good for man to be alone. Yet in reality man was not ‘alone’, there was God and the other animals. What God meant was it is not good for there to be only one singular man. Let us remember that God created man, male and female in His image (Gen 1:26,27) It is not that God is male and female, God is not male or female oriented at all, but the attributes of the male and female emanate from God. However, God is, as stated earlier, an ‘Us and when “They” created the first man, He created them as an ‘Us’, male and female in one body. We see God then REMOVES an already existing person, the woman, from Adam and uses man’s ‘rib’ – (curved flesh, and the essence of the woman/female, which included her spirit, soul and mind) – to craft a body for Eve, in which he deposited her spirit, soul and mind into, and at that time this person became a separate individual, a ‘she’, the woman. The person, the woman, was not spiritually created at this time. She came into being at the same time as Adam from verse 7, she was in the man. Gen 2:21-23 confirms this and clearly so:
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs – (curved flesh with her spirit, soul and mind) – and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
23 And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken (begotten) out of Man.”
Basically, what we see here is that the woman is ‘begotten’ out of man. Eve is not ‘born’, nor is she created individually by God. We do not see God craft another body out of dirt, nor do we see the Holy Spirit of God breath into it and give her life. He did that the first time, when He created ‘the man’. This is different from the other aspects of creation. We do not see angels created this way, nor the animals. Only man, which is created in the image of God. Deut. 6:4, Mark 12:29 and 1 John 5:7 all tells us “God is One” and we know from Gen 1:26, 27 that God is an ‘US’. And John 1:14 – “The Word – Logos- became flesh” and Acts 13:33 and others tell us Jesus is God’s only ‘begotten Son” and that John 1:1-3 tells us Jesus “the Word – Logos – was with God in the beginning” and has always been and in due time that the Word became flesh, becoming a man and dwelling with us (John 1:14). Do you see the correlation?
Whereas woman existed in man and was one with man until she was removed (begotten) taken out of Adam, by God who gave Eve her own individual body becoming a separate, independent individual person; Jesus, the Son, has also existed with God and was/is in God from ‘the beginning’. Until, at the appointed time, he was ‘begotten’ and was taken out of God, and placed in a human mother (Mary) and given a human body! He was ‘God the Son’ in Spirit before time began and existed in God before He became an ‘individual person’ – ‘God in man – with a human body as He became the ‘Son of Man’ (through the woman – Mary). Likewise, the woman Eve existed in man with man, she was the essence of woman (female) and was ‘begotten’ out of man and given her own individual body and became a separate being. Man and woman marry and become ‘one flesh’, one family, individual people who were to be, like God Himself, united in love and be ‘one flesh!’ under the loving authority of God! This is ultimately what God created us for, to be ONE with him and ONE with each other (John 17:20-25) in love, but in our respective positions as sons and daughters of God the Father, the bride of Christ and the temple (dwelling place, house) of the Holy Spirit.]
— There were no “cultures” or people groups at the time of man’s creation, we are all descended from the first man and therefore, are in truth really ‘brothers and sisters.” We have inherited, in our inner being, the same qualities as the originals. Over the generations there has been genetic pooling and races have been formed (Genesis chapters 10 and 11 explains where this began and why it happened.) but in our heart and minds, and except for some external features and personality/emotional variations that come from minor genetic variances that make each of us unique, we are very much the same. We are not individually created races, if this were so we would be unable to reproduce with each other or we would produce sterile offspring. We are one species from one original mother and father created by one God made up of distinct personalities but were created to act in perfect harmony and unity as one. This was God’s plan and intent and we will soon discuss what went wrong, and it is not God’s fault.
We see in verse 2:16 that God tells man to not eat of one specific tree, the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”. God does not give any explanation as to why he should not eat of it. He just says ‘don’t eat it, if you do the day you eat of it you will die!” Why would God tell Adam this if he did not have the freedom of choice to disobey!? So we see God give Adam a choice, … well not really…. What God did do is give Adam a command to NOT EAT OF THIS ONE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE – (gnosis – head knowledge). God didn’t really give man/woman a choice, he did give Adam and also Eve the freedom to choose to rebel or disobey! He did say that man was totally free to eat of any of the myriads of trees around him including the Tree of Life (ginosko – experiential, intimate relationship – to Know God and not just know about – knowledge – God. This is no different than me giving my 14-year-old child a command, something like this: “Son, I can see that you really love driving. However, it is not time for you to drive, you have to be trained and learn something about this before you actually get behind the wheel, there will come a time for that but you need to wait. SO DO NOT GET UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND TAKE THE KEYS, SNEAK OUT AND GO JOY RIDING IN THE CAR! That is very dangerous and if I find that you do such a thing, I will know and you will be greatly disciplined and there will be severe consequences given, even if you don’t crash the car or kill yourself doing so!” We could also create many other example as well, where we strictly warned our children to not touch or eat or do something that we know maybe harmful, or even deadly, for them. Like, “Don’t take a ‘bobby pin’ spread it out and put into an electrical socket, you might die!”
As you can see from this example. I did not give my son a choice, I gave him a command to NOT do something that I know that he is not prepared for! What he does have, and what Adam and Eve also had (and us as well) was the ability to disobey or rebel. That’s actually quite different from the concept of us being given a choice to choose between two equal options, like say choose an orange or an apple. It is more along the lines of saying, ‘Here is apple juice drink this it is good, however in the same room, close to it, the one with in the pretty container with a skull and cross bones on it, is a bottle of arsenic, don’t drink that it will kill you!” So their ‘choice’ was, in reality, confined to ‘believing and obeying’ or not believing and disobeying and doing what they want to do regardless of the Father’s direct and clear instructions.
The ‘choice’ is represented by the two trees that are noted in the Garden. The ‘tree of Life‘ noted first in verse 2:9 and ‘the tree of knowledge of good and evil’. The Lord gives man incredible freedom and authority as he gave man full reign and dominion over the whole earth. The only requirement that the Lord gave man was not to eat of this one specific tree. So many ask, “Why would God tell Adam and Eve to not eat of the fruit from the tree of knowledge?” I will answer by saying this; He had His good reasons for forbidding that tree at that time! After being a parent – (now for over 30 years, 6 years at the time I originally wrote this) – I understand that there were certain things I didn’t want my children acquiring knowledge about until they have reached a certain point of maturity. No good parent would teach their 7-year-old about the particulars of sexual intimacy would they? There are just some things that it is better left alone until the time is right! God said don’t eat of the tree of KNOWLEDGE in a similar way that I would strongly teach my children to abstain from sexual activity or drugs or drinking alcohol of any kind until they are clearly mature enough to manage such decisions on their own properly and without fear of consequences or harming themselves!
However, let’s ask a question about the tree of Knowledge of good and evil. Was the tree itself evil? No, it is not. When God finished creating all things, including the tree of knowledge. He said, IT IS GOOD, when he finished creating man he said it is VERY GOOD. The tree itself is not evil. So that leads us to another question. Would God create a tree that was ‘good for food, delightful to the eyes’ and place it in the Garden next to the Tree of Life just to be a temptation to Adam and Eve to purposely cause them to fall into rebellion? I think, in fact I know, He did not! James makes this clear. God does not know evil, nor is He tempted nor does He himself tempt or entice us to disobey. James 1:13-15:
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
We clearly see this happen to Eve and then Adam in Gen 3:1-7:
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'” 4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
He said all the other trees where OK to eat of including the ‘tree of life’ which is noted as being in the middle of the Garden. next to the ‘tree of knowledge’, and the Lord says that every tree is open to you except the tree of ‘Knowledge of good and evil’ in Gen 2:16. (Eve may have misunderstood this in 3:3 for she responds to the seducer/deceiver saying that the tree in the “midst” (center or middle) you cannot eat of. This was half true, the tree of life was also in the “midst” and no command was given against her or the man eating it. The serpent had come in and taken her focus off the ‘tree of life’ which she could freely eat of which is, as noted before, right next to the ‘tree of knowledge!’)
In the light of this understanding, we can see how great our original sin truly was. The ‘tree of life’ which is Christ (John 14:6) our ‘bridegroom’, was freely available to mankind and openly displayed by God, it was God’s invitation to enter into their relationship by eating freely from the tree of life. As both trees were together in the middle of the garden, man rejected God and chose death and to seek to be ‘as God’, right in front of the bridegroom, Christ, who is metaphorically symbolized in the ‘tree of life’! Even after God warned him what would happen if he ate of the other tree. This is major, complete rebellion, disobedience and rejection of God by man. Even after all His great love and beauty and glory given to us, we chose to follow and choose another. In my opinion the real sin is not so much in the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, as it is the rejecting of the tree of Life, (the Lord, Jesus the Son) and the breach of trust and relationship that the eating of that tree represented. Not only was there a breech of trust and friendship but it was done for a selfish reason– the pursuit of power, “to make one wise” and “like God Most High” taking control for ourselves, — not being content in the exalted and highly privileged position He created us to be in — exclusive of having to answer to or be part of a collaborative team or relationship where man is not the head or top authority!
We are created after Adam and Eve’s likeness (Gen 5:3) and as they rebelled against and disobeyed His one and only request, we have inherited that rebellion from them like a bad gene. As the first representatives of man, when they fell, we fell. We were “in” them in much the same way my children were in me before they were born. They inherited much of their personality and looks and being from their mother and me. It was in us and we passed it on to them. We inherited what the Bible calls a “sin – (imperfect, ‘missing the mark’ rebellious) – nature”.
What that really means is that we are born selfish. In sin, and rebellion from the womb! It takes no genius to see that children are born selfish, they’re born thinking only of their own survival and comfort. It’s interesting to note that you don’t have to teach a child to do wrong! This is why we have the various problems we have today, all men/women (you and I) have a selfish nature. I’m not saying that children aren’t born with “good” qualities. We still have the “image of God” imprinted through DNA as well, So the aspect of ‘right and wrong’ is still actually part of our code from the garden! However, it was polluted, changed by the choices our original mother and father to disobey and rebel against God, and the selfish sinful part of us has the stronger hold on us and always will until someone, God himself in this case, saves us from it. The power of our selfish sinful nature is easily observed in both our own selves and the world around us.
What forgiveness is there in God? If we were faced with the same predicament that God was faced with, and the woman or man we were to be married too rejected us openly and ran into the arms of another (like your best man or maid of honor at what was supposed to be your wedding) as they were coming down the aisle, many of us would kill both the new lover and the one who betrayed us! Though greatly grieved by the act of rebellion and disobedience, God’s response was not only to not kill and reject us, but to send His only begotten Son (Jesus Christ) to not only call us to come back to Him, but to redeem us and take our rightfully deserved punishment upon Himself, ‘buying’ us back to Himself and at a great cost! Ultimately, we are not the offended ones in this scenario, the Lord God was!
Let us make an important note here. Notice, that the tree of knowledge of good and evil will bare fruit that looks both good and evil. We also now know that the tree itself was not evil. God had created it with the tree of Life and said it was good. Knowledge is not bad, in fact it is good. Still God did not create us to be a computer with banks of information, one cannot relate with a computer as a real friend! He created us for relationship and in due time when we had matured, He would of given us this tree to eat from as well. It is no different for us as we raise children. We do not give them access to all knowledge do we? Of course not, as briefly mentioned before, there are things that a young child would be better off not having knowledge about until they reach an appropriate age, have received proper training and instruction, and have demonstrated the necessary mental and emotional faculties and maturity to properly handle such knowledge.
The issue here in the text has much more to do with the lust or desire to “be as God” and the serpent had deceived the woman, Eve, that having knowledge of good and evil would make you like God. It does in one way but there is huge catch to it. We paid a huge price for this and the sad thing is we were originally created in His image and likeness, and were already ‘like God’. It is just that we were not and never will be like God Most High! We need to understand that the “good” from this tree comes from rebellion and disobedience and has no place at all in God’s kingdom. Jesus brings this up in a subtle way when he says to the rich young ruler in Mark 10:18 “why do you call me “good” there is no one good but God alone”. He is saying, ‘If you are going to call me good then, in reality, I am God, because the truth is only God is fully and truly Good.’ However, He, God (and in this case Jesus) is entirely contrary to the “Good” that comes from the tree of rebellion and death, which in reality is the “good” that the young man is referring too — the truth is this “good” is just our own self-righteous deeds which are done in arrogance trying to earn or buy God’s or other men’s praise or favor. God calls fruit from this tree many things; filthy rags, dead works, etc. and he calls those who operate in the “good” of this tree names such as hypocrite, white washed sepulchers, sons of there father the devil/Satan, etc. (Matt 23).
In fact the “good ” done from this tree quickly becomes pride and becomes a much more powerful and subtle evil than the “evil” part of the tree. Any time we operate out of the fruit of this tree it is contrary to God. The Lord sternly warns us in Matthew 7:21-23, that there is a judgement for those who operate in the “good” side of this tree and they are sent away form the Lord’s presence. All of us were born from the DNA of this ‘tree of knowledge’ that is really rebellion and disobedience and it is only the Cross of Christ and the blood of Jesus, “the way, the truth and the LIFE” (John 14:6) that can cut us off from this tree and graft us back into the tree of Life. In all reality the blood of Jesus and the cross of Christ restored to us what we lost in the garden that is: He restored the choice of choosing the tree of Life, where as before we had been born into the tree of death which our parents ate of in the very beginning.
If God knew we would choose the wrong tree, why would he even make it available to us? Isn’t God responsible for the choice?
This is a common defense given for the sin and rebellion of man. It is in our nature to try to shift the blame of our mistakes elsewhere. We will deal with this aspect more a bit later. My answer to this question is a bit complex but easily understood. I don’t claim to be any expert in science or physics, but even a scientifically basic person like me realizes our physical world runs on physical laws. There is a set order to our physical universe. The beginning of Genesis, as we mentioned, states that God brought order to disorder in Gen 1:2. These physical laws provide the foundation for our physical existence. There are certain criteria for these laws to exist. These criteria are like the ingredients that make it even possible for these things to exist. There are certain things that are necessary for the Law of Gravity to be manifested and those things are constant and unbreakable– (Notice for you scientific purest: I don’t say static or unchanging. What I am saying, is for it to be called a fundamental law, it must be constant, consistent and totally reliable without variations or inconsistencies in nature. It’s interesting to note that many of these physical laws operate separate or outside of our five senses. We cannot taste, see, feel {at least in an obvious way} smell or hear the law of gravity. Yet it exist, and is what it is and will remain what it is despite our opinions or feelings about it. We are a part of it, and subject to it. Yet, we have no rule over it. We can use it for our purposes to some degree but we have no power to change it. An even better illustration in today’s world is audio visual signals transmitted through the air. We have no ability to see, taste, touch, feel or hear them WITHOUT the proper tools to gather and decode the signal and translate it to us in a way that we can hear, see and make useful sense of them. Yet we have thousands of these waves around us virtually 24/7!) –These laws are what we call absolutes. They must be absolute or else the whole universe dissolves in chaos. Even the seemingly random nature that appears to occur in the universe is not completely random though it may appear so to our very limited understanding about things confined “in the box” of creation, (the known universe).
Whereas we need laws and absolutes for our physical world to exist in any definable order, there are laws and absolutes by which the Spiritual universe maintains its order. Let us not forget that our physical universe was created out of God’s mind. Creation is God’s offspring his artwork and bears his ‘fingerprints’.
Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
I do not claim to know all the laws that govern God’s world, dimension(s). I do, however, know one of these laws. It’s called the law of love. 1 John 4:8 tells us that God IS love and 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a good definition of what love is and is not. So, if God is love, what are some of the necessary criteria for love to exist? I don’t know all the criteria and for our purposes here we don’t need to know them all. I do know two of the criteria that is necessary for love to exist is, 1.) is that there must be someone or something else outside of oneself to be an object of that love, for real love to exist it can’t be alone. Love is the opposite of ‘self-centered‘ness. 2.) And primarily for our purpose here; is that a real willful choice must be given for true love to show forth. God had to give us a choice/options if He wanted us to be made in His likeness, unlike the other creatures who have no such faculties to make cognitive choices of ‘right and wrong’ or to rebel or obey or do ‘the right thing’ or not.
The main difference between us and the rest of creation is that God gave us a will and an ability to make ‘moral’ – (right or wrong, just or unjust, selfish or not selfish, choices). Choices that we some how intuitively know to be good or not so good. As touched on before, all men know that the taking of something from someone else simply because you want it and they have it is fundamentally bad. We also know that if we have the power or ability to help someone in distress or danger, that we ‘ought’ to do that. Some cultures even have laws, called the “Good Samaritan” acts, meaning that if you see someone in great duress and you have an opportunity to stop and ‘render aid’ and attempt to help them without putting yourself in harm’s way, and do not, it is a punishable offense! Such thoughts and laws come from the residue of God’s DNA He put in us. It is God who gave us the ability to choose and then gave us the necessary ingredients to make the correct choices. We chose not to make the right choice!
God had to give us the right to choose for ourselves. Take away the right or freedom to choose and you take away the possibility of love to exist. Just as removing matter or mass would cause the law of gravity to cease to exist. God gave us every possible advantage to make the proper choice. He could not make the choice for us or we would have been no greater than the beast he created for us to have dominion over. So, to accuse God of being unfair in giving us a choice is unfounded. He gave us every good reason to choose Him. He gave us a beautiful creation, authority and a purpose, a perfect mate, a loving, close relationship with Him. He could not, however force us to remain in this state without breaking his own laws that his own dimension ‘kingdom’ runs on. It’s hard to believe that we were foolish enough to choose selfishness and death over what he offered us, but we did. (It’s hard to believe that many of us still do choose selfishness and death over the mercy, love and riches of God!) The sooner we acknowledge that the breach in relationship and trust was our fault, and not God’s, the quicker we can get about allowing God to make things right again; which is what Jesus died to do in the first place.
Did man actually die as the Lord said he would when he ate of the fruit or was the serpent correct? If he did die as God said, then when?
Man did die as the Lord said he would! It is important to understand things from God’s perspective here lest we be deceived as Eve was and believe God is a liar. God said the “day you eat of the fruit you will surely die”. In a quick reading over this verse you may have noticed that man stayed ‘alive’ after eating the fruit and that therefore many think God was just bluffing or something, (like our parents did often when threatening me with punishment when I disobeyed and many times they did not enforce or follow up). However, the truth is that God does not lie, nor bluff; the moment man ate of the fruit he died immediately. “How so?”, you may ask. Again, we must understand that, as John 4:24 told us, that “God is a Spirit”. As we should now know, God’s real world is other than ours, as has been mentioned several times, He is outside of our five senses and outside of our limited dimensional world, even outside our physical universe (His art work). When man ate of the tree of knowledge (choosing knowledge over life and relationship with God and each other), his Spirit within him died immediately! His pure and loving relationship with God was shattered because the faculty that God had given to us to clearly hear and know him in His domain (our “receiver” our Spirit man) had been smashed, destroyed by the rebellion of the wrong choice, not by God but by man. It’s like taking your cell phone throwing it on the ground, stomping it to pieces and then blaming someone else for not calling you!
How do we know this is true?
Genesis 3:6-13
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me–she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
In the verses above, we noticed that ‘man’s eyes were opened’. They realized their nakedness and they tried to hide from God and to cover up what they did. So, this is the freedom that the serpent/Satan promised!? This is the first fruit of knowledge; they recognized their nakedness, they became self aware and self absorbed and their first act of ‘freedom’ was to go run and hide and cover themselves up with fig leaves. (Jesus will later curse a leafy Fig Tree in Mark 11 and then go cleanse His Father’s house!) Notice it wasn’t God hiding from man. God looks for man and man is afraid. Why is he afraid? God has done nothing to harm man. Man has separated themselves from God and has died from within. Did God know this? Of course, God does not ask Adam “where are you“, because He didn’t know where he, and her, were. He asked like a parent does a child when he/she has done something that they shouldn’t do. The question is to draw Adam out so that he can acknowledge where he truly is, and that is apart from God, living in fear and pain hiding in the bushes.
What were the consequences of the disobedience and rebellion toward God’s command to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
Gen 3:14-24
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
16 To the woman He said:
“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”
17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:
“Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil – (this is where ‘work’ became hard and laborious) – you shall eat of it All the days of your life. 18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”
20 And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
21 Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” — 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
What we see here is that God deals with all three of the culprits, the serpent —
(Satan, a spiritual being, a high ranking angel – (possibly the first created angel) – who inhabited the serpent, the dragon, Rev 20:2 during the deception of Eve. In many cultures old ‘folk tales’, the dragon was a winged, beautiful creature that became a fire breathing, greedy destructive monster. Is it possible that before the curse that God placed on to the serpent, the dragon, that it was physically different in appearance then today’s snake? Genesis 3:14 indicates that this was so, in fact the ‘curse’ effects all the animals and physical creation in some way, the ground, the earth itself is now cursed, death has now entered into the scene and there is now enmity (fighting and strife) between man and the creatures as they became self-centered, ‘survival oriented’ as well. The serpent, dragon, is cursed MORE than all other creatures and is relegated to crawl on its belly in the dust as we see it’s physical representative today, the snake.)
— the woman and then the man. That is the order of how the rebellion worked. Satan, inhabiting the serpent deceived the woman who then gave the fruit to the man who heeded and obeyed her in direct disobedience to the known command of God to not eat. Yet, it is interesting to note that God called out to the man, ‘where are you?’ first. The man was the head, the wife was created to be the helper, not ruler. The man begins the cycle of blame shifting pointing first at the woman and then at God when he said: “The woman you put here with me–she gave me some fruit from the tree…” that still runs through the minds and hearts of men till this present day. The problem that Adam has in this – HE WAS WITH EVE when the serpent was deceiving her and he stood there and said nothing and then ate the fruit as well, knowing exactly what he was doing was in disobedience to God’s clear and understood instructions, with consequences (death) being clearly stated.
The greatest punishment is reserved for the serpent, Satan, he is cursed, condemned, there is no chance of redemption for him. –
(There is much the Bible has to say about Satan, Lucifer, (Is 14:12-17) the devil, “the anointed cherub that covered that was in the garden” (Ezk 28:11-19) but that is another subject all together but it is introduced here in Genesis 3 and as such it needs to at least be touched on here.)
— God goes on to say that there will be enmity between the seed of the woman and the serpents seed and that her seed will crush his head, while he, Satan, bruises his heal. It is obvious here that the physical serpent was simply a vessel that Satan used to tempt and deceive the woman. The point made here in verse 15 is that this is an ongoing issue with a spiritual being and has nothing to do with physical snakes today, the text makes that clear. It is an issue that is fully settled by the man Jesus Christ on the cross, whose heal was bruised on that cross, and his subsequent resurrection, and will be fully finalized by his return as King when He, Jesus, who crushed the evil one’s head when He rose from the dead, will in due time finish the job by casting the serpent, Satan and his followers into the lake of fire as Rev 20:2 says. The Lord will come again to rule and reign on the earth (with us who love and obey Him)!
It is important to note here that God says that there will be enmity between Satan’s seed and the women’s seed, no mention of the man’s seed here. That is simply because Jesus was born of women but not of man, he has no human father, God is his Father through the Holy Spirit by word, not through physical relationship. It was the woman that Satan directly deceived and it is the woman whose seed will crush his head and make redemption available for all both men and women! That is why the virgin birth of Jesus is one of the clear indicators that he is the literal and physical Son of God.
The consequence for the woman is stated in three parts. 1. Child birth which is one of woman’s greatest joys has now become painful and hard. 2. The woman’s desire for a husband, a man, (and to seek to rule over them) will grow strong, 3. The husband or men will rule over the woman. (Originally woman was to ‘help’ the man rule. the man was not called to ‘rule’, take dominion, over the wife. That changes here.)
We see all three of these consequences still in action today. Strife between the man and woman also entered into their relationship and we see women rebelling against both men and God and men abdicating their God given positions of benevolent authority over to Satan, and also other men and women. The roles got reversed. Everyone suffered loss. God, man, woman and Satan, and Satan – (and the other rebellious angels, men and women that do not know and accept God’s provision for redemption, the sacrifice of His own Son on the cross!) – suffer the greatest loss, eternal hell, not because God wanted it BUT BECAUSE WILLFULY AND KNOWINGLY CHOOSE IT!
For the man, God basically takes away his paradise, he loses his perfect mate, the creation no longer submits to him as he turned over his position and authority to first his wife and then the serpent, Satan. The GROUND — and with it the earth and all those things that come from the ground, our physical bodies — is cursed as well. It is here we see sweat, toil, laborious work and eventually death enters in. He is then driven out of the Garden of God to work the land from which he was taken and eventually his body will die and return to that same dirt from whence he came. We are actually seeing ‘de-evolution’ as man’s life span has dramatically decreased since the flood.
We also need to take note that once again, God is referenced as an ‘US’ and He says ‘because man has become like US, knowing good and evil,’ we – God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – need to move him out of the garden lest he eat of the tree of life in the present state of rebellion and live forever in that condition. Oh, what consequences!! Adam must now provide for himself with his wife, while he watched all the wonderful creation that God had given him turn against him and flee from him or seek to harm him. How hard that must have been! Trading life in paradise, walking with God in the cool of the day with a perfect loving wife and the wife having a perfect loving husband walking together as one, each knowing and enjoying their respective roles and positions, with all the animals as friends, living in harmony; for a living death in survival mode scratching out a living from a cursed ground! With self-centered blame shifting contentions, guilt, shame, strife and eventually, the end result of death! For what? So they could have ‘knowledge’ and ‘be as God’, knowing good and evil!? That was a bad trade anyway you look at it.
On God’s side of this tragedy, we have the same ‘Us’ God, that now has a fallen man (man and woman) on his hands with the DNA of God in them. I cannot even begin to comprehend how God would feel about all this – (however we do get a description about how God felt about this in Gen 6:1-7). He watched his wonderful, perfect and ‘very good’ creation turn upside down and rebel against him. He watched his beloved man and woman that he made in his image CHOOSE to first disobey and then reject Him for another! He watched a beloved angel, most likely the first created one, turn and seek to pull a coup to usurp him and having failed in that, proceeded to cause the ones whom God loved and made in His likeness rebel and turn away, not to mention Satan and his cohorts who betrayed Him and led the rebellion against Him! Again, it is God who is the offended and aggrieved one in this story!
All of this was because poor choices were made by all three, Satan, Eve and Adam. However, God amazingly did not leave us men and women, without hope and nowhere was either the woman or the man cursed or condemned, only the serpent and the ground and because of this, our physical bodies will return to the ground from which it is made. However, our spirit, soul and mind is made of eternal substance and will never die. We will have consciousness (awareness) forever! We will all make one of two choices, you will realize and repent of your rebellious, selfish ways and receive the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His life to take onto Himself our rightful fate and punishment; and live in heaven with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the 2/3rd of angels (who did not join Satan in His rebellious coup attempt), and the other saints who have been ‘washed in His blood’, in heaven forever; or you will have an eternal ‘living death’ in hell and the ‘lake of fire that is never quenched’ (Matt 9:44), apart from God, with the devil and his demons and all the other wicked ones who choose to reject the grace and mercy that God provided through His only begotten Son! This is the final death that we would have as God promised us in the garden, simply because your rejection of Jesus Christ and the price He paid for our redemption. This death is both physical and spiritual and would be the final unavoidable result that all of us would face, unless God did something, sent someone, to come and break the curse and take the consequences of our actions, restoring the choice of eating from the tree of life back to us!
That is what Jesus, did! How great is the love of God towards us that he would send His only Begotten Son in our human form and yet perfect, without sin, to buy us back and cover our rebellion and redeem us to himself. John 3:16-17
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
He owns us twice. He first created us and then he bought us back after we sold ourselves into slavery and death! How can we refuse and neglect “so great a salvation!” (Hebrews 2:3) So let us therefore carefully consider and choose which tree we shall eat from! For the choice, once again, is entirely ours and ours alone. God calls us to choose life (Deut 30:19, 20), choose Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God! John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”